# ReUnion Network: Commoning by P2P Care Written By Yin Aiwen and Genevieve Costello, with contributions from Sarah Friend (chapter 'Technology Employment') and Marjet Zwaans (chapter 'Regenerative Model of Care'). ## **Overview** ReUnion Network is a socio-economic ecosystem channeled through digital technologies, which is designed to resist the continuing crises of care and loneliness in our society. We help people organize bottom-up social support systems to facilitate collective well-being and social solidarity, via long-term P2P care agreements and relationship-driven cryptocurrencies. ReUnion Network initially started with an artistic curiosity: "How would society be organized if blockchain became the technological infrastructure and decentralization became the ruling ideology?" The core idea of our answer is to design a system that considers interpersonal relationships as the base unit, instead of individuals or imagined communities created by given narratives, to create a commons-oriented approach for socio-economic organization. While the resource of care continues to be rendered in crisis, it is also a form of labor that we do every day, one that demands qualitative effort within trusted relationships. We take *care* as our driving force and complicate the perceived boundaries of productive and reproductive labor. In doing so, ReUnion hopes to build an ecology of practices between complex and interdependent entities for the repletion of care. Over three years of research, the project has been carefully designed from this point of inspiration. It has become a multilayered system with three interconnected components: 1. A mobile-first web application that provides a meditative space and tools to help people balance personal well-being and sustainable long-term care network beyond traditional kinships; 2. A collaborative site for contract-making, including renewable long-term interpersonal agreements, generating relationship-driven crypto-currencies to incentivize people to cultivate and maintain the care relationships arising in their immediate life (as *opposed* to a sharing economy for short-term exchanges of care); 3. A DLT-powered communal fund and welfare system that facilitates value exchanges between informal care and local and translocal cooperative economies to support a common-based economy. The system is conceived as a holistic approach to the intertwined multilayered and systemic crises that render the contemporary globalized world to be an age of precarity. These crises include the constant movement of people; hyperconnectivity, hyperindividualism, and a 24/7 economy; unprecedented demands of an aging society; an epidemic of loneliness; dangers of job loss by mass automation; and direct and impending threats to life by the progression of climate change. Facing these complex and unevenly experienced crises is undoubtedly ominous. However, ReUnion believes that an interlinked reorganization of civic resources and social contracts and a new approach to intimate relationships can acutely respond to the conditions of many. We describe in the section “Social Discrepancies at Stake” three intertwined macro trends related to how people organize their personal lives in the context of social, cultural, and economic change. ## **Goals** Its current goal is to transform into a nonprofit organization that facilitates a relationship between local municipalities and local cooperatives. ReUnion is a facilitator through technological means and specific conceptual frameworks, and its mission and livelihood are not tied to one technology. It pursues funding and support for stability, sustainability, social justice - not scalability. It does not offer support at the cost of other crucial civic resources. We seek to test its current application prototype within communities to study its viability and develop it further in a research context for implementation into civic systems. The project can have meaningful applications in many sectors, especially those that are predominantly related to formal and informal social reproduction that includes healthcare, welfare, childcare, local and translocal cooperative economies, alternative domestic relationships, and economic organizations that are made possible by new technologies. We use social reproduction in its broadest sense to mean the activities that secure and cultivate the continuity of daily and generational life –including bodily care, social values, procreation, spaces, and systems of our activities, movements, and inhabitance. Equally, we use care in its broadest sense – the practice of maintaining, continuing, or restoring the world[\[1\]](/endnotes#1). ReUnion’s long-term vision is to become a citizen-centered and collaborative socio-economic ecosystem and to guide European governments in gradually transitioning to a framework that is not predicated on captured GDP, but factors in informal care work and reproductive labor at large. This paradigmatic-value shift addresses current challenges, such as a shortage of care labor, and it fosters social well-being in general. Care labor is a major contributor to social stability and provides the base conditions for the interdependence and balance of a meaningful life, public health, and civic prosperity. ## **Support** [Creative Industries Fund NL](https://stimuleringsfonds.nl) has supported our development since 2018. At the time of writing, we received financial support from [Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst](https://www.amsterdamsfondsvoordekunst.nl) to begin field research in Amsterdam – a city that was thriving with diverse ways of living but now is under intensive gentrification progress. In the next phase, we aim to research how unorthodox communities organize their care network under the stress of rapid gentrification and intense mobility issues in the neighborhood. As research and trials have not yet been conducted, the numbers in the examples in this paper are thus conceptual and demonstrative. The project is still under development and we are enthusiastic to engage in discussion. Please contact us at with thoughts, criticisms, or questions. Official website: [reunionnetwork.org](https://www.reunionnetwork.org) # Text Summary The ideas presented here illustrate ReUnion’s design and research to date and current thoughts on the topics. The texts are presented as an interrelated series, in three parts. **PART I.** In the sections "Social Discrepancies at Stake" and "Our Response", we introduce the social conditions to which we are responding; the elements that we have created as our response; how this is different than other approaches to mass communication; and the aims we want to achieve. **PART II.** In the sections "Terms and Features", "Technology Employment", and "How it Works: User Journey", we outline the practicalities of the ReUnion Network. **PART III.** In the sections "ReUnion Philosophy", "Reflection Space", "Agreement Site", and "Welfare for the Commons", we describe our philosophy and mechanism design envisioned in the three spheres of ReUnion's ecosystem. We share this content with the understanding it will continue to develop and change and we will revise in accordance. These texts are intended to encourage serious and respectful discussion in any field and with any interested persons, while acknowledging that our current goal is to trial our proposal in existing intimate communities and conduct further research (quantitative and qualitative) to support deeper understandings, articulations, and applications of ReUnion’s propositions. # Social Discrepancies at Stake ## **The Nomads and the New Kinships** Many people today have moved away from their immediate family for education, work, or other reasons over which they may have little control. The move might be due to relocation, migration, or immigration, with permanent or temporary residence. With this movement, the traditional informal care provider, immediate family, and traditional kin become insufficient to people’s everyday need for care. Instead, people increasingly rely on those they encounter in their immediate lives. These people might include friends, flatmates, co-workers, neighbors, romantic partners, ex-romantic partners, and those fulfilling any level of intimacy between the significant- to less-significant-, yet *present*, other. The resulting networks of relationships become “new kinships”. The “new kinships” do not have an inherent order, nor does an institution – legal or otherwise, support them. They stem from fluctuating life periods and intermingled life spheres that are made common by the globalization and an era of communicative capitalism[\[2\]](/endnotes), rather than continuing in the life path[\[3\]](/endnotes) that was stereotypical to an industrial society[\[4\]](/endnotes). Whether exclusive or supplementary to immediate family relations, new kinships are crucial to everyday support systems, as movement and patterns of life are intensely diversified[\[5\]](/endnotes), for the very simple fact that everyone needs care. ## **The Gig Economy and Mass Burnout** However, new kinships are arguably harder to maintain. They require regular and committed exchanges of care to sustain, as they are not inherited by blood or backed by institutions. For the same reason, it is harder for people to make long-term “investment” to sustain new kinships. Not to mention that consistent effort is often contradictory to the nomadic lifestyle that has spurred the existence of new kinships in the first place. As the cost of living increases and under-waged freelance work expands, an increasing number of people drown in the rat race of the "Uberized" economy, in other words, the low-wage-gig economy running on corporate IT platforms. There is simply no time and energy to maintain these new kinship support systems and every attempt is costly. Omnipresent digital platforms produce mass burnout and profound loneliness by enabling information overload and hyper-connectivity. The exhausting demand for people to manage miscellaneous relationships that are ephemeral, erratic, transactional, and ambiguous is impending. This demand for connectivity, as formal or informal work, bleeds into all times and spaces of life. Collaborations, compromises, and investments in long-term relationships become a de facto cost to the committed individual. Fervent inclinations to quick shots of affective fulfillment with no-commitment-required abound. These low-bar, low-cost sources are conveniently tucked into the same devices and platforms that fuel the gig economy. Social fabrics, social spaces, and social identities tear as communication technologies fragment and re-organize our relations to infinitely re-produce measurable and data for profit, and not by us. Our relationships, dwellings, intimate realms, connections, communications, care, and feelings shared with others are reduced, subsumed, and privatized by tech corporations. There is no haven. ## **The Aging Society and Decline of Lifelong partnerships** Meanwhile, older populations are left behind in the excessively expanding metropolises with impermanent populations, or the ghost towns created by populations leaving to seek work. Instead of being able to rely on their children or stable and able communities, the elderly's daily needs for care and company are increasingly dependent on those of their own generation, such as their spouses, friends, and neighbors. These informal care networks become weakened due to people’s changing mental and physical capacities caused by aging, illness and, simply, death, as well as personal evolutions over time and spaces of life, including growing apart, relocation, divorce, and changing interests[\[6\]](/endnotes). Yet, as fewer people have a lifelong partnership, and an increasing number of people will be unable to rely on a spouse to be the main provider for care and companionship. Combined with the increased life expectancy, the current predicament of the elderly population will only become more widespread and intensified. There was never a time when people experienced such a prolonged senior life and the family as the main informal care provider without clear forms of sufficient formal organizational support from the state and market to supplement the informal structures. ## **The Privatization and Inequalities of Care** Care work, domestic labor, and reproductive labor at large were once shared among an extended family and community. As the nuclear family became the main social unit of society, this work of social reproduction has largely become the responsibility of a much smaller social unit. Further still, as we see an increase of the single working adult in contemporary urbanity, even smaller social units must shoulder this demanding labor. The increased amount of care work that falls on the shoulders of each person and family unit points to the on-going privatization, rather than socialization, of reproductive labor at large[\[7\]](/endnotes). This development creates the conditions for people to consider care labor as a private responsibility. With individual care burdens already high, asking another for help can be complicated: they already have their own responsibilities to manage. If one needs help, the straightforward solution is to get help from the market – to pay in exchange for a service – rather than asking for help from a close relative. The privatization of care work intensifies the unequal distribution of care across gender, race, class, and citizenship. While the demand is high, the low-wage care labor often leads to under-recognition of care worker and value of care, which makes it extremely difficult to invite a more diverse pool of people to join the work, even though care is universally needed and should be given and received by everyone. Such inequalities are also echoed across the sprawl of commoditized emotional labor in the broad sector of service-based work. The latter includes traditional jobs in hospitality, education, and healthcare, and in independent entrepreneurism, cultural sectors, and many specialized fields that increasingly require tasks of cross-disciplinary collaborations, administration, and management labor in addition to original roles, all the while in deepening precarious conditions. Emotional management has increasingly become more than an asset to occasionally be called upon; instead, it is a standard requirement for job applications that are not (explicitly) financially recognized. The privatization of care work (in the broadest sense) has expanded from physical labor to cognitive labor, alienating individuals from the inside out[\[8\]](/endnotes). # Our response In the context of these paradigmatic shifts, ReUnion Network becomes more than speculation. We are an actionable and sustainable proposal to resist the multifarious crises of our atomized and aging societies. We design a technological system that embraces the multiplicity of relationships and lays out the conditions for people to create a mesh network of stable caring relationships[\[9\]](/endnotes) for their everyday and long-term well-being. ReUnion gives organizational and economic support to people in freely formed self-initiated and user-governed social support systems. We must steward care as the precious and common resource that it is. In other words, we design for commons-based peer-to-peer care communities. ## Commoning by P2P Care We use commons to refer to an ongoing, energized ecology of the network community, with care as its shared resource and that runs on peer-determined principles. These principles are protected via an interpersonal agreement that is regularly revisited and a technological design that avoids the possibility of data exploitation and appropriation. Through the ecosystem of ReUnion, these principles are made visible and supportable by society and within governance that the network grows. Rethinking the ways in which we value care work and emotional labor is critical to repair these damages, to pay fair wages, and to account more appropriately for the new forms of productive forces and social units of our new kinships. This is why ReUnion explores new ways of measuring energy and time spent in relationships and with ourselves. Therefore, ReUnion is dedicated to becoming a welfare system that supports and strengthens interpersonal relationships. ## Individuation not Individualization It is often said that contemporary social media has harvested a deeply narcissistic culture. At first glance, this might appear to be true. After all, a large proportion of social media features are designed to fulfill individuals’ desires for attention. Social media indulges users with a personalized aggregation of endless content. What we see on our screens are reflections of our existing beliefs and preferences. As such, we typically do not have to confront or manage challenges to our preferred realities. This user-centered design attempts to provide a solution for every potential human vulnerability that might break this mirror, so that users may avoid discontinuities and difficulties within themselves. Under the guise of an objective filter, the algorithmic sorting of information based on our behavioral data of contemporary popular social media convinces users that what is displayed is the truth we need to know. This approach paralyzes our ability to understand and negotiate beyond our own vantage point, into the reality of the multifaceted, sometimes conflicting, frameworks of the world and others’ positions. We understand this as an issue with media individualizing, atomizing users, by demarcating informational specifics (emotional and unemotional), reflecting it back to us and out into mass social networks as additional affirmation. A person is not grounded in anything so that one’s identity collapses into everything it meets in its own continuity. Psychologically, users are locked in a cognitive stage unable to distinguish themselves from others, struggling to separate from their groups yet having the urge to belong at the same time. This is felt in every itch to connect. Users are on the hunt for the filling of our details, of our story. We are all just seeking a clean, well-lighted screen (that also tracks our usage so we can keep trying to be our best selves). Individualization is different from individuation[\[10\]](/endnotes), which we use to refer to the ongoing process of understanding oneself as distinct from others, and thus, intrinsically, in relation to and existing by other things. This lends itself to people distinctly connecting with others. In most mass communication, users neither approach the individuation process nor are able to engage with the world with some perspective on the world: through the lens of social media, our perspective is *the* world. Staying in such information architecture means that we will not have the capacity to create and maintain a functioning relationship and that we are subjected to guardianship by mass communication platforms—not only practically, but also mentally. ## The Mutual Cultivation of the Individual and the Commons We believe that one can only have good relationships with others when they have a good relationship with themselves. The resilient health of the individual’s psyche is a cornerstone for a sustainable and meaningful commons, as it is the fundamental condition for one to safely and autonomously engage with and support others. Expanding from the base of strongly supported individuals, ReUnion fosters its bottom-up interpersonal network around the resource of care, reflecting the unique and evolving social conditions and care labor. Crucially, within this expansion, the ReUnion Network refutes the abstraction of users and their relations into measurable datasets. This is a direct avoidance of the behaviors of most tech corporations, which seize and privatize the free spaces and communities of network platforms by capturing social exchanges via the accumulations of network patterns that emerge from users’ interpersonal connections. We foster a commons for care grounded in users embodying the non-measurable relationship with themselves, from which they can judge their fluctuating capacities to give and receive care within collaboratively determined ownership and distribution models. ## **Digital Technology as a Means for Collaborative Policy Reform** ReUnion Network is a socio-economic proposal that is channeled through digital technology. Our proposal contains multiple leaps from the status quo and a continuing scheme of changing society. While other tools for social activism, such as protest can help provide immediate ruptures, they can be difficult to directly translate into systemic change; and, working within political systems, including election or legal demands, are often too slow and inaccessible to penetrate for quick enough effects. Digital technology, on the other hand, has extensively and quickly changed the social, organizational, and economic layers of our lives. As well, digital technology has the ability to navigate between, if not beyond, the frames of states, industries, and populations. While bearing in mind that these capacities of digital technology do not always produce positive outcomes if not carefully designed and regulated, ReUnion Network borrows the power of digital technology to move towards the establishment of flexible institutional practices that will take account of civil life with equitable nuance. ## Supporting User Agency by Conservative Digital Guidance As we are keenly aware of the radicalism of ReUnion’s proposal, we have set out cautious, attentive, even conservative principles for the digital design. The first principle is recognizing the responsibility and inevitable flaws of a system for human relationships. Instead of treating the ReUnion Network system as occupying a universal, objective, and unembodied point-of-view, we understand the ReUnion Network system to represent a vantage point from that of a third person who has certain privileges and responsibilities. This understanding is crucial for the functionalities that imply interference, cognitive and behavioral guidance, and gatekeeping. Algorithmic prediction and recommendation features are employed with great caution, because such prompts erode the space for users to observe and reflect for themselves. They also lower the opportunity for learning sensitivity to and awareness of other parties with whom they are involved. Algorithmic prediction and recommendation features deprive both parties of their designated site to act and negotiate, as well as the possible outcomes that emerge from the specific relationship, unique in its time, place, and capacity. Similar concerns also apply to UX design, in which we need to seek a balance between accessibility and directability of a system to prevent people from becoming passive users. ## Approach to Personal Data To address these problems of UX design and algorithmic prediction, we need to go back to the very beginning: how data – the source materials of a functioning digital system – is created. Data is never an objective existence. It does not "just" record what happens. More so, it presents a gaze and a narrative: what will be observed as valuable, how it will be measured and reduced as it is translated into data, how does the data being read and judged, who is reading it, where is the reader situated in the power structure and who is part of the design. Stories of how technology reinforces social injustices have been shared in news media. Too often, these biases begin at the time when the gaze - a point of abstraction - is set in position to tell its narrative. The challenge for ReUnion Network is not only to find a different way to gaze at a relationship – an intangible and invisible entity - but also how to gaze in an ethical way. We are keenly aware that our approach to information security will affect our design. Moreover, we place much importance on threat modeling and articulating our accountability and accessibility. Because we are in an early developmental stage, this process will unfold as we conduct community research and determine exactly what information is needed, then determine the best way to document and structure it, before its encryption on a private server. # Terms and Features ### Contract Contracts in ReUnion is a software program that records interpersonal agreements and manages ReUnion currencies that are generated from the exchange between the two people. A contract is created by at least one user and made of agreement content and a checkpoint. All contracts are encrypted and are not on blockchain. ### First Contract Stage (CS-1) First Contract Stage/ First-Stage Contract (CS-1): All contracts that are unilaterally created starting at the CS-1. It is private to the user and does not demand the responsibility of other users. CS-1 is for personal reflection. A CS-1 contract can also be a bilateral one when the user invites their partner to pair with the contract, and their partner accepts it. ### Personal Token A Personal Token (PT) is a token that is uniquely generated for a user when the user creates an Activity contract. A PT is non-fungible, and can only be owned by the user who generates them. A PT can have two statuses: non-monetary (symbolic) and monetary. The PT can only be owned by the assigned user. All Personal Tokens, regardless of status, are not tradable and cannot circulate. ### Non-monetary Personal Token (symbolic PT) All Personal Tokens begin as a symbolic token that has no monetizable value. A non-monetary PT is stored in a CS-1 Relationship (CS-1) contract, including a Self-Relationship contract. ### Monetary Personal Token (monetized/validated PT) A monetary PT can exist in all contract stages. PTs attain a monetary value when their owner deposits fiat money. A monetized PT can be combined with another monetized PT from a different owner and become a Composite Coin. The PTs that are returned after Composite Coins dissolve maintain value, but as PTs, they are not tradable in the system. Users may trade them again by composing a new Composite Coin with other PT owners. ### Second Contract Stage (CS-2) Second Contract Stage/ Second-Stage Contract (CS-2): when two users accept a contract, it becomes a Second-Stage Contract. Users must use monetized PTs to validate the CS-2 contract. The deposited money is the starting fund for the relationship and may be used to purchase goods and services. The CS-2 gives space for an autonomous investment of the relationships by the contract partners. This may also be used as an automated management tool for group insurance or a communal fund, through a collection of P2P contracts. ### Composite Coin A Composite Coin (CC) is a social currency that is uniquely composed of the Personal Tokens of two users. CC is the only tradable currency circulating in the system, and can only create through a CS-2 or CS-3 Relationship Contract. CCs are used to validate the contracts between the two PT owners, and can only be spent with the mutual consent of the two users. A CC as a combined currency represents a unit of value, which can be used to record the deposit from the PT owner or to receive an equivalent sum of subsidy. When a contract ends, the associated CC will be liquidated based on prior agreements (if applicable), history of activity and ReUnion liquidity policy, and return as PTs accordingly to PT owners[\[11\]](broken://pages/-LzsDJj6KT5_c0pWH1ZC#footnote-11). ### Third Contract Stage (CS-3) Third Contract Stage/ Third-Stage Contract (CS-3): A CS-3 is eligible for government subsidies. The contract is eligible for subsidies based on a history of a CS-2 and an agreement for its continuation for a set period, as designated by the related funding body’s policy. In this stage, all transactions must be validated through Proof-of-Relations. Each PT owner will have a limited amount of slots to create CS-3. ### Proof-of-Relations Proof-of-Relations is a social-driven authentication method[\[12\]](/endnotes) that is mandatory for creating a CS-3 contract. It asks six users who share a CS-2 or CS-3 contract with either or both PT owners of the intended contract[\[13\]](/endnotes). We do not include an additional reward incentive for people to make a proof-of-relations and we aim for this to be anonymous. ### Self-Relationship Contract Self-Relationship Contract is a mandatory contract for each ReUnion user, which does not require another user to participate. Self-Relationship can exist in CS-1 and can only store PTs (symbolic and monetary) so far. ### Relationship Contract Relationship is one of two contract types in the ReUnion system. It is made by a single user (unilateral CS-1) or two users (bilateral CS-1, CS-2, and CS-3). A Relationship contract manages the belonging Activity contracts and the circulation of CCs that are associated with it. ### Activity Contract An Activity is the second contract type in the ReUnion system. It records a transaction within a Relationship contract that allows the PT owner(s) to create and manage tasks. Activities are usually short term and finished when both the PT owner(s) agree that they are satisfactorily completed[\[14\]](/endnotes). The exchanges of Activities will generate PTs and contribute to the value of CCs based on the agreement in the Relationship contract. ### Personal Token owner (PT owner) Personal Token owner is the person who holds Personal Tokens that are uniquely linked to their account. PT owner can only hold their own PT and use their own PT to combine CCs and create contracts with others. PT owner in this paper also refers to “one party of the mentioned/targeted contract”. ### Checkpoint A Checkpoint is the end date of the contract's validity[\[15\]](/endnotes). All contracts, regardless of which type and stage they are in, are required to set a Checkpoint. All Relationship contracts in CS-2 and CS-3 must begin with a one-year validity[\[16\]](/endnotes). Activity contracts are not bound by the one-year validity rule. After both parties accept the Checkpoint, users are not able to change the terms of the contract until the Checkpoint is reached unless an emergency suspension is triggered. When a contract approaches the Checkpoint, ReUnion Network will suggest to the users to discuss their relationship status and decide to extend, revise, or terminate the contract. ### Emergency Suspension Emergency Suspension is an emergency mechanism when violence or excessive breaches of an agreement is reported by either one or both of the PT owners, or a user who is outside of the targeted contract but has a CS-2 or CS-3 contract with one of the PT owners in the case of the PT owner is physically or mentally disabled. ### Undivided Attention (Time) Undivided Attention is a type of time recognized in the ReUnion system in which people expect a continuous block of concentrated time for one issue. ### Routine (Time) Routine is a type of time recognized in the ReUnion system, and people expect a (relatively) small amount of time for similar issues that repeatedly take place in a (relatively) short period, such as daily routine, once a week or month. ### In The Mind (Time) In The Mind is a type of time recognized in the ReUnion system in which people spend time thinking, exploring, feeling, emotionally processing, an issue, or a relationship. The measure of this category of time is not subjected to the universal metric of day, hour, and minute. # Technology Employment In this section, we explain the technological choices we have made. ### Web-based Application ReUnion Network will be developed as a mobile-first browser-based application. We want to develop a web application instead of a native app to reach the greatest possible amount of users and support the greatest range of hardware and operating systems. Currently, we intend to connect with the legacy of the D-CENT project, given our aligned ethics towards digital technology. We plan to build a lean React web client that communicates with Freecoin and the Social Wallet api, as well as a custom api to manage non-blockchain business processes, like storing user information, settings, and non-financial user interactions. Managing user information on our own set of backend services that are not on a public p2p network is an important aspect of GDPR compliance and security in general. This api can make use of and work in communication with the D-CENT ecosystem, using Stonecutter single sign-on. In terms of managing payments, we plan to integrate SecurionPay as a fiat payment gateway, and Coingate as a cryptocurrency payment gateway. The current Proof-of-Concept is a native app (Android and iOS) that is constructed with the Unity Pro framework. It is built exclusively for demonstrative purposes. We choose to use Unity Pro for the Proof-of-Concept because it is the most efficient choice based on the limitations of our current resources. ### Distributed Ledger Technology / Blockchain ReUnion Network is currently using blockchain, a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) as its technological backbone. As ReUnion Network's key features concern contract making and fund distribution, blockchain can provide technically for both. DLT comprises non-redactable databases that are maintained by a peer-to-peer network of computers that agree, using one of a variety of byzantine fault-tolerant consensus algorithms, on the authenticity and state of a ledger. This process, usually called mining, authenticates the sender of a record and results in network-wide consensus about the execution of transactions. Because this process results in a single source of truth, it is easy to use DLT to validate an agreement, which is increasingly recognized by legal authorities. Newer generations of DLT can implement smart contracts, which are miniature programs that execute on top of the blockchain infrastructure. Smart contracts allow for more complex forms of information to be stored on blockchains and for more complex logic to be executed. We intended to use the D-CENT toolbox[\[17\]](broken://pages/-LzsDJj6KT5_c0pWH1ZC#footnote-17), which provides an api that simulates many of the functions commonly found in smart contracts for making and generating PTs, as well as distributing funds and subsidies to caring relationships (i.e. CCs). Additionally, with the D-CENT toolkit, ReUnion Network can securely provide crowd-sourced insights for policymaking and even legal reform that pertains to interpersonal matters. Thus, ReUnion reflects the present and particular care requirements of local communities, from the bottom up. While blockchain can currently support our technological needs, we are not wholly attached to blockchain technology. If another technology proves more effective and secure for our aims for social welfare, we would consider moving our project to it. We are keenly aware of the importance of making a threat model and addressing our approach to information security, accountability, and accessibility. Because we are in an early developmental stage, this process will unfold as we conduct community research and determine exactly what information will exist in the network. We understand this will be informed by the collaborating civic body and that this will inform our system design. # How it Works: User Journey Please note that because we have not yet started conducting field research with communities, the numbers in the examples are conceptual and demonstrative. The web application is currently under develo A new user can join ReUnion Network on its web application. The system will first ask them to set up a relationship contract with themselves (see section Terms and Features for contract types). This Self-Relationship contract serves as an onboarding tool and the key relationship for the user to share their time and feelings with others. When the user creates activities for themselves, they receive Personal Tokens under their Self-Relationship contract. `Ari joins ReUnion Network. She sets up her first relationship, which is with herself. She creates five activities in her Self-Relationship. She receives five Ari Tokens, or PTs, in the Self-Relationship wallet.‌ Her PTs have no value yet, as they have never combined with other people’s PTs.` After setting up their Self-Relationship, the user can add more relationships in which they are currently involved. All these relationships are created as wallets, and are, by default, in the first contract stage (CS-1)*.* Creating a relationship does not require a notification to the partner. CS-1 is only for the user's personal reflection and does not connect to other users. All the activities in the CS-1 will generate one of the user’s PT. `Ari puts in five relationships in which they are currently engaged. These include the following: a romantic relationship with Devin, which has five activities; a flat-sharing relationship with Frankie, which has three activities; a parental care relationship with Elliot, which has two activities; and, a childcare relationship with Dorian and Harper, which has eight activities. Ari receives 18 more Ari Tokens (PTs), which are stored accordingly to each relationship. In total, Ari has 23 PTs: 18 PTs related to her relationships detailed above, and five PTs related to her relationship with herself. Since Ari has not sent any of these relationships or activities to the associated person, these contracts are on CS-1 and only for Ari’s self-reflections.` The system will simulate the user's emotional state and the time-spent situation by reconciling all their relationship status. If the user has too little time in the Self-Relationship, or if any or all of their relationships have too little time, the system will suggest for the user to consider re-organizing their relationships by negotiating with their partners. The suggestion to negotiate with their partner does not instigate an action between two users. Rather, the system prompts the user to self-reflect and consider taking a conscious step toward the shared relationship arena, an arena of consent between two users. ![ReUnion application screens](/files/-LzwDHhAj4Lc8w8m1t9J) #### Making Interrelations At any point, if the relationship time allocations are appropriate, the user can select the relationships and send invitations to their partners for discussion. During the discussions process, both parties will be able to see each other's reflections about the relationship (see Part I). They may use these reflections as a starting point to negotiate and edit the content of the relationship together. Although the system provides chatting and co-editing functions, it always strongly recommends offline conversations before sending an invitation and starting the relationship-editing process. Both parties then consent to a version of relationship content. They must also set up a C*heckpoint* for the relationship agreement. A Checkpoint is the date and time until the agreed-upon content is locked and valid. After the content and Checkpoint of the relationship are set, an interpersonal contract is created. In order to validate the contract, both parties must deposit their fiat currency into their associated PTs and combine these PTs to compose a Composite Coin (hereafter CC)*.* The moment when the CC is composed, the relationship enters a *Second Contract Stage* (hereafter CS-2). `Ari and Frankie decide to put together a small fund for taking care of the house and domestic work. They discuss the arrangement with each other and reach an agreement. They deposit a small amount of money (in domestic currency, or fiat money) to their own PTs, which they use to compose a CC for their agreement. Their agreement becomes a CS-2 contract. Ari conducts the same process with Devin in their romantic relationship.` The CC is the only monetizable currency in the ReUnion Network. It can be spent only when both parties agree to the payment. In the CS-2, users can use the CC to organize an interpersonal fund or communal fund and purchase services from local care work cooperatives. `Ari wants to discuss domestic work with Frankie. She selects the flat-sharing relationship she previously created and invites Frankie to join ReUnion Network. Frankie accepts the invitation and sets up their account as Ari did. When they enter the relationship with Ari, both Ari and Frankie see each other’s color reflection and time spent. After discussions about each other’s situation and understanding of the relationship, they make a new arrangement between them. When they set up a Checkpoint for their new arrangement, the system will ask them to put in a certain amount of PTs, which they need to deposit money to validate the PTs. After the PTs are validated, they will be combined to compos Ari-Frankie Coins, or CCs. The CCs vouch for their relationship to become a CS-2 contract. This contract is then eligible for receiving self-organized community funding and paying for related services.` The Checkpoint is a mechanism to maintain the vitality of a relationship and serves as a reminder that consent is an ongoing negotiation, not a permanent rule. When a contract arrives at a Checkpoint, both parties (the PT owners) should discuss whether they would like to revise and/or extend their contract. If they do not arrive at a consensus, or if no action is taken, the contract will expire. The accumulated CCs will be automatically liquidated according to prior settings made by the users or distributed to the users based on the activities that each user has done. The CCs will be returned as PTs and will be stored under the Self-Relationship contract. ![ReUnion application screens](/files/-LzwDh0qzT8Us5lJV5rU) #### Uniting with Civic Structures When a contract is executed for one year and is ready to continue for at least one more year, the contract is eligible to enter the *Third Contract Stage* (CS-3). Importantly, CS-3 contracts will be available for government subsidy. In addition to using CC, contracts in CS-3 need to be validated by a gatekeeping mechanism called Proof of Relations. In this process, a contract needs to be vouched for by six other users who have CS-2 or CS-3 contracts with either or both PT owners. The set of terms for validation will be determined by further research trials by ReUnion and in discussion with the pertinent governing body and their legal parameters. `After 1 year, Ari and Frankie’s contract has reached its Checkpoint. They decide to let their contract expire because Frankie is moving away. Over the past year, Ari has completed 45 activities for Frankie and Frankie did 42 for Ari. They also spent 20 CCs with local cooperatives for house cleaning. When their contract expires, they have [(45+42)/2 - 20]= 23.5 CCs left. After the contract expires, Ari will receive 12.15 Ari Tokens (PTs) and Frankie receives 11.35 Frankie Tokens (PTs).` `At the same time, Ari and Devin decide to extend their contract and shift it to the CS-3. Ari asks Elliot, Dorian, and Harper to vouch for their Ari-Devin contract. Devin also asks three people from their CS-2 and CS-3 contract network to vouch for their contract with Ari. After six people vouch for the Ari-Devin contract, it becomes a CS-3 contract and is ready to receive a subsidy.` If contract violation is reported by one of the parties, such as abuse, violence, or unforeseen consequences, the contract will be suspended. The reporter can choose to contact the following for arbitration: a) a third user who has a CS-2 or CS-3 with both parties; b) a local care work cooperative; c) an independent arbitrator; or d) law enforcement. The contract may resume activity when the disputes are resolved or it may permanently expire after a certain amount of time, depending on the nature of the contract or the prior settings by the users. ‌Local care work cooperatives also serve as a service point for addressing loneliness. People who are in an isolated situation and cannot find another PT-owner with whom to combine their PT for social support, they may request a collaborator from a cooperative. With this collaborator, they may combine their PT to make a CC. This serves as a way to help people who may be atomized and facing difficulties with loneliness to start building a social support system. `Frankie moves to a new city, where he only knows their co-workers. He accesses the local cooperatives working with ReUnion in the app. He goes to one of the local cooperatives and meets Jayden, a social worker of the cooperative, who helps him to get to know the city. Frankie and Jayden put in 10 PTs respectively to form a CS-2 contract and compose 10 Frankie-Jayden CCs. At the end of the year, with Jayden’s help, Frankie finds new friends in the city and forms new social contracts. Jayden and Frankie decide to end their previous CS-2 contract and form a new CS-1 contract as a souvenir for the last year. Over the year of their relationship contract, Jayden helped Frankie 23 times and Frankie returned two favors for Jayden, who receives [23/ (23+2)] x [(23 x 2)/2] = 11.5 PTs and the 10 PTs they previously deposited. Frankie receives 1 PT and the deposited 10 PTs.` # ReUnion System Philosophy ReUnion Network is a technology designed for interpersonal relationships. All its communicative elements are circulated within one-on-one relationships. We do not intend to make this interpersonal communication accessible beyond its own scope. As such, the ReUnion system aims to be inherently resistant to surveillance and algorithmic abuses that require universal legibility to function. This resistance is particularly important for ReUnion to be a safe space for people to explore themselves and their committed relationships. With this aim, ReUnion Network uses *relationship as the basic unit of design, instead of an individual user*. The design focuses on interpersonal relationships as the base unit for a few reasons. *1. Support individuation development.* In the ReUnion system, people only enter and act on the platform from the relationship contract with themselves. By seeing a relationship with oneself, rather than set of informational description forming a single user archetype, we can understand that, primarily, we are a distinct entity from our social manifestation, yet, act by and with our social relations. As well, we are reminded that our abilities and identity change every day. Despite this change, we are still a person whose existence requires receiving and giving, and that there are others to act within a response to this. This is crucial for acting meaningfully in concert with others. Only by orienting first in vulnerability, and not as a point of negativity, can we create a commons of care, a social exchange not for accumulating production, but of provisioning and supporting fundamental conditions of all life. 2\. *Flexibility in relationships to evolve, not dissolve*: Relationships with others in the system are only able to be entered into with a contract that requires a discussion of what each person thinks that relationship is at that time of the agreement, and what actions it might be a part of it. There is no user profile, just the shared discussion. By not having a fixed identity within the relationship, both parties can more easily imagine and explore different ways to relate to each other and play different roles for ourselves and for the other in the relationship. This encourages being flexible and receptive to change, which is inevitable in life, and encouraging more understanding of whether or not relations have a long temporal life. 3\. *Open-form structural narratives* We design our system with an awareness of the potential developing power structures with the aim to maintain stability. While power itself may always generate greater inequality and instability, ReUnion attempts to challenge the dichotomy of the individual (atomization) and the community (collectivism). We propose a continuous mesh network of P2P long-term relationships can inspire a flexible and resilient commons. Theoretically, every party in a one-on-one relationship has 50/50 veto power, which means an interpersonal contract cannot be established if not all parties are consenting. If a community were organized through a cluster of interpersonal relationships, ideally the chances of marginalization of power due to the management structure would be much smaller. It also makes it easier to ‘fork’ a community if one or a few would like to organize in different terms, as solidarity may be realized in P2P relations that do not require a mass consensus of a single narrative. The concept of community becomes decentralized: an open-border construct that emerges from long-term interpersonal commitments and without the need to rely on a single structural narrative. In addition, because the decentralization exists in a multifarious network of peer-to-peer relationships, everyone in the community has an equally substantial agency. The design accommodates the living dynamism and ever-changing complexities and abilities that manifest through relations, unique in each moment of time, place, and conditions of exchange. By employing interpersonal relationships as the front and backend base unit, we aim to distinguish people from their relations and employ their agency in building a network constituted by situated, peer-to-peer exchanges that affect flexible structural and relationship narratives*.* ReUnion can be understood as a system that sprawls across the personal contentment to the well-being of the commons. In the following sections, we will describe the practical details of each part of the system, and discuss the philosophy and intentions behind the design. Despite discussing them separately by their functions, they are dependent components. In terms of user experience, one may not feel any gap between the three parts. It is important to note that all the design choices are in the prototype stage; they are subjected to change as community research and usability progress. # Reflection Space #### Summary The Reflection Space is the first venue where a new ReUnion Network user will enter, and it is where the user dashboard exists throughout the entire platform. It provides a self-reflective environment that brings the user's attention to their current state of being and the status of their relationships. The Reflection Space is the cornerstone of the entire system, as individual development and relational health promise are not only key instigators for user actions but also the fundamental drive of the system. The Reflection Space is also the most experimental venue in which ReUnion experiment new approaches to data design, network value, identity, and the future of labor, in response to the social discrepancies we face. While more features and experiments remain in the exploratory stage, here we discuss how most of these experiments mostly render in the two prime metrics in the Reflection Space: Time and Feeling. The Reflection Space hopes to give the drive for users to focus on their internal well-being and organize their lives accordingly, and offer a systematic context for people to feel encouraged to ask for help when needed with interpersonal agreements and the relationship-based currencies. #### #### # What does it do? ## Features Description A user can use the Reflection Space (hereafter 'the Space) to: * Set up a relationship with themselves (Self-relationship) * Create Relationships with time and feeling estimation * Accept Relationships by invitations * See the Relationship map * Create activities, or accept invitations * See the Activity log * See a colorful radius that reflects the current time and mental state * Create a calendar of Feeling and Relationships * Receive Burnout Notices when they have too little time for themselves When a new user joins ReUnion Network, the system will first ask *how does the user would like to call themselves*, and then create their first relationship, which is the relationship with themselves (Self-relationship, CS-1). In the Relationship, the user can write a description about the relationship (as contract content), use a color to describe how they feel about the relationship, estimate the types of time they have been spending on it, and set up a Checkpoint in which allow them to revisit the all the mentioned details. After created the Self-Relationship, they can add Activity under this Relationship, which they can place under tasks to be done. As an Activity is created, the user receives a Personal Token that the system uniquely generates for them. The user can add other Relationships (CS-1) and Activities (CS-1) in the same way, without necessarily connecting other associated people, and receive non-monetary PTs accordingly. As the user enters a new Relationship, a personal mesh of colors based on their inputs (color of each relationship, the amount of time and types of time in each relationship, etc.) will be rendered into a three-layered concentric rings that are presented in the dashboard ‘How are you?’ The Self-Relationship is important for users to be aware of their personal well-being. Not only the Self-Relationship asks the user’s attention to themselves as a default and non-dissolvable contract, but it also triggers burnout notice when it receives too *little* time. When a user might slip into a burnout situation, the system then will suggest the user reorganize their time, which may imply reorganizing other Relationships and adding new Relationships with which they can share works and tasks. Most of the communication in the Reflection Space is unilateral and self-reflective unless the user explicitly chooses to invite the other person to the Relationship. When a user decided to do so, the system will strongly suggest a proactive personal communication before the user sends the invitation. ### **Three types of time** There are three ways to describe the way a user spends their time in the relationship and in activities: Undivided Attention (a block of time spent on concentrated work); Routine (such as repeated labor for maintaining a relationship); and In The Mind (such as the time for thinking, feeling, and generally emotional labor)[\[19\]](/endnotes). Three types of time are symbolically illustrated as the three layers of the concentric rings, without having a proper mathematical definition of how the data is considered and visualized, because the concept is still largely experimental and needs substantial research and test to support its feasibility. For this reason, the three types of time are not considered to contribute to the value of PT and CC at this development phase. ### **Color-marking Feeling** The system asks users to describe in color how they feel about each of their relationships and to describe in one of the three styles (see above) how they spend their time in it. The color is defined by the users' intuition at that moment. The system does not label the meaning of the color, and it does not ask the user to label or define the color. Instead, we create an interface that consists of a colorful and fluctuating wave-like emotional sphere and three layers of time that orbit around the sphere. The waves mark the intensity of the feelings and the color mix of the sphere represents the user's current state of mind. The system records only the RGB value that the user selects. The color does not need to be meaningful or comprehensible to anyone but the person themselves, most likely also only within the proximity of that moment. The color of a Relationship, however, can be visible when PT owner who marked the color is willing to share it with the other PT owner. People that are outside of a Relationship cannot see any information, including the colors, about the Relationship. The color directly contributes to the mesh of the color of the concentric rings. The rings are shown in the Relationship views in which the user can have an intuitive feeling towards their status. Similar to the three types of time approach, the color marking is still a conceptual attempt that lacks proper research on its ways of visualization and feasibility. Therefore, it does contribute to the value of PT and CC but remains important in contextualizing the conversation between two PT owners. ### **Burnout Notice** Following our design principle, the system provides very limited guidance for users to view their statuses. The way we structure the data aims to make an intuitive/intimate connection between the user and the data they produce, for which no one else can make an authentic judgment about the meaning of the data. Therefore, we offer very limited instruction for users to understand their statuses. Burnout notice is a very limited guidance for the user’s personal well-being. Currently, two kinds of situations will trigger a burnout notice: 1. When the user spends minimal time[\[20\]](/endnotes) on the Self-Relationship; 2. When one’s overall time becomes too fragmented (that is, if all the relationships have too little time)[\[21\]](/endnotes). The notification relating to burnout risk provides its specific reason(s) to the user for them to consider and to share with their partners via their interpersonal agreements. This can become the context from which they reorganize their way of living together if the user wants to. # Why design such ways? ## **The Identity, the Psyche, and the Social** The details of the UX in Reflection Space are designed to ask the user to make a distinction between their identity, their psyche, and their social relationships. Asking how the user would like to call themselves, instead of asking for a user name, brings attention to the gap between the self and the identity that exists by others and institutions. The relationship with the self points to the gap between the Self and the Self Concept[\[22\]](/endnotes), in other words, how one currently views and feels about oneself does not define who they are and their potentials. However, the gap between individuals and their committed relationships furthers the idea that one’s self is not limited by social relations and attached identities. This is important as the current UX mainly focuses on a person’s single identity and streamlines user experience based on the assumption of such identity. With these attempts to structure a proper mental space between the identity, the self, and the social, ReUnion tries to explore a UX that supports one’s plural and non-linear evolving beings. There is also a distinction between Relationships and Activities. This is to underscore that, in practice, a relationship is often expressed through the exchanges of activities, while the sum of all activities does not equate to a relationship. On the other hand, a user can create a Relationship unilaterally but cannot do the same in Activity (except for the Activities in the Self-Relationship), as the latter requires correspondences between two people. This also points to the phantasmal element of a relationship in which people cooperate part of their fantasy into their projection of their partner - but this fantasy and distortion do not need to share, nor deny. Rather, it is important to have the gray space in which people can exercise their (shadow) Self through (half-) fantasized relationships before entering a committed one, which addressed through activities[\[23\]](/endnotes). These layers create an enriched mental space for the Self of the users, allowing them to navigate their ongoing individuation process. These steps are essential for the users to balance their life and with the help of others, and that they can be a more realized person to connect and help others in a sustainable way. Hence, the user journey of ReUnion Network begins and ends with a Reflection Space in which users’ internal well-being is in the center of their attention. Insofar the Space is constructed with two dimensions, time, and emotions, to respond to the societal syndromes we mentioned which take effects on the individual’s psyche and helping people to resist those influences. ## **Time and the future of work** With the three types of time, we want to challenge the idea that time is solely linear, confined to set spaces, and in which it can be measured as a one-dimensional unit. Particularly in immaterial, emotional and care labor, which is often ambiguous in our personal, work, and non-work spheres, time is difficult to account for. The multiplicity of timelines in the app is intended to foster discussions about the quality of the use of time and the quality of our relationships: how can we better attribute wages in an era when an increasing amount of labor is cognitive and emotional. We emphasize the importance of non-work, non-waged - *unquantifiable* - time and support users to create more of it for themselves, within their relationships, and with the social support of their networks and the supporting institutional bodies. ## **Color as encrypted emotions** We move away from emojis and Like buttons that are designed for the automation of emotional labor and user data collection. The color marking is a method we borrow from clinical psychiatry treatment and is a form of art therapy. When a person is very analytical and is alienated from their emotions, they can be asked to use colors to describe how they feel. In doing so, they are able to identify and understand what the feeling is. By being able to identify their feelings, which are the body’s reaction to information, they can begin to build intimacy with their experience in the world, without over-identifying with the information they are confronted with – one premise of anxiety. Instead, they can act autonomously, rather than in a reactionary state of anxiety often encouraged by the demands of most social media and systems of precariousness today. Color marking has many advantages. First, it aims to create an intimate illustration of the user's state of mind so that they can be more attentive to their needs, as opposed to a system using a universal measurement to judge whether a user is healthy or not. In this way, we return the power of judgment to users. Second, color marking helps foster a more caring and open attitude between users during the negotiation process. This is because there is not an immediately legible translation of the base information of the contract - the feelings as color (as opposed to, 5-stars or a thumbs up). Prompting a discussion to listen and learn from each other, the relationship starts from open questions and potentially avoids quick judgments and assumptions. Third, it supports exploration of a different kind of "encryption" by subjective dataset, in which the data does not have a common key in the backend- i.e., each color has a different meaning to each user. This meaning is not defined by the user in the app. The inconsistent index for the signifier and the signified (\[color: yellow] = \[any feeling]) makes it impossible for the system to use the data for judgment or prediction. As well, it is a highly inefficient dataset for surveillance. Therefore, theoretically, such a system produces bad data for machines but good data for humans. ## Ebbs and Flows of Being, and Being with Others ReUnion encourages color marking as an ongoing practice of self-awareness and emotional intimacy by user accounts only being able to be made through the creation of a relationship with oneself in the form of a contract - the base unit for all users and system design. With these two axes of our first design iteration, we attempt to challenge the simplified and linear view of the current social media platforms, regarding our relationships. We attempt to design different points of abstraction, i.e. asking for subjective and temporal data that only communicates within the present relationship (such as subjective color marks and self-estimated time measurement), as opposed to collecting universal behavioral data from the users. By doing so, we hope to create a digital environment that views interpersonal relationships as fluid, multifaceted and subjective. # Agreement Site ## Summary The Agreement Site is closely connected to the Reflection Space. As the Reflection Space is largely centered on the intimate reflection of the user's personal situation, while the Agreement Site helps the user to reorganize with the help of others by making new contract agreements via the Agreement Site. New contract agreements will feedback to the Reflection Space, which allows the user to see how the new agreement will affect their individual situation.‌ The Agreement Site is a venue to formalized care commitment between people who already know each other and may have given care for each other. It does not provide features to match and meet new people, except for connecting users to local care cooperatives. The Site focuses on providing assistance in efficiently creating agreements, and sets up micro-funds to support the relationship’s well-being, caring for each other, and expenses that may be derived from the relationship. # What does it do? ## Feature Description A user can use the Agreement Site (hereafter 'the Site) to: * Invite another user for a contract (Relationship or Activity, same as the follow) * Chat with users who already have a contract * Create a contract * Create a contract with agreement template * Edit a contract * Collaboratively edit a contract with the other PT owner * Accept, pending or decline a contract invitation * Suspend the contract for an emergency situation * Ask for arbitration When a user has a need to discuss a relationship with their partner, they can invite them to join ReUnion to pair with them. If their partner accepts the pairing, a CS-1 Relationship contract is created. If the user already has a Relationship with this partner, they can also choose to change the unilateral contract into a bilateral one. They can edit the Relationship together, with agreement temples offered by ReUnion if they wish, create Activities under the Relationship, and receive symbolic PTs for their exchanges. Although the system provides chatting and co-editing functions, it strongly recommends engaging in person-to-person conversations before sending out invitations and beginning the relationship-editing process. If the two people want to create a mutual fund for their Relationship, and accumulate monetized PTs for their exchanges, they can turn the CS-1 Relationship into a CS-2 one by putting monetized PTs into the contract. The monetized PTs will be composed into CCs, which can only be spent by the PT owners together[\[24\]](/endnotes). As a Relationship become a CS-2, all PTs that generates from the Activities are monetized and be composed into CCs. After one year of a CS-2 contract is fulfilled for one year, the PT owners are eligible to apply to turn the contract into CS-3. In addition to the money the PT owners invested in at least the past year, they also need to go through Proof-of-Relations to become a CS-3. When a contract becomes a CS-3, the generated PTs (and the CCs they will be composing) from then will be at least partially subsidized by the government. ## **Emergency Suspension, Arbitration, and Intervention** Emergency suspension is a mechanism for people who are inside of, or in proximity to, a relationship who may have a more in-depth understanding of the context and the history of the relationship. This requirement considers the suspension will have a substantial impact on the contract validity and will be followed by a series of arbitrations that the PT owners have to be involved; therefore, not anyone should be able to suspend a contract. However, we are aware that sometimes people from a distance might be easier to notice unfair situation happens, while people in close relations may be too familiarized to report the situation. A proper mechanism, similar to “see something, say something”, will be explored in the future. A contract is usually locked and must be fulfilled until it reaches a Checkpoint. However, some instances allow for an emergency suspension of the contract, such as violence or excessive breaches of an agreement. Once an emergency is reported, a contract will be suspended and ReUnion will connect the associated parties to a third person from their shared network (if applicable); an external local body for arbitration; or, if necessary, a law enforcement official. After a set period, if both parties in the contract have not yet reached a consensus to revise or extend the contract, the system application will terminate the contract. ## **Identity and Eligibility Authentication** ‌Identity authentication is necessary for certain relational contracts, especially for those related to sharing the care work for a third person who has little agency, such as a child or a mentally ill person. The users who wish to share third-person care work must prove that they have the right to do so. There will also be limitations and protections for users. For example, contracts that resemble a marital relationship will not be allowed to be created with a child[\[25\]](/endnotes). ## **Difference between Relationship and Activity** The differences between Relationship and Activity are philosophical and technological. A Relationship includes an overall description about two people’s relationship, it may include content like how they understand the nature of the relationship, their expectations, what kind of role they hope or want each other to be, where they want to arrive together within the Checkpoint, and so on. It is long-term (minimal of one-year), not task-oriented, and recommended to be written in ways that allow enough margin of error. An Activity, on the other hand, is task-oriented, has no duration requirement (but short-term in principle), and recommend to be relatively specific. An Activity exists under a Relationship that shares the same PT owners. | **Relationship** | **Activity** | | --------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------- | | overall description about two people’s relationship | events happens within the relationship | | co-written | usually one request to another | | long-term (minimal of one-year) | short-term in principle | | non task-oriented | task oriented | | encourage to allow a good margin of error | recommend to be relatively specific | ## **Contract Stages** All contracts, both Relationship and Activity, have three contract stages that entail different levels of rights, risks, and responsibilities. CS-1, First Contract Stage refers to a stage that is practically risk-free in a unilateral case. Users do not hold any liability in creating a CS-1 contract, and the contract does not cause any financial effect except for the users' internal reflection. CS-1 is able to receive non-monetary PTs for it, as a recognition by the system. In a bilateral case, on the other hand, it has the liability of civic agreement, but as CS-1 cannot be associated with money, the risk of the contract is non-financial. A user can create an unlimited amount of CS-2 contract, but they may be bound by the burnout notice as too little time left in their Self-Relationship. CS-2, Second Contract Stage refers to a stage in which works as a civic contract when two PT owners commit to each other, and a shared wallet in which the two invest their own money (by monetizing PTs) into a micro-fund (as CCs) for the commitment. As a contract stage exists between CS-1 and CS-3, this contract stage allows as much exploration and experimentation as possible between two committed people. When a PT owner committed to a CS-2, they have the obligation to participate Proof-of-Relations, upon request by the other PT owner of their CS-2 contract. Any two people can create an unlimited amount of CS-2 contracts, but they may be bound by the cost of monetizing PTs, the load of work that each contract entails, and triggering burnout notice as too little time left in their Self-Relationship. CS-3, Third Contract Stage refers to a stage in which the contract is recognized by (at least) the local government and being able to receive welfare. All CS-3 contracts can only be created by an application based on a CS-2 that is fulfilled for the year before the application of CS-3. All CS-3 must go through Proof-of Relations to be able to apply. A PT owner of a CS-3 contract has the obligation to participate in Proof-of-Relations, when the other PT owner is needed for their other Relationships. The amount of CS-3 that each user can apply is limited by government policy. | **Contract Stages** | **CS-1** | CS-2 | CS-3 | | ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Liability** | risk-free in a unilateral case | civic agreement liability | civic agreement liability | | | (non-financial) civic agreement liability in a bilateral case | financial investment in monetizing PTs | financial investment in monetizing PTs | | | | | liable to welfare policy of the associated government | | **Associated Tokens** | receive PTs | compose CCs through monetized PTs from the contracted users | receive welfare via CCs; associated PTs will be monetized upon finished activities. | | **Amount limits** | bounded by burnout notice | bounded by burnout notice | bounded by burnout notice | | | | bounded by workloads | apply based on one-year fulfillment of a CS-2 | | | | bounded by the cost of monetizing PTs | bounded by invested workloads of CS-2 and future workloads | | | | | bounded by the total cost of one-year CS-2 fulfillment | | | | | bounded by Proof-of-Relations | | | | | total contract amount per user is limited by the policy of associated government | | **Community obligations** | not obligated | obligated to Proof-of-Relations | obligated to Proof-of-Relations | # Why design such ways? ## **Adaptive Design for Accessible Social Support** State governance systems prioritize systematic justice over interpersonal justice. As such, people must go through lengthy and expensive negotiation processes to create a customized contract that due justice to their interpersonal situations. Because ReUnion Network is designed for the scale of the interpersonal, it allows for more adaptive applications than does a legal system for mass governance. Our proposition is that the Agreement Site can lower the individual cost for making unique interpersonal contracts and better accommodate for unorthodox relationships and new kinships - especially the new types of relationships that are enabled by new technologies and contemporary social conditions. Through these unique interpersonal contracts, more people will be able to receive legal protection. ## **Modular Social Contracts** Making a contract is one of the core functions of the ReUnion Network. Technologically we expect an easy-to-use, efficient contract making process, including introducing modularized agreement templates[\[26\]](/endnotes). Although we expect a relatively simple contract-making process as ReUnion Network develops, contracting a commitment is still an official moment that often changes the nature of the relationship. The digital environment has the responsibility to offer good conditions and reasons for users to start a commitment-contract conversation. We are researching three angles to consider this responsibility. First, the context and the reasons for the users to make an existing care relationship official. Second, how the negotiation will take place and in what way a piece of digital technology can help deescalate, instead of escalate, an intense and vulnerable moment of a relationship. Third, the sense of safety and protection during and after making a contract. ## **Dimensions of Care in Practice** A CC is the only currency that has monetary value within ReUnion Network. Its monetary value will be linked to a domestic currency, or fiat, such as the euro. It can be used to purchase goods and services from local cooperatives, provided both PT owners consent to the transaction executed through an Activity within the Relationship[\[27\]](broken://pages/-LzsDJj6KT5_c0pWH1ZC#footnote-27). As such, ReUnion assures that the payment serves the interests of both parties. Additionally, the steps for Activity contracts, of any length of time, and Relationship contracts, with a one-year minimum, include the self-reflective steps of color marking and check-points, the latter of which is also a meeting point for dialogue and review by both users. These steps, with awareness requiring some commitment and interest from the users, provoke the consideration if the act executed adequately fulfilled to the need and were appropriately received, how that may differ for each user point of interchange and why (giving/receiving, and not through institutional intermediaries), not just monetarily executed. ## **What Does it Mean to Have a "Relationship"?** Putting aside the question of design requirements for a functional technology, let us look at what is required to have a functional long-term relationship. In ReUnion Network, the value that is shared among all parties of the relationship is not universally legible - users define together the particulars of their contract, which creates intimacy. As well, ReUnion supports and expands upon existing intimacy in interchanges of care that are beyond typical relationship narratives of a domestic partnership or immediate family. As ReUnion aims to initiate in existing communities that conduct care interchanges, intimacy will be present. Exchanges that happen between these people are not intended to be equal to one another. ReUnion does not focus on care as dispositional, but rather, as an attribute that is practiced and a basic, ongoing active commitment in what we mean by long-term committed relationships. The design of the Checkpoint embraces the changing nature of every individual and relationship and the importance for active consent and renegotiation - not as a threat but as skills to be continuously practiced, crucial to the ongoing investment in the relationship. ### **Contributory Exchange** Within the scope of an interpersonal relationship, non-transactional exchanges create an ongoing contributory exchange between the relational parties, which helps the binding process. For example, two people take turns paying for each other’s lunch, rather than splitting the bill each time. The payment of the lunch bill indicates a following lunch occasion between these two people. This meeting becomes a shared ritual in which each person takes a turn: receiving and giving. This indicates the ongoing nature of the relationship, where power or debt is kept in a dynamic balance and is not accumulated. Importantly, this back and forth, a mutual contribution, is an embodied willingness to play (at least) two different roles of engagement that constitute the relationship. In ongoing relationships, our positions of need and ability to give always change over time and periods of life. Too easily in individualized and user-based systems identities can become static within relationships and power roles, abilities, and needs become naturalized to certain "types" and embodied in self-comprehension. Therefore, if a system wants to support relationships, it must not appropriate agency, but return the agency to the users and help to rebuild the primary separation that allows us to separate and belong. Only then, users can return to a fully capable person that can respect one's own world and others', and navigate their relationships by being aware of but not afraid of those gaps in our own vulnerability and others’ worlds. # Welfare for the Commons ### Summary The Micro-Welfare System is an underlying layer of ReUnion Network that links support from institutions to users’ care relations. The backstage system employs DLT technology to rewards care activities with PTs and support relationships with CCs. It generates PTs and CCs based on the contracts; it receives fiat money from PT owners, organizations, and governments and distributes it to PTs and CCs, and facilitates the value exchanges between informal care and cooperatives. When two PT owners exchange care Activities, their exchanges will generate PTs that are respectively owned by them, which are composed as CCs of their Relationships. PT owners can later use their CCs to exchange goods and services with cooperatives. This scheme aims to effectively elevate the value of care work, support a cooperative economy and reduces future cost in repairing systematic loneliness, through a relationship-driven economy. #### # What does it do? The system is thus far only connecting P2P care relationships with organizations and governments. We are aware of the potential needs of how a group/cooperative can practically use the MWS, with a general direction of accumulating Relationships and the associated CCs together. However, we have not begun to explore it yet. ## Feature Description A user can use the Micro-Welfare System (hereafter ‘MWS’) to: * Overview their PTs and CCs * Receive PTs for their Activity in Self-Relationship or after a CC is dissolved * Manage their PTs * Monetized PTs for validating a contract * Compose CCs with their monetized PTs * Co-manage their CCs with the other PT owner in a Relationship * Initiate a CC payment under a Relationship * Invite the other PT owner to consent a CC payment of their Relationship * Co-consent a CC payment of a Relationship with the other PT owner * Paying for a service and goods to a ReUnion-friendly cooperative with their partner. An organization or a government can use the Micro-Welfare System (hereafter 'the Site) to[\[29\]](broken://pages/-LzsDJj6KT5_c0pWH1ZC#footnote-29): * Distribute subsidies to CCs in CS-3 contracts * Overview of the circulation of CCs to inform their subsidy policy * Crowdsource repeating patterns of contracts to inform policy/legal/political reform A reasonable concern about a welfare system for interpersonal relationships is its bureaucratic efficiency. To increase the efficiency of welfare distribution, ReUnion utilizes Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). Proof-of-Relations aims to relieve administrative labor to authenticate whether the contract reflects the relationship properly, through the lens of new kinships. The PT tracks care Activities between users and the CC is a measuring unit of micro-welfare so that government subsidies may be automatically distributed. A CC functions as the unit of rewards that helps the PT owners, communities, organizations, and governments to distribute funding and subsidies. PT is a unit of rewards for PT owners’ respective Activities within a Relationship, and its amount contributes to the total amount of CCs in the Relationship. PTs do not lose their independence as they continuously accumulate and are turned into CCs. PTs’ independence helps the system to determine how much PTs each PT owners should receive after a Relationship and its associated CCs are dissolved. Because PTs and CCs are generated by the users via contracts, both currencies create a distribution system according to each user’s needs. For example, in the Second Contract Stage (CS-2) `Ari and Elliot agree to give 50 euro per month to validate their childcare sharing relationship. They agree to take care of each other’s child together. They use Activity contract (PTs) to keep track of their hours and favors for each other to assure that their mutual contributions to each other remain in balance. After 12 months, the accumulated value of their CCs is 1200 euro [(50+50)*12]. If Ari and Elliot wish to end the relationship, their CCs will dissolve and split based on the PTs they accumulated respectively. For instance, over the period of one year, Ari has done 582 Activities for Elliot or for the shared need of their relationship, and Elliot has done 394 Activities. Then at the moment of contract dissolution, Ari receives Ari-PTs worth €715.57, and Elliot receives Elliot PTs worth €484.43. Ari and Elliot can continue to use their PTs to combine new CCs without needing to contribute more money.` `During the 12 months of their contract, Ari and Elliot may need to use a local cooperative daycare for extra assistance, at the rate of €40 per hour. They can take out an equal amount of CCs from their relationship wallet to pay the daycare rate.` In addition, in Third Contract Stage (CS-3): `If Ari and Elliot decide to continue their collaboration for another year, they can either choose to stay in CS-2 or apply to become a CS-3. According to the government’s policy, the Ari-Elliot Coin can receive 100 euro per month based on their former exchange of care. After 12 months, the accumulated value of their CCs is 1200 euro (100*12). If Ari and Elliot wish to end the relationship and they have performed equal hours and favors for each other, their CCs will dissolve and each of them receives PTs worth 600 euro. Ari and Elliot can continue to use these PTs to combine new CCs without needing to put in more money.` `During this 12-month period with government subsidy, Ari and Elliot may still need help from a local cooperative daycare, at a rate of €40 per hour. They can take out an equal amount of CCs from their relationship wallet to pay the daycare. However, this time, as the government is subsidizing their CCs (composed by PTs), they effectively paying the daycare service with their care Activities (PTs).` It is important to note that all our economic questions in only in a directional exploratory stage, including how the PT rates for Activities, the mathematical equation between PTs and CCs, our monetary and liquidity policy, the currency circulation within ReUnion and the value exchange between ReUnion, organization/government, and ReUnion-friendly cooperatives, and so on. In the following text, we illustrate our directions with numbers and simple math, knowing that they are flawed and expecting them to change after later research. We gladly welcome input from readers. ## Monetary and Liquidity Policy ### **The metric rewarding care work** We aim to design a reward scheme that assures qualitative exchanges in the interpersonal relationship. PTs and CCs are designed to incentivize people to stabilize their informal care relationships, but the basis of reward scheme (i.e. how does the value of PTs determined by the activities, how does the PTs determine the value of CCs, etc.) is still under exploration and debate. | **Personal Token** | **Composite Coin** | | ---------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | | generated by Activity | composed by two people’s PTs | | stored under the Self-Relationship | stored under a Relationship | | non-circulatable currency | circulatable currency | | track contribution of the PT owner | track the sum of the care fund in the Relationship | | cannot be spent | spent with the consent of both PT owners | Our exploration is forking between two directions: a pan-reward unit scheme that is associated with time (timebank), and a reward scheme that is associated with the hardship of the care contribution (categorization of care). Both schemes have their pros and cons: The positive effect of a timebank, or similar derivatives, is that an ‘objective’ meter can avoid escalating potential haggle moods between people, which if often contributing to the downs of a relationship. However, this effect can only work when the project is happening in a community where everyone has a similar condition so that there will not be a huge margin between people in terms of contribution. Moreover, when the timebank scheme covers a large enough group and has life-long guarantees, then the risk of doing heavier care work than others will be distributed among a much larger group and on a life-long timeline. The former condition is not fitting to ReUnion’s vision, and the latter is not something that ReUnion can guarantee right now and, therefore, does not qualify as a scheme for a small local pilot. The categorization of care can recognize different levels of hardship in different types of care work and may lead to a more qualitative effort if the categorization is done well. Yet the categorization itself is introducing a new layer of politics and can induce more intensities between people. For us to understand different types of care exist in all sorts of scenario, we inevitably need to analysis care work in different sections and categories. However, whether it should be rendered into our reward scheme still bears a question mark. ### **Fiat and ReUnion Currencies** Fiat is invested to validate PTs. Validated PTs can then be invested in the creation of a Relationship contract, CS-2, with another user. Once invested in a CS-2, the PTs become unique CCs and the Relationship’s communal fund (wallet). In a CS-3, CCs are predominantly funded by subsidies. CCs store the funds and receive subsidies for the Relationship. If they wish, users can continue to invest their money in these contracts. PTs are generated by making Activities and keep track of the Activities. CCs are stored within linked to the Relationship smart contract (i.e. A relationship contract between Ari and Frankie will have their distinct currency as “Ari-Frankie” CCs). The values of the CCs, however not have been determined by a defined liquidity model at this moment, are related to the fiat of the validated PTs and the care activities between the PT owners. As such, when a CC dissolves, it automatically divides into PTs and returns to the PT owners respectively. The associated fiat is locked in the CCs until the Relationship contract ends, and after which it is returned as monetized, but not tradable, PTs to the users. Please note that the monetary policies for the CCs and PTs, as well as the mathematics that determine the token valuation and division still being researched. Further research must be conducted in order to determine if and how CCs will exist within the ReUnion Network as fiat, to ensure the ramifications are within the parameters of our goals. Additionally, while the platform may be used for personal reflection and life management with PTs, we also aim to create more incentives for people to keep CCs and continue to participate in the collaborative economy ReUnion proposes (see section “Connecting to Local Cooperatives”). ## Connecting to Cooperatives‌ Although the contracts in the ReUnion Network are not geographically bound, given the often-physical demands of care work, most of the activity exchanges will likely take place within reasonable geographic limits. Therefore, ReUnion aims for the CCs to be used to pay for services or goods that are provided by local providers that are near at least one of the user’s geographic locations. This will be an opportunity to connect with local cooperatives. There are several reasons and benefits to do so: First, collaborating with local cooperatives supports and simulates local cooperative economies, encouraging an economy in which workers are the predominant owners and managers. Often, care work cooperatives are not able to compete with competitors and the market based on price because of the lack of large funds necessary to pay the workers a fair wage and ethically run a business. When government subsidies are available to reward the care exchanges inside the ReUnion Network, users have an incentive to make transactions with ReUnion-friendly local co-ops with the CCs they accumulate in their Relationships. Moreover, ReUnion helps care work cooperatives become more competitive with non-cooperative-based solutions since the government subsidies to the user help offset cooperatives’ higher absolute cost. Put succinctly: in CS-3, users pay the co-ops by conducting their care Activities. The co-ops receive the same payment for their work as they would from other customers. The government pays the same amount of subsidy for their social workers, while supporting double or more care needs, repairing social solidarity and alleviating loneliness as a public health crisis. ![](/files/-LzsDJj7meQ_JK_PDJbo) Second, local cooperatives can become a community service hub through the CC mechanism. Cooperative workers may create their own PTs and may offer to combine their tokens with other users’ PTs to create Composite Coins. This will be helpful for people who are, or become, socially isolated. Third, collaborating with local cooperatives allows people to connect with care workers in an equal way. By joining as a user, cooperative workers will gain a personal care network that might be more difficult for them to build and is something that is traditionally ill supported by society, as care work is extremely undervalued by society and the market. A disproportionate number of those who do care work are some of the most precarious and socially and economically underprivileged people. This is particularly visible with the overwhelming imbalance between gender, race, class, and legal and economic statuses in the field of care. The low payment of care work makes it hard to recruit those of privileged gender, race, and class positions to this type of work. However, if we want to have a better society of care and solidarity, we must involve more people in care labor. We must recognize the fundamental value of care in our society. By being within a shared network in which the units of value exchange symbolically and literally constitute caregiving, as the direct fulfilling of a care need; and care receiving, indicating the right to receive and respond to care, the connection between a care worker and a care receiver is less of a replaceable, employment relation. The care relation is less removed, which is more so associated with taking care of - including the identification of a care need and responding to it via a resource \[such as giving money], but not by directly doing the care act. Ideally, such an arrangement may considerably increase the care worker's ability to negotiate, resist against abuses, mediate conflict between having a direct point of exchange between the caregiver and the care receiver, and have affirmative consent and review that the care given was what was needed and was adequately received. This aims to foster a social culture that recognizes the fundamental value of care and its full scope of practice. Notably, we keep in mind the importance to expand the cooperative categories, such as farming, food, local productions, legal service, psychiatric services, and more, so that a cooperative economy ecology can be developed in the future. This ambition is largely practical: on the one hand, it increases the incentive for care cooperatives to accept CCs as payment (even without a fiat exit scheme) because they can use it to exchange goods. On the other hand, an economy of solidarity needs to extend beyond a limited definition of care and into care as a methodology, an ethos for sustenance at large. As CCs are programmed for collaboration, they are a premise for an economy that demands the awareness of others and includes nuances in relationships. By enabling a market based on such a currency, we can change the transactional nature of traditional free markets. # Why design such ways? ## Programming a Collaborative Economy of Care ReUnion Network’s economy is designed alongside many like-minded projects and propositions. Our references include: Fureai kippu[\[30\]](/endnotes), Buurtzorg[\[31\]](/endnotes), Broodfonds[\[32\]](/endnotes), the welfare state[\[33\]](/endnotes), various Universal Basic Income proposals such as Circle UBI[\[34\]](/endnotes), Commonfare[\[35\]](/endnotes), Dutch municipality Basic Income experiments[\[36\]](/endnotes), REC (Real Economy Currency)[\[37\]](/endnotes), and Doughnut Economics[\[38\]](/endnotes). The key idea of the ReUnion Network economy is to create an economic model in which collaboration is not only an incentive (via a welfare scheme) but also a fundamental mechanism (via token engineering). At the same time, it attempts to unify individual freedom, common values, and balanced ecology in a carefully designed cryptocurrency mechanism and an elaborate exchange circuit based on subsistence and circulation, rather than accumulation. Locality is an important consideration for ReUnion Network as care work can require a great deal of physical presence. Yet, the vision of the project is both local and translocal, as migration and globalization are two contexts within which the project engages. ReUnion Network does not have an exaggerated optimism about localism against globalism. Rather, ReUnion aspires to move beyond such binary and account for the intricacies and intertwinements of local and global contexts. ## **Regenerative Model of Care** The ReUnion Network potentially creates a regenerative model of care. The logic of the system motivates us to look for and negotiate the exchange of care activities in two directions, with money as a validating tool, and back-up for unexpected situations. This system of care exchange can be developed in addition to a current one-way exchange model of care for money. Existing care situations wherein the ReUnion Network system could add advantages are in informal care and support, personal care budget or care services among friends. We refer to situations wherein we can solve something within a relationship that we would otherwise pay a third party for. ReUnion creates advantages in terms of (1) personal attention for the care receiver (2) relieving the shortage of healthcare staff and (3) increase realized care with the same amount of government subsidy (4) increase in communication between caregivers and care receivers that the right care is being given and is wholly received, with regular renegotiation[\[39\]](/endnotes). To illustrate this potential, we use the current national personal care budget and compare the cost-effectiveness with the ReUnion model. Relating to monetary amounts from existing practical situations, we refer to tariffs for domestic help within the personal care budget (het persoonsgebonden budget, PGB) from the Netherlands. For 2019, the domestic help budget is calculated as 3665 euros[\[40\]](/endnotes). Assuming that domestic help has a rate of 30 euros per one hour, the current budget provides 10 hours of domestic help per month. Now, let us assume we use the same amount of fiat within the ReUnion Network. The 3665 euros are used to validate a Relationship contract in which care is exchanged. Instead of directly paying the care worker, the money is stored inside a contract as CCs, which used to validate an agreement for care on the contracts. When a user within the contract performs care, they receive 1 PT within the CCs. When the contract dissolves, the CCs will divide proportionally according to the number of PTs that each person received within the contract. The 3665 euros are distributed as monetized PTs to each user. In addition, the users can use the monetized PTs to create a new agreement of care without putting extra funds. For the purposes of legibility, we assume one activity contract takes one hour to finish. The exchange of care and money within one year, for both situations, would be as follows: | One-way exchange of care for money | ReUnion Network | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- | | Ari receives 10h of domestic help per month by government assistance | Ari receives 8h of childcare help per month from Elliot. | | | Elliot receives 12h of childcare per month from Ari | | Frankie receives 3665 euro from government subsidy for domestic work | Ari receives 12 PTs worth 2199 euro in total | | | Elliot receives 8 PTs worth 1446 euro in total | If Ari and Elliot decide after one year to continue their relationship of care, the CCs stay undivided in the contract and Ari and Elliot can continuously use the CCs to pay services and goods. Alternatively, they can use the PTs to start a new type of care relationship. As such, a regenerative model of care arises. In this way, a regenerative model of care arises. ![](/files/-LzsDJj8znzYZodbjUeP) This diagram builds on the repetitive element of the former diagram and shows how one care relationship can be followed up by another care relationship, indicating the potential for a regenerative model of care by ReUnion Network. Additionally, the ReUnion model provides two people with 10 hours of care-assistance time, whereas the one-way exchange of care, only one person receives 10 hours of assistance. As such, more people are supported to have non-work, or free time, which ReUnion insists is a necessity for the well-being of all. With free time as a part of their everyday lives, people are more likely to be physically, mentally, emotionally healthy, have a better capacity for quality and present engagements in caring relations with others, and be less likely to be lonely. # Closing: Urgent Call for a New Social Infrastructure Following the rapid development of robotic technology and artificial intelligence, widespread job loss caused by mass automation is at the center of our contemporary anxiety. Yet, people still tend to believe that care work will be one of the final terrains of labor to be replaced by machines. This is because most care receivers are human, who have the need for emotional exchange alongside the physical work of care. It is generally assumed that machines will have a hard time to provide that exchange at an adequate level and in the multifarious forms required. Whether machines have the capability to provide or simulate emotional exchanges is not our concern here. What is crucial is that emotional exchanges are not interchangeable. They can only happen between specific people in a specific place and time. The celebration of this intricacy is often overlooked in our daily lives and how we manage our relations - this is one reason why ReUnion starts from the relationship between the user and themselves (i.e., to always indicate that that relationship is an exchange between being in a certain place and time, that one's being is not constant and not interchangeable with any other moment in being, time and place - only in that specific combination as exchange, which creates a relationship, from which a person can act). Market solutions attempt to assume that most things, if not all things, can be measured by objective data and turned into reproducible products to sell. People have no other choice but to accept these products as predominantly accessible solutions, even if viewed as less than desirable temporary band-aids. It implies every struggle, every consequence, has a payable solution. It is apparent that these ‘solutions’ in fact contribute to the chronic everyday alienation of people in our society. An alternative social infrastructure that fulfills the needs of communities and people and stabilizes these interrelations and exchanges is necessary. We must make dependency of people's continuous wellbeing and social security less dependent on their proximity to the current production-reproduction dichotomy, the informal nuclear family structure and formal market and state support. We need subsistence, non-accumulation-based economic proposal that refutes the hyper-individualized culture. We must prioritize exchanges based on interrelations around our fundamental need for care. If we do not start to work on this now, it is foreseeable that these crises will continue to get worse, and that there will be exorbitant public healthcare costs in order to treat their symptoms. These treatments will be at best insufficient and will (continue to be) unequally distributed. Depending on market solutions will not suffice as they can only offer transactional relationships, which inevitably contribute to the issue of loneliness and impossible individualized accountability. Furthermore, with the increasing wealth gap in our society, market solutions of care will only intensify social and economic inequality. Another way must be sought. We are enveloped by a complex set of obfuscating, intangible, and entangled crises. A single solution for a single problem will not hold strong in the midst of a toxic economic ecology. We must employ an ecological approach in order to transform. ReUnion Network offers a radically new approach to deal with these issues together. It is a new kind of social network, a new kind of economic system, and a new kind of legal infrastructure. Above all, ReUnion Network is a project that finds technical solutions for the future of care *and* rethinks technology, economy, and our society through the lens of care. # Endnotes **\[1]** We work from political theorist Joan Tronto’s conceptions of care, first articulated with Bernice Fischer in the text “Toward a Feminist Theory of Caring” (1990) and then further developed in her books, which we recommend for further reading: Moral Boundaries: a Political Argument for an Ethics of Care (1993) and Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice (2013). **\[2]** Communicative capitalism is defined by Jodi Dean, which refers to the period of late capitalism in which we see the employment of the values, attributes, and actions central to democracy taking material form in networked communication technologies ("Communicative Capitalism and Class Struggle", Spheres Journal, 2014). Further reading, Communicative Capitalism: circulation and the foreclosure of politics (Cultural Politics, March 2005), and Blog Theory: Feedback and Capture in the Circuits of Drive (Polity, 2010). **\[3]** Which is stereotypical of the domestic household and nuclear family structure, e.g., two adult wage earners in a romantic partnership in a permanent residence occupied by them alone and/or with their children. **\[4]** For further reading on the relations between industrialization and nuclear family, The Social System by Talcott Parsons. **\[5]** Further reading, Cultures of Intimacy and Care Beyond ‘the Family’: Personal Life and Social Change in the Early 21st Century by Roseneil & Budgeon. **\[6]** In Europe, the Boomer generation elderly with sufficient money are inspiring new conceptions of co-housing; as well as some combined solutions in expensive urban areas, such as young people/students paired with elderlies, and artistic provocations like MANY. Similarly, Boomer-counterpart in have self-initiated group caring for aging peers (‘抱团养老’), i.e., the elderly who own large houses invite others online to live together with cheap or no rent. **\[7]** Social welfare and the commodity market have supplemented the family as the informal system of care over different periods of socio-economic organizations between the nation-state and industry. However, much formal community support, such as social workers, lacks in funding and operations design for sufficiently robust systems to provide the necessary and desirable forms care. **\[8]** Further read on our take on [this section](https://medium.com/@reunion.network/rethinking-family-time-and-immaterial-labor-9f0aa650d90b?) **\[9]** Our network is inspired by the meshnet (or mesh network), which is a local network that is maintained by multiple adjacent nodes (i.e. bridges, switches, and other infrastructure devices), which connect and exchange directly, dynamically, and non-hierarchically without necessarily connecting to the Internet. An important feature for meshnet is that the local network does not cease to function if one or several nodes get offline, as the network will immediately redistribute the data and exchanges among the remaining ones. We take the meshnet feature of blockchain, which shared by many other network technologies, to imagine a meshnet of long-term caring relationship, which theoretically can ensure the robustness of a social safety net that is made of multiple long-term caring relationships. **\[10]** Our use of Individuation departs from Jungian psychology while referencing Bernard Stiegler’s assessment between the individuals and technological objects. For further information on individuation and how it relates to technology and society, see Stiegler’s For a New Critique of Political Economy (2010), Gilbert Simondon’s On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects (French 1958, English translation 2016), and Yves Citon’s The Ecology of Attention (2014). **\[11]** Its monetized value links to the communal fund of a Relationship contract. The monetized value is determined by an internally agreed-upon exchange rate or by the amount of money that is agreed upon with the subsidy policy. **\[12]** The social-driven authentication method is constructed on top of the ‌Social Proof-of-Work method that is proposed by the D-CENT project (see ). According to their research paper, ‘[Design of Social Digital Currency Publication](https://dcentproject.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/design_of_social_digital_currency_publication.pdf)’ (p28), Social Proof-of-Work is "proof that a member in the system is endowed with coins as a reward to an action in the real world while abiding to community rules and enhancing collective values." **\[13]** We start with six connections based on the six degrees of separation speculation, that most people are connected within six people or less. Proof-of-Relations also refers to the ‘authentication’ method of civil union, which asks family relatives and community members to witness the process of binding before marriage become a government institution. In our first pilot, we will test this count to determine whether it is reasonable and effective for our purposes. **\[14]** The process for users to determine whether the activity is complete is still being determined in community research, although we anticipate for the steps to be more nuanced and open than a notice and confirmation-button mechanism. **\[15]** The Checkpoint embraces the changing nature of every relationship. It is important that people are given the space to reflect on their relationship status and pay attention to how they feel in relation to the status of the relationship. **\[16]** Although recognizing the one-year limitation can be contradicted to the mobility context, we decided to begin our experiment with this limitation mostly concerning the fact that the CS-2 and CC-3 contracts involve financial planning, which requires stability and working alongside with financial calendars. Another consideration is to raise the thresholds to reproduce the short-term exchanges exist in the sharing economy. However, plans that require a shorter period can be supplemented by Activity contracts. **\[17]** **\[18]** Please note that because we have not yet started conducting field research with communities, the numbers in the examples are conceptual and demonstrative. The web application is currently under development. **\[19]** While “in the mind” might seem counterintuitive to work that is physical and emotional, we aim to reinforce the deep processing connection between our physical responses to our mental translations. For one set of recent scientific studies on this topic, we refer you to polyvagel theory. **\[20]** We will determine a frame for accounting for time and establishing minimum and maximum with community research. **\[21]** Studies reveal that the relationship between multitasking / fragmented time spent and burnout. Further read on '[Decade data reveals heavy multitaskers reduced memory, psychologist says](https://www.medicaleconomics.com/burnout/mental-mayhem-peril-multitasking-medicine)' and '[Mental mayhem peril multitasking medicine](https://www.medicaleconomics.com/burnout/mental-mayhem-peril-multitasking-medicine)'. **\[22]** The term ‘the Self' we use largely refers to the innate personality and psyche that may not immediately subjected to change to and is composed of the id, the ego, and the super-ego, whereas ‘the self-concept’ is one’s perception and evaluation about themselves, which is relatively more dynamic and socially influenced. **\[23]** The points we made about the relations between the Self (identity), fantasy and relationships with others, are inspired by Slavoj Žižek’s series of analysis on love, the most intense drive, or product of interpersonal relationships. Most succinctly put, he said "all too often, when we love somebody, we don’t accept him or her as what the person effectively is. We accept him or her insofar as this person fits the coordinates of our fantasy." (The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, 2006). Here is a summary of his take on love in relations to modern politics, . Additionally, we refer you to bell hook’s All About Love: New Visions (2000). **\[24]** The process for this is still being considered. **\[25]** Importantly, the network has an inclusive approach to the participation of people within local communities, who might be otherwise denied official legal recognition, sets of rights, or have difficulty in accessing resources to which they are entitled as a member of a community, without restraint by their official legal status. We consider the digital translation of the law as an opportunity to rethink many conventions that have been assumed in the law in order to propose new propositions through digital code. **\[26]** This is a function we anticipate to have and logically exist within the system environment. Yet its realization requires substantial legal and policy research, which we have not yet begun. **\[27]** The process for users to determine if the consent from each of them for a transaction is still being determined based on community research. **\[28]** The system is thus far only connecting P2P care relationships with organizations and governments. We are aware of the potential needs of how a group/cooperative can practically use the MWS, with a general direction of accumulating Relationships and the associated CCs together. However, we have not begun to explore it yet. **\[29]** We anticipate the subsidy distribution, the CC circulation, and contract crowdsourcing will use Zero-Knowledge Proof protocols, which the authorities can authenticate the PTs and CCs while not having to know the identities of the PT owners, their connections with others, and the content of their contracts. **\[30]** Fureai kippu is a Japanese time-based, complementary currency for people to earn credits helping seniors in their community. **\[31]** Buurtzorg (English: “neighborhood care”) is a [Dutch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_the_Netherlands) cooperative organizational structure for independent nurse teams in delivering relatively low-cost care for local households. Buurtzorg is Dutch for “neighborhood care”. **\[32]** Broodfonds (English: "Bread fund") is a Dutch communal fund structure that allows independent entrepreneurs to provide each other with temporary sick leave. A 'broodfonds' organizes solidarity by personal connections and networking and its members are self-governing. **\[33]** The welfare state is a type of mixed economy, the welfare state funds the governmental institutions for healthcare and education along with direct benefits paid to individual citizens. **\[34]** Circles is an electronic cryptocurrency with the aim to create and distribute a globally accessible Universal Basic Income. **\[35]** Commonfare is a Europe-wide welfare experiment by a collective of activists, researchers, artists, and software developers working in collaboration with the good-practices and commoners, and sponsored by the Horizon 2020 PieNews Project. In particular, ReUnion Network references its goal “to develop a complementary currency system supporting financial network that strives towards autonomy and free implementation of cooperative welfare practices”. [https://commonfare.net](https://commonfare.net/) **\[36]** The currently active Dutch Basic Income experiments include Utrecht and Nijmegen. They are notably conservative due to many force majeure factors. By engaging with them, we have gained insights about the potential difficulties in doing such experiments and help us to prepare for future negotiations. **\[37]** The rec (Real Economy Currency) is Barcelona’s digital social currency, a type of social or local currency. It is a citizen exchange system complementary to the euro, allowing transactions in a community between individuals, institutions, and businesses that accept it. Social currencies favor local businesses and the profits revert to the community. **\[38]** Doughnut economics is an [economic model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_model) used to measure the performance of an [economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy) by the extent to which the needs of people are met without overshooting Earth's ecological ceiling. **\[39]** There is a difference between situations of mutual care, wherein people receive and give care, and situations of one-way care, wherein because of illness or other circumstances someone can only receive care. We hope that ReUnion will create a potential negotiation space for care in situations that currently seem to be one-way care. More easily, we also aim to be a space for other forms of care, such as taking care of someone’s pet, to create a care relationship that is more than a reciprocal exchange. **\[40]** Tarieventabel 2019 PGB-Wlz | Zorgverzekeraars Nederland () # Links and Resources ## Proof-of-Concept Given the resources we have at the date of this document, the current Proof-of-Concept is a native app (Android and iOS) that is built with the Unity Pro framework. It is built for demonstrative purposes, which shows Reflection Space and Agreement Site. Dropbox: [Download Link](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/htbbay2am5xdybesdyczv/ReUnion-PoC-App-Links.paper?dl=0\&rlkey=c7jzc96iaajam9k0q1ijmgz1t) iOS (testflight): The PoC software is under the [Unity Plus license](https://store.unity.com/products/unity-plus), the PoC logic is open-sourced on the [GNU Affero General Public License v3.0](https://opensource.org/licenses/AGPL-3.0). #### Web app (under development): Github: The web app will be also licensed under [GNU Affero General Public License v3.0](https://opensource.org/licenses/AGPL-3.0). #### ReUnion Network Github: Website: Contact: ### # Team and Credits **Yin Aiwen:** Initiator & Director **Genevieve Costello:** Lead Concept Developer & Ethics of Care Researcher **Mi You:** Lead Social and Business Developer **Belle Phromchanya:** Project Coordinator **Tamás Marquetant:** Proof-of-Concept Developer **Tamas Pall:** Proof-of-Concept Developer **Mary Ponomareva:** Art Direction, UX/UI, Web Developer **Jonatan van der Horst:** Art Direction, UX/UI Designer **Marjet Zwaans:** Economic Research Contributor **Sarah Friend:** Blockchain Tech Contributor **Chou Wei-Chen:** Concept Film Director **Jelena Viskovic:** Former Contributor, Proof-of-Concept Developer (active during 2018) This project is kindly supported by [Creative Industries Fund NL](https://stimuleringsfonds.nl/en/), [Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst](https://www.amsterdamsfondsvoordekunst.nl/), and [Trust](https://trust.support/). More information can be found on