From: "Roan Carratu"
To:
Subject: Re: Cooperative Learning Geonet explaination
Date: Thursday, June 15, 2000 11:10 PM

In a way, the geonet goes well with the concepts of a learning community, although it is far more than that. From the individual member's point of view, it is two hours a day, five days a week. Most people say something like... "Good Grief! Who has time like that!" but there is another perspective to see this from that will put it in perspective.

If you are driving on the freeway, you are very careful to put your attention out as much as possible. Your life is in danger and you know it is in danger. If you have small children, you know you have to watch them... their lives could be in danger if you don't watch them... at work, at play, all the time, you know you have to put out your attention on what is going on around you, so you can survive the unforeseen danger.

For untold thousands of years, we have been told that scales of reality larger than us do not require our attention. The 'government', or the 'church', or some other controlling group ran our lives on the larger scales, and from no interaction at all with our rulers, we went to about 15 minutes every 4 years... and an occasional letter to some figurehead.

But if we want to leave a world to future generations which is fit to live in, we need to extend our attention to the larger scales of things, and simply take over what the rulers have done badly for millennia. So putting 2 hours a day, five days a week is not much to run a self-government, to exercise true democracy. Most of that time is spent in learning and communication. Four days the member can log on and participate anytime he or she wants, (although everyone is obligated to put in an hour per weekday per Team) and only the one formal meeting per Team each week requires everyone in a Team to be connected at the same time. The time for those formal meetings are set, as much as possible, to be back to back on the same night, so it is one two hour stretch rather than chopped up.

One whole week is called a 'self-education week' just to dig up and share information about the subjects current in the interests of the members, and a second week is used to distil that information into a decision about what can be done to solve problems which the information pertains to. Also, each person has two monetary accounts, which they get to decide where the money in those accounts will be spent, on what project or effort. Two hours are for two Teams, the two accounts are for two Team's purposes or for the members purpose with any other teams, with permission from their direct Teams.

Occasionally a little more time is used by a member, when they are assigned by rotation a formal position in a Team. But this should not be very much more time, since the procedures used are rigid and defined. They basically apply only while in meetings, not outside meetings.

And, of course, twice a month or so, you get to go to a couple of nice parties, just to hang out with your Team members and get to know them. All in all, considering the importance of the task, of cleaning up and making sane this world for our future's sake, it's not much to invest. It is, in my opinion, the minimum investment if we want to survive and transcend the insanity of the existing systems of control and what they are doing to our planet.

I hope this helps.
Peace,
-Roan