Defining the best questions

My view of this is different and depends on various current strands of philosophy,. philosophers and (mainly) utopian anarchists. A good, current one, for me, is Ruth Levitas:

Utopia should be understood as a method rather than a goal. This book rehabilitates utopia as a repressed dimension of the sociological and in the process produces the Imaginary Reconstitution of Society, a provisional, reflexive and dialogic method for exploring alternative possible futures.

This is about the only place where I feel that 'top down' is useful and that folks, especially kids (who get to have it, or, more pessimistically, endure it), sketch out the kind of futures that they desire and that prefigurative projects fall out of those conjectures.

I'm unlikely to be in London for the conference. However, if I were to be (nothing like a good counterfactual at 7am on a rainy Saturday morning), I'd probably propose a Utopia Workshop, involving some unconference techniques and a great of enthusiastic crayoning for all ages.

"to really move things along, and get people collaborating inside a new economy"

For me the way forward on this stems from trade, and services that add practical value to new economy projects. The Open Credit Network is a good example. These create effective and mutually valuable interconnections - the glue that knits us together. The question then is in part about how to access and leverage the data that these interconnections generate.

This is what I am thinking too Graham - we'd really like OPEN 2020 to promote real-life working projects that people can get involved with right now, that offer genuine alternatives which help build / grow the new economy. One example is https://fairbnb.coop/ which pays 50% of their 15% booking fee directly to local projects in the communities where people book to stay. This not only takes market share away from the regular VC backed alternative but also helps build local community economies... (Blog post about Fairbnb coming soon).

We're really hoping that OPEN 2020 will be less theoretical and philosophical (there's no more time for naval gazing / debate! We have a climate / systemic emergency after all!)... instead we aim to encourage participants to work together at the ebvent to DO stuff, solve problems together and to join or form ongoing working groups (like the projects listed on our Open Collective page) - so that progress on our collective efforts continues after the event.

How can we avoid the accumulation of power?

How can we empower everyone and make them participate actively?

How can we make it accessible to everyone?

How can we decentralize everything even more? a question to ask ourselves every while.

How can we decentralize and make knowledge accessible and understandable for everyone?

How can we engage more people and communities?

How can we be more resilient to new ideas and visions? How can we implement those?

How can we integrate all the visions and ideas?

How can we question our selves and what we do?

How can we keep innovation going on?

Hi Jordi,

great questions indeed! No grandeur of systemic visions, no concerns typical of those who want govern others knowing in advance what their good is etcetera.... Our common inquiry starts from everyone of us, with practical humbleness, with a sincere concern for ourselves and others (including all living beings). There is no use value against exchange value: the measure is life itself. I suggest to starts from here in a fully non deterministic and non divisive approach.

Thank you.

Vincenzo Giorgino