I've always been torn between historical desire and futurism. Loving both Tolkien and cyberpunk. Maybe it's loving the past, preparing for the future? I never could go full ren faire or full futurist, so I gues here I am stuck in the present.
That was a good one. I'm personally wrapping up my life on the East Coast and getting ready for act 2 in what is kinda an intentional community, a homestead/farm type thing I'm building on the mountain behind town in Homer Alaska - possibly the most beautiful town in America.... which weirdly has a strong history of intentional communities being built there, from the Wisdom, Knowledge, faith, and Love cult ( who kicked Manson out in California at one point) who were known locally as the barefooters... to the origin of the Kilcher family that you see on the Alaska the last frontier show... was originated by the grandfather Yule Kilcher who moved there from Switzerland in 1936 to build an ideal community. anyway, one of the nicer things about going to Homer, is that there is already infrastructure there, hospitals, schools, restaurants, a real economy and also a lot of "end of the road" type personalities who embody the intentional community zeitgeist. starting a community from scratch seems like a lot of work, but I am highly impressed with the wagon wheel in Wyoming, and can't wait to get out there on my way back to alaska this summer.
an interesting project prester John, along these lines, is an article detailing what the realities are for intentional communities right now, I know Bismark is trying to build one, and Andy Hickman talks about one, and I also realize there are a lot of hippie/cultish places that probably already exist, but i'm referring to extremely current projects, like the wagon wheel, that are just getting off the ground. love the article, and love the idea you're writing about... it's a subject with legs
I had no idea Prometheus was eventually released from the rock. Hearing this has actually improved my mood. Don’t tell me Hercules helped Sisyphus with his boulder too?
“Tradition is a solution set to problems society has forgotten.” I don’t remember where I picked this up, but it is a useful lens to view culture through. It is not the only lens, because we (humans) are over-imitators.
We often practice superfluity attached to tradition as if it were substantive. Will flying the flag, or ten flags, produce a unified nation from a disjointed one? No. Citizens of a healthy nation might choose to fly a flag as an expression of their unity. Blind adherence to form weighs us down with a load of non-lethal but nevertheless potentially harmful baggage.
There is much we do not understand about ourselves, and much that is known but not widely taught. It seems to me the best source of empowerment to the localized communities you’re speaking of is a considered effort to separate the wheat from the chaff of tradition.
But not everyone is bent toward that sort of understanding, so dogma is useful.
A couple things come to mind. First, written language/agriculture/patriarchal social structures all evolved concurrently, and it is difficult to know in detail what previous human cultures were like prior to then as one has so little in the archaeological realm to extrapolate from. So we don't really know what we lost. Secondly, you aren't addressing problems with extractive-based technologies or the fact that cities cannot survive without being provisioned by outlying areas and by using them as disposal sites, so that can't be optional. While I seriously doubt humans will voluntarily abandon these technologies, I also seriously doubt they will become more egalitarian. On the contrary. They are likely to become more expensive, and the costs externalized, and run by poor people for the benefit of the rich. I also think more people will die because slaves are so cheap now.
So, not much of a utopian here. Also not impressed by "maybe things would improve if there were more humans." This is a capitalist argument that also supports war and completely ignores how much of life on this planet civilized humans have already destroyed. To argue it's all capitalism's fault simply isn't true, but also, again, population increase, war, and capitalism are all intertwined.
"If humanity doesn’t wipe itself out, this could be something future generations ponder as they entertain the idea of leaving the colony on Mars for a more traditional life in the mega-cities of old earth."
This is always such an interesting train of thought to take. It reminds me of some meme I saw about how, in 10,000 years, humanity's new "paleo" diet will include microplastics as the new "superfood."
I've always been torn between historical desire and futurism. Loving both Tolkien and cyberpunk. Maybe it's loving the past, preparing for the future? I never could go full ren faire or full futurist, so I gues here I am stuck in the present.
That was a good one. I'm personally wrapping up my life on the East Coast and getting ready for act 2 in what is kinda an intentional community, a homestead/farm type thing I'm building on the mountain behind town in Homer Alaska - possibly the most beautiful town in America.... which weirdly has a strong history of intentional communities being built there, from the Wisdom, Knowledge, faith, and Love cult ( who kicked Manson out in California at one point) who were known locally as the barefooters... to the origin of the Kilcher family that you see on the Alaska the last frontier show... was originated by the grandfather Yule Kilcher who moved there from Switzerland in 1936 to build an ideal community. anyway, one of the nicer things about going to Homer, is that there is already infrastructure there, hospitals, schools, restaurants, a real economy and also a lot of "end of the road" type personalities who embody the intentional community zeitgeist. starting a community from scratch seems like a lot of work, but I am highly impressed with the wagon wheel in Wyoming, and can't wait to get out there on my way back to alaska this summer.
an interesting project prester John, along these lines, is an article detailing what the realities are for intentional communities right now, I know Bismark is trying to build one, and Andy Hickman talks about one, and I also realize there are a lot of hippie/cultish places that probably already exist, but i'm referring to extremely current projects, like the wagon wheel, that are just getting off the ground. love the article, and love the idea you're writing about... it's a subject with legs
That sounds awesome! Good luck. Hope to do something similar one day
I had no idea Prometheus was eventually released from the rock. Hearing this has actually improved my mood. Don’t tell me Hercules helped Sisyphus with his boulder too?
Not to my knowledge. Unfortunately Sisyphus is still pushing that boulder
“Tradition is a solution set to problems society has forgotten.” I don’t remember where I picked this up, but it is a useful lens to view culture through. It is not the only lens, because we (humans) are over-imitators.
We often practice superfluity attached to tradition as if it were substantive. Will flying the flag, or ten flags, produce a unified nation from a disjointed one? No. Citizens of a healthy nation might choose to fly a flag as an expression of their unity. Blind adherence to form weighs us down with a load of non-lethal but nevertheless potentially harmful baggage.
There is much we do not understand about ourselves, and much that is known but not widely taught. It seems to me the best source of empowerment to the localized communities you’re speaking of is a considered effort to separate the wheat from the chaff of tradition.
But not everyone is bent toward that sort of understanding, so dogma is useful.
We are messy critters.
A couple things come to mind. First, written language/agriculture/patriarchal social structures all evolved concurrently, and it is difficult to know in detail what previous human cultures were like prior to then as one has so little in the archaeological realm to extrapolate from. So we don't really know what we lost. Secondly, you aren't addressing problems with extractive-based technologies or the fact that cities cannot survive without being provisioned by outlying areas and by using them as disposal sites, so that can't be optional. While I seriously doubt humans will voluntarily abandon these technologies, I also seriously doubt they will become more egalitarian. On the contrary. They are likely to become more expensive, and the costs externalized, and run by poor people for the benefit of the rich. I also think more people will die because slaves are so cheap now.
So, not much of a utopian here. Also not impressed by "maybe things would improve if there were more humans." This is a capitalist argument that also supports war and completely ignores how much of life on this planet civilized humans have already destroyed. To argue it's all capitalism's fault simply isn't true, but also, again, population increase, war, and capitalism are all intertwined.
"If humanity doesn’t wipe itself out, this could be something future generations ponder as they entertain the idea of leaving the colony on Mars for a more traditional life in the mega-cities of old earth."
This is always such an interesting train of thought to take. It reminds me of some meme I saw about how, in 10,000 years, humanity's new "paleo" diet will include microplastics as the new "superfood."