Feb 15, 2012

Sacred Economics: An evening with Charles Eisenstein - Eugene, OR

Sat, Mar 10, 2012 7pm to 10pm
Columbia 150 · Cost: 5-20

* What is a Gift Economy and how do we create it?
* What are the root problems in our current economic and money systems?

Spread the word about an inspiring economic visionary coming to Eugene March 10-11!

Come hear Charles Eisenstein, author of Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition. Discover his powerful, mind-opening account of history, social analysis, solutions and new possibilities for the future of money, economics and the quality of our lives and our future. Learn how we can all benefit in this vision and contribute to it. Explore a new economic world filled with:

* gifting, sharing, and generosity
* local money and resilient communities
* a commons that's thriving and expanding
* negative interest that generates greater, truer wealth
* liberated human passion, caring, and contributions
* societies freed of concentrated, corrupted power
* economics that takes seriously all damage to nature and people
* lives transformed from alienation to vibrant interdependence
* and much, much more

Discover economics as if people and nature really mattered....enlightened economics that knows we are all connected...

MARCH 10 - AN EVENING WITH CHARLES EISENSTEIN
Saturday March 10 - 7-10pm
Columbia 150, U of O campus
Cost: You decide - sliding scale of $5-20 or any other amount that feels right and fair to you.

No one will be turned away for lack of funds

MARCH 11 ALL DAY WORKSHOP WITH CHARLES EISENSTEIN
Sunday March 11 - 9:30am-4:30pm
WOW Hall, 291 West 8th Avenue, Eugene
\"The Revolution is Love: Transition Activist Intensive\"
Note: Details, along with cost, are posted here:
www.facebook.com/events/235895713164854/

\"I consider Charles Eisenstein one of the up-and-coming great minds of our time. Rarely have I met a person who combines such philosophical and spiritual depth with such practical insights into the cultural and institutional origins of the potentially terminal dysfunctions of modern society - and the potential solutions.\" David Korten, author of The Great Turning and The Post-Corporate World

For more in-depth views of Charles' ideas, see
http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/to-build-community-an-economy-of-gifts
and
http://www.realitysandwich.com/sacred_economics_ch_17_summary_roadmap
and
http://www.CharlesEisenstein.net

Charles is also doing book talks in Portland 3/7, Corvallis 3/8 and Ashland 3/9. Activists in all four towns are coming together to explore how to further a regional vision of greater vitality, resilience and interdependence in all our communities. See http://unifyingcascadia.info for more information.

Sponsored and promoted by Unifying Cascadia, Eugene City of Peace, Survival Center, Co-Intelligence Institute, Emerald Valley Time Exchange... (add others)

**** SPECIAL NOTE ****

A REVOLUTIONARY GIFTING APP

These events by Charles Eisenstein - a leading visionary of gift economies - are happening at a time when the most sophisticated software for a mass community gifting network is being created right here in Eugene.

Local Eugene residents Eamon Walker and Benjamin Crandall are in the final stages of developing a breakthrough alternative economics app which creates a virtual social networking space for gifting, sharing and lending of all kinds.

* Participation in the network will be free and it will be accessible both from computers and smart phones - so it will be as convenient to use as a credit card.

* Users list what they need or want, and what they want to offer to others. They can search for who has what they need. They can also see the gifting history of each user - as well which network members they both know - to decide whether they want to give something to them.

* The system provides sophisticated reputation and trust systems to curtail abuse, fraud and freeloading and to reveal users whose exceptional generosity earns them special support.

* It allows not only individuals but groups and organizations to be participants in the network, and for supporters to build a group's reputation to attract gifts of goods and services to that group.

* The system is extremely flexible, allowing partial gifts (e.g., for some gifts a recipient may get the labor as a gift but pay for the overhead and material costs involved) as well as sharing and lending (which are \"gifting the use of something\") and even barter (specific mutual gifting).

* The network also has powerful growth dynamics built into it: In order for a gift to be validated, it must be acknowledged by a recipient or witness who is a member of the network. So newcomers working to increase their gifting reputation (and thus justify receiving more of the gifts they want) record gifts they've given to their friends and then recruit their friends to join the network so those gifts can be validated - at which point the friends begin the same process to build their own reputations.

The value of using such a system is proportional to the number of people participating. Obviously if only a few hundred or thousand people participate, the system will remain, at best, a small niche phenomenon. However, since this has been true of other innovations like email and fax machines - and we know how those innovations ended up making themselves almost universal and indispensable - we can imagine what could happen if tens of thousands of people in Eugene started using this mutual gifting network.

Charles' visit and the other events happening in and around March - the PIELC (Environmental Law Conference) at U of O; the Green Neighbors Faire; Peak Oil/Transition author Richard Heinberg visit and speeches; the Occupy movement's all-Oregon grand General Assembly; and a participatory, self-organizing \"Open Space\" event for community economics/resilience folks - offer rich ground for getting people to sign up for this gifting network and making it a major factor in our local economic scene.

For some of us, promoting this gifting system is part of an effort to help Eugene become more resilient and self-reliant in the face of peak oil, economic decline, and other disturbances and crises imposed by larger systemic shake-ups. For others, it is a spiritual exercise in providing means for kindness and generosity to flourish against the grain of a materialist culture. For still others, it is a resource for disadvantaged people, students, and other folks struggling in hard times to get their needs met. Whatever our reason for promoting it, we are urging you to participate in getting it out there, known about, and used widely.

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