Episode 270 of RevolutionZ discusses a new attempt to link fund raising, dating, and social activism va- an unusual and ambitious web system and app called Singles Project. Why try this? How try this? What will emerge from trying this? Nikla Widmark, from Sweden and Alexandria and Michael consider these innovative matters and more.
Episode 270 of RevolutionZ discusses a new attempt to link fund raising, dating, and social activism va- an unusual and ambitious web system and app called Singles Project. Why try this? How try this? What will emerge from trying this? Nikla Widmark, from Sweden and Alexandria and Michael consider these innovative matters and more.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This will be our 270th consecutive episode. Recently, Alexandria Schaehner, a frequent guest and who is with us this time for our first Revolution Z three-person show, interviewed our guest this time, Nicholas Widmark, for an article on ZNet that's titled Singles Project for the Love of Activism. Nicholas is co-founder and worker owner of Singles Project, which that interviewed discussed. He is also on a volunteer public speaking team called Green Speakers at Greenpeace Sweden and is active with several other democracy advocacy organizations. He was born in Sweden, grew up in New England and now lives in Sweden again. His Singles Project website can be seen at singlesproject. That's one word, dot o-r-g, and there are various language possibilities. So, Nicholas, welcome to Revolution Z, Thanks very much, Michael.
Speaker 2:Thanks very much for having me. This is my first podcast, so it's a real honor.
Speaker 1:Oh, they're all over the place now. I'm a little surprised to hear that, but hopefully you'll do many more to help generate interest in your project. So suppose, to start, you give us an overview of what the Singles Project is, its current status and where it hopes to be soon.
Speaker 2:Sure. So the Singles Project is essentially a. There are different ways to frame it, but the way I usually do it is that it is a fundraising and volunteering platform in the form of a values-based dating app. So what we do is that we invite users to make a donation through our platform to any one of our participating non-profits, after which they can download our app and gain our access to our community of common causes, and we also have a volunteering function, which we hope will lead to more participation in general.
Speaker 2:So we just launched in Sweden last week and we have laid the groundwork for New York. So we have a company registered in New York and in America they're fundraising regulations, so you also have to register as a professional fundraiser in each state that you have to or that you want to be active in. So we're ready to go in New York and Washington DC. So if there are any values aligned organizations registered and neither of those areas, we're very happy to talk to you. And then we're also registered to do business in California and as soon as we have some non-profits on board there, we can link them in as well.
Speaker 1:So somebody who wants to use this, what are they doing? They are accessing the site, signing up as you would to a dating app. Is that correct? And, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, no, that's exactly it. It's a bit of a roundabout process. So we ask them to make the donation through the website because of the way that apps work and in-app payment work. So through our website we only have to deal with a payment provider called Stripe and then, once they've made the donation through our platform, then they go to whatever their play store or whatever they're called and they download our app and then they get access to it with using the same email address, which is a very roundabout way of going about it, and we realize that's a real potential killer. But if we did it through the in-app payments, then we would lose another 30% because Google and Apple charged that for in-app payments.
Speaker 1:Just to get the technical stuff out of the way you said, different states have different conditions and I'm sure different countries do. Is there one site, or is there a site for Sweden, a site for New York, a site for Washington, etc.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a really good question and this was a real big miss on our part last week. We had separated the US site completely from the Swedish site precisely because of the fundraising regulations in the states and because they are so strict. So, as an example, we are registered in New York now and because Washington DC does not have fundraising regulations, we can do but we are registered to do business there we can have users in New York and Washington DC and once we register as a fundraising professional in the state of California, then we can link them in as well and users from all three of those states can interact with each other and they can donate to their so I'm in Connecticut and I hear this podcast and I say, well, this is interesting, I want to go see it and I look and go see it, and then I want to make a donation, volunteer and use the dating facility, but I can't.
Speaker 1:Is that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, that's a real frustration on our part too. I mean, it's just we deal with the regulatory framework that exists, but, yes, that's exactly right. So we'll start in New York, washington, and add on California, and then we were thinking about adding Massachusetts. So basically this gets into the politics right away, but basically states that are sort of aligned with, like a general progressive train of thought, but again, I just think that people should know.
Speaker 1:So if somebody goes to the site and they're in Wisconsin and they like the thing, there's something on the site that takes their address and it precludes taking an address that's outside New York or wherever you register.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, it's going to be limited to like New York and Washington and California, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:Even though the person is sitting in Wisconsin and trying to do it, yeah, Okay. And so what happens? They just get a message that says you know, we're working on.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and if we get enough people, we'll keep track of that as well, where they write from. And if we get enough interest from them and, almost as importantly, if not more importantly if we get enough interest from nonprofit organizations in those states, then naturally we would love to add them. But essentially our model works. I'll explain it all as we go, but it is based on having partnerships with nonprofits and we are a fundraising tool for nonprofits. So effectively they become, they use us as a tool and incentive to get donations and that also has the like converse effect of marketing us for us.
Speaker 1:When somebody joins in New York say they can give a donation, but are the recipients all in New York?
Speaker 2:Exactly so the way the fundraising regulations work are, and it does differ from state to state. There are a few states that don't have any fundraising regulations, like Washington, or that's a district, but anyhow and a few others. And then in New York they say that it's not only that, we can only raise money for nonprofit organizations that are registered in the state of New York with the Charities Bureau, we can only open it up to residents of New York and that is supposed to protect. So the Charities Bureau basically has. They are responsible for the state of New York. So if people come in from other states and maybe we scam them, then there's no like legal recourse for those people.
Speaker 1:I don't want to keep going with all this technical stuff, although I have to admit I am developing more questions as we speak and also thoughts about maybe a run around from some of those problems, but later for all that, for now let's get into the, the political dimensions of what it is that you're trying to do, which are unusual and varied, I think.
Speaker 1:So, okay, I get that the project aims to provide exemplary structure. I got that from the site and also the interview you did with Alexandria. So you're trying to be democratic and essentially embody left values and be alienated. And for socially concerned people to meet other socially concerned people to date, to explore relationships and, along the way or as an equal part of it, to provide a channel for donations to partnered worthy projects. And I agree, all those are valuable services and I think everybody listening will too. I hope so. But I wonder, beyond offering those services, what kind of new impact on activism and on left values and commitments you may hope to inspire by this pretty unusual approach? Are there problems in left movements that you hope your project will reveal, address and perhaps even in time, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a big question and that's a good one and I don't really know. I mean, we have these aims and it's sort of you do the best that you can, and we've already gotten some feedback, slash, criticism from various organizations that you know they don't feel that we're doing enough or whatever, and there's some crowd that you just can't please. But we are trying to. So we, as I said in the article, we understand that, like in these constituent parts, we're not going to change the world, but what we are hoping to do is to provide an incentive not only to keep these organizations going but to get people involved in those organizations and, if there is, or any way that you can get people to like, incentivize them to show up, because that's what change is about, it's collective democratic participation, or at least that's what my theory of change is. So, yeah, the volunteer function we hope maybe not right away, but as we grow, then that can morph into and we can work with other people to make that as best possible so that we can get more people involved and not necessarily just people on the left it's. I mean, we want to appeal to everybody and getting them involved. I think at least that leads to the kind of thinking that leads to change.
Speaker 2:And then also, yes, as there aren't many examples of worker-owned companies that are popular. There are a few, and I think that the biggest ones so far have been some breweries in America and they unfortunately or maybe fortunately for the people there they were bought up by bigger breweries so they sort of disappeared as an example. And there's still Mondragon, and then there's the John Lewis partnership in England, and those are employee-owned companies, but there's no real youth-related example that. So you can't point to any of that. You can't point to anything and say, okay, but does this exist? Is it cooperative? It sounds nice, but does it work? And we hope to be an example of that.
Speaker 1:Alexandria Nodding.
Speaker 3:Yeah, nodding and thinking back. I'm more familiar with this project now because, as you said, nicholas and I just did an interview. We released it right around Valentine's Day as an effort to kind of draw attention to a decommodified version of what the supposed sentiments behind Valentine's Day could be. So I think there's very obviously okay if it's a dating app. There's this romantic aspect. Where wouldn't it be nice if we had more relationships, both romantic and in communities, that included our activism or just included participation in life beyond what we are very often presented with, which is just like a very tokenized representative version of having efficacy in changing how we live and changing our ability to self-determine, all kind of things. And so I'm trying to think back to when I first heard about this project, to put myself in the listener's position right now, and I think what jumped out at me was kind of this idea of how our family life or our friendships, our kind of domestic spheres of life, seem very, very separate and insular. We can talk about more of a feminist interpretation of the nuclear family or even an alienation away from work or our environment, but there's all this disconnect and I talk about this on Revolution Z all the time that, whatever lens you look through, there's disconnect.
Speaker 3:And this just seemed like a really cool idea to me of not just that it's fundraising for nonprofits, which we always need, that, and not just that it's a way for people to find opportunities to get out there and volunteer or to donate, but that it seemed like a mechanism to actually connect the personal and the relationship component of communities with activism, with participation to actually change our communities and change our life.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, to me that that was really the most interesting part is like how can we make people fall in love with activism or how can we make people get get excited and like interweave their participation in society with their actual personal life? Because it's to me it's not natural that this is separated, but it very much is separated in most of our lives. Nicholas, I don't know if I've gone off the deep end from the project and my inner colantyre, my inner looks and like really, but this is when I first heard about the project why I was like oh, I want to interview this person and hear more about it, because I think this is something that we need to be thinking more of how do we connect our social change work to our personal lives in relevant ways?
Speaker 2:No, it's, it's. Alexandria is so much better a spokesperson for this whole thing than I am. I mean, I told you all the technical mumbo jumbo and then Alexandria is like, yeah, I love, but yeah, that's exactly. I think that that is exactly our aim. I was actually corresponding with a researcher of activism and I emailed her and told her about what we were doing and, yeah, she thought that it was a fantastic idea.
Speaker 2:In the same sort of way that like there's, there's just yet another. Any way that you can get people to get involved is good and is needed. And to create that, like Alexandria said, like you get rewarded right away and it's not just which is an amazing thing among activists, but here, do this because it's a higher calling. And you just like, leave your soul at the site of these events. And instead we're saying, which I get anyhow, is a friendship connection. But what if we could try to structure it in a way so that we aim to connect people in sort of a like more love, like fashion?
Speaker 2:But yeah, and there are different ways that I know I'm rambling about the people that we're talking to, but we're also we want to see ourselves as a lab for various types of like improvements. So we're talking to a privacy organization and they are specifically interested in maintaining privacy like the most privacy possible. And I said, hey, look, see our app as a lab and say we have these constraints, so we have to match people and you have to be able to have certain information available to match people. But if you can come up with a way that makes it more private, you know, perfect. We want to be the best that we can be and if we're successful, then I think that we can bring a lot of other people with us.
Speaker 1:So it sounds like one of the motivations I suppose you could call it is, as you said, providing an incentive, providing a mechanism to bring people in and volunteer and give funds, but also to just be part of something humane. I want to ask if you've thought of it after the getting folks in, keeping folks. The way I came to this kind of stance, I suppose, was by looking at the history of the left and discovering that if everybody stayed instead of leaving after they first arrived, we would have, if not one already over the past 50 years, certainly be very much closer to winning. And I called it the stickiness problem, and I said that basically the left is not sticky, that is people when they get in the vicinity of it. For some reason.
Speaker 1:We're supposed to be the good people, we're supposed to be caring people, we're supposed to be loving people, we're supposed to be people trying to make the world better, and yet people leave, which seems disorienting and disturbing. People should want to stay and it seems to me part of the reason people leave is because their lives get worse, because literally joining the left introduces into their lives more pain than pleasure, and so, however great the political or moral commitment to staying. The repulsiveness to use a strong word of being involved causes people to leave. Now, people don't like when I say things like that, but how else do you explain millions upon millions of people coming into contact with the left and then disintegrating and leaving? I mean, is there a notion that what you're doing at least tries and is trying to create a different kind of left, to create a left that is more welcoming, but not just more welcoming, more fulfilling over a longer haul? Is that part of the thinking?
Speaker 2:I mean, hopefully it is. We do have. These are all very grandiose plans, but yeah, we do have yet another thing that we want to introduce. This is another one of those. I don't want to get too much into the technical part of it, but we want to. Also, we want to expand it into all sorts of different things. We want to add video profiles and we also want to add a portal for these organizations so that they can reach out to their users on our site or their donors on our app, and that will hopefully get people more involved. But, yes, as a general problem, I totally agree with you. We can be one of the ways of solving that. We can add to it, but I don't want to make any claims about, yeah, we're going to solve the mute grinder problem of the left. But, yes, I totally agree with you, Community groups and just sort of self-care in general needs to. It is a big part of the sort of activist left. But, yes, it definitely needs to be more proactively pursued by all parties.
Speaker 1:I notice you're in green peace, so let's take that as an example. Okay, so I don't know green peace Sweden, I don't even know green peace the US beyond, you know marginally, but I would wager that in these organizations, which are quite large this is not, you know, a small, tight-knit group, this is a large organization the interrelations and the personal relations among people with each other and probably with people outside the group could be better. Let's put it that way, could be more fulfilling. And if that's true, maybe the service that you're offering these progressive organizations could be not only access to money, to donations, and not only the possibility of volunteers, but a possible tool for them to improve the interpersonal lives, the love life, the sex life of their members. Has that crossed people's minds?
Speaker 2:I try to sell it this way, In fact, one of my. I have to vary the way that I approach these organizations and watch what I say. But a thing that would appeal to me and I therefore use it for them is I suggest that whoever I'm reaching out to so just say that I haven't really talked to green peace formally about it yet, but if I were to reach out to them, then I say yes, essentially, what we are trying to do is create an app so that it is almost as if green peace had its own dating app and you could feel like you could, beyond like two people meeting you, build a community. And just in my own personal experience with green peace, we were talking, or when you were talking about this whole, like being repulsed by the activism. I do get that impression from just sort of the general climate justice movement in general. And it's not repulsed, it's just that they are, they become, they give so much of themselves that the self care becomes difficult, because somebody asks you a question and just the act of asking you like could you? It almost becomes dangerous, Like because they won't say no when they very much should say no.
Speaker 2:So at green peace we're lucky to have and I have been working with them for years now but what we call volunteer coordinators, and they are very active about that themselves. So if there is an ask for an activity, then they will sometimes specifically and intentionally preclude me from that because they feel like, hey, listen, he's been doing a lot now and I just I don't even think that we should ask him because he might say yes, which I think is a very thoughtful and very kind thing to do. And they're right that I do show up to these things. I've been exhausted for the past couple of weeks because even enthusiasm can be exhausting, but I have showed up for a couple of demonstrations that I thought about afterwards I was like, oh, that was nice and I feel like better for having gone, because the guilt is gone, but I should not have, I should have rested instead of going to those demonstrations.
Speaker 2:But but yeah, no, so definitely a sense of community, broader community, and this is when you were talking about earlier, about like sort of left organizations, and I don't know if you would consider a public library a left organization, but I don't really think of it as like specifically left. But we would love to work with them as well. And if you have those people on your app and then they're connecting with people from Greenpeace or whatever it might be, hey, then you get people to think about things from a different perspective. And the people from the public library, I think they're very much open to, but maybe don't know about activism and how to get involved. That's basically my whole thing is how to get people involved. So, yeah, that's part of it definitely.
Speaker 3:I just to interject, I had a light bulb moment by that policy you described of Greenpeace, where there are active coordinators who kind of their job is to have in mind the well-being of others and sometimes that includes not asking, because, you're right, a lot of us can't say no, even when we should and even when we're trying to work on it, on that habit like it's, it's difficult. So, yeah, I love these conversations between various organizations where you can learn, because I'm having this light bulb moment of multiple organizations that I'm involved in where I think that practice might be really healthy for us. So, thank you, nicholas, and Greenpeace. And then the other thing that just sparked a thought was kind of building off of that practice of care and I think something that this app could be part of helping us generate as, like a wider progressive movement is thinking about how the right tends to really take care more and I think not always in ways that I think are like upfront. I think there's an instrumentalization of care sometimes that occurs and like integrating lifestyle and politics with family on the right, but it is effective and I and I feel like, again, this project and the topics that we're talking about today is something really important to highlight that you know on.
Speaker 3:Very often if you're, if you're on the right or even like in an apolitical frame of mind, we kind of retreat into the family or at least build in in, whether it's friendships or like your family, who are blood relations, or your partner. That's kind of like that is our care network and our, our fun network and just like all all the kind of best parts of life. So, yeah, I think it's it's important to build to actively mitigate for the fact that we're generally lacking this in a lot of our social change work, because change is hard. We can't just sit back and take care of each other. We're also trying to change the world. But yeah, I think it's it's essential that we don't forget that and I kind of see projects like your app as ways that we we should not be afraid to maybe make it a little more structural and a little more aggressive, so not just sitting down and having a check-in after every meeting like how's everyone?
Speaker 3:feeling but what are structures we can put in place and projects we can build that actually integrate the the personal and the care aspects of our life with our social change work, so it doesn't get steamrolled by the urgency of our work?
Speaker 2:No, definitely we have. We have one of the biggest asks that I make and that I know that a ton of other volunteers make is specifically that they want to meet as a group and to not have that meeting, have like an agenda. We want to meet as a group and we want to talk to each other and meet new people solely on the basis that we have the same values. And it's so wonderful to do like this demonstration that I was at this weekend. I met some new for me Greenpeace people and it's just fun to like meet them and all of a sudden, or you're like oh, you're a Greenpeace volunteer too and you have this instant sense of camaraderie.
Speaker 2:And another thing that or there were two more thoughts, but one of them is that this is related to the whole volunteer coordinator thing. Just getting back to that is that one of them told me and I thought that it was the most like sort of beautiful thing to say and it's such a simple thing to say but he asked me if I could do something and I sort of like technically, could do it, but I was like no, because, and I gave him this like explanation or whatever, and he's like listen, Nicholas, you and I know each other and let me tell you this you never whether it's in this context or any other context you never have to say anything beyond no, Like no questions. If somebody tells you no, it should be obvious that they have a reason for whatever it is, even if they just don't feel like it. And I just thought that was such a nice thing for him to enunciate, to say like, hey, listen, you don't ever have to explain yourself to this. But also, another thing is that we've been focusing on and it is at the moment, a dating app.
Speaker 2:But yet another thing that we want to add is this platonic matchmaking. So we do want to add, like, if there are just people involved in a certain organization who want to meet other people involved in that organization say, you move to a new city, well then, you can meet friends through us too, or you can meet professional contacts, you want to start working with this organization, and then you can meet them. So, sort of like a yeah, like a LinkedIn, but the same concept that we have, it's values based, and it would be the same sort of structure.
Speaker 3:I had another question about putting on like the hat of a project builder or an organizer. How was it kind of taking this idea from idea to actually not the technical aspects of like the software, but the part of the work that involves pitching the idea to other people and other organizations? Considering it's definitely a more unique idea as far as a left project and I'm wondering if you experienced any challenges or like the kind of common issue that pops up where nobody wants to be first to sign on to a group, coalition or project, because I think that's something a lot of us who are trying to organize things struggle with is like how do you go from? Ok, I have this idea, it might be a little out there, it's different, but like I think it could be widely beneficial. So how was your experience kind of kicking that off?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's definitely the catch-22. And that's just it pops up. That's another one of these things I'm now trying to solve with other organizations, precisely because of my experience with this app. So, exactly, somebody has to be the first, somebody has to like be willing to take a chance, and that's also, I have to say, yet another reason that it's so great to have that article out there, because it is overwhelming. If you write an email where you go, hey, we have this app, and then like 2,000 words of we also have a philosophical and ideological like mission with the whole thing, so that article really helped like explain and sort of crack the ice. But yes, that is a big deal and we're still working with that.
Speaker 2:In New York, there are lots of organizations, and this is a system critique, it's not a critique of any of the organizations, but they are just so overwhelmed and overworked and understaffed that they simply don't have the time to that. It takes to like, say, get into it, because it is a bit of a complicated sell, and then, once we've talked to a couple of people at that organization, then it's like, hey, great, we love the idea. We just don't want to be the first one, which is totally understandable too, because it is sort of like a reputational risk for them. And we're in Sweden, we're not in America. Why haven't we launched in Sweden first?
Speaker 1:That was an issue before.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, there have been those hurdles, but now, especially after your article, we have been getting more organizations Unfortunately they haven't been in New York, but that are involved or that are interested. But yeah, it's a real hilarious series of hurdles. But after 15 years I don't know if it's dedication or fanaticism, but I just feel like, yeah, this is now the genie's out of the bottle and I'm so energetic about the whole thing. So now we are getting over that Catch-22. And now there's another Catch-22 that started and that is that people want to know, like the public users, they want to know. Ok, but how many members do you have? And to which I've, unlike the nonprofits, to the members, you can just be a little bit, maybe more smug, and say, hey, listen, why don't you engage in an act of goodwill, support one of the organizations that we're working with and find out for yourself? And then, yeah, hopefully they'll join, or be repulsed by my answer.
Speaker 3:Another potential hurdle that I thought about with this project being in the tech sphere, being an app, is I think that there's a lot. I've run into a lot more open-mindedness and clear-sightedness about this recently, but I think it's been a past issue of progressive movements of being a bit tech phobic, and for good reason, because tech in the hands of the powerful and developed by the powerful is going to serve that power. But I'm wondering if you had any kind of hesitation based on that this is a tech app, or what your thoughts are on developing something like this as a convivial version of the technology. And can we put the technology at our disposal at the service of our aims, even though most of the time it's monopolized by the powerful for profit and for more power?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question too. I mean, I want to encourage other like one of the goals is to encourage people to show them that, hey, you can do this and you don't have to be Google. We have to use some of this infrastructure. So we use Google whatever it is. They're servers and we have chosen to do that as opposed to using Amazon. Google's half a percent better, but we still choose to use them.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, I definitely think that, especially in the tech sphere, there are so many opportunities to create alternatives to the giants that exist today. There's the Tech Workers Coalition, and I can't remember what the others are called, but there are lots of these groups who are thinking along our same lines and they happen to be tech professionals. There's no reason why they couldn't and this is a suggestion that I've made in lots of cooperative spheres that they can work on the same sort of basis that my programming and co-founding partner works on, so he has other side gigs and then he devotes a certain amount of his time to this and now, hopefully, more so. But there are lots of other tech solutions that are up and coming and they're having financing issues, but I don't see any reason why they can't sort of invest their time in the tech aspects of it and create alternatives to Google or whoever. And then I also think that we shouldn't think of it in terms of, like, getting all of this stuff for free.
Speaker 2:I'm a big proponent of the open source software, but I do think that we should think in terms of solidarity. And if a tech alternative to Google came about, then I think that we should think about that in terms of okay, but we have to do this in a monthly like. We have to pay them, sustain them every month, and we should do so out of solidarity. Yeah, I think that they just need to adopt that model, but there does seem to be a little bit of an aversion in these groups to having a sort of pay model. But yeah, I don't know, I think we can get over it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's lots of. I'm seeing lots of cool projects. I just saw one, a blockchain based project, I think it's called Post Capitalist Labs, but they're basically trying to use the technology of blockchain to explore possibilities in democratic and participatory planning. And I mean there's all sorts of cool work going on with like digital libraries and digital commons. So I think there is, you know, there's much more intersection between tech and progressive and more radical projects. And yeah, I just I love examples of kind of taking back our creativity, including through technology, and putting it to good purposes, to emancipatory purposes. And yes, I think you're right, that involves an uphill battle a lot of times, because the power and money of each industry is so concentrated that we have to fund our own projects. So open source and free is great and maybe the ultimate goal, but yeah, we have to kind of chip in to build that infrastructure and to build that, that creativity.
Speaker 2:We're working, or I'm working with an organization I don't wanna say their name and it's not because I don't wanna give them a shout out, it's just because I'm not that involved with them and I don't know what they would want me to say but it is just a sort of general democracy, advocacy, organization and change. And I'm working within that organization, in a bank group, and we are trying to help some credit unions overcome this catch 22 of most credit unions don't offer that many services. So we want because they don't have enough money to do so, because the services offering more services and it takes or it costs a lot of money to hook up to these networks and then, just in terms of compliance, it's very expensive in terms of employees. So we are trying to organize a campaign where we say, okay, to get over this catch 22, we need to get a bunch of nonprofit associations together and say that we commit to using these credit unions assuming that you will add these services by, say, 2025 or 2026, and we will gradually give you more and more, put more and more money into your institutions.
Speaker 2:And we will have a big crowdfunding campaign where we say basically to the climate justice movement in Sweden that hey, listen, these banks are now actively working to offer more of these everyday services that you want, but you have to join them also, like become paying members, in order for them to be able to offer those services. So, yeah, that catch 22,. I think that we can overcome it in the broader tech sphere as well, and because so many tech people are just like, they're so close to our way of thinking, and then some of them just turn like I don't know, libertarian or whatever, but they're so, so, so close, and all they're missing is the solidarity aspect of it. But, yeah, I mean, we can do it.
Speaker 1:There are examples in America of this going on as well, so this is a strange experience for me, because I have done numerous attempts at things like what you're talking about that's right In various domains, including encountering the tech folks, but also the audience or the potential audience. I wonder if you've thought about the possibility of becoming an arm of a consortium of political organizations and groups. It might have the drawback of making it more difficult, but not impossible, to reach out to the library, say, or to organizations that aren't associated that way, and it adds the difficulty of okay, which groups, which political parties, which political movements which, et cetera. But it does offer the possibility of having a wider base of involvement. Maybe that's something to think about, and it may even yield resources when it's a political party that has some grounding and has some. Or even in the United States, dsa has far more resources within its reach, not always manifested, but, and so their involvement or the involvement of you know something in more internationally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah, we're definitely up for it. And I don't think that I understand what it is that you're saying, and I understand that it could be sort of a concern that if you work with the DSA then you sort of shut other people out. But that's not. I just I approach it from like a sort of naive point of view where I would just say like, yeah, we work with the DSA, and then if somebody brings anything up, then you just go, what's wrong with that? And if and as a fundraiser that's one of the nice things if we become popular, then we're not convincing the libraries to you know, it's not a hard sell we're saying, hey, you can raise some money too. And yes, we're working with the DSA, so for us it would be fine, and then it would just be up to the organizations that we Looking off a year from now, two years from now, imagine lots of constituencies and organizations are somehow integrated into this emerging approach.
Speaker 1:What is it that would be the unifying element? Is it money that is fundraising, or is it a desire to impact the culture of activism, the culture of people trying to create a better world, more of what you know, the internal relationships that exist among people, the character and quality of life of people in those domains Two very different sort of themes, and I think they may lead in significantly different directions. What do you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, if we're we obviously don't wanna work with organizations that don't share our values, but for organizations that do broadly share our values. So if it were, say, just to use the somewhat neutral example of a library we are if we get to that level that we are a household name, then that will mean for them a very effective and or a cost effective form of fundraising. So all they have to do is sign up and then they can sort of like cast a line and see if they can generate some money. So I don't see that as like I don't know I would. It's win-win for them. And then I think that all of these organizations, whatever they are, they're always people, a group of people, who are super passionate about them. And if we become a household name, then I suspect that a lot of those people will say, hey, listen, have you heard of this? We should be working with this organization. And yeah, hopefully that can lead to a lot of partnerships.
Speaker 2:But yeah, as far as the like movement building, I mean, that is what I genuinely do, wanna do, and we are sort of emerging.
Speaker 2:Now it's not supposed to be that way, but we are emerging as a sort of like a climate justice app. But I do want to broaden it and I don't want to shy away from working with anybody apart from like obviously like non-aligned groups, precisely because I think that we can bring them into us, into our fold. So we shouldn't see it as like if we were to work with I don't wanna say any examples, because that would just like be me labeling them as like neoliberal groups or whatever. But if we were to work with, like maybe an environmental group that doesn't take a very hard stance, or maybe like a bird watching group or something like that, I see that as just a good thing. And that there might well be conservatives in those organizations, fine, have them meet the rest of us and like, build that community and they'll see. I think we should be thinking of it as not left and right, but just we are all interested in the same thing, and so I don't shy away from it. I welcome that. Yeah, working with all.
Speaker 1:I don't know this realm. I assume that there are large dating apps.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you are in some sense saying to somebody okay, common, relate. Part of the reason to relate is to meet people and maybe to develop friendships, relationships, maybe partnerships. If the person is going to do that, you start with the debit of well, our pool of potential meaties, people who you might meet and form relationships with, is small at the outset. That's just the way it's gonna be. And so why does the person pursue your route, with all their limits on their time and everything else, as compared to pursuing another route? It seems like, if fundraising is the point right, the impetus among you and whoever else is involved in deciding things and working up things is to make the audience as large as possible, as fast as possible. In some sense, if impacting the culture of the left is the point, I think, while size matters and while reaching out matters, maybe there's something else that's driving behavior. That's what I'm trying to.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see yeah and perhaps maybe a difficult decision to make. No, I still do.
Speaker 2:I think I misunderstood your last question a little bit. But, yeah, no, for us the point is very much to create this sense of community. That sense of community and appealing to the best in people. That is what will drive the fundraising. But we don't have that. That will be the reason that organizations want to work with us and we, hopefully, will be good at that. But yeah, we don't want to.
Speaker 2:If we work with an organization and again I can't think of one, thator, maybe the New York Public Library. That's a pretty broad range of donors, but if we were to get criticized for working with them, it would be getting criticized for going on Joe Rogan or something like that. You go, that's a huge audience and you want to have that huge audience. If we were to work with the New York Public Library, that would make us a worker-owned cooperative that is actively trying to create this movement. Okay, they platform us, that's great. We shouldn't shy away from that. But no, exactly, I've already told my programming partner and from the beginning, like I said, this is not a millionaire or billionaire machine. That's not our goal. We'll do fine. But our goal is to create community and to hopefully do a little bit of movement building and to promote the idea of economic democracy.
Speaker 2:And then, as for the Tinder thing, yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are. I don't think that we can or want to become an app that has 500 million users or whatever. And if it were, if we were to get to that point, then it would just have to be like we would allow people to just copy our model, and if they want to start our type of thing in Argentina, then they're welcome to do so, but they have to do so in accordance with our values.
Speaker 2:But no, we don't see ourselves as a competitor to either fundraising platforms or dating apps, if people want to.
Speaker 2:I mean, we don't even see people, or we don't see our monthly membership fee as an expense, so to speak. It's 90% of it is going to charity and we take a fee of 7.5%, so they pay $10 or whatever it is, to Tinder or whoever, and that goes to them and it promotes their project, whereas in our case, 90% of it, or even 95% of it, goes back to the community, either in the form of donations or as taxes. And that's another one of these it's not meant to toot my own horn, but just one of these like how we are thinking and the design is truly like, meant to be good from the ground up, and we were advised by all of the lawyers who we talked to that we should incorporate in Delaware, first of all because it's much easier for foreign corporations to do. And then there are massive tax advantages and yeah, it's just generally like apparently an easier thing to do. But we said, no, we want to do it in New York. And they go okay, that's like half your revenues right there.
Speaker 3:But yeah, we don't want to shy away from that, we do want to prove that, yeah, this is what we're all about and that's one of those very behind the scenes, little nuggets of our thinking, but nonetheless, I think it's maybe something else that that I heard you mentioned that deserves to be highlighted is we've talked a lot about how this can be a project of kind of healing and regenerative culture for the left, which I think it could be and is very important, but something you mentioned also is that it's not, you know, we need to not have this left right thinking what this, what this also is, is making participation, making democracy in its true form a bit nicer and a bit less disconnected, a bit less alienated, bringing it back to look.
Speaker 3:This is your life and affects how you relate to the people around you and the things you do every day, whether at work or at home or hanging out. So I feel like that that's something that also deserves to be highlighted is, yes, we can improve left culture and seek out alliances with you know very like minded groups and people, but this is also about branching out and showing people who have different politics or think that they have no politics that participation and getting involved in democracy isn't as horrible as we are conditioned to think that it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally, totally. And it's funny too, because I get a lot of, a lot of the organizations that I reach out to. I have found on lists that are very like they're they're associated with some form of economic democracy, like advocating maybe for a public bank or something like that, or one of those, one of the organizations that was part of this. There were like 500 organizations that backed this, the March to end fossil fuels, or something in New York City this past summer, and that was a treasure trove, because then you go, like their organizations there and on other lists of similar things where it's like I can't remember exactly what they're called, but it was like a New York chorus, something, chorus singers association or something you go. Who could ever put a like political label on that organization? And yet they are putting their name behind then.
Speaker 2:Or the March to end fossil fuels, because it should be a non political issue, and so we would love to work with an organization like that. Because why not? Why assume that just because they're not, you know, dedicating themselves to like or chaining themselves to oil drums or whatever that, and getting arrested that they're not dedicated to it as well, or that it's at least not, you know on their minds and yes, if we can bring them into the fold, then hopefully we can get them even more active than they might otherwise be. So yeah we, it's a, like I said, it's it's maybe it's a bit arrogant, but yeah we, we really do think that we can appeal to a ton of different groups of people on all sorts of different levels.
Speaker 3:I don't think it's arrogant at all. I think the message that we all can just do what we can in our own ways is the most powerful message, and especially if that involves kind of making participation not not seem like an extremist sport anymore, Like it's, it's not radical, it's like actually it's quite normal to participate in your own life and we all can and we all should. So, yeah, it's an example. You're doing it in your way and you've I mean, you've dedicated, you and your team a lot to this project, but it's just, you know, one example of how we can all do our little things in our own ways and be. You know we're all pulling at each little thread, but it's all the same, not so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, and that's another.
Speaker 2:I should like say this about myself and other people that I am very lucky to have been able to, uh, been like to have worked on this as long as I have, and then I'm also very lucky there were a lot of just luck elements in getting it going now, and there are a ton of projects like this just because we're so inundated with negativity all the time.
Speaker 2:There are so many projects like this and not exactly like ours, but just people trying to do things that are better, and it's usually like a little like Tempe bakery or something like that, and that doesn't get a big, like a lot of attention and we happen to. But there are so many projects out there that, yeah, like I don't want to sound like the naive, whatever, like it's so easy to change the world, but it's naive to think that it's easy, but it's wrong to think that it's impossible. So, yeah, there are, for every project like ours that you see, there are 10,000 that you've never heard of, where there are people who are just as dedicated and who don't have the like, maybe the luck of being born into the families that our team has.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I just think that the idea of love whether it's romantic love or just love between friends, community, family, whatever that's like something that is really powerful and, in a lot of ways, still free, and it's just a really powerful lever for us for movement building.
Speaker 3:Michael, I know I was thinking back, wondering what your thought, your original thoughts were, when you saw this app, having lived through kind of the 60s and development of like hippie culture and New Left and like the mass movement and like the mass cultural appeal of living differently. And I know there was lots of problems, like you know strains, where it became more of like a escapist culture or a fashion than actual, like a true political thing. But I think the politics were much more infused in the lifestyle in that period than what I've ever experienced in my life other than within, you know, small active groups. So I just think that any effort to like make that mass appeal and not you know I've never used a dating app, but I know significant numbers of people use them of all ages. So I, yeah, I just think it's, it's an exciting idea. I don't know, michael, what do you think is this? Are we, should we be looking for ways to bring back the 60s vibe, or is that more problematic than it's worth?
Speaker 1:It depends which part you know. When in the 60s you were driving on a highway and you passed a car and you did this, giving a peace sign, or this, raising a fist, you got it back and that part is good, that part community, a sense of being part of something that other people are a part of and of having some sort of instant recognition. It's all that's good. It's not so good when psychologizing and manipulating and competing distorts the intent. When I heard about the idea, I sort of mean there's another dimension of it. It's addressing a problem, or I think it's addressing a problem that's real and that matters greatly. This often seems to me that, you know, when we're talking about the fourth decimal point of the operations of the financial world, we're spinning our wheels compared to when we were talking about, if we were to be talking about, the mental state, the emotional state of the people who are ostensibly trying to change the world. But for me there's another dimension to this, which is that I really have been involved with any number of efforts that sound and that have things in common with this Trying to create a mechanism for, you know, for raising money for the left. The idea was to do like what Paul Newman's salary dressing did. How much more mainstream can you get than that With software? So people would. A company would generate software with the purpose of so it had two dimensions, with the purpose of helping with tasks that exist on the left outreach, dealing with finances, all kinds of tasks but the software would be geared to the left orientation of that and at the same time, all the money generated would go back into the left. So that was one. Or we had something we tried to do called Share World. All the way back when the web didn't exist, trying to create an alliance between progressive groups. But we wanted the Democratic Party in it, we wanted the AFL-CIO in it, we wanted same as your sentiments. We got really, really close. We had agreements from lots of those groups and so they trying to remember the name of the America Online was a system that existed and we were basically trying to create Share World as a alternative to that in which all these organizations would be in it. They would all be out, reaching to the other organizations, memberships and allowing outreach to their memberships and sharing program, and on and on, and got really close. It's not an easy path. You're on not gonna make believe it is. We also tried to generate an alternative to face. Facebook and Twitter got close. Again, that involved big money and therefore we had to get an estate, a political entity involved, but none of them succeeded.
Speaker 1:So I'm very hesitant to give you the slightest bit of advice, because, having failed at most of these things, you know getting close it's a horse, shoes it's an only counts and horses getting close isn't good enough. You can take lessons from it, but you have to succeed. We're not in a game where it's just how you play the game that's what it should be but we're in a game where you have to win or you're fucked. But you're trying and your optimism and your energy are great, and I think the real question to how well you succeed is probably gonna be how well people and particularly progressive and left people reaching all the way into society not the Z net audience, but all the way into society recognize the kinds of things that Alexandria saying, which is that it's not a diversion from trying to make the world a better place. It's not irrelevant to trying to make a world a better place.
Speaker 2:It's actually far more central to and relevant to that than much of what we think about and do no, but you're absolutely right, and just to like not to blow smoke here, but, as I told you, like I mean part of the reason that, like this, I've been working on this for 15 years and I realized that change was possible 10 years ago and that was also largely because of you and Chomsky, and so that I mean that formed my thinking. So, where you see it like a failure in maybe not getting your own tech thing off the ground in the 90s, well, your thinking has now left its mark on our app. So, yeah, and and I think that, like what, the two different things that you were describing there, the two different attempts, I think that that could be and should be adopted by another group of you know, progressive tech entrepreneurs who could bring that to fruition, because I think now the like, the circumstances are so ripe and they're so like screaming for change, and I don't know that I think that we're in the mid 90s now.
Speaker 2:So now I think that, like we have that advantage to that, we are offering something different and this might not have worked 30 years ago well we're.
Speaker 1:We're actually at an hour and almost 10 minutes. I wonder if there's something that we haven't asked you or discussed that you want to put out there of import to the project. You have import to the project making headway, because part of what we're trying to do is give you an audience.
Speaker 2:It's a small audience but it's probably a meaningful audience in that case, if there are people out there with connections to nonprofit organizations and that are aligned with the values that we've been discussing in New York or Washington DC or California, please do get in touch. How do they get in touch? They can just go to singles project org and just contact and I think that I get that email. Yeah, otherwise, it's just my first name at our site and, yeah, please do reach out. And then once we launch in New York, which will hopefully be quite soon, then yeah, it, help us get over that catch 22 and join and tell your friends to join. But yeah, I'm honestly I know that I've said this before in our course, but I'm very lucky to be as naive as I am and that I don't see. I just see the possibilities and I am very aware of that. There are obstacles, but I just see it as something to to get past. So after 15 years, I'm more like, yeah, alright, so yet another obstacle, let's go.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you from from where I sit. That attitude, that mindset is probably the most important thing to bring to. You know, it's not having read 37 books, it's that kind of. As long as it's realistic, as long as you can keep your eye on you know, a sense of proportion. That's incredibly important, congratulations on having that and on having, I think, a good but difficult idea it's an uphill battle, but we'll get there.
Speaker 3:I'll add a final interjection In response to Michael's realism and Nicholas's optimism is that I I don't know if this is naive and optimistic or like realist to the point that I'm finding joy and doom. But you know, michael, I get what you're saying, where you point out that we're we're in a place right now in the world where, if we don't win you know whether it's a dealing with inequality or rising fascist tendencies or the environmental catastrophes and surpassing most of the planetary bounds I get what you're saying, that if we don't win, that's it, we're dead or we're ruined or you know whatever. But what I would say is that even under those worst and most dire of circumstances, I would rather Be annihilated in a world where I had experienced stronger relationships than not. So to me it's still.
Speaker 3:There's still room for optimism, and there's still, you know, even if this project fails or other projects fails or your previous project fails, if it can even improve people's ability to relate to each other a little bit, I mean I I would rather go down in that situation than in an alienated state. So for me, in no matter what, it's a benefit. And I think there is no chance of overcoming all these obstacles unless we address our ability to relate to each other and really heal that. So I think stuff like this it's our, it's our best hope, not just for survival and winning, but even when we can't control outcomes and most of the time we can't it's improving lives, which is something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's not something, it's a lot. And but just to be clear, I'm generally considered to be the most outrageously optimistic. You just have to have both yeah and your formulation of seeing things as obstacles rather than as disasters, and moving on to overcome them. Mine of my favorite quotes as you lose, you lose, you lose, you win From Rosa Luxemburg, famous.
Speaker 1:German revolutionary, and it's true and it's true partly for the reasons you're indicated why you seem to be losing your developing for yourself and for others knowledge, experience that then percolates again and eventually percolates enough to win, and that's what we'll all try for. Yeah, definitely and.
Speaker 2:I'd love to to come on again and hopefully, as we progress, we can do a little series about this and how it's going.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll see. Hopefully that will occur. It's the same thing as Alexandria. Come on again to talk about the the ongoing enlargement and success of, say, z network, where she works, or other stuff that she works on anyway, okay in that case, if, if we're okay, then maybe that's it. This is Mike Albert signing off until next time for Revolution Z, in hopes that, and in efforts that are, struggles begin to manifest Not only political sophistication but a kind of awareness of the need for humane involvement, connection, culture inside of what we do.