When the idea for the Babel site was first hatched in 1996 we kept envisioning a virtual multilingual and multicultural coffee shop where one could virtually sit at any of the virtual tables and discuss with the virtual others whatever content was found in the Babel magazine on the virtual table. Quite an avant garde idea in 1996 but one which has already been realized in any number of different ways online already.
All these years later the Babel vision keeps morphing as one which, when the final vision is in place you wouldn’t even believe that it began as a website because those things which are clickable will only help to make more efficient those things which happen face to face: Using the technology to merely facilitate things as opposed to using the technology to further separate us all from each other.
Its hard to look at Brueghel’s painting of the Tower of Babel for so many years without realizing how easy it would be to not only construct a 3D model of the painting using sacred geometry but also to actually build the structure to scale with a solar updraft tower in the center, which is a renewable energy power plant which combines three old and proven technologies: the chimney effect, the greenhouse effect and the wind turbine. This would create enough energy to not only sustain the tower as well as the environs but also have enough of a surplus to sell to the energy grid.
The physical construction of the tower and its environs, based on the Breughel painting, will be a master planned cohousing community of arts and ideas, basically pouring the concept of a university into a neighborhood, where members can help design and build their own timeshare houses, using the help of imagineers and 3D architectural modelers, which will be provided with local vendor augmented living services as their multilingual, multicultural, educational and vocational experiences will be accrued and exchanged with other members while they live in the environs.
The Babel credit union will be a globally accessible, green and socially responsible investing, traditional not-for-profit bank which is ATM accessible and augmented with a complementary currency as well as an international barter system which will be tethered to a point system or loyalty program.
What this means is that as an alternative to the unsustainable debt-based currency which is lent into existence like the financial industry uses we will have our own complementary currency where members can offer their goods and services to other members using Babel dollars.
So in a nutshell the idea is to use 21st century technology to build a sustainable energy-producing structure based on a 16th century painting with a goal of reverting back to the financial system of the 15th century, before monarchs centralized currency which has been screwing all of us for the last 700 years, and revolutionizing the university system which hasn’t really changed very much since its High Middle Ages roots, by continuing what has already been pioneered as an attempt to build a tower aiming for the highest egalitarian, altruistic, philanthropic and humanitarian structures.
And the key thing to remember is that this vision has always been designed to be as flexible, inclusive and augmentable as it can possibly be, which is why I welcome any and all ideas to continue the building of the vision and seek your feedback and help.