RE: Furthering the Utopia Discussion, version 2.0
After reading over this conversation, along with some meandering thoughts of my own on a similar subject, I have to pose a bit of a question. Whereas I have nothing against furthering the thought of local, centralized communities and communes, which do require solving for all of the variables mentioned in this article, one has to wonder about how to best spread that message and incorporate new blood in to the mix, how best to grow sustainably.
However, looking at it from a different viewpoint may answer many of these questions while of course raising many others. What if you had a decentralized commune? A community of sustainable culture that anyone could "opt-in" to, and profit from, without needing to sell everything they own and possibly acquire a visa to a foreign country just to be a part of?
Steemit and other crowdfunded or social networking platforms have already proven a good basis and shown that the foundation can be conceivably built, but how best do you implement it? One route is the Tinder dating style "communes in your area" that more closely fit your needs personally, spiritually, and creatively. Of course that would require a good deal of active communes to participate, but you get the idea.
I feel like there's something here, something to it, that I haven't discovered yet and need to mull over more. Something just out of my current reaches of thought. But I feel like decentralization protects us the most (no de-facto leaders, best ideas rise to the top, less likely to get a SWAT team involved etc.) while also giving individuals the space and comfort of participating at their own level. I dunno, more thought is required, but I figured I would share what I have to the discussion to see what others might think.
The joy of this discussion is that everything is on the table, especially here in the stages before some idea have gelled together. The few things that seems to have come together at this point I could see are:
-a place to live
-a place to work
-something to eat
-people, who are interested in similar things, so we can share ideas and help each other
(quoting @hr1 in above response)
-maybe something on the goal being around personal growth of members/community
To me the first thing to find common ground on is the goal of the group. With the next focus being on a common vision, which I believe is the current part of discussion. (We're looking for the vision others have, you can see @hr1 's vision in an above reply or what I drew out at some length in the first utopia post of how-to-make-a-small-utopia-and-steemit-might-be-able-to-help. Don't feel it needs to long, any ideas or points are helpful)
With that said, I see there being pros/cons of both centralized and decentralized communities. Since the vision and/or requirements will differ from person to person, requiring a multi-model option. I suspect that we'll end up looking into some split between these two and maybe others.
Regarding the centralized community approach we've had a few models brought up in previous discussion including Tech Squat, baugruppe, and Dont-Call-It-A-Commune. I like the Tinder'esque Communes in your Area idea, especially as it scales up.
In regards the decentralized, interesting questions come up. Does everybody need to be at a physical location to be considered a community? Between the internet, online banking, online ordering and shipping, and other modern technologies we have many outside the box options available for us if people did NOT want to be in a centralized location, have to leave their home/sell things, or other sort of things that some people don't want. There is also nothing to say that a decentralized member couldn't travel and pass through/vacation/visit. This is all still up in the air :)
What are your goals, vision, requirements, etc? Do you think you'd be a more centralized or decentralized sort of person?
Lastly in regards to incorporate 'new blood.' To some degree that's what were doing right now. We are all, on some level, pulling the handle of the one-armed-bandit called Steemit, with in depth thoughts and discussion towards an idea it sounds like a lot of people have thought about but not had the chance to put it together with others with the same passion.
I don't want to speak too much on 'new blood' outside of that, due to the 'marketing' really depending on specifics of the vision, community setup, resources available. Unfortunately, to some degree, the community membership needs to grow hand in hand with financial/resource growth.