mightaswell

Free online exchange, death threat to consumerism.

Free online exchange, death threat to consumerism.
There are some new and efficient efforts starting to develop alternative practices that network people together, letting them share needs, goods and time. It's an almost spontaneous reacting to the pyramidal scheme of production > marketing > consume > waste that sound very promising for a better future.
The first, and probably most precious resource that is possible to share is time, so a quite successfull effort is the the exchange of free time. In Italy this practice, mediated by public institutions is called 'La Banca del Tempo (the Bank of Time)'. You donate one hour of your time doing something useful for somebody else (teach a foreign language, paint a wall, etc.) and you'll receive something by someone else who'll spend one hour too (cooking a cake for you, fixing your bike, etc). You'd even ask for something specific. It works on on a 'points' based system: you get points everytime you do something, and your points amount let you request acts or things offered by others.

{link tru neural}

posted by Amogh @ 2:03 AM