Vow
If you are interested in developing this idea, feel free to contact me :)
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I would like to make it easier to publicly make civil Vow's,
as to further increase recognition and support to exercise vow's as a profession, outside of requirements for employment from a specific employee,
as some kind of direct "contract" with society, the community, oneself, or even spiritually if one wishes to ( for some, a contract with "God" ) , but to do so in a "open" and "networked" approach, without relying on centralized power structures ( such as churches ), but rather on peer recognition and distributed resource allocation, including via the use of the internet.
I would like people to define their own vow, in a modular approach, chose the time and context framework of their vow, and enable them to change the status of their vow, while keeping a record on it, and possible contributions by other people.
I imagine registering a url such as http://vow.is
as to enable my.vow.is/abundance ; my.vow.is/nonviolentcommunication ; my.vow.is/civildisobedience ; my.vow.is/hitchiking ; my.vow.is/nonmonetarytransactions ; etc
or even some secular vows, such as " poverty, chastity, and ... obedience (the vows of religion) " - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_vows ;
as it can also be inspired by some secular religious Vows from various spiritual or religious traditions, such as this set of rules regarding "simple catholic vow's" - canon law on religious profession :
http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0017/_P25.HTM
I would put a limit to such vows in the legal terms of the platform, forbidding, for example, direct or indirect threat of life and violence to people, animals, or flora. I imagine defining such limits may be tricky, and require a lot of thought and feeling.
I imagine people can chose for several existing ( compatible ) lifestyle contracts/licenses , or create new ones, or use it as status , which can be updated.
It can be peer reviewed, or even endorsed by existing institutions, and accordingly, people may want to support the individuals that share a vow they feel supports their own intentions, and do this based on transparency of their actions according to their vow, practicing what they preach,
or if not, enable suggestions to have a "change of status" in their vow, such as "I would like to, but temporarily upheld", ... or simply opt out of the vow, if it does not suit them.
I imagine that although it can be a starting point, instead of being based solely on, for example, icann domain names, it could use a variety of URI's and evolve while blending with inter-operable semantic web and microformat protocols.
I also imagine that it could evolve into a specific "Vow Contract" Vocabulary for the semantic web, which could easily blend with other types of "Transaction Contract" Vocabularies I am interested in defining, while also connecting it with social network vocabularies, such as FOAF.
Or perhaps FOAF could directly be used to define the one or more Vow's one engages in publicly.
I also imagine it could be combined with various other tools, such as microblogging ( identica, twitter, ... ), or enable networked intentional communities to "emerge" out of such networked databases of vows, combined with other (meta)data such a geolocation updates.
I imagine this can lead to emergent forms of networked monastic movements. Including, for example, Neo-Monasticism, but not only, as anyone can make Vow's, even the smallest or shortest in time.
With as result the empowerment visualization of needs and interdependencies as to support Vow's and their intentions.
Dante - http://hitchwiki.org/en/Dante
Under GPL V3 Attribution
