Tl;dr

Multiple groups will join together in a futurist pop up city in Chiang Mai, Thailand Sep 20 to Nov 10, 2024

This grant is to support my efforts to share info with the groups interested in joining including connecting them with one another, sharing potential venues, and introducing local partners.

The New Wave of Pop Up Cities

A variety of futurist oriented temporary coliving and coworking gatherings that experiments with new lifestyles and social structures have emerged over the last half year. They ranged from two weeks to two months with participants of 400-1000 people.

Ones that I have visited include: Zuzalu MuChiangMai Wamotopia Zuconnect Vitalia ShanHaiWu I unfortunately could not join but also fits this definition

Some also became schelling points for innovators in certain themes such as MuChiangMai focusing on ZK tech and Vitalia promoting longevity.

What is next for the pop up city movement?

How to scale society while staying connected

Perhaps this new wave of pop up cities could lead us to answer a vital question: How do we scale up society while remaining connected with our own tight-knit community?

This question was at the core of a divide between those at Zuconnect who wanted Zuzalu to grow bigger and those who wanted it to remain a smaller group.

The solution is to create many Dunbar number sized communities who cross-coordinate in a confederation. In this way, both sides may win.

For this reason, the Archipelago allows us to grow as a movement and as a more powerful superorganism capable of enacting massive changes while still being able to live next to our friends.

The Archipelago

The Archipelago will be a gathering of coliving and coworking pop up villages/camps/islands in the same place and at the same time as neighbors in a pop up city.

There is no central organizing team. Each island has their own organizers and may choose to arrange housing, coworking space, and coordinate with the other islands or not however they like.

At Zuzalu in Montenegro I co-hosted a session where we broke up into small discussion groups to come up with values and a mission statement. I think the Archipelago shares in the mission and values that emerged:

Mission: To foster a global network of communities to advance humanity by creating playgrounds at the intersection of free and open technology, health, science and social innovation

Values: Authentic Kindness, Mutual Respect, Personal Growth, Freedom

Benefits

The benefit of this is not to have more people at an event. There is a max limit of people you can meet and even fewer you can establish a relationship with.

However, the Archipelago allows us to learn from one another’s experiments far easier, to iterate and adapt faster through this dissemination of knowledge, and to learn how to grow society through a network of cross-coordinating communities.

Faster iteration

Imagine if every community chose a hypothesis, then used their time to experiment by testing out a coordination tool they are incubating, a voting mechanism and DAO structure, or a new lifestyle practice, and then shared the results to the network. How much could we learn? Could we become experiment communities that lead entire nations to adopt practices and policies that we tested out for them… or perhaps even found our own?

Informed Alignment with Intentional Communities

The Archipelago also allows a curious individual to more easily stop by other communities and see how they choose leaders, their lifestyles, values, customs, and rituals, the tools they use, the types of projects they build, and their overall vibe and culture. This allows individuals to vote with their feet in an informed manner and apply to join groups they prefer for future events.

Learning to Govern in a Confederation

Lastly, the Archipelago gives us real world experience with coordinating governance between groups.

Maybe some groups sign a deal where members of either group can join both of their coworking spaces.

Maybe three groups join in a real estate contract and buy a hotel together and learn how to crowdfund properties.

Maybe a project someone builds during a hackathon is incubated by their neighbors using it and they iterate by living amongst their users, then they show it in a pitch competition that multiple islands attend and then the islands disperse and they have users all around the world.

Maybe there’s a falling out between two groups, and they learn to coexist despite this.

Perhaps multiple confederations emerge that have different requirements to join them.

Some people find their identity by looking at the past, at where they were born and the government monopoly they inherited, or at the nation-state of people that have a shared history.

What if we chose groups and found our identity instead based on shared vision and values?

What if these groups had dynamic borders adjusting for demand and were opt-in and thus had an incentive to be attractive by offering a worthwhile service?

What if we are starting a new civilization that shapes the next era for intelligent life?

Timing

The ideal dates are Sep 20 2024 to Nov 10 2024. This is between when Token 2049 starts wrapping up in Singapore on Sep 19 and before Devcon starts in Bangkok Nov 12.

Note that the Loy Krathong floating lantern festival starts around Nov 16 in Chiang Mai, which will make the city far more packed and logistics more difficult, so we advise that organizers do not promise anything beyond Nov 10. However, it is a beautiful experience that people may choose to stay for if they wish.

Location

Chiang Mai is known as a paradise for digital nomads.

It is incredibly cheap.

Food is famously good.

There is highly convenient food ordering and rideshare apps and good infrastructure.

The wifi is some of the best in the world. (Thailand has the 7th best Internet of any country)

It was the highest voted location in Zupolls for a future event.

Locals are very friendly and kind and we already have a variety of contacts and communities excited to welcome and support this event.

We can have an impact. Already MuChiangMai and Wamotopia previous pop up cities supported Ava’s House Kids Shelter.

The old city area, former capital to the Lanna Kingdom, is a perfect mile by mile square with a moat encircling it. Within the city, it is extremely walkable, buildings are within 36 ft/11 meters making it feel more like a town where you can easily run into your friends but still has a thriving city nightlife and commerce. It is a fun city.

See the slide deck and video about Chiang Mai (shoutout to Garfield and Sig of 4seas for making this): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1AnxneUuVqKCE_MxvPd9CpBgRZduA3Mzloj_s8_un4IU/edit?usp=drive_link

This Grant

This grant is for Noah Chon Lee as I share info with around 15 groups who have expressed interest in joining.

I am not a core organizer to The Archipelago because there are no core organizers. There is no central authority. However, I am scouting out around 20 potential venues in person, collaborating with about 8 local Thai individuals who I am good friends with and 3 different local communities.

This grant is to support my efforts to share info with the groups interested in joining including connecting them with one another, sharing potential venues, and introducing local partners.

Save the dates!