• The Buddy, Nam, goes to Safeway at around 11 pm.
• A few minutes before, a Neighbor, Kim, put in a request for a, A gallon of 2% milk, Organic Valley preferred, by midnight. Otherwise, bring me a half gallon of whatever they have. If it’s going to take you more than one hour, ignore this, please (I need to go to sleep—got early meetings tomorrow).
• When Nam gets to Safeway, the system alerts him of this request and adds, This will take you an extra five to ten minutes and approximately three blocks out of your route.
• Nam reviews the request and gets to see Kim’s vitals” (e.g., “single male, currently alone, thinks stabbing dolls is LOLZ or mom of three^∇). This is the kind of information that this Nam needs to know before he can safely accept a request.
• Nam accepts the request.
• The system summarizes, and displays something like, You are promising to deliver one gallon of Organic Valley 2% milk to Kim at…

So far, the Neighbor doesn’t know anything. Once she accepts the request, the system will let Kim know that, Your request for Organic Valley 2% milk has been accepted. We’ll charge $2.70 to your account. Do you still want it?

• Kim still wants it!
• Nam gets his stuff, including Kim’s milk, stands in line, and pays for the goods.
• As Nam leaves Safeway,^∇ the system alerts Kim, Your 2% Organic Valley milk is on its way and will get to you in about 10 minutes.
• As Nam gets close to Kim’s home, rBuddyNeighbors alerts her again, Your Buddy, Nam (and avatar) is about to get to your home with your Organic Valley 2% milk.
• Nam parks, but his girlfriend walks to Kim’s front door.
• The Neighbor communicates with Nam through the app, Hey, there’s a young woman at my door, is she with you?
• Nam realizes her concern and says, Oh, yes, she is my girlfriend. I’ll come up, too. Sorry about that.
• She comes up, Kim opens the door, and they talk. Name points to their place down the street, Kim tells them about getting the kids fed in the morning, Nam tells her about a Neighborhood event scheduled for the weekend, they talk about the Farmer Markets in the area, …
• Kim accepts the delivery and adds a note to it, Got the milk and got to meet a very nice couple, Nam and her girlfriend.

• Nam, the Buddy, never shows up and Kim tells us that she is closing his request because, the Buddy never got here.
• Then we’ll tell the Neighbor something like, Sorry about what happened. Obviously, we won’t be charging anything to your account. We are donating the yield of RADs to the Banner to build a Neighborhood gym. In any case, if you’d like, we can let you know what Nam has to say about breaking his promise. Please, let us know if you’re interested.
• We’ll ask Nam, What happened, you broke your promise to Kim!
• His response might be, I had to go straight home right away because my neighbor found my dog in her backyard. I was all flustered and forgot to let Kim know. Later, I was just embarrassed. Or he could say, Halfway there my girlfriend was pretty freaked out, so I didn’t show up. I should have said something.

• All rBuddyNeighbors are subscribers and when members sign up, they include the details of how to pay and get paid.
• The Neighbor transfer method is debited to pay for the milk.
• If the Buddy had to pay, say, in cash for the milk, then that amount will be credited to her transfer account.^∇

Groups of rBuddyNeighbors can organize to deal with emergency situations in their,^∇ from drug usage interventions to potential suicides.

They can register their group with rBuddyNeighbors as a community resource.

They’d be alerted when the system detects a pattern that fits their target.

Like other networks of people, rBuddyNeighbor could be used to find people you want to reconnect with. Looking for John M. Graduated in 1972 from Schurz HS in Chicago. Last time we were in touch he still lived in Chicago.

This brings up the importance of reputation for members. A recommendation from a well know Neighbor will count for a lot.

• Pub crawls
• Movie Nights
• Going to the movies or to the theater.^∇

We can train retailers to tell people who call in an order that there are two people near you coming to pick up soon. If you put in a rBuddyNeighbors request, maybe one of them will deliver.

This means that we need a UI for vendors to see rBuddyNeighbors activity that impacts them,

• Requests that mention them
• Comments related to them (good/bad)

This could be in the UI for everybody, not just vendors.

During a conversation, Minesh Patel brought up the use case of a local mom-and-pop store who may deliver a request themselves. It could be that they know the requester as a Neighbor or as a regular customer. Or the requestor lives within their back route and the local grocers can easily deliver it on the way home. This would fit within the model.^∇

The Neighbor-owner cannot charge or add a surcharge for the delivery itself. Tips are not allowed, because it is not about making a living, it is about connecting and simply being a Buddy to a Neighbor.

This could be gamed if the Neighbor-owner hires one or more people to deliver these requests. This would go against the principle of connecting people IRL. A delivery person would not make the kind of connection we are aiming for between Neighbors. This can easily be detected by the Neighbors and reported to the platform. It would end up in a conversation, probably between the grocer and the Neighbor. Or, if the Neighbor is reticent to do this, then somebody from rBuddyNeighbor would do it.

The town of Kamikatsu, Japan, recycles 81% of its waste. You can read read more about it^∇. The neighbors do the recycling.

The collection center mentioned in the articles is another place for Neighbors to have a positive meeting in real life. This is the kind of thing that a neighborhood can organize through rBuddyNeighbors.

Some people love to cook. Others, like myself, can appreciate a good dish, but that’s it: no cooking. If anybody asks, I’ll say, it’s good.

Even the people who like to cook, sometimes feel like not cooking. It’s like harking for a special dish, but you don’t want to make it or don’t know how to cook it.

• You’d like to eat a dish that your aunt made.
• You don’t have the recipe, but you can reach out to your aunt.
• You connect your aunt with the rBuddyNeighbors cook on a video call.
• They figure out how to reproduce the dish. They may have to figure out alternative ingredients to use if your aunt’s can’t be found locally.

You can pick up the food yourself (it’s nearby), or, if you are invited, you can walk over and eat it at the Buddy’s place. The emphasis is on the cooking together.

This can also work for commuting, either as a one time thing, or on a regular basis. I need to get to San Carlos tomorrow by 10 am. Or, I work in Mountain View, looking for a rBuddyNeighbor to commute with. The response from the system could be three potential rBuddyNeighbors, or other commuters that are open to another rider.

It would be commuting with people who live nearby. People that you may even know. People you can have a lasting relationship with.

Has to work anywhere in the world, and across borders.

For example, I can put in a request for Coyotas del Parque in Hermosillo, Mexico. Somebody from my neighborhood who happens to be in Hermosillo, picks up my order and brings it. Since we live nearby, my Buddy let’s me know when I can pick them up at his place.

The scenario is like this, I hear that there’s going to be a demonstration outside the office of a local politician. The organizers went to rBuddyNeighbors and announced their event. I ask for the details and the system sends my request to the organizers. They contact me with the details and I go.

The system may mention people that you’ve interacted with before who are also going to the demonstration.

Group Invitations opens the door to Nazi rallies, or white supremacist groups. Tread carefully.

You just know that people will try to use this for prostitution, distribution of illegal drugs, and other less desirable activities.

Regardless of what you think of these things, this would go against the Explicit Alignment ofrBuddyNeighbor. So, we’d probably have to do something about it, although not sure what.

Scanning requests will not work after a short while, and people will go crypto on us (e.g., Looking for a one-night-stand. I’ll pay $300” will become Looking for my friend, Mike. I want to return his $300. Maybe we can spot patterns (e.g., the same person always responds to the “Mike requests).

When we detect any of this, we could kick the “Mike” character out (and return their membership fees). But that is a use of force.

It is not a matter of rules, we already have the Explicit Alignment to guide us. No matter, in the end the members/co-owners need to do something about it.