○Marriage, Childbirth, and Sex Education
In Prout Village, there is no marriage registration, and marriage is solely based on mutual consent. Whether to use the formality of marriage due to religious reasons or parents' wishes is up to the individuals involved. In this way, even as they grow older, people can freely engage in or end relationships.
It's also possible to have different surnames for husbands and wives, and the family can decide what surname to give to their children. Names can be changed freely. However, everyone belongs to a Prout Village somewhere and registers their current name, location, medical history, and the blood relationship between parents and children, leaving a record of these. By registering, resources of the municipality are distributed. This resident registration is necessary for understanding the population size of the municipality, planning crop cultivation, and identifying residents in case of disasters.
Raising the children they give birth to is the basic principle, but as everyone in the community has time, there is room for helping each other with child-rearing. When a child is born, the names of the parents and the child are registered with the municipality.
In Prout Village, women can give birth in their teens when they have physical strength, and there is no worry about medical expenses afterward, nor any educational costs regardless of how many children they have. In Prout Village, one can have children regardless of economic power, eliminating worries about the child's future life.
This way of thinking forms the basis, and sex education is primarily done within the family or the municipality. Therefore, the medical and food department creates materials that can be explained at any time using the internet or books.
○Healthcare
In Prout Village, meat consumption decreases and grain consumption increases, creating a life without excessive stress. The residents' health improves, and fewer people fall ill compared to a monetary society. The basic principle is for residents to heal themselves using medicinal plants and similar resources.
Furthermore, in the hospital located in the Art Museum, treatments in dentistry, ophthalmology, internal medicine, surgery, otolaryngology, dermatology, urology, psychiatry, obstetrics and gynecology, neurosurgery, and traditional medicine can be received for free. The reason for establishing it in the Art Museum is because that's where the residents are most active, and thus injuries are more likely to occur.
Treatments primarily utilize medicinal plants and traditional medicine, and the municipality covers the plants and supplies. Additionally, advanced medical equipment is prepared, and facilities such as intensive care units and sterile wards are provided so that medical treatment, development, and training can be carried out.
Moreover, a full medical check-up is carried out once every six months to a year, promoting early detection of diseases through AI-based disease detection and the like. As a result, treatment can be carried out in the shortest time and in the smallest state possible, reducing the number of people who fall seriously ill.
In the event of accidents involving cars, planes, boats, or natural disasters around the municipality, the nearest municipality's medical and food department leads relief activities and handles the wreckage. Wrecked vehicles and the like are returned to raw materials at the manufacturing facility. For childbirth, it will either be a home birth or a hospital birth, and the demand for midwives will increase.
In Prout Village, occupations that require trust, advanced skills, and knowledge, such as healthcare, first seek out honest and capable doctors, who are then requested to serve as municipality-recognized doctors. If a resident wishes to become a doctor, they will study medicine under these recognized doctors. Afterward, students approved by the doctor can become independent. They will then work as a doctor for a certain period, and if the residents' reputation isn't bad, they will become a municipality-certified doctor. This is similar to the relationship between a master and an apprentice. If a certified doctor wants to concentrate on mentoring juniors, that is also possible.
Furthermore, even if a patient dies due to a doctor's mistake in Prout Village, the doctor will not be held accountable. Injuries requiring surgery, falling ill, and other health problems are all self-inflicted, and in Prout Village, where self-responsibility is the basic principle, no one can be blamed for these problems. Taking responsibility for one's health is a fundamental part of being an independent person, and with this premise, those who help can do their best.
Moreover, the medical and food department also manages knowledge related to food cultivation methods, seed management, and other food-related matters.
○Fire Department
In Prout Village, dwellings do not cluster together, and since the walls of the houses are made of earth, they don't burn. Therefore, the chance of fire spreading from one house to another during a fire is low, but there's a possibility of it spreading to surrounding trees. If a fire occurs, the municipality's fire truck responds, and if the scale is large, reinforcements from neighboring municipalities will rush to the scene. However, as part of the initial firefighting efforts, residents themselves will use small firefighting pumps that are kept in each household. This way, if it's anticipated that the fire will spread to surrounding trees, water can be sprayed on these trees in advance to minimize damage.
For this reason, fire hydrants are installed near each dwelling's water supply. Instead of above-ground fire hydrants with protruding rods, underground manhole-type fire hydrants are installed. These underground fire hydrants are placed where the water supply branches off towards the houses. A storage box containing a small fire pump and hose is embedded at the same location as this hydrant, allowing residents to initiate firefighting efforts immediately. The hose needs to be long enough to reach around to the back of the house from the fire hydrant, so a length of more than 20 meters is recommended.
Additionally, the medical and food department leads the planning for residents' firefighting training, which occurs approximately once a year in the municipality.
○Rescue and Recovery in Disasters
In 2020, the coronavirus spread worldwide, and to prevent infection, people were asked to stay at home. Consequently, both businesses and individuals struggled with financial issues. In Prout Village, since people grow their food at home or nearby, they never lack food, and as they don't need to pay rent, everyone can stay at home until there are no more infected individuals. Essential goods, including masks, can be made by hand or with 3D printers, with Prout Villages around the world collaborating, ensuring no shortage of supplies. As for the delay in students' studies, there's no concept of an educational curriculum, academic background, or employment in Prout Village; studying is presumed to be done independently, so there's no concept of being behind in studies.
The procedure in case of an infectious disease outbreak like the coronavirus involves first sealing off the affected municipality and its surrounding municipalities. Depending on the situation, movement of people between municipalities nationwide may be prohibited. Then, everyone in the municipality will be tested. Those who test positive either stay at home or move to temporary isolation dwellings built on vacant land and receive treatment. If the majority of the municipality's population is infected, the entire municipality is sealed off, and the uninfected individuals migrate to another municipality. Once all individuals in a municipality are deemed negative, movement becomes free again between such municipalities. This way, the goal is to achieve zero infections without vaccinations.
Looking back over hundreds of years, infectious diseases have occurred since ancient times and will continue to happen. Therefore, having a dispersed population allows for more efficient testing. In cities where a large number of people are concentrated, there are often not enough doctors and facilities, leading to a collapse of the healthcare system.
Also, the basic response to any natural disaster, whether an earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, typhoon, tornado, heavy rain, heavy snow, flood, or tsunami, is the same. The impact of natural disasters is limited, and the surrounding municipalities that are not affected serve as evacuation sites for those affected.
When a disaster occurs, the first concerns are shelter, toilets, and food for the victims. However, the surrounding municipalities and their residents offer lodging facilities and homes as evacuation sites and provide food. Next, the General Affairs Department of the municipality compiles a list of evacuees, shares it online with surrounding municipalities, and arranges for safety confirmation.
Rescue and relief activities for the affected areas are led by the surrounding municipalities' medical and food departments. Depending on the situation, helicopters may be necessary. In that case, if there's a nearby airport, it would be utilized; if not, such facilities should be prepared in advance. For situations like these, equipment and skills to operate cranes and shovel cars are prepared so that local residents can participate in rescue activities. Therefore, residents engage in disaster drills and get accustomed to the tasks. This is the basic procedure for rescuing disaster victims.
As for recovery, the aim is to restore the state before the destruction, and the residents of the surrounding areas take the lead in the reconstruction. In a monetary society, the major issue in recovery is funding, and whether the economy will be sustainable after recovery often slows down the process. However, in a non-monetary Prout Village, such problems don't occur, and as long as there are local resources, 3D printers, and residents, recovery takes place quickly.
Once the town is completed, residents will return. However, looking at the history of natural disasters like eruptions, tsunamis, and floods over hundreds of years, the same disasters often happen in the same places. This means that if it's predicted that the same disaster will occur again, there may be a need not to rebuild the town in the same location. The history of the region must be carefully considered, and the building of the town must also take into consideration the generations of our descendants.
◯Rehabilitation Facilities for Recidivism Prevention
In Prout Village, rather than prisons, facilities are established for the prevention of recidivism. Depending on the number of crimes, if few, a single facility is operated jointly with surrounding municipalities. Management is conducted on a rotating basis by residents.
Although it can be seen as a punishment in the sense that one cannot leave for a set period, the primary goal is to sever bad relationships if they exist and provide ample time for self-reflection in solitude. It aims to habitualize introspection and enable immediate awareness when thoughts arise. Human behavior is fundamentally linked to past memories; life experiences become memories, which manifest as spontaneous thoughts, unconsciously integrating with these thoughts, becoming emotional, and leading to violence or crimes through emotional reactions.
For example, a person who grew up without sufficient parental love may unconsciously engage in delinquency or hurt others to attract attention. Someone who has been severely betrayed in the past might develop trauma, leading to a tendency to distrust others unconsciously, preventing the formation of healthy relationships. Those who have experienced abuse may unconsciously perpetrate the same violence on others. Individuals who have once experienced the pleasure of drugs are reminded of the taste and may seek it out again.
The issue is that when there is a psychological wound, the same behaviors can be repeated many times. Even if one is arrested and punished, if the emotional scars remain, the same thoughts might resurface, leading to a high possibility of repeating the same crimes. It takes time to cultivate self-control and prevent relapse. Therefore, the duration of stay varies depending on the crime committed.
Thus, for healing and therapy, activities are conducted that allow one to become no-mind through leisurely movements. These include meditation, yoga, Tai Chi, transcribing scriptures, creating art, gardening, and reading. Leisurely movements help maintain a mental buffer, making it easier to be no-mind. Intense activities, by contrast, require so much focus that they leave no room for mindfulness, diverting from the intended purpose.
Furthermore, activities where a third party simply listens intently to the perpetrator's life experiences and thoughts are also conducted. If the victim consents, opportunities for dialogue with the perpetrator are created, and writing apology letters is also practiced.
Moreover, to enhance a sense of self-worth by feeling useful to others, those who can offer knowledge or skills may teach them to outsiders through classes, depending on their behavior within the facility.
Internet use is prohibited within the facility to ensure time is dedicated to inner reflection.
From a community-wide perspective, isolating and treating offenders for a period is aimed at eliminating crime altogether, contributing to overall peace.
◯Preventive Measures and Actions Against Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying has become a social issue worldwide, leading many to choose suicide. For those whose ego thrives on envy and criticism, the internet provides an ideal bullying ground due to the anonymity it offers, making it difficult to identify the perpetrator.
However, those who engage in slander may think they are stating the truth, while others may not even realize they are committing slander. Some post maliciously because anonymity protects their identity, while others are swept up in the surrounding vitriol or lack the empathy due to personality disorders.
In Japan, a major internet company mandated mobile phone number registration for users wishing to comment. As a result, the number of users subject to posting suspension decreased by 56%, and cautionary messages during posting dropped by 22%.
Another example in Japan showed that when a certain NPO informed users who were slandering them that their comments were being recorded and monitored, 90% of the slander ceased.
Research by an American entrepreneur showed that adolescents aged 12 to 18 are 40% more likely to post maliciously compared to other age groups. This is because the prefrontal cortex, which governs self-control, is the last part of the brain to develop, continuing until age 25. Therefore, young people often post impulsively and indiscriminately. To counter this, the entrepreneur developed an app that alerts young users about to post slander with a message, "This aggressive message will hurt someone. Do you really want to post it?" Using this app, the incidence of young people posting aggressive messages dropped from 71.4% to 4.6%.
These examples suggest that notifying users of cautionary messages before posting and making the poster’s identity known can reduce slander. However, there will still be those who engage in slander.
On another note, in a monetary society, efforts to remove slander posted on foreign company websites often face delays or refusal based on the company's arguments. In Prout Village, where there are no such companies or national borders, the following universal rules are established to address cyberbullying issues:
- Websites with posting or commenting features must require user personal ID registration and include a mandatory reporting function to the user's local 5th Town assembly. Operators of websites without these features, and users who post or comment there, are considered illegal and subject to action.
In Prout Village, personal IDs assigned to individuals manage everything from birth records and current addresses to medical histories and overall population data. Using these IDs, all sites on the internet with posting or commenting capabilities require prior personal ID registration to create an account and use the site. Usernames can be real or anonymous. This personal ID includes an address from which immediate reports can be made to the local 5th Town assembly.
Whether or not usernames are displayed when posting or commenting, a reporting button is always available. Reported comments or posts are temporarily hidden.
This system also applies to announcements made by organizations, ensuring that notifications are sent to the representative’s associated 5th Town assembly.
The 5th Town assembly, as a third party, determines whether the report meets the criteria for slander. They also decide the duration of the action, considering how many times the offender has committed the crime and the likelihood of recurrence. The criteria hinge on whether the recipient feels attacked, hurt, or maligned. Since the leaders of Prout Village worldwide make these judgments, the following common actions are established.
"Levels of Cyberbullying and Measures on the Internet"
Level 1: Acts that verbally harm the victim
(Admission to a rehabilitation facility for a period of one week to one year, and a prohibition on using posting or commenting features for one to five years after release)
- Verbal abuse (e.g., idiot, die, disappear, creepy, hurtful nicknames).
- Denial of personality or appearance (e.g., shorty, ugly, dropout, human scum, your family is the worst).
Level 2: Acts that lower the social standing of the victim
(Admission to a rehabilitation facility for one to three years, and a prohibition on using posting or commenting features for one to five years after release)
- Spreading unverified information (e.g., someone was involved in compensated dating, the doctor at that hospital did not provide proper treatment, the food at that restaurant was awful. Even if it's true, it's actionable without evidence).
Level 3: Acts that make the victim fear for their safety
(Admission to a rehabilitation facility for three to five years, and a prohibition on using posting or commenting features for one to five years after release)
- Discriminatory remarks (gender, illness, disability, religion, faith, race, origin, profession, etc.).
- Threats or fraud (I'll kill you, I'll kidnap you, I'll burn it down, I'll make you regret this).
- Impersonating a specific person or falsifying personal IDs to spread information.
- Disclosure of personal information (real name, address, phone number, family information, posting photos that can identify the person, malicious invasion of privacy).
- Creation and use of a posting site without a reporting function.
Level 4: Acts that cause long-term suffering to the victim
(Admission to a rehabilitation facility for five to twenty years, and a prohibition on using posting or commenting features for one to five years after release)
- Posting irretrievable content such as nude or embarrassing photos.
- If the victim develops a long-term illness like depression.
Level 5: In the event of the victim's death
(Admission to a rehabilitation facility for ten years to indefinite, and a prohibition on using posting or commenting features for one to five years after release)
- If the victim dies as a result of cyberbullying, all posters involved in the cyberbullying become subject to action.
This is a starting point, but in Prout Village, the aim is to reduce the crime of bullying to near zero by establishing these boundaries. While there is freedom of speech on the internet, these acts of cyberbullying constitute verbal violence, and without rules, it would turn into a lawless area. Repeated exposure can drive victims to suicide or constitute business interference.
Conversely, counterarguments that bring evidence from data or literature can be considered high-quality critical comments and are not problematic. However, comments using words like "idiot" can be difficult to categorize under these criteria. For example, a viewer of a certain video who comments, "I think what happened in that video is something an idiot would do," might just be expressing their subdued opinion with the strong word "idiot" to resonate with the recipient or might simply be reflecting their narrow worldview.
Moreover, comments such as "Idiot, idiot, idiot, you are truly an idiot" could express disappointment from someone who trusted the person, or it might just be verbal abuse. The interpretation can also depend on the content of the video and the context of the comments.
Additionally, commenting "creepy" on the protagonist's face in a blooper video could be seen as a gentle poke, "That face at that moment was really creepy, haha," or a harsher expression, "That face was seriously creepy, haha." Being under the criteria of cyberbullying does not make using such words a crime per se, much depends on how the recipient perceives them. However, a comment like "You are truly disgusting, please die" would likely be taken simply as verbal abuse by many.
In Prout Village, the initial delineation of what constitutes cyberbullying is made by the victim, who decides whether to report the incident. Once reported, the 5th Town Assembly discusses it, with the primary criterion being whether the recipient perceives the comment as carrying an intent to attack or hurt. Thus, users are advised to refrain from making ambiguous statements that could be criminal, and to review their posts before submitting them. The fine line of what constitutes a crime can change based on the values of the victim and the 5th Town Assembly.
Conversely, the 5th Town Assembly also evaluates the quality of the reporter. For example, if there are 10,000 comments on a singer's video and all critical comments are reported by fans, the comment function would become ineffective. If the 5th Town Assembly deems the reports as not constituting cyberbullying, this would negatively impact the reporter's standing; for instance, if reports are rejected three times, the reporter would then be barred from reporting for one month. If rejected again after reinstatement, the next suspension could be for three months. The system encourages careful reporting, with yet undecided restrictions on the number and duration of suspensions for offenders and reporters. Posts or comments that are reported but then rejected by the 5th Town Assembly are displayed again.
If the 5th Town Assembly finds that the reported content does constitute cyberbullying, they directly inform the person or their family about the action to be taken and delete the comment. Sometimes, it may be better to have the entire 5th Town Assembly discuss the issue or delegate the communication to another appropriate person, depending on the interpersonal dynamics, allowing for flexible responses.
In cases such as the reporting of explicit images, sharing them within the 5th Town Assembly could further harm the victim. Therefore, the 5th Town Assembly ensures that the images are edited to prevent direct viewing before discussing the issue with others.
Additionally, there are instances where people write reviews of events, hospitals, restaurants, or personal services online, and some might post false comments out of dissatisfaction or jealousy. Comments like "The food at that place had bugs" or "The doctor didn't provide proper treatment" are difficult to verify as true or false without evidence. In such cases, the service provider ends up victimized, and the liar may win by default. Hence, in Prout Village, even if critical comments are factual, they could be considered cyberbullying if no evidence is provided, depending on whether the service provider feels targeted and reports it. However, critical comments that present evidence, such as a video showing mistreatment at an animal hospital, are less likely to be considered illegal by the 5th Town Assembly.
In Prout Village, the fundamental principle underlying these mechanisms is that the residents themselves are responsible for maintaining public order, as there is no police force. This applies equally in both the real world and the online world, where it has already been proven that the internet can easily become a breeding ground for bullying. Bullying can target not only distant celebrities but also those living nearby. If there are individuals disrupting local security, it is up to the residents themselves to address this. The 5th Town Assembly member living closest to the disruptive user has the authority to determine the legality of actions, and malicious users are treated in rehabilitation facilities.
Since the 5th Town Assembly members are human, they might err in their judgments or be lenient if their family or friends are reported. If a reporter is dissatisfied with the decision of the 5th Town Assembly or if there is no response within a set period, they will be automatically notified via email that the report will escalate to the 4th, and then to the 3rd Town Assembly. If unresolved, the final appeal can be made to the 1st Town Assembly. If still unacknowledged, the case is closed, and the reporter may be barred from filing further reports for a set period, such as six months. Victims who feel unable to cope alone can consult with their local assembly leader, who can discuss the issue together with the relevant assembly leader.
When addressing or informing offenders about bullying or criminal actions, it is standard to involve a large group rather than a few individuals. Bullies might retaliate, and some can be vindictive and intimidating, making some assembly members fearful. Also, people who engage in bullying often do not easily accept admonishment and might be involved in collective bullying. Therefore, addressing them in small numbers might result in them harboring resentment and potentially retaliating. By making the issue public among a large group, it not only shames the offender but also makes it safer for those issuing the warning, as the collective presence reduces potential risks.
Even with these rules in place, there is still a possibility that people might create underground sites using boards without reporting functions. In such cases, it is hoped that someone will report these activities out of goodwill. If discovered, both the creators and users of such sites become subject to action.
Furthermore, the details and frequency of these crimes are recorded in the personal IDs for decades. Repeated offenses may result in longer periods of stay in rehabilitation facilities and longer bans on posting capabilities. This record also serves as criteria for electing leaders within the 5th Town Assembly. Individuals who engage in malicious online activities are deemed to lack integrity and moral values, thus disqualifying them from leadership roles. As information accumulates within the assembly, it becomes easier to understand and manage community affairs.
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