greenbeard

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

what is this?

greenbeard.org is a new organization dedicated to the discovery and the use of altruism identifiers.

what's green beard?
green beard is a concept from behavioral ecology. It proposes the notion of an epiphenomenal manifestation of altruism which makes altruistic tendencies identifiable to other altrusits and allowes for trust-based transactions or social interactions.

why green beard?
I believe that we all pay a large cost when we interact or fear the interaction with selfish individuals. Some examples for these costs are economical are taxes to pay for police and prisons, and paying legal fees for lawsuites or safeguards. Some social costs are allienation, mistrust, loneliness, as well as violence and dishonesty. Some political costs are dishonesty, corruption, and war.

How green beard?
not sure yet, but I think there is a way to make altruism definable, measurable, and identifiable with very little false positives. not sure about false negatives yet.

Some practical ideas:
Imagine the ability to have safe ride share with nice people, instead of all of us travelling individually in our cars. Imagine that when you travel to a place you can just look up who in the area is also a greenbeard member and would love to let you spend the night and show you around; imagine being able to take your kids to a greenbeard homeschool that's affordable and run by truly caring and educated individuals. Take it further, imagine a car-free town; a police free, lowyer free, advertizement free, economic zone; all these things are possible if we stop planning for the lowest common denominator of a dumbed down selfishly driven society.

This website is designed to collect the works, ideas, and actual attempts for membership of people interested in this topic.
contact me for questions or if you want to publish something on this site.

my email:
verylittlethings at yahoo