{"id":741,"date":"2013-02-25T03:13:35","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T03:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benbansal.me\/?p=741"},"modified":"2013-02-25T03:19:20","modified_gmt":"2013-02-25T03:19:20","slug":"supporting-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/?p=741","title":{"rendered":"Supporting friends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just backed two of my friends in their respective crowd funding endeavours.<\/p>\n<p>Christoph and I lived together during university. A few years ago, he and his friend and fellow ex-SOAS student Guy, embarked on quite a special journey.<\/p>\n<p>They founded <a href=\"http:\/\/www.planetarycollective.com\/\">Planetary Collective<\/a>, a multidisciplinary and multimedia initiative set to nurture a sense of interconnectedness amongst us: amid a growing ecological and ideological crisis, a new worldview is necessary.<\/p>\n<p>Part of their inspiration draws from the experience astronauts recount from seeing earth from space.<\/p>\n<p>Their milestones on this journey have been nothing short of impressive. Their short documentary about the <em>Overview Effect<\/em> has already garnered more than 1m views on Vimeo:<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"http:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/55073825?badge=0\" width=\"580\" height=\"247\" frameborder=\"0\" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Now they are proceeding with their feature-length piece, set to be released in early 2014.\u00a0<em>Continuum<\/em>\u00a0will present the views of a whole list of thought leaders from the field of science and philosophy. Planetary <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/planetary\/planetary-collective-presents-continuum\">now need $80k+ to finalise post production<\/a> as well as shoot additional interviews.<\/p>\n<p>Their fantastic Kickstarter image film has plenty of Tokyo footage &#8211; Christoph and Guy stayed with a mutual friend while here in Japan last year, before my arrival:<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"580\" height=\"435\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/planetary\/planetary-collective-presents-continuum\/widget\/video.html\" frameborder=\"0\"> <\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>My friend Brett has a somewhat smaller yet no less ambitious project: exploring the themes of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.plutobooks.com\/display.asp?K=9780745333502&amp;\">his forthcoming book<\/a> in more detail and with great interactivity, Brett <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indiegogo.com\/projects\/the-london-school-of-financial-activism\/\">wants to start a London-based School of Financial Activism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"580\" height=\"326\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/J-0KCldbZNM\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Brett and I studied at Cambridge together and he has been living the &#8220;dream&#8221; of a freelance consultant, writer and activist for a good part of the last couple of years.<\/p>\n<p>What I like in Brett&#8217;s work is that he has travailed the serious realm of high finance for a few years and thus understands the jargon and, what is more perhaps, has less of a <em>refusenik<\/em> style than many anti-establishment writers.<\/p>\n<p>I think a major reason I have been relatively at ease with my recent &#8220;career step&#8221; (i.e. quit my day job and plunge into the unknown of a break as yet undefined in length) has been the experience of friends like Christoph and Brett.<\/p>\n<p>For their inspiration I want to thank them. To their worthy projects I gladly give!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just backed two of my friends in their respective crowd funding endeavours. Christoph and I lived together during university. A few years ago, he and his friend and fellow ex-SOAS student Guy, embarked on quite a special journey. They &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/?p=741\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-future-ideas","category-tokyo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":750,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions\/750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}