The Upadaria platform is many things and it is at its heart a vision come true, a vision initially seen by first founder Willem IV (myself) in 1982. We can say that what we are building in terms of our platform and other genesis structures is designed as our best understanding of a God-ordained vision for a spiritual nation as the vanguard people of a new civilization. So to that degree, aligning these things with a vision that was tested against the Bible, logic, history, and science for 40 years, is actually our chief aim. We know that if we build according to God’s blueprint, good things will happen for everyone involved.
But the Upadaria Platform, called “The Virtual Commonwealth of Upadaria”, is a place that does three key things for its subscribers who purchase eResident and eCitizen subscription packages:
1. It provides useful and edifying content that subscribers can use in their daily life to build freedom and prosperity
2. It provides systemic and immersive learning experiences, through active participation and even role-playing, so that the individual subscriber can become more fulfilled and empowered
3. It provides virtual-to-local gathering and connections opportunities via social networking and e-commerce features that result in building your own network of fellow travelers whose beliefs, values, and convictions harmonize with your own
This latter aspect of the community is important. Through Upadaria you will experience life first in your own mind and imagination, we use the context and nomenclature of a future history written in 2147 to immerse yourself mind into a different, ideal reality. This is necessary to help you see past, through, and over all the artificial constraints and hindrances of the present sociocultural and socioeconomic situation.
Upadaria as a platform is, among other things, a virtual gathering place for people who want to adopt a spiritual nationality they can positively say is under the rulership of Yeshua, the Christ and Son of God. Being connected to such a nation of people, even though they own no land and have no political or military power, is a sure path to walking in those blessings and provisions reserve for such nations whose God is the Lord.
The immersive learning experiences and role-playing and the creation of this ideal persona within an ideal situation are not the goal. They get you to a different kind of goal that really amounts to establishing kinship type commuties of trust through freewill participation alone. More significantly, you find a community of people, some as virtual connections and some as local connections, with whom warm, accepting, and trust-based fraternal bonds can be made. In short, you experience warmth and acceptance.
From this, while not every subscriber will opt in, a nation of people emerges from within many lands and kindreds and among all the so-called “races.” Gathering hundreds of thousands of people, of whom some to many will choose become the genesis founders and builders of a new nation that is distributed all over the world, is not the only purpose of Upadaria. But it is a key purpose and we certainly want to be totally up front and transparent about that.
Over and over again we will say: we provide options, we don’t impose demands. We offer you things like our immersive learning experiences which are tailored to meeting real needs and improving your quality of life.
Even if at first you feel put off by the “role-playing”, it’s not just fun, it has a serious and transfigurative experience. It’s also a safe and easy way to build new and positive connections on the basis of recognizing and nurturing the person you ideally wish to become. We are certain that you will find this experience to be extremely welcoming and hopeful.
Coming in to Upadaria you are a refugee fleeing from some form of oppression or persecution during the timeline of events that led to the rise of a new national people and the emergence of a new civilization even as many of the older civilizations underwent downfall and/or upheaval. This “narrative history” informs our immersive learning experience, shapes the way our platform is run as well as its features and organization/governance, and even guides, albeit not literally, our actual real-world aims.
To see and experience, even if initially in imagination, what it is like to be part of a nation whose God is the Lord, to experience life within a Christ-centered and Kingdom-focused civilization, and to experientially learn how to manifest this inner, imagined reality into your life and relationships, is a truly innovative, original, and powerful thing.
You will learn these things in Upadaria and experience them, but you will also build real relationships and have real social and economic interactions with your fellow Upos, people who are eCitizens of the Virtual Commonwealth of Upadaria. Options such a earning digital credits, using currencies, and even our own cryptocurrency will give you new ways to advance your prosperity through participation in our internal economy.
Our platform is also designed to be as outward facing as it is private. In other words, if you want your content, like your blog or business listing, to be seen by the public and broadcast to the public, you can do that. But by default all groups and forums and your own content are limited to either your followers or the internal community. Your personal identity, which we can confirm so that people know you are real, is private. Your persona, your Upo self, has their own name which you will choose as and when you become a confirmed eCitizen.
There are basically three types of subscriptions; Guests who have a free visa and limited access, eResidents who pay $15/month for more expanded access and some features, and eCitizens who pay $45/month but for a whole experience and way to either promote themselves or use networking to advance their career, business, or ministry.
Different types of eCitizen are all the same price but are granted based on things you do to advance your status and standing and/or different charters or pledges based on your beliefs and convictions. The basic types include simple eCitizens whose only status is eCitizen, Freeholders who adopt the Freedomist Pledge, Ecclesians who are confirmed followers of Yeshua.(Christians of all denominations), Peers who are eCitizens that adopt the 17 Protocols of Upadaria, Electors who are Peers who formally joined the Upadarian Commonwealth Society International, and Nobles who are Electors who are advancing along “The Path of Honor.”
Lots of other ways to earn status and standing and be recognized for your achievements exist and, as the community grows, more benefits and features for all types of subscribers will be unlocked. Our purpose here it to foster personal growth, advancement, and development and to give many organic opportunities for people to build meaningful connections.
“Buying into” and virtually living out our narrative timeline is not mandatory, you can just become an e-Citizen and enjoy the features, the content, and social interactions through your profile and followers, your blog and other blogs, through the classified ads, the business directory, and through groups and forums. But if you really want Upadaria to be more than a good platform but something that inspires you and awakens your own inner and God-ordained dreams, then give the whole immersive learning experience thing a good try.
Why is Upadaria a paid platform and not open and free to all?
Essential to our vision is the creation of genesis structures which we believe are essential for comings times of crisis and to fund the first projects, like our world HQ, the first missionary and refugee support hubs, and other projects, mostly through a crowdfunding effort. While subscribing to Upadaria is worth it, it is also being part of a crowdfunding effort.
The second reason this is important is that we definitely do not want a wildly incoherent mass influx of million of free users who will require serious moderation and governance and who could literally just be trolls come to discredit us. The paid subscription model means that even if we see a large influx of people, we will always have the means to provide good moderation and governance and even to give them a personalized support system, like a Guide who may only service around 1200 subscribers (which is not as work intense as it may seem) or a volunteer Assistant Guide who may only serve 100 or fewer subscribers and earn perks within the platform.
Finally, but of equal importance, we don’t ever want to be beholden to corporate advertisers who will make demands on content and moderation that don’t align with our views or the interests of the kind of freedom seekers who tend toward being socially conservative that we expect to gather.
As we grow our support base we will explore ways to bring in people of more limited means and help them to eventually stand on their own and be able to afford a subscription. We will not leave people behind, and we offer plenty of free content on our main website, but initially we need to find people who can afford to subscribe and thereby back our overall vision.
Upadaria is neither a free speech platform nor is it in any way a place to bash other people. We are positively for our way of life, based on the 17 Protocols of Upadaria, but we are not against anyone else. We desire only freewill participation, not control or coercion, either for ourselves or others. Most of our content and activities center on a fictional future history written in 2147 AD. Most of our contemporary focus on politics in general is to promote ways for communities of people like those who embrace our intentional nationality to gain more sociocultural and socioeconomic autonomy within existing or new legal structures.
As to the whole Upadarian nationality, unless you are an Elector, as in a member of our international mutual benefit, missionary, and refugee society, you don’t have to literally consider yourself a Upadarian national in your “meta” life outside of Upadaria. But, on the other hand, anyone CAN choose to adopt this particular nationality by making a pledge between God and themselves alone to aspire to use and fulfill as many of these Protocols as God gives the means to do!
People don’t have to join Upadaria, as in the platform, to become a Upadarian by nationality. Additionally, people can only “adopt” this nationality for their “persona” without feeling like they have to transfer that identity into their meta reality. Moreover, people can be eCitizens of various types without even adopting the Upadarian nationality for their Upo Persona.
Everything we offer is on a “can do” as opposed to “must do”, basis and there are many ways to experience happy social and other interactions and benefits in your own way or through prescribed pathways. It’s always your choice and our hope is to give you good choices.
Upadaria isn’t for everybody. Our vision for web 3.0 is a diversity of niche communities eventually connected to a broad organic and decentralized ecosystem that will allow interconnections and cross-platform communications. Upadaria is our initial niche community, others, including free models based on other funding models, can either be created by us or nurtured and inspired by us which connect to a universal backbone not controlled by the establishment technocracy.
As for Upadaria, generally if you are more socially conservative, if you have a Judeo-Christian worldview, and if you are serious about fulfillment, being your best, and becoming prosperous and successful in an ethical manner consistent with your values, then Upadaria is going to be a good fit!
If you legitimately could be called a racist, a bigot, a totalitarian, a communist, a neonazi, a fascist, or a nationalist in a racial sense, then you will find Upadaria to be too “liberal” and “diverse” for your liking. We don’t bash, judge, or condemn others, we simply propose that “the Upadarian Way” is our sociocultural choice and norm and the basis of our freewill association.
We believe that the Upadaria Platform represents not simply a piece of new technology. It’s features may have an interesting application and feel, you be the judge, but it’s true innovations come through its people, connections, its learning experiences, and its virtual-to-local approach to gathering people for activities and functions.
We want the platform to be professional and highly functional and we will ever explore advancements in its technology, but we also believe that the cheif elements of value are a place where you can be accepted and valued, a place where you can experience warm and caring relationships, a place where you can find your true God-ordained purpose and potential, and a place where you can materially benefit from mutual support and commerce.
Upadaria isn’t anything you have ever experienced and while you can enter slowly and learn gradually, bit by bit in manageable pieces, there are many ideas, methods, and principles you can explore that could take you literally months or years to experience. It’s a whole vast new realm of new ideas and possibilities that you can adapt to your daily life as you choose.
