Project #Expand Free Collaboration Networks

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#ExpandFCNs

Objective: Provide more and more products and services for free, progressively detaching us from the trade economy.

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

Buckminster Fuller

What is a Free Collaboration Network?

A FCN is a network of people connected by a communication tool, platform or a real space that collaborate voluntarily to share and provide each other resources for free and in which contribution is either not obligatory or considered of equal value.

The earth is abundant with resources, our practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counterproductive to the well-being of people.

Jacque Fresco, The Best That Money Can’t Buy

A FCN is the alternative to a business, it is what replaces companies in the Gift Society. Their objective is to provide goods and services for free. Instead of taking more value than they produce (making a profit) they create more value to everybody by contributing to the Common Good.

It [a Resource Based Economy] is a system in which all natural, man-made, and synthetic resources are available without the use of money, credit, barter, or any other form of debt.

Jacque Fresco, The Best That Money Can’t Buy

Although during the Transition there are exceptions in which donations are used to hire employees, by definition they can’t be a lasting source of income so all the work must eventually done by volunteers. This differs from the monetary dictatorship in businesses of the trade economy. In a FCN, everybody is there because they want to be there. This means it is up to the organization to be inspiring and motivating, and up to the beneficiaries to show the deserved appreciation to the volunteers. The best part of gift transfers and volunteer collaboration is that in order for them to work they must guarantee that the atmosphere and relationships are pleasant and enjoyed by all involved. Their currency is gratitude.

All of us are prostitutes when we work in this culture [trade economy]. The minute we go to work in any industry, when you punch that time clock, you’re in a dictatorship.

Jacque Fresco

There are many different kinds of Free Collaboration Networks. Some are centralized and others are decentralized, some are local and others are global, some are managed by the government and others are community organized. This site is to help you discover FCNs as well as create and expand them. We will continue to add more and more information and links to FCNs.


On Giving
 Kahlil Gibran

You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?
And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?

There are those who give little of the much which they have--and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.
Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;
And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving.
And is there aught you would withhold?
All you have shall some day be given;
Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'.

You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving."
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights, is worthy of all else from you.
And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.
And what desert greater shall there be, than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?
And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?
See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.
For in truth it is life that gives unto life while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.

And you receivers... and you are all receivers... assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.
Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;
For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the freehearted earth for mother, and God for father.