December 8, 2020

LGJ Monday: PermaCoin!

Report on first DLT/Permacoin LGJ game.

Considering the collective interest and action to fight climate change leveraging land regeneration practices and blockchain/distributed governance, on December the 7th, 2020 we decided to create an ad-hoc LGJ scenario and to gather around the table a group of experts that were first timers players.

We presented a planet made up of 2 regions:

a bigger and richer one, National treasury=20 whites, with a mountainous area (brown), some eroded land (grey), some wasteland (green) and a corporate chemical monoculture (purple)
a smaller one crossed by a river and with some eroded land (grey)
a conversion rate between the 2 regions of 1:3

We gave them a global pot of greys representing the CO2 level and therefore linked to the climate change planetary boundary (https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries/planetary-boundaries/about-the-research/the-nine-planetary-boundaries.html). The initial level was set on 30 with a game-over treshold at 50.

Terrain types between the two administrations at beginning of game

We had 5 players around the table starting with some legacy in terms of land and economic activity: 3 farms, 1 corporate chemical farmer and 1 startup with a blockchain.

The game was introduced as a collaborative effort to “save the planet” with the objective of exploring what kind of mechanisms and ideas may arise and what kind of dynamics and conversation could emerge from these.

The activity was frantic! In 90min we witnessed several interesting dynamics:

the occupation of a portion of the corporation land (red triangles) with great popular support (roll of a dice 9/10) and the subsequent choice of the corporation to initiate a soil regeneration process around the occupied lands (purple triangles)
a collective debate around the question: how to model land regeneration and how to quantify the feedback loop into the global greys pot? This point was cleared out and we are ready to play the follow-up
a global agreement about regeneration funding establishing a common “green fund” where the 2 regions contributed with half of their treasury, no questions asked about the asymmetry in contribution (12 whites and 2 whites)
a financial operation agreed between 2 players, the corporation and the blockchain owner, establishing a “green credit” that transforms 1 white from the “green fund” into 4 greens (a new currency!). Players can access these greens to buy and to regenerate their lands provided that the land they buy will stay regenerated forever! in this way land is offered as collateral for this “green credit” and the concept of stewardship is introduced and played.

We are now looking forward to see if this system is going to work and how it will respond to some random events that LGJ is ready to throw at it 🙂

Some other interesting ideas emerged could be explored like: what happen if we linked the activity on the land with the global carbon level and we keep this score under the public eyes and consciousness (the same way it happened with the COVID deaths)? or what happen if the blockchain is collectively owned instead of belonging to just 1 player?

Thank you for playing with us and join us in the next round!