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One difficulty the FMF has had in developing a cohesive organization is that people are dispersed around the world. If some of us move into a single location, we expect several direct benefits. First, there is likely to be a steady ferment of energy, spirit, and ideas. Second, there will be a concentration of resources; in addition to the formal venture-capital corporation, a good idea is likely to attract some informal resources of labor and money. Thus ideas are more likely to turn into projects, the projects to become accomplishments. Third, SEE offers a tangible opportunity now for FMF members to make a first step towards the goals of ocean and space colonies. Building Aquarius will require a lot of money and experience. We believe that we can start now on acquiring some of the experience that will be needed. This is a way of showing that we are not just dreaming, and not just stacking up megabytes on a web site, but beginning to take physical action. A physical place provides a showcase, a place which we can take pictures of, make videos about, and use to attract people to the FMF. Several FMF members have said that their spouses or lovers are waiting to see something done-something actually accomplished. Some of them will consider SEE as satisfying that need. Most plans for communities do not result in communities. As Nathan Koren, a former resident of Arcosanti said, those at Arcosanti have seen many ideas for communities over the years. They only begin to pay attention when there is an actual community. Building SEE will be a real accomplishment. The goal is to provide a strong base for outreach, recruitment, and other public relations for the FMF as a whole. SEE is also intended to begin some of the huge amounts of research that Aquarius will require. Aquarius Rising will be essentially a shoreline, OTEC-based, research facility; it will be the site of research on OTEC, sea-crete, and mariculture. The expense of an OTEC makes it uncertain how soon Aquarius Rising can be built. And when Aquarius Rising is constructed, the practicalities of zoning and environmental regulations make it uncertain whether a community can be built in association with the OTEC. We are planning a community that will add usefully to the collective experience of FMF. It can do this either as a community that begins operating before Aquarius Rising or at the same time as Aquarius Rising. As an expensive facility, Aquarius Rising will lack one property that Aquarius is expected to have-ownership by the residents. The first role that SEE can play, then, is research in the social structure of a settlement which is owned by its residents. To study this, we must make SEE as low in cost as possible. However, it is important to maintain an "attractive" settlement. We mean "attractive" quite literally-it should attract FMF members to move into it, and it should attract non-members to join the FMF. Another sort of question which can be researched at a low-cost settlement is whether, by reducing our cost of living, it is possible for us to direct substantial savings towards FMF-related investments. The goal is to establish an FMF grass-roots economic infrastructure. We want to have the capital for pre-Aquarius businesses at hand. U.S. savings rates are low, a few percent; moreover, most savings in the U.S. is done by the rich. A study of expenditures (see Appendix 5) suggests that a settlement could allow about 30 percent reductions in cost of living. However, we won't know until we try it. Especially, we will not know how well this reduction in living cost can be translated to an increase in savings rate. A high savings rate among residents of Aquarius (25 percent of income) accounts for a greater cash flow toward further FMF projects than does profits, in economic models. Thus, establishing low living costs and supportive social structures that enable and encourage savings is quite important for long-run success of FMF plans. Specific social structure questions that can be addressed include: -The plans for SEE call for people to live in households. These may be traditional families, groups of singles, a couple, two or three couples-basically any compatible group. The household will own its house, making decisions about its healthiness, sustainability, decor, music, etc. There should be minimal interference from the community. Is this a viable structure for our members? -The settlement is thus composed of households. Although the basic guideline is that the household is largely autonomous within its quarters, the relationship between household and settlement is expected to be among the most difficult to evolve. -How big an individual settlement can we attain? A study of secular intentional communities in the U.S. shows that it is rare for an individual settlement to exceed 100 adults (see Appendix 6). The bare data on community populations do not show why this is so. Can our settlements be larger than this? No secular intentional community in the U.S. exceeds 1,000 in population, and yet we want Aquarius to have a population of 100,000. The kibbutzim in Israel are secular communities which are often over 1,000 in population. Are there some crucial differences between Israel and the U.S. that account for this? -Probably there is some limit to how large an individual settlement of ours can be. There is a model, among religious communities, of growth by multiplying the number of communities. The Hutterites are a religious group who live in about 350 communes worldwide with a total population of about 40,000. The method of growth is quite organic. When one commune becomes too large, then the entire group pitches in to build a new physical structure, and the commune splits. We expect that this model can be followed, but the Hutterite communes remain only very loosely coordinated. This is an aspect that we wish to explore. Can direct electronic democracy bind groups of settlements together, for instance? Besides these social and economic issues, SEE can complement Aquarius Rising by gaining experience in technologies which do not require salt water. These technologies are not necessarily new, but they are not ones in which our members have professional experience. We expect community members to have access to modest amounts of capital for starting businesses from savings by community members. Thus we hope to see members develop businesses based on technologies relevant to ocean or space colonies. One set of likely candidates for relevant businesses will be technologies that can be developed to make SEE more self-sufficient. Recycling technologies, agriculture, and hydroponics are examples. Water recycling fits well with hydroponics, agriculture, and even aquaculture, especially if SEE is located in a relatively dry area. Another set of businesses are those based on the Internet. Brisk business activity on the Internet is only about two years old. Internet business is still dominated by small and nimble companies. Thus, there is likely to be room for entrepreneurs on the Net during the next several years. The plans for Aquarius and space colonies call for telecommuting as a major income source for members. We need to develop expertise at helping members capable of telecommuting sell their services over the Net. This could be in the form of a consulting company able to offer expertise in many areas individually or jointly. In later stages, SEE can be a place where people can spend their time involved with the FMF 24 hours a day. This can only forward our plans. While we will be dealing with the same day to day things we always have, the context will be entirely new, and we will come to see our daily efforts as related to our long-term goals. In short, we see SEE as a route to gain experience which will complement the experience we can gain through Aquarius Rising. Since it is designed to be low-cost, it can proceed independently of outside funding.
SEE is expected to start with between five and twenty members. The land these initial settlers can afford could support up to about 100 members as a steady population (although we anticipate that when there are more colonies, some people will be moving into SEE as others move to more remote colonies). Thus, you can know personally everyone who lives at SEE. You will probably find some close friends there, and you will probably find some people that you have trouble working with. Living in a community seems to work best when people explicitly think about and work on improving their interpersonal relationships. So, is a close-knit community for you? Members of a household will control their house. The members of the settlement corporation will own the community property through the corporation. Thus you will own your home. You can control how healthy your home is-physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually. You can try innovative housing. And you will have to take care of your property. Owning is more trouble than renting, but can be considerably lower in cost as well as more satisfying. So, is owning your home for you? At SEE you will be able to work with others to start a business. SEE is located so that you can commute to a job in a nearby city. But if you want to, you can take greater control over your work environment. And to the extent that you can find a profitable business that supports the FMF's goals, you will greatly increase the time you are working towards those goals. With the best prepared businesses, there are still failures, and it is (of course) not possible to predict which ones will succeed and which ones will fail. With its emphasis on low-cost living and concomitant savings, SEE enables you to be prepared financially for the possibility of business failure. But it can still be difficult emotionally. So, do you want to try to set up your own business environment? SEE will be located in a semi-rural area. Initially, the land around us will be farms or ranches, with an occasional house. (It may well become more developed over time.) It will likely be much prettier than a city, especially as we develop our permaculture landscape. The air will be cleaner. It will be close (less than an hour's commute) to jobs in the city. Children will ride to school in a bus. Waste water will initially be processed by a septic tank. These require some care in not dumping toxic chemicals down drains. So, are you willing to move to a semi-rural environment? One of the central ideas of SEE is freeing up savings to be invested in businesses oriented towards ocean and space colonies. There will be an expectation of investing (as distinct from donating) ten percent of your after-tax income in the venture-capital corporation. It represents that much more of your effort devoted to making the FMF visions into reality. So, do you want to spend less on living costs and invest part of the savings towards FMF goals? SEE will contribute to making ocean and space colonies real. No need to ask if you want to do that, but are you able to? Are you willing to? Are you willing to make the effort and the commitment?
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