Oikos

Oikos is an old idea by my father, dating back to the 90s (he has an "active site", http://oikos-online.com). The original idea is to consider various kinds of balances to societal activities, which themselves correspond to different spheres of human life (inner world, individual world, social world, ecological world): The societal value of activities should be measured according to how they fair with respect to each of these balances. The result is not only a kind of "guide to living a good life" but also would serve as the theoretical basis for a kind of VAT system that takes into account each of these balances. His original project goes far beyond this, there is a long German text on the above site.

In 2012-13, we spent some time together trying to update the concepts of OIKOS and, in particular, the website. I decided that it would make sense to set up the OIKOS site as a kind of Content Management System for the collective collaboration on ideas according to the concepts of the OIKOS: The OIKOS would a method for testing the "sustainability potential of ideas" in a very rough and universal manner (I thought a lot about "robustness of structures", "cyclic economies", etc). The OIKOS-website would then provide a platform where people could work together to earn the "OIKOS-seal of sustainability", where again sustainability meant something more general than merely ecological sustainability.

The layout of the site followed the basic layout of the method we envisioned: Following my new motto for the site - "Composting Ideas", it would be very easy to throw i one's idea - the "ThinkAble"-stage, but harder and harder to progress into later stages - "DoAble","FinanceAble","MirAble" - with more severe requirements. Along the way, projects would merge, fertilise each other and fork. Projects that made it to the final stage would get a seal and could distribute their products, if they had any, through our online shop. Interested investors could look at the projects at every stage, depending on the stage they wanted to invest in.

I thought it was a great idea, and spent a lot of time on it. But without the coding knowledge and the lack of a rocksolid way of justifying why it would have to be the OIKOS method and no other (my personal ambition), my motivation died, and with it the site. Check out the site if you please, or take it up.

wordpress.oikos-online.com