holla @ my gurlfrang
we applied to school… now wut?, 2013
full disclosure: the sixth prompt is super embarrassing but like transparency n shit w/e
i think it’s silly that no one else shares their home test… no one gets in anyway and y’all put a ton of thought and effort into it, y’know.
Cooper Union Home Test
Prompt #6
Design a flag and write a manifesto for a new social or political movement
The Cuba Project
We, the Novam Vitum, envision a new robotic civilization. A civilization in which everyone is equal and everything is free. Let us show you the way.
The civilization is called The Cuba Project. The Cuba Project is founded on a very simple idea, that in a civilization powered by robots everything can be free. How you ask? Take for instance open source software. What is revolutionary about open source software is the fact that no one owns the code, making the code free to everyone. Now apply the same idea to the natural resources of a body of land. With a free and unlimited energy source, such as solar power, and robots, these resources can be turned into anything for free. Robots can till soil, create food, manufacture the materials with which to anything from construct buildings to textiles. All for free. The problem other societies face that is a small number of people own and control all of the resources. We have found a way around this. We have created a corporation, Alpha, Inc. We have sold the shares in the corporation for $115 each to one billion people. To prevent abuse, we have established a rule: one person can only have access to one share of stock. In this way, we have accumulated 115 billion dollars. With this money we have purchased the nation of Cuba, the prototype for our new model of civilization, as well as the resources for the one billion people to be completely self-sufficient. This includes mines, factories, and companies all over the world, as well as the development of new facilities in Cuba, all automated, to build robots.
Now to discuss the core principles of life in The Cuba Project. The first is that everyone is equal. Everyone has equal access to resources. This is controlled through a system of credits. Everyone is allotted a weekly allowance of one thousand credits. Credits are used to buy anything you could ever need, from clothing to building materials. Everyone has an account that is debited when credits are spent.
The second principle is that everything is completely recyclable. No matter what the object is made from: carbohydrates, carbon polymers, aluminum it is all reusable. Even the robots are recyclable! All that is necessary is the energy and robots to break the objects down to the core elements and reconfigure them into something new.
The third principle is that no one owns anything. Without resource ownership, there is no concentrated wealth. In Cuba, you own nothing but neither does anybody else. You have what you have until the day you die at which point it is recycled.
The fourth principle is that nothing is anonymous. Given the example provided by the Internet and global terrorism, we understand that anonymity breeds abuse. In Cuba, everyone is tracked. Your daily movements are all logged. Anyone is able to see where you have gone. At the same time, a record is made anytime someone accesses your movement data. This makes it impossible to commit any anonymous criminal acts. When a crime is committed the individual is immediately apprehended and disciplined.
That brings us to the fifth core principle: do not hurt. We have a legal system that immediately deals with any wrongdoing. Most often the individual in question undergoes a reeducation course. This will in most cases be all the necessary punishment as, when one thinks about it, most crime is a result of a misunderstanding of society’s rules. This is the sixth principle: obey all rules.
In Cuba, there is no forced labor as there is in the rest of the world as robots are responsible for every kind of necessary labor. This enables you to do whatever you please, to live your life. This is the seventh principle: live richly. Whether that means creating artworks or engaging in scientific experimentation, you are free to live as you see fit. In short the principles of this society are as follows:
1. Total equality
2. No waste
3. No anonymity
4. No ownership
5. Do not hurt
6. Obey all rules
7. Live richly
8. Upward and onward
The final principle: upward and onward, refers to the innovative ethos of our civilization. We are always looking to identify problems and find solutions. We are constantly seeking new ideas and ways to implement them. And thusly, life in the Cuba Project becomes better and better with every passing day.
