Lain Commune

Not sure if this belongs in /Δ/, because it's a post about a project in theory that may not happen in practice for a long time or even ever. Mods, please feel free to move or delete this thread. - - - For the past five or ten years, I've been seeing a consistent theme across imageboard and irc culture: A depressed, lonely 20-something who, while is smart / has interests (especially in academics or engineering), doesn't fit into the typical role of a "successful person". They have (often anxiety-related) motivation problems leading to failure in school, social handicaps which prevent them from networking as well as they would need to to break into an industry without a degree, and high aspirations which won't allow them to feel fulfilled with working behind a cashier or at a warehouse for the rest of their lives. (You can see a lot of this over at >>>/hum/3469) The ideal situation to be in, then, would be for them to be a NEET: supported by the government or family, they fellowship with their friends, work on projects they find interesting, and have the time/space to engage in self-care that they wouldn't otherwise be able to do. This kind of person who achieves NEETdom is happier, healthier, and more well-rounded than their wageslave counterpart. The issue is: how does one obtain NEETdom? If you're not born into a wealthy, tolerant family, or are a natural citizen of a very liberal government, you're pretty much fuarrrked. What if, instead of relying on other people, we achieved NEETdom through our own means? The requirements a person needs to live a good life are relatively simple: Shelter, running water/plumbing, heating and cooling, food, power, internet, and probably a few more small things I'm forgetting. What's stopping us from buying a plot of land and building our own infrastructure, our own buildings and automated farms and power sources, and living by our own means? - - - To facilitate discussion in this thread beyond whether a lain commune would be feasible or desirable (which is discussion I hope we have as well), here are some basic questions: How do we get initial capital? Obviously, trying to squeeze money out of a bunch of NEETs is like trying to bleed a rock. How do we sustain ourselves once we've been established? The less resources we import the better, but we'll still have to pay taxes on land at the very least. Where to build? In a first-world place like North America or Europe? Something more rural like South America, Africa, South Asia, ...? How do we govern ourselves? If a democratic system, how the infrastructure set up / how is it resistant to attack? If a dictatorship or oligarchic situation, how to ensure that the people don't end up getting shafted? How do we ensure that the community has a good culture? I quite like that lainchan culture as a whole right now, but obviously we're not without our flaws. A community of people who aren't good at socializing might be particularly vulnerable to certain failure states.

I remember there was a thread pre-purge, where some lainon had (?)inherited a big blank bit of land somewhere in the States and was planning on building something on it. I do really like you proposal, but my first thoughts are some contradictions or knotty questions. First ... well, for one thing, the fact that on this site there exists a communality of introverts/isolationists is frankly astonishing. That's just us to be civil and friendly with one another. Being responsible for each others' lives and daily well-being is asking an order of magnitude more. It also seems to me that the cyb (to broaden out from "NEET") life is almost by definition embedded in a metropolis culture. Even though I can see why you immediately went rural, I don't think it's necessarily the only answer. You could accomplish much the same thing by occupying a large abandoned building in a city with cratering real estate prices -- set up a roof farm and aquaculture pens, individual apartments sharing a communal kitchen and dining call, etc. Would also make access to things like water, plumbing, internet, food, etc much easier.

>What's stopping us from buying a plot of land and building our own infrastructure, our own buildings and automated farms and power sources, and living by our own means? This is more work than going out and getting a job, meaning you have to be extremely motivated to do so. Personally I do not believe the people here are sufficiently motivated.

>>789 LainSquat This sounds cyber as fuarrrk, I'm in. Failing securing a building, the idea could also work in the abandoned subway tunnels or storm drains under a major city. Like the homeless encampments in the subways beneath New York or the storm drain communities beneath Las Vegas. Would have to get really lucky about finding a spot out-of-the-way enough to stay hidden but still close enough to have access to utilities though.

I've been running a commune with pals for some years now. We are around 12-15 people right now. You should check communal housing in your area if that's something you are interested in. Like me, most of my roomies are NEETs, living with mental health issues and some kind of artist/nerds. Our initial project was also going self-sufficient, but with time I got exhausted of sustaining the project. As you can imagine, dealing something that requires this much effort with 15 people who are lacking motivation and mentally ill is... quite something. I guess I'm super lucky since I am receiving $ from the government of my country for being too broken. I used to freak out all the time thinking of spending the rest of my life in soykaf jobs, now i mostly spend my time learning what I find interesting and working on personal projects. Having people around really helps too since going out to see people requires the cash TM. We do some cash by making DIY/art from recycled materials, sell extra clothing/electronic and swap a lot of stuff. Also food aid. Also dumpster diving. Some of our roomies got self sufficient by selling games on Steam, which is nice, but most people go back to contracts/odd jobs once in a while. Like lainon said, going to a remote place isn't always the best idea. Urban places will help you out to get some freebies you need to survive. Plus, when you'll be super over the people you live with it's cool not to be stranded hours from any other place and catch a breath of fresh air. And, some people will have to move out (willingly or not). Being in a urban center is easier when you need new people to take their place, new energy or a new expertise on something. I heard a couple place got crowdfunded some cash to buy. There are also grassroot research center to learn to make sustainable houses/earthships around America/Canada right now where you can go learn ow to make one for your group. I don't know where you are situated in the world, so check stuff out. Ask yourself why you want to do this. Is it because you are unphased by the idea of success promoted by society? Maybe you're an anarchist at hearth? You feel like living with a group of people like you would give you a sense of community and break your isolation? You wanna fuarrrk capitalism? You wanna learn stuff? You just wanna be far away of other people? When you'll have a clear idea of why you wanna pursue a project like this, it might help out finding how to do it and (most importantly) who to do it with. Go for the people that seek the same stuff you do and you'll dodge a lot of situation living that are gonna be way worst than the minimum wage job type of deal. Oh and, read about communal living projects. It'll give you ideas, it'll help you keep your eyes on the goal and you'll avoid some mistake that where made in the past by others.

I was one of the founders of a non-profit that tried to start a chan commune back in 2013. http://bneweden.runboard.com/ (Holy soykaf how is that forum still there?) It pretty much fell apart because of failure to find interest, subsequent lack of money, and an eventual drifting apart of the three people who actually cared. >How do we get initial capital? Obviously, trying to squeeze money out of a bunch of NEETs is like trying to bleed a rock. This is way more important than anybody ever realizes. I think the only solution is to personally get some funding yourself (I mean one individual supplying several grand) that you can put into it. Personally, I'm planning to just buy a big house out of my inheritance (when that happens) and start a cyberpunk commune in it. >>789 You could accomplish much the same thing by occupying a large abandoned building in a city with cratering real estate prices -- set up a roof farm and aquaculture pens, individual apartments sharing a communal kitchen and dining call, etc. Would also make access to things like water, plumbing, internet, food, etc much easier. When we looked into it, Detroit was basically giving away land, because Detroit.

>>789 I agree that building in a city has a lot of advantages; People being able to come/leave easily is big, as well as easily being able to buy supplies, materials, and utilities. However, just by some quick googling, it looks like even using cheap, delapitated real estate in a city is quite a bit more expensive than buying rural land, even rural land in a first world country. Here are some industrial properties in Detroit: $47,000 2,900 Sqft http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/2122-Puritan-St-Detroit-MI/3629412/ $44,900 1,799 Sqft https://www.point2homes.com/US/Commercial-For-Sale/MI/Detroit/Hubbard-Richard-Corktown/3620-PORTER-Street/51324578.html $44,900 1,000 Sqft https://www.point2homes.com/US/Commercial-For-Sale/MI/Detroit/Pembroke/10416-W-7-MILE-Road/50475937.html Here are some (considerably larger) plots of land in Arkansas: $22,500 12 Acres https://www.landwatch.com/Fulton-County-Arkansas-Farms-and-Ranches-for-sale/pid/327332688 $26,000 13 Acres https://www.landwatch.com/Madison-County-Arkansas-Farms-and-Ranches-for-sale/pid/326919762 $20,000 10.4 Acres https://www.landwatch.com/Fulton-County-Arkansas-Farms-and-Ranches-for-sale/pid/327332689 (Does anyone know if there are other places selling industrial properties for cheaper than Detroit? Or if there's cheaper properies in Detroit that I'm missing?) Also, while having state-provided utilites is good in the short-term, they require a continual source of income - wells, sewer fields, and farms are comperatively much cheaper to maintain. While planting in a city definitely wouldn't be impossible, it makes finding the initial funds and a consistent revenue stream that much harder. >>791 Living in storm drains is an interesting idea, however, don't they flood when it storms?

>>793 Thank you for the link, diving through your forum's archives is interesting.

>>792 Very encouraging that you've actually got one running! A friend of mine lives in another city, but we have similar ideas about this kind of thing, and when I move down there (next year) we're hoping to set up some sort of housing situation for ourselves and others like us. If you have any pointers or good resources, please let me know. >>794 I think you'll only ever find somewhat expensive stuff by looking online (not just Detroit, I'm talking about in general) because to be online it has to be known about, managed by an agent, etc. It's the nickle-and-dime soykaf that is most attractive, and least likely to be found with a simple 'net search. I would advocate finding a place to squat as the most economical thing. Then the majority of your initial capital could go into setting yourself up (repairs, connecting utilities, equipping infrastructure like rain tanks and plant boxes) rather than immediately sinking a lot of money into the land itself. As for the source of initial capital, >>793 suggests > to personally get some funding yourself (I mean one individual supplying several grand) that you can put into it which I agree is the most expedient, but it seems safer to me to look into something more like a co-op. Have a certain amount of capital that everyone who enters has to put up, so they have some vested interest in the welfare of the place. Obviously then governance becomes important, but ... it was always going to be important, right? Income is tricky. The ideal (imo) is for the whole group to form a rag tag crew who go around doing tech jobs of potentially questionable legality, in return for money, goods or services. The bland compromise is probably that each member either wage-slaves, or works hard at the commune to turn that cash into value, or does a mixture of both. Here's the archive of the old lainon who inherited that land https://archive.lainchan.jp/diy/res/2111.html turns out that was in Alabama, but yeah OP definitely keep the question of ~Where?~ in play. Could be that there's a nice abandoned high-rise somewhere in the money-sinks (empty planned cities) of inland China, or an arable valley on the coasts of Australia.

Please come to Maine. Please. We have four seasons. Good land. No gun laws. Less cops. Almost no crime. Individualist culture. General mistrust of federal government.

>>857 Tell me more about Maine?

I might have some files that could help setting up a place, but I'd have to narrow it down to whether you were occupying urban space or rural.

>>857 Maine is pretty cold wouldn't that make it one of the most difficult places to become self sufficient? I can't imagine how many cords of wood you'd need to burn to keep a community warm in the winter, and how much you'd need to pickle to make it after the short growing season. >>788 I'm a serious loner, but this thread is pretty close to my plans after college. Right now I'm coasting through college on scholarships as a means to be a NEET. My intention is to go tree planting in British Columbia two summers, or to take up a job from a local business doing web development for schools. After I make the est. 15k from tree planting or how ever much I'd make from web development I'm going to try to buy ~20 acres. I know I can get this in south east Oregon but I'm not really looking to live in the desert. That being said I think with substantial enough ground works you could redirect the 15in of rain to a small enough area for it grow things with ease. As it stands I'm really attracted to West Virginia if I can afford it. Concerning necessities you can easily become self sufficient for food with limited investment, all you need is man power. 1 acre is plenty to feed one person. If you get your protein from chickens and feed your chickens scraps to turn into compost you can get this number even lower. Extensive use of perennials can also increase production considerably, if you have time, or extra space to get things started, chestnuts make more carbs per acre than corn for example. I have a small garden now 12x4 and if there is one thing I've learned is that what crop/cultivar you choose to grow is massively important. (I have a strange gardening style though, I do as little work as possible and because of that I can get 20lbs of tomitilos but 0 tomatoes, I don't use insecticides) Great book on gardening attached. Power is easiest to get in the mountains, hydropower is the easiest to set-up and most reliable solution for power generation because unlike solar it doesn't require a battery bank or special technology, you can make your own water wheel and generate power with a old washing machine motor if it suits your fancy. Water to drink is easy to get most places with rain barrels connected to the drainage of your home. As far as creating homes I think by far the cheapest and easiest solution would be a hay bail house with old tires for foundation. Well insulated sturdy and cheap/free. They don't look too bad either. Internet is a tough one, if you were in a urban environment you could just setup directional wireless from a library or something like that, but if you want the advantages of rural operation (easy self sufficiency) the only solution is to buy internet. This is a serious problem. Costs can be reduced some by having a single line proper QOS and a squid cache but that will only go so far. If you had a small amount of income even from screen printing tshirts selling extra produce or agricultural products such as wine or honey you could easily pay for it. Organization. My primary advice here is to learn from history, and think. If you let everyone into your commune and don't require people to work your commune will fail as they have in the past. If your commune has a central figure head it will fail as communes have in the past. Just think before you act and have a structure like a non-Newtonian liquid. Also setting out your goals clearly ahead of time. Here's how I would in general organize. Direct democracy. Democratic control over who gets to become a new member. Everyone who joins receives a small plot land which they may build a home on and grow food on with the help of the community, but they are required to maintain it if they're physically able. Additional jobs can be chosen at the discretion of individuals and funds generated from additional jobs go to a universal fund for paying things like internet taxes and any medical fees that show up, or to save up to purchase more land/ for a rainy day.

>>864 Oh yah one more thing, if you're looking for quality internet in the rural setting you're going to struggle but it exists some places. http://www.prtcnet.org/broadband.html

>>857 We don't need anymore people from away moving in. Maine is a terrible choice try Vermont.

>>864 You might try Hinternet or Hamnet Radio can reach far especially if the transceiver is located high up. Your speeds wont be super fast, but its long range, cheap and relatively easy to setup. Probably fast enough for email, image boards and BBS, maybe some 360p video or 480p video depending on bandwidth. Maybe some older online games. https://noisebridge.net/wiki/HInternet http://broadband-hamnet.org/documentation/204-the-tunnel.html

>>790 Even with the motivation... I've known lots of people who had the energy and were able to pool the resources only to learn after a few years, their beloved friends aren't neccessarily people they want to live with permanently. Also they tended to be young and after w while decided that being tied to a piece of land wasn't something they were ready for. It wasn't laziness here, just a need to explore other projects. One person or a couple (in the romantic sense) usually ends up owning the place but at least they're happy with it.

>>864 People generally only use wood if they need to. Oil and electricity is mainly what people use in Maine. More and more are turning to wind and solar. Maine is cold. Yes. We are famous for it. But it is not an artic glacier. People have lived here well before modern tech, and now modern tech is cheap as fuarrrk compaired to what is used to be. My mom is an old woman who lives alone in the woods of Maine. She grows her own food during summer. She is poor, old, weak and still makes lives on her own in the cold Maine woods. If a person like her can do it, to say a few young people can't is just wrong. >>861 I can tell you whatever you want. What do you wish to know? >>890 A fellow Mainer? On Lainchan?

>>894 That's pretty fuarrrking cool.

It is more possible than you think for a group of people to live like this.

>>894 This is Amazing! I found another one too https://www.aredn.org/content/aredn-map-0 I think this is my plan now!! >>901 I looked into land prices, they are temptingly low, and your mother is inspiring. 1k a acre is pretty awesome, and I say that a few times. >>907 Solar is a lot more of a pain than hydro, if you can get near a creek with some decent head, it's the way to go. Otherwise solar is pretty good.

>>901 >>857 Another great thing about Maine is that it's 89% timberland by area, the highest amount of any U.S. state. It's a lot easier to build/live in a forest than a desert or prairie, simply due to the abundance of useful biomass.

>>909 >what is burrowing and earth homes Alternatively, repurposing old shipping containers could help with durable shelter.

Useful information for living on our own: * Food http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/reinventing-the-greenhouse.html http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/03/make-your-own-lowtech-vertical-farm.html http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/fruit-walls-urban-farming.html https://hackaday.com/2017/08/26/raspberry-pi-is-the-brains-behind-automated-greenhouse/ http://www.notechmagazine.com/2016/03/how-to-build-a-biosand-water-filter-using-a-wood-mold.html http://www.notechmagazine.com/2013/01/earthen-solar-cooker.html https://hackaday.com/2017/01/08/the-internet-of-dirt-a-texting-plant/ https://hackaday.com/2016/10/08/diy-plant-led-light-prototype-lights-up-the-winter/ https://hackaday.com/2016/08/28/hackaday-prize-entry-automated-hydroponics/ https://hackaday.com/2016/07/12/solar-powered-hydroponics/ https://hackaday.com/2016/12/26/openag-is-a-personal-food-computer/ * Heat http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2007/12/heat-your-house.html http://www.notechmagazine.com/2017/02/medieval-heating-system-lives-on-in-spain.html http://www.notechmagazine.com/2016/06/zero-electricity-air-cooler.html * Power http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/05/how-to-go-off-grid-in-your-apartment.html http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/04/small-windmills-test-results.html http://www.notechmagazine.com/2016/07/wind-power-system-made-from-plastic-buckets.html https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-energy-renewables/plastic-buckets-broken-printers-shine-light-on-hanois-poor-idUSKCN0ZK0WB http://www.notechmagazine.com/2011/07/wind-farms-can-be-made-10-times-smaller.html http://www.notechmagazine.com/2009/10/timbertower-a-hightech-wind-turbine-made-from-wood.html http://www.notechmagazine.com/2009/10/diy-lowtech-windmills.html https://hackaday.com/2017/08/03/diy-wind-turbine-for-free-energy/ https://hackaday.com/2017/07/26/the-most-straightforward-wind-turbine/ https://hackaday.com/2017/03/18/micro-wind-turbine-for-hikers/ https://hackaday.com/2015/05/30/juice-spewing-wind-turbine-bootstrapped-from-bike-parts/ https://hackaday.com/category/green-hacks/ https://hackaday.com/2017/09/08/that-decentralised-low-voltage-local-dc-power-grid-how-did-it-do/ https://hackaday.com/2016/10/29/living-off-the-grid-on-water-power/ https://hackernoon.com/200-for-a-green-diy-self-sufficient-bedroom-that-your-landlord-wont-hate-b3b4cdcfb4f4 * Wifi http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/how-to-build-a-low-tech-internet.html http://www.notechmagazine.com/2017/01/rebuilding-testing-and-documenting-self-made-wi-fi-antennas.html http://hackersgrid.com/2017/09/ultralong-ranged-wifi-station.html https://emmanuelgranatello.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/sharing-internet-over-long-range.html http://rootsaid.com/long-range-antenna/ * Building things http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2012/12/how-to-make-everything-ourselves-open-modular-hardware.html http://www.notechmagazine.com/2017/04/gin-poles.html https://hackaday.com/2017/03/18/modern-wooden-houses-with-no-glue-or-nails/ https://wikihouse.cc/ >>908 Thank you. If I may ask, were physically in Maine did you see 1k an acre? Also what website are you looking at? My mom has three acres to herself, though it's not square, it's in a weird pizza slice shape. >>909 This makes the soil fertile too.

>>910 Shipping containers are surprisingly expensive. Earth homes are a really great idea because like hay bail houses they are virtually free and really well insulated. Earth bag houses, I can't think of any other technologies other than these three which provide well insulated homes on the cheap. Actually yah though a Earth home would be best. >>911 I'm not sure how applicable this is that far north, but if there are any indigenous perennial food crops you should 100% grow those too, like down here we've got red mulberries, and muscadines, for example, and they are absolutely insane producers. I know you've at least got the sugar maple. I guess you guys have a massive amount of wind out there don't you. Certainly makes sense in that part of the country. I was just looking on craigslist, it's self listing so you can actually get local prices instead of like on other websites. It's mostly for larger lots, but it might be the necessary amount depending on how many people there are. They're sort of all over the place. https://maine.craigslist.org/reo/d/off-grid-100-acre-hunting/6434734024.html https://maine.craigslist.org/reo/d/obo-upscale-gorgeous-land-lot/6447983078.html https://maine.craigslist.org/reb/d/hunting-style-camp-on-46-acres/6424908398.html https://maine.craigslist.org/reo/d/190-acres-for-sportsman/6440539673.html https://maine.craigslist.org/d/real-estate/search/rea

>>912 Earth homes stay pretty warm too.

>>912 The one time I visited Maine we went to a farmers' fair. The variety and quality of produce was most impressive (but then again I'm from Newfoundland).

I have a book on making houses self-sufficient, but it's just too big to post here. Do we still have a Volafile page?

>>919 I saw someone do that with tires. They stacked tires and filled them with dirt as the plants grew and when they knocked the stack over finally it was potato, potato errywhere.

hackerspace

VERTICAL INDOOR FARMING https://futurism.com/urban-farming-future-agriculture/

http://www.fao.org/in-action/globefish/publications/details-publication/en/c/338354/H

>>943 That seems like it would be very inefficient and expensive.

These gadgets might help. http://opensourcemachine.org/ http://opensourcemachinetools.org/wordpress/ http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Global_Village_Construction_Set And this old doomsday prepper site has a lot more practical info than most. http://www.pssurvival.com/

This all seems well and dandy, but can anyone take on Lain now? I will come to your place with my thinkpad and we will work on decentralizing our coops.

https://startyourownisp.com/ This is all applicable to starting communal meshnets.

A buncha fancy Geodomes innawoods connected to each other with a free software meshnet.

>>918 Theres this https://mixtape.moe/

>>947 That soykaf is fuarrrking neat.

>>952 Thanks, this is Self-Sufficient House - Frank Coffee (Holt, Rinehart Winston 1981).pdf https://my.mixtape.moe/xrmqub.pdf

Peter McCoy, Natassja Noell-Radical Mycology_ A Treatise On Seeing And Working With Fungi-Chthaeus Press (2016).pdf https://my.mixtape.moe/ivlxzj.pdf

>>947 >>958 >>957 >>956 Thank you. This stuff really is more possible than I realized.

>>951 >HP 200LX off-topic, but that's some groovy hardware

>>961 For building a better network and living off grid, low power is best power.

>>919 >>920 Is there a more efficient way of doing it? Without having to take it apart too much and get dirt everywhere? Could a barrel/drum be used? I'm interested in having the option to do it indoors.

>>951 I think this is the best solution, you'd have to convince everyone to use some rather lower power devices with built in battery but once you did you could massively simplify infrastructure. Just come out there with a archive of books (primarily) movies and music on a sbc with 2 sata ports and a raid 1 with some ssds and a meshnet could definitely be enough. The metrics for a decision in a commune seem to be: >Does it reduce the labor required to become established? >Does it reduce the labor required for maintenance? I completely agree with anon here and in my eyes this is now a community of underground rammed earth homes using a meshnet in combination with a large file store of media http://gen.lib.rus.ec/dbdumps/ I still think perennial agriculture is the way to grow things that require the least labor to maintain. >Don't need to be fed >Don't need to be watered >Don't need to be replanted >Produce more per acre than annuals

>>968 I don't think you would get enough sun indoors, even with a window. You'd have to have a grow light (still possible, though).

>>970 source of light isn't the issue I'm trying to solve. The problem I want to solve is to make it less of a hassle to harvest, I should have stated that. What way gives the most efficiency of harvesting the potatoes. Less hassle and mess the better.

>>971 The tyres wouldn't let you take out a layer of potatoes at a time, like the boxes. You'd have to harvest them all at once. And potatoes don't last forever, rotten potatoes stink almost as bad as bad meat.

>dig a 2m*2m*2m hole in the ground >board up the sides and the floor >make a lid with sticks and cushiony leaves and stuff >bring in a prepperload o' food, a laptop and a backpack full of backup laptop batteries >and maybe more lains >scavenge through your hard drive/s full of hoarded data to bootstrap your perfect life from there We can make a library of useful info, maybe grabbing data from lotsa sites and putting it together in a torrent. Is there like an etherpad for files? Maybe a thread here will be enough. Different iterations of the lainhouse thread could keep on improving this library until happy fun ensues. So, AFAIK the libgen book torrents are crappy, filenames are random and they're unsorted, but maybe one could script the naming from the metadata or by reading the details of each file from the website. Httrack can mirror websites and I think it's easy to make them into pdf for easy reading or printing. youtube-dl can download videos from almost anywhere and in small filesizes for hoarding, and media can be gotten from most sites by looking up the filename in the website's sourcecode and fun stuff like that. aria2c is great for that (it's like better wget). Do you lains know of a good ebook database program? One that lets you search by author, title, etc, search for a word across books, things like that. >low tech >high DIY

I don't mean to be a downer, but is it really a good idea to think about further isolating ourselves? Single-cell communes (of all varieties) have a really notorious track record. A physical Lain community would be great! Isn't a much better approach to integrate it into some kind of social unit (i.e. through a Lain "house" in a major city, maybe a co-op) instead of retreating into the woods?

>>973 first time it rains you will drown you retard

>>973 Lainon I probably should've mentioned this when I originally mentioned the libgen databased dump. Libgen is opensource so you can just download and run it http://libgen.io/libgen/code/ Youtube is probably a poor choice. Most youtube videos have very low replayability. What I would probably go with is a download of all the videos from mit opencourceware, and similar sites, a bulk collection of everyone's music who happens to go, and a solid movie archive with some classics.

>>976 Oh, so you can download libgen and it will make sense of the weird database dump? Then I'd have to find a way to get my hands on twenty-something TBs of storage, IIRC the book database was that big. Some youtube channels are useful, but I would write the useful info into book format so I don't have to watch videos over and over again. >>974 Both! Variety is good.

>>974 I've been suggesting rural solutions because this is my personal plan. >>864 I think most lainons here would prefer to be in a urban environment though so perhaps that's the direction the discussion should go. As far as cities go I think your two cheapest broad areas are the great lakes and the deep south. You guys are probably northerners so maybe something like Buffalo or Detroit. So I guess we should start looking into foreclosures in the great lakes area: https://www.zillow.com/homes/Detroit_rb/forclosures/ https://www.zillow.com/Buffalo-NY/foreclosures/ Solar is the primary free power generator in urban environments so that would probably be the way to go there. As I mentioned earlier in a urban environment you can setup a long range wireless to a free access point at a library or restaurant or even multiple so that's pretty nice. Initial funds are probably not going to be all that different from a rural operation. The primary problem in need of a solution is ways of generating capital for food. >>977 Yah and It's very large but there is a lot of redundancy so you might be able to get it down a lot just by limiting to one file per entry, also if you rerender them with ghost script you can get pdfs down to something like 20% of their original size. To wrap it all up you could individually tar every file and have the locations update in the database to save even a bit more. ghostscript -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile=output.pdf input.pdf Certainly some youtube channels are good, you're right. Some channels would be a healthy addition to any archive. Sorry for being kinda rude. (you guys wana here a joke, me trying to post this and failing 3 times)

>>980 I don't think the thread should go rural xor city, we can entertain both ideas, and they overlap quite a lot anyway. >generating capital for food There's also generating food, there's plenty of resources for intensive organic gardening that's sufficient and sustainable, and it's not a lot of work per day. Unless it's innacity. If I'm approximating it right, the libgen library would fit in a 50m * 50m library. There's a book called The Organic Artist, by Nick Neddo that explains how to make organic paper and ink and there's plenty of info on bookbinding. Then a printer could be h4xd into using those instead of its normal paper and ink, and you gotta $0 library. Ideally, the printer should be windup. I'm sorry for asking spoonfeed questions, but I'm too burnt up with programming. Here it goes. If you download the database and install libgen, would it be possible to create a library of actually readable ebooks, with metadata and meaningful filenames, to make a torrent of a library that makes sense by itself? Thanks lain for the info and not giving up after those failed submits.

>>981 >I don't think the thread should go rural or city that's valid. Urban agriculture for more than one person doesn't seem very practical to me. I have a nice garden in city, but I certainly couldn't live off of it. Outside of the city of course. That's pretty low tech but neat. You could potentially making money selling books too. Unfortunately not for me, I'm not very much of a programmer, I'm still on page 100 of sicp and beyond that I've only really written simple bash scripts for some of my day to day tasks, also that's a lot of seeding and I've got southerner internet. Why not just use the existing solution though, you could have search and category based browse without doing anything.

>>972 so maybe some sort of layered process. If you could slide a sheet of metal or plastic in between the bottom level and the one above to move the bottom one out and making the one above be the lowest level, or how many levels you want to harvest. To minimize dirt getting everywhere.

>>982 > I have a nice garden in city, but I certainly couldn't live off of it. Community gardens exist and have been shown to dramatically decrease food costs and improve availability of good nutrition in poor urban areas. So Lain, how do we start a community garden in our neighborhood? Is anybody familiar with the bureaucratic process for that?

>>987 This pdf could be helpful. I'm not sure there is much more bureaucracy than you make for yourself, or that of your local city. Of course the rules and structure you set are very important. to be honest so long as you're not growing the communities staple crops you could pretty well cover a substantial amount of the other needs for small community. Herbs/spices, protein sources, and fruit can be done in a very small space (more so the further south you are) This sort of deviates from the traditional recipe for a community garden, and would likely take a bit more space but could have significant impact in a area: A small chicken coop fed scraps. A very small orchard. Herbs as a understory.

>>987 The bureaucracy or lack of it is entirely different depending on where you live. In some cities, community gardens are so organized that it's a simple matter of just signing up for a plot out of many that are already set aside for that. I have known many people that planted on empty lots without permission too, like a squat except for vegetables, and I don't think any of them ever got in trouble for this. Don't get attached to these places though because one day an excavator might show up and dig everything up to build a parking garage or condos. Think of it as a chance to learn some gardening and hopefully get a few seasons of vegetables.

The problem is not how to be self-sufficient, for we know most of the answers to that. The problem is how to protect yourself from goons. In my country there's a building owned by a religious sect whose founder was imprisoned for child trafficking amongst other things, which has since become home to the anarchists and the protesters that are occupying it. The local Council has begun eviction proceedings on behalf of this religious sect, because they would rather have the child traffickers than the political agitators. >TL;DR goons Likewise if you try to visit Liberland you will be found guilty of illegally crossing the border in a show trial set up by either the Croats or the Serbs. >TL;DR goons You can't win a physical confrontation with these people. They've got more goons than you and they know where you live. The only thing that can protect you in these circumstances is mass public awareness and support. Support from the yellow press is essential. At least, it's what Sealand had ~press support. I'd bet this delta board hasn't even got any slav speakers to court such a press in the first place.

>>997 On that regard, a good example could be the Houston Free Thinkers, they started doing agorist activism, put up a website (theconsciousresistance.com), tour the US doing community work and talks while podcasting about it on youtube, and even appeared as interviewees at the Corbett Report a couple times so, they got themselves some internet presence. I'd guess they also have some local presence through community stuff at that level, even had an episode where the cops were monitoring them, but one cop actually agreed with the guys so he whistleblew to the activists about the monitoring.

>>997 I don't think it was at all OPs idea to be a political thorn in the side of global elite. They are just tossing out the idea of a kind of...innawoods cipherpunk commune. Which is more than just possible. Basically OP is proposing this http://www.eastwindblog.co/ Plus this https://wiki.ecohackerfarm.org/start Which is 100% possible.

>>1018 The Missouri agrarians might get away with it as long as they're far enough innawoods and not experimenting with cryptocurrencies, but if you cannot have the freedom or the autonomy then the exercise is meaningless. Having no goon mitigation strategy means you may as well begin work on "project wind-down". After all you can never have a good thing going on without breaching the zoning laws or breaching the peace. Even if we were to discount government goons, regular thieving goons come along and wreck your soykaf. Genuinely known for coming to your squat to rip out all of the plumbing. After budgetary concerns and division of labor have been looked through, security becomes by far the most likely reason a project like this won't succeed.

>>1020 Oh, I have a metric fuarrrkton of e-books on security.

>>1020 I think the general sentiment here is: >I don't understand why someone would trade every weekday of their life 9 to 5 until their 50 for a few nice things. not >If we killed 9 cops I'd wish it was 12 >I wish my neighbourhood association would let me build what I want >I wish I could smoke dope down town I think after budget and division of labor you're set.

>>1032 >I don't understand why someone would trade every weekday of their life 9 to 5 until their 50 for a few nice things. Freedom in food, freedom in drink, freedom in transport, freedom in sanitation, freedom in housing, freedom in business. "A few nice things." >I think after budget and division of labor you're set Except you have no blueprint for obtaining those nice things. You might as well stay where you are.

>>1020 >padlocks and guns aren't real.

>>1042 People are going to come around with bolt cutters and guns of their own. They are going to demand money. They are going to try to abduct you out of the commune. They will probably fight you rather than accept your terms of arrest or exile. Quickly this becomes a major incident precluding military conflict. It's clear to me that you need to have thought this through in advance. You may be able to demonstrate a large advantage in both terrain and force, that might stop goons. But diplomacy is better. Try to figure out if there is anything which will satisfy them that does not involve abducting members of our citizenry. Give them some token soykaf to "confiscate" (steal). Give them intel. Whatever it is they want just so they gtfo. This is why you plan in advance. >I want to get fuarrrked up on the Croatian border No, you don't.

Great resources guys. Im planning on doing something roughly simular to a commune in concept. Im saving up half a mil to retire early with and already own some land in upstate New York to build on. I've read a dozen books on sustainable building and intensive agriculture. I have also already got working aquaponics setup and now figuring out how to automate a lot of the labor with some robots.

>>952 The books are gone, how long does Mixtape keep files?

>>1051 For anyone else wondering the green book is called Wilderness Homes: A Book of the Log in My Toilet by Oliver Kemp

Dick Strawgridge, James Strawbridge-Self Sufficiency for the 21st Century -DK Publishing (2010).pdf https://my.mixtape.moe/xjscoc.pdf John Seymour-Concise Guide to Self-Sufficiency-DK (2007).pdf https://my.mixtape.moe/ejmpiv.pdf Self-Sufficient House - Frank Coffee (Holt, Rinehart Winston 1981).pdf https://my.mixtape.moe/dkyrjn.pdf I've got a few books over 100mb, anyone know where I can host them?

>>1044 This doesn't happen to most people, why would your ownership and governance structures lead to 'a major incident precluding military conflict'?

>>1054 I think that guy's a nut, but you should have a clear set of protocols in the case of the police raiding your commune, nosy reporters trying to paint you as the Manson gang, rednecks trying to burn your soykaf down, or junkies trying to take your soykaf over and turn it into a meth lab.

>>1054 >This doesn't happen to most people Most people don't host their own TOR exit node, or their own rave party with electronic music, or their own cryptocurrency exchange. "Most people" do not see these things as the vital exercise of human rights but as criminal facilitation, or criminal evasion of surveillance, and/or general "troublemaking". Most people have a skewered view of what is "a right". Just as "most people" preach "tolerance" until you do something that they don't want you to do. >>1055 Thank you. That is the point.

>>1056 People have been killed by the FBI over home-schooling, so self-avowed Cvberpunks are going to get Gitmoed and waterboarded if they're LUCKY. No reason not to proceed with your project, but you have to consider spin and PR. You have to couch your group's image in terms of something norms will recognise and understand. Like an artistic collective, Andy Warhol style. Do some fire poi and busking, that's less threatening than MILITIA GROUP or DRUG LAB or TEENYBOPPER DEATH CULT or whatever tabloid headline they will categorise you as. Run a recording studio, an art gallery, yoga classes, hug some trees. It could save your collective's collective ass.

>>1057 > People have been killed by the FBI over home-schooling As much as I hate the FBI, that's not why those people are dead.

>>956 Please upload this again!

>>1058 They were killed because he wanted him and his family to be left alone and refused to snitch. So it's not like it's any better.

http://www.appropedia.org/Welcome_to_Appropedia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buF8ASmwXt4

Anyone have any thoughts on natural farming?

>>1065 https://my.mixtape.moe/ujzblm.pdf

>>1053 These are very good.

>>1085 >>1084 These are both very good. This is very cool too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9TrUPoevXI >>1053 I downloaded all these. Thank you. Ideally all this same soykaf should be on torrents in I2P, or on the public internet via IPFS if you want to sacrifice security/privacy. >>1051 That first PDF is very good.

this sounds like every other soykafty commune with innawoods soykaf. lains belong in the city. you can farm in the city if you really want to farm. otherwise you're just another 'muh freedom' dumbass who is going to have a miserable life in a soykafty woods cabin and die, forgotten. also lol @ anyone trying to live 'off the grid' somewhere with 4 seasons. if you're going to remove yourself from society you should set yourself up better than living in an explicitly hostile environment. a lain commune could produce enough money by participating in established economic structures. produce (i.e. gourmet mushrooms, herbs) can be almost entirely automated and sold directly to restaurants. this is an example. technology allows us to separate ourselves from traditional labour. self sufficiency through manual labour and low tech is a myth. i would hope that lainons would understand the value of belonging to networks more. everything is connected. you can't get away from that.

>>1128 And that's the obligatory gutless asshole to tell you IT CAN'T BE DONE. If everybody listened to fuarrrks like this we'd still be living in caves, cowering at lightning. fuarrrk this maggot and everyone like him.

>>1130 caves are excellent. i am saying it can be done but the whole 'live off the grid' thing is highly impractical and erases the possibility of creating a lain commune that provides a productive environment rather than an environment of needless physical labour do you really think lains will want to go and live in dirt and work hard every day? that is commune life. it is hard work and obligation. what you are arguing for necessitates a loss of technology. technology does not exist in a bubble and the electricity needed to sustain a lain colony can usually only be found within urban centres. learn and teach yourself before whining about 'maggots' and ignoring criticism.

>>1128 > you can farm in the city if you really want to farm Ignoring the rest of the discussion, this alone simply isn't true if you mean to grow food as anything more than a hobby. The land area required to feed an individual is not available in an urban setting.

>>1131 You should read the fuarrrking thread before you spout off, you credulous asshat.

>>1131 >>1133 chill guys

>>1131 Electricity can be generated in various different ways: * solar * eolic * even hand powered (with a generator) Making a generator is not that complicated if you know a bit of electromagnetism and simple circuits.

>>1104 It's the way of the future. I trust no food better than the food I've grown myself.

Nerds know about automating labor.

At the end of this document there is a list of Maine towns that do not require building codes. https://www.nrcm.org/documents/building_codes_town_list.pdf More good permaculture information. https://permies.com/

Underground house made from shipping containers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0oFJ2jbkDI

>>1192 No reinforcement? RIP. Shipping containers are supposed to be stacked on top of each other. They have no support for pressure inwards from each side and will cave eventually. You need some serious reinforcement to keep it safe. I would like to see a multi storey version of this though.

>>1231 Also, I don't think they can take much weight on the roof, it's only made to take weight on the sides when stacked up.

I love this thread.

>>788 Or, people can grow up, face the world, be stronger, and stop blaming 'anxiety' and bs for being a neckbeard/legbeard.

I would second the urban lainsquat idea. Research squatting laws in your area and squatter groups, you can live pretty comfy in a squat. >How do we govern ourselves? If a democratic system, how the infrastructure set up We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting. By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more important issues. In a city there's always food, dumpster diving is the easiest method and it's not impossible to microfarm in a small indoor space. You can grow spirulina in a window for example http://www.spirulinaacademy.com/grow-your-own-spirulina/ The hardest part is actually organizing irl. I've never met another lainon in my country. >>1267 bootlick harder why don't you

>>1267 There are other ways to "face the world" than getting a STEM degree, a cubicle and a meagre wage.

>How do we get initial capital? Obviously, trying to squeeze money out of a bunch of NEETs is like trying to bleed a rock. If everything end up costing 50k USD, and we have 10 people motivaded enough, everyone could just find a full time job and in a couple months we woud the money we need. I know, it's not a pleasant option, but what else could we do? >How do we sustain ourselves once we've been established? The less resources we import the better, but we'll still have to pay taxes on land at the very least. Long term forex trading. I mean, 5k USD yearly is pretty easy and is enough for taxes and any other small thing we could need, right? I know nothing about taxes in the U.S., sorry. >Where to build? I'd love if you guys choose Brazil. I wouldn't have to build a submarine just to die in the middle of the ocean trying to get in the U.S. or any other country. The land is great, there's no way one could die from hyportermia, it is "easy" to live from the resources we find in the wild if necessary (and I have experience in this subject, therefore I could teach everyone that wants to learn), anyone can immigrate easily, etc. Of course, it would be really inconvenient for, I think, most of you. That's ok if everything happens in the US. >How do we govern ourselves? If a democratic system, how the infrastructure set up / how is it resistant to attack? If a dictatorship or oligarchic situation, how to ensure that the people don't end up getting shafted? Monthly conclave to see where we are and where we want to be. The main discussion should be resources management, but is crucial to discuss our relationship. If you have any problem with anyone, we should talk about it.

> Food I really don't think this is such a big problem as people have been saying. A large-ish industrial building will have pretty decent roof area for a garden, and coordinated dumpster diving campaigns can yield a lot of food. (Obviously assuming an urban scenario here.) > Utilities Might be able to survive on water tanks in a tropical area, but otherwise will need to get connected. Whether any water corp will do that depends on the legal position of the place -- if a squat, this will depend on the local squatting laws, if a legit co-op then no problem there (the problem is in officially acquiring somewhere in the first place). Also have to figure out whether it's possible to put together enough on-site generation + storage to cover the place's power needs. My guess is no, what with all the computing that would be going on, plus the inevitably-necessary large refrigerator and (I'm assuming) the tendency of lains to be night-owls. > Governance Really too early to tell, right? Obviously some kind of direct democracy, but the exact form has to be worked out by the people themselves, when they get in a room together, look each other in the eye and figure out what's best for themselves. Ridiculous to get too specific too soon. > Money The grim reality. Both initial capital and income are needed. As >>1272 and others have pointed out, a medium-sized group where everyone's willing to put in a medium-sized amount of money, can capitalize themselves pretty well. But as the place matures we'll be encountering lots of unforeseen costs, stuff that simply can't be made/hacked/pilfered, and those outflows will need to be matched by inflows. Maybe not a lot, but it adds up. Most likely, this means people will have to do a bit of wageslaving and contribute some of their income to the group. A lot of y'all don't want to do the former, let alone the latter. But I'm just saying, it's the most realistic scenario for something like this actually being sustainable. Obviously the place could and should do some trade of its own, or generate money through crypto mining or whatever -- but it's doubtful the whole finances of the place could be immediately sustained by this kind of thing. > Location Maybe my advice isn't worth that much, though: most people seem to be talking under the assumption that this thing will be in America, but for me, there's no way I'm going into the lion's den. Actually >>1272 Brazil was going to be one of my suggestions. There's lots going on there with social movements for housing, including squatting, from what I've read. Plus, a large population means lots of people to be helped with tech stuff: if a lainsquat is going to turn a trade in anything, it'll be something like that.

>>1269 ITT we discuss how to be a virgin NEET and be losers while the chads and working class are out enjoying life. You people need to get over this. Get the hell out of your mom's basement, and tackle the world. We live in a society that forces to get real jobs, make real money, and provide for ourselves. This thread is a classic example of the whole millennial vs baby boomer mentality. Yeah, the world is like kicking dead whales down the beach. Go out and make it better.

>>1304 You have no idea how completely off target you are. I decided not to waste my early 20s working jobs I hated and went out and actually started doing a lot things people in the thread are discussing. "Mom's basement..?" both my parents are dead in fact. I don't care what you decided to do with your own life but don't try and justify your boredom by dumping on these guys who dream of doing something more creative with theirs.

>>1305 >I decided not to waste my early 20s working jobs So you're an unemployed and likely very poor in your 30's? Or even worse, are you a so called "backpacker" and wonder about homeless? Yeah, great quality of life there compared to just working a job and sticking with it. Get real, people. This place is worse than 4chan EVER imagined being.(Appledaddy banned this user for this post)

>>1304 >>1306 I don't know where you just surfed in from, but Lain enforces arguing in good faith, and refraining from personal attacks. Ad hominem abuse isn't tolerated, I suggest you acquaint yourself with the rules, or even better, stay away for a few years until you grow up.

>>1307 Yeah, I'm really scared Appledaddy is going to ban. OMG! THE HORROR!(Appledaddy banned this user for this post)

>>1306 My post was not so much about endorsing a particular lifestyle, it was to address your boring attempt to discourage others here from doing something different with their lives or to follow their dreams. I think maybe a cyberpunk website is the wrong place for you.

>>788 This is in some form like the venus project. https://www.thevenusproject.com/

>>1274 It would be really nice to have a lain brazilian squatting or communie.

>>788 Why not purchase a warehouse in an industrial area and subsection it by building cheap small plywood houses in it. It'd be like a roofed city, with ally ways, vendors and all sorts of neat stuff. You could build around 10-20 meters vertically and you wouldn't have to worry about weather conditions when building the initial structures. This could result in a stable and self contained economy. You could even implement vertical farming into the structure to support the lainons living there. The local economy could be based on bartering/crypto exchange, only using centralized currency when buying external products. The idea I have in mind is a mini Kowloon walled city within a warehouse.

In Brazil, you'd have to allow for the local Mafia wanting to take over, or the police bulldozing it.

>>1383 This is a good idea. Again though it's gonna be tough to squeeze enough money out of NEETs to fund this. How much would that sort of thing cost? Also it looks like that building in your picture is being held up by giant cigarettes.

the most efficient long term funding apparatus would be for a group of lains to put together a trust fund in the dividend aristocrats, and run the commune on 2-4% or less of the earnings annually. Never take in new members until there is sufficient dividend earnings to pay for the increased infrastructure expenses of additional members. Over time, at a 2-4% rate of draw down, a dividend aristocrats portfolio (assuming it continues on the path its followed for 3 decades or more) should yield somewhere between 5 -8% compound interest. This will outpace inflation and ensure sufficient future growth to allow expansion of infrastructure and membership. Only way I can think of to sustain a lain commune without need of some working class. We would all have to share some passive income from stocks or real estate. I prefer stocks generally as they require virtually no maintenance and do not take up space. If 20 lains worked for a year and each earned on the order of 20K(based on a low end IT salary of 28K per year and each living on 500 dollars per month for that year plus taxes and other expenses if any), you would have 400K of starting capital carte blanch that could be invested. 400k at current rates for the dividend aristocrats would generate on the order of 65k total annualized returns for the first year it is invested, about 25k of which is divided earnings. If you could stretch that 25k to support your infrastructure and make sure your people dont die or destroy it to often, this starts to sound feasible. Of course this is a minimum scenario, assuming we all get paid the least possible for that first year, or at least contribute the smallest amount we can for that year of wageslavery. I am willing to bet that most of us can make quite a bit more than 28k in a year and would contribute more. I think a comfortable lain commune could be setup with starting capital in a portfolio of dividend aristocrats for about 1-1.5 million. That initial capital at current rates would generate 200K + per year in total growth and about 80K of dividends alone. enough to sustain some pretty solid infrastructure and continue to increase the capital pool. seems pretty feasible.

>>1395 I'm not too sure on cost, I imagine it varies between regions, I had a bit of a look for decently sized warehouses in my country and they were anywhere between 150 - 500k depending on location. It's probably not that cost efficient when compared to rural land but warehouses are generally close to towns or cities, adding a convenience factor. As for organizing funds, some sort of crowd funding website would be our best bet. You could make the donation rewards be allocated space (10 sq m or so) within the warehouse for building your house/room. This way lainons could purchase property to build on while donating to the overall purchase of the land. Keep in mind there will probably be communal rooms/buildings like a kitchen, bathroom and laundromat, so your dwelling doesn't have to be big or expensive, only enough to fit a bed and project space e.g desk, shelves, 3d printer etc, and you can always build vertically. Also, if we build within a warehouse, insulation won't be as important, wood won't need to be treated/painted and you won't even need to build a roof if you don't want to. a densely populated cyber community living inside an industrial structure just sounds so comfy

Big issue with warehouses would be the legal work. Zoning laws first, and even after that building codes for fire escapes and windows etc Most realistic situation I could see would be squatting some kind of industrial building or warehouse. Minimal expenses, legality doesnt matter, and only needs a small group to start.

>>1400 This is sounding promising. Next problems are gonna be Where do we do this, every lain will probably want it to be their home country but we're spread across the world so where's the most practical place to go? Legal issues, I'm sure there's some squatting laws we can use to our advantage here but it'll still be a hassle. How do we get reliable internet and enough power? Might be easy but I guess it depends where we are and out budget. Another note, I think keeping everything as decentralized as possible with regards to planning and execution is probably a good idea so as to avoid arguments and fights that could jeopardize the project. >>1401 This could also be a good idea, problem being that squats are not very permanent, and building could be classed as damaging private property. If we wanted to squat a warehouse we probably couldn't build our mini city, and it would be harder to get power and internet especially in an industrial area where there's not many wifi spots around. But we'd obviously save a load of money on rent so it's a trade off. Here's some info on squatting in the UK, I know laws vary around the world https://www.squatter.org.uk/for-new-squatters/squatting-made-less-simple/

>>1402 I started and lived in a squat that was in a multistory industrial building in the outskirts of a medium sized US city. I stayed for 8 months, and the squat lasted 4 and half years, ending voluntarily. What determines the longevity of a squat is a combination of the condition of the location, the owner, and relationship with locals and local police. If you choose a good location, have some people skills, and get a bit lucky a squat is feasible for this kind of commune

I think we need to make a graphical representation of progress for this. Or at least just outlining what are the better options and worse options in terms of place on the globe, climate, prices per types of areas, etc.

>>1403 I'd be really interested to hear more about this squat, lain. How big was it to begin with? What problems did you face there?

>>1402 SE Asia might be a good location to look into. I know that in Cambodia you can get business visas extremely easily, immigration services don't really ask questions and they can be extended almost indefinitely. Living costs are extremely low in that region while still maintaining a fairly decent internet infrastructure. I also imagine landlords wouldn't care if we made temporary structures within an office/industrial complex we were renting, if there are any building restrictions, I highly doubt they enforce them heavily.

>>1403 I actually wouldn't mind squatting, I think the only problem is that technology related hobbies require a fairly permanent residency so setting up all your expensive equipment in a place you could be evicted from the next day might be daunting for many of us. However, if we managed to find a place that we could stay in for an extended period of time i'd be more than happy to set up base. If I have to travel overseas (most likely) I'd probably only take my thinkpad, sleeping bag and hammock so this is a non issue for me. I am curious as to whether you had internet/power in your squat and if so, how did you get it all hooked up?

>Cambodian jungle farming >Not accidentally disturbing decade old cluster bombs and loosing limbs That sounds really unsafe to be honest, but nice try

>>1408 Ok well there are many countries that allow non-citizens to purchase land such as Bulgaria, Brazil and Argentina. Usually there are restrictions surrounding the size of the land you are able to purchase but it would be worth looking into. There are also countries that allow you to purchase citizenship via investments. Some people in this thread mentioned Brazil which is an incredibly easy country to purchase land and immigrate to (also cheap living costs). My only concerns with this are crime rate and police being hostile towards us. We'd have to be really careful about location and do a lot of research before any purchases are made, but if this is the only viable option i'd be willing to follow through.

>>1407 It's different in parts of Europe. Squats are more accepted and many have full utilities, even operate a pub, cafe or other retail space on the ground floor. Some are around for years. The laws are different and I don't know the specifics. In US/Canada though, count on a very short stay.

https://the-eye.eu/public/concen.org/Tiny%20Homes%20Survival%20and%20Off-Grid%20Self%20Sufficiency%20videos%20ebooks/ebooks/

>>1410 Argentina seems to have the same benefits and lower crime rate. The south is pretty low on population and exceptionally beautiful too.

>>1410 >We'd have to be really careful about location and do a lot of research before any purchases are made This is where the project stagnates. Too much thinking, not enough action.

>>1307 > Ad hominem abuse isn't tolerated > grow up. ad hominem is when you attack the person rather than what they said.

>>1404 Sure, we need to build some options before trying to choose one. How much space do we need? How many people do we actually have here willing to do it? Pieces of land with great prices: 5,7 hectares for 26K USD. http://mg.olx.com.br/regiao-de-juiz-de-fora/terrenos/terreno-rural-em-resende-costa-mg-479658221 125 hectares m² for 188k USD. http://mg.olx.com.br/belo-horizonte-e-regiao/terrenos/fazenda-em-curvelo-125-ha-formada-com-muita-agua-690-mil-480564862

I think we should create some sort of chat for this project for people who would actually in real life not larping move to a lain commune. I don't want this thread to devolve into talking about chat clients, maybe someone should make an irc? We need a rough idea of number of people, rough locations of those people, and budget if we want to move forward and actually make this.

>>1425 I agree, migrating to IRC seems like a good option but we'll also need somewhere to upload documents and actual plans for the project. Google docs is convenient but I imagine some people might not be happy with that. Are there any other services that allow multiple people to edit documents online?

>>1428 Etherpad is all I can think, and dont think they support any sort of inline images which is important

>>1428 Should there also be some sort of public site/blog where we could document progress for non-involved lains and other interested people? Regardless of how far we'll make it, lessons learnt along the way could prove valuable for others.

>>1430 Maybe afterwards, or at least on a delay.

The world keeps getting more and more scary and ideas like this seem more and more like good ideas. Everything keeps getting worse and worse and I just want to be left out of it.

>>1428 Does matrix support images? Maybe we could even use signal or something. >>1430 I'm not sure this is a good idea if we're planning to squat or participate in other legally gray activities. >>1436 This, if there ever was a time something like this was needed it's now. Lain is watching over us.

>>1447 >Does matrix support images? Supports images and arbitrary files.

Isn't building and supporting a society basically a full time job? I mean in the past whole villages would work from sun up to sun down just with farming. I understand communes like this way of life because it allows for self-sufficiency and a more equal way of life. But what would make this commune for lains? What are you going to do in the hour or two before you collapse in bed from exhaustion? Lains like comfy chairs, cup noodles and half-heatedly reading programming/haxx0r books. When is there going to be time for that?

>>1462 I agree. Unless there's some kind of automated process planned it's unsustainable.

>>1462 >lain is one person

>>1463 Have no fear! I can build automated farming gantries! and a variety of other useful machines!

Any location chosen will have to have at least one local lain advocating for it, scouting it beforehand, and acting as a go-between for the local culture (especially if it's non-Anglophone). So, to my mind, the most important question is: who knows a place? If we can't answer that question then we're nowhere.

How about infiltrating an existing commune? There are many with successful infrastructure already in place, and if enough Lains joined we would have enough votes to do whatever we wanted with the place.

>>1469 that's not very nice, lain. this isn't a bad idea, but i think you should focus on finding a commune that you already appreciate, and work with them to improve it. it might be hard to find an existing /cyb/ commune, but i'm sure there are communes out there that wouldn't object to becoming more /cyb/ if you joined up with a bunch of like-minded lainons and helped them to become more technologically self-sufficient.

>>1462 >>1463 It kinda depends on how pure you want this to be. Obviously, on one end there's complete self-sufficiency and complete collective ownership, but that's pretty uncommon from what I've seen. If you're approaching this all more pragmatically than ideologically, you could pool your efforts into something that just brings in money. Then you could use that money to buy most of your food in bulk. The rest of the profits would be divided between an investment fund, improvements, and individual payouts for personal expenses. Supplement this with a bit of on-site farming and a machine shop to build/repair tools (plus maybe some smart money-shuffling like >>1396 suggests) and it should be pretty sustainable. The nice thing about this approach is that you can gradually become self-sufficient by increasing on-site production and de-emphasising profit. Depending on the nature of the work, you could also account for people who do not want to live on-site but still would like to participate in the collective. These commuters or remote-workers would just receive some portion of the profits, and would be able to take advantage of the economics of scale w.r.t. wholesale food purchases (like a farm-share). As for making the money in the first place, it could be something that plays to the average lainon's strengths. Just to throw out a few ideas: independent datacenter, biodiesel production, fabrication/repair for niche electronics, independent farm equipment repair, software development contract work, marijuana farming (where legal).

>>1470 Perhaps my wording sounded malicious but I don't see an issue with doing as the majority decides. If enough cyb people join it will naturally become a cyb oriented commune, the same as with any other interest group.

>>1472 fair enough. as long as you're thinking about the impact that would have on the existing community. i'm sure there are many out there that would welcome it.

>>1471 I agree with this sentiment. Think of 'commune' in loose terms. Theres plenty of ways to ago about forming a commune other than farming 12 hours a day in the Brazilian rainforest

>>1474 I think you're overestimating the amount of work required to grow your own food and support yourself. As groups size increases, each member has a smaller burden. For example. east wind grows 90+% of their food and has a business that brings in ~$500,000 per year. With 70 members, each member works only 35 hours per week.

>>1475 You've got a good point. I was just thinking about it in terms of startup difficulty. Buying land and learning to farm is a pretty tall order for a group of programmer types that don't even really know eachother. If you just figure out a way to collectively make money at first, you can bootstrap until you get to the point where moving food production on-site is feasible. If you could figure out a way to collectively make money remotely (forming a contracting firm for programming work, for example) you don't even necessarily need to live communally at first. Perhaps there should be some kind of financial commitment to weed out people that aren't serious, but this could be something as simple as buying a business property and running it collectively. Take the biodiesel idea for example (I only suggest this because I know of a commune that does it). Move to the same town. Lease a warehouse. Live in it. Buy a truck. Divide responsibility. Make it profitable. Buy land. Build a barn. Buy a second truck. etc. etc... All the while, you're adding new members and investing money into becoming more self-sustaining.

>>1475 I mean that we dont have to grow our own food. We can, and probably should at some point, but you dont have to. Think more KWC.

>>1467 This a thousand times. I'm gonna go scouting at some point this week in my city and I recommend any lains do the same.

I feel like people are discounting the classic method: open a restaurant. Hear me out. Live and work out of the same structure, food sales go toward more food so that's taken care of, the public pays but Lain eats free since they're part of the community, people get a chance to develop cooking skills, deals with local farms could reduce overall food costs thanks to volume, smaller-scale urban ag could provide more exotic and seasonal ingredients while serving as a testbed for expanding our own food production via robotics and automation, coffee and beer are extremely lucrative and can be easily produced at scale to offset the lower margins on fresh food, and most of all: it integrates you into the existing community. No weird culture clash, no worries about being labelled a cult, it wins the optics game every time. People like you because you feed them and give them a nice place to spend time, everything else gets spun with the work-sharing/co-living/eco-friendly startup culture angle with very, very little work on our part to maintain our image (provided there are no scandals or extreme power trips). It's worth considering. There may even be grants or endowments for that sort of thing in more progressive cities.

>>1482 Half worker co-op, half housing co-op, basically. Easy path for expansion, and the automation and preference for technological solutions puts us in a position to continue generating income outside the main business. If we sell technology to farmers, brewers, etc. that improves their business, they'll be more inclined to sell to us at lower and lower prices, essentially outsourcing a lot of the manual labor while maintaining a high degree of self-sufficiency (we literally have the technology to do it all ourselves in this scenario). With a structure like that it would be possible to get each worker's hours down to just a few hours a day, even under 20 hours a week with enough people. Wins on optics, finances, community, and labor. Loses on absolute self-sufficiency, low-life-ness, and full decentralization. Still pretty /cyb/, though.

We need a more focused communication medium like an IRC. I am 100% on board, and this idea could become a reality with as few as 10-20 dedicated lains.

I live in the Netherlands and I'm on benefits. If there was a commune here, I could help out with a few things financially. Is anyone here willing to move to the Netherlands for this? (It's a great country in general and a welfare state so esp. friendly to a project like this one.)

>>1482 I would love this, but keep in mind something like 80% of restaurants fail within the first year. It's really hard to run a successful restaurant with professionals, never mind a bunch of inexperienced lains. It could be an extra income stream, though probably more like a take out window or something like that. >>1485 I have no idea how to irc because I'm an idiot but please someone do this.

>>1492 Your statistic is likely only applicable to a particular population sub set. It is inaccurate to assume that a "lain restaurant" would conform to the same statistical parameters as a "normal restaurant". Likely the business design, labor force, and values would be completely removed from what that 80% failure rate is based on. I am not saying that novelty is a shield for adversity, but it is important not to be discouraged by statistics that may not even be relevant to your system of interest.

>>1491 I would love to live in the Netherlands to be honest

>>1493 not him but i know plenty of people that work in restaurants (in an american city fwiw). based on what i've seen, i'd count on failure the first time and take success as a happy accident. at least account for failure as an extremely likely contingency. maybe your best bet would probably be a rural area where you're one of the few restaurants in town.

>>1495 A close relative of mine owns the only sit down restaurant in a town of <5K. It's full nearly every night and her margins are still quite thin. I do not believe a restaurant is a good way to start our commune.

I request that any interested parties join #laincom on freenode. Here are some basic polls to gauge interest: https://www.strawpoll.me/15760448 https://www.strawpoll.me/15760460

>>1491 Hey fellow euro. Moving to the US would be a huge deal for me, I don't even know if I could legally stay with my only employment in such a project. So yeah, if the commune was in Europe and/or if we made a second one here (I don't think the americans will be too willing to cross the Atlantic either), it would be easier for me. However I expect buying land would be a lot more expensive, Europe is more crowded than the Americas. I also think it would make more sense to establish south, in Spain I guess. The warm climate would make it easier to leave in rudimentary conditions and to grow crops. And the costs of living are much lower, while our income would be unaffected by the local economy if we do remote work for some sort of lain company. What I imagine is working half-time on crops, growing fruits and veggies which are expensive to buy ; and half-time remote IT work. With the money we can pay rent, taxes and such, and buy potatoes and flour for cheap calories. Which begs the question of whether to establish in an urban centre, and then where to grow crops ? Or in the country sides, which would hardly be cyber, and might greatly diminish the number of persons interested.

>>1497 Is it possible to change the second one to check multiple? I'm an Auslain but would also support a Euro location ...

>>1383 Pros * Sounds awesome. * Would actually work in practicality. * Growing food inside, and automating it, is not hard. Cons * No plumbing * Hilariously expensive. * Hilariously Illegal. * Would be slapped down by cops the moment they heard about it. TLDR: States are bad.

>>1500 I cannot change them unfortunately. There are few enough of us that everyone can discuss preferences in the IRC.

>>1501 Lain said purchasing, not squatting. There would certainly be plumbing and it could be legal with proper permits. Though renting is more likely than buying...

>>1501 >anocm flag >virgin vs chad >stirner? >cyberpunk is dead where can I find cool people like this

>>1503 i'm assuming that lain was american, because zoning laws here most certainly do not allow you to convert your warehouse into mini-kowloon. even if you could get permission to live in the thing, you'd get hit with all kinds of other regulations (fire code violations, building code violations, etc.) You can get away with living in a commercial space if it's just you and a few friends, but starting something of this scale would be infeasible in any city that has even a little bit of red tape.

The IRC chatroom is empty at the moment, except for a screen session on my raspberry pi listening. Is there any way to automatically upload the log somewhere (irssi client) ? I'm not too used to IRC. Also I'm operator by default, but I will leave that to anyone who asks. What should be the focus of the conversation ? I can think of a few choices to be made. * Europe vs US (vs somewhere else ?) * Rural vs urban * Self sufficient vs selling our labor * Legal or illegal Anything else ?

>>1507 yeah, being able to access discussion logs would be pretty good, as I can only be on IRC for a few hours in the evenings and woyld miss out a lot

@Ein I had this same idea and even had a webpage up for it on I2P around 5 years ago. A seasteading commune called SSoNaF (Seasteading Society of NEETs and Freet(er)s) The basic idea was to pool resources towards a barge or container ship, sufficient containers for all citizens, at least 3-5 years worth of basic foodstuffs (I calculated based off rice, which would cost under 1k if the remainder of the trace mineral/nutritional demands could be grown on-site.) As far as funding goes: It has to be every member of the society equally paid in at first. Later immigrants could come in without, but at that point they would need to put in work-time as collateral for the lack of funds. A lot of people disagreed with me on that, but my plan was to focus on everybody at least supporting themselves food-wise, which given a geographically tropical location should be possible year-round. The question that comes up is: Are we dealing with NEETs who just can't function in traditional society, or NEETs who don't want to have to do any work at all? The latter simply isn't an option if you want the tech we all enjoy, the former fits myself, and at least some of my internet friends quite well. Assuming a base of the former and enough of them with intellect, talent, and desire to see something they made for themselves and others like them, we could definitely put together a society that wasn't reliant on slave-like labor or kowtowing for jobs in order to offer everyone the basic necessities of life. Where problems would remain is getting certain skilled laborers, like doctors, engineers, and maintenance personnel for the eventual specialized facilities any nation needs. As far as why a seastead over a traditional land based commune: Because I imagine most of us are unhappy with our host societies and the laws/financial obligations they bind us with. If we want to reduce those burdens then we need a region under our own jurisdiction and the only region left we might even have a chance at getting that sort of autonomy is the sea. Sure for a little while you might fly under the radar on land, but with every piece of surveillance tech and every new law to 'protect the children' or 'thwart the terrorists' our societies are becoming less and less safe for those of us who are different, or simply don't want to feel like an unseen eye is watching us at all times whatever we do. If anyone is interested, in case I miss posts here, I hang out in #saltr on IRC2P.

We shouldn't be caught up on euro vs us, as both of those aren't feasible in the long run, although it would be a good start. For long term think Africa or South America and some parts of Asia, somewhere where we can basically do whatever we want to without the threat of regulatory bodies.

>>1501 >that beer Where in Czech republic have you been lad?

>>1492 >>1485 There already is a lainchan IRC. If you wanted, you could start a commune channel, although in order to have a seperate IRC channel you need a lot of discussion happening (much more than would come from a thread like this).

It's possible for sure. Some weeks ago I was at a farm in Portugal. The owner of the land (around 3,6 hectars) are self sustainable in point of electricity and water. They have solar systems (which do an automatic rotation towards the sun) and they have a big, really big, well from where they get water. Enough for nearly 365 days a year. Sometimes, when it's cloudy and rainy for around 7 days they do have no electricy, though. Since they're older they do not use their land anymore so much, just a bit of salad growing here and there. But it is possible to life like that.

>>1534 The part I don't believe is that a group of people from around the country (or world) from an anonymous website are going to convene in the first place, let alone get along well enough to live and work together. People are better off looking for projects near to them... or is Lainchan the closest thing to social contact anyone here has?

>>1534 How much money would that take to set up though ? If we start a whole new project just for us. Getting in debt for twenty years is hardly the way to go. >>1535 >is Lainchan the closest thing to social contact anyone here has? Present Day, Present Time! AHAHAHAHAHA! But really, I imagine a farming commune wouldn't be too hard to find and integrate. However, a cyber-oriented commune would be much harder, and there I could see the point of some lainons joining together to start one.

I just stumbled upon this thread, is the conversation mainly going on here or is it all on IRC?

>>1541 No conversation on freenode so far, there seems to be too few people interested for two or more to be connected at the same time. Maybe we should set an hour at which people should meet on irc to discuss. Probably during the week-end too, so that both sides of the Atlantic can be available. Saturday 20:00 UTC ?

>>1543 I'll be there

>>1543 That's fine for me, I'll be there.

>>1023 Mind dumping them on /sec/ lain?

>>1543 why wouldn't you just arrange it here

>>1543 Sounds good, hopefully I can make it!

>>1543 I will not be able to make it because Freenode does not allow anonymous connections from Tor. There is a channel on the Lainchan IRC called #lainarchy that could suit our needs. If everyone could agree to use that channel instead I would be able to participate.

>>1554 I'm fine with join #lainarchy if the people there are fine with us coming over. People on freenode can be redirected as needed. One question, logging seems to be frowned upon in the rules of Lainchan IRC, would it be fine to post the minutes of the meeting here for those who couldn't be present ?

>>1555 What's said in the Mumble during the Lainchan annual general meetings is written down. Since this is also a meeting, I don't think it would be a big deal to log a small channel during the meeting time.

Still on, or? It's in >irc.lainchan.org:+6697 #lainchan as the info on the https://www.lainchan.org/irc page points to, I assume?

>>1558 tells me its invite only how do i access that channel?

You guys suck at making things clear

This deserves a dedicated room. #LainCommune or something. You post about it an hour before it starts, pointing people there. Make infogrpahics about the choices discussed ITT, point out benefits of certain choices, point out the negatives of certain choices. Narrow the scope down. Get closer to where you want to get, incrementally.

irc.lainchan.org:+6697 #lainarchy We cannot create a dedicated room without privileges on the IRC server so let's use #lainarchy.

>>1562 If you want a dedicated channel for this, feel to ask for one to be whitelisted in #questions channel.

For the next meeting, how does irc.lainchan.org:+6697 #lainarchy at 20:00 UTC sound?

>>1564 What day?

>>1565 Oh whoops. How does Saturday the 9th sound?

Here's the log from #lainarchy: https://my.mixtape.moe/eehnif.txt And here's our idea pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/laincommune-keep

>>1566 Not sure if I will be able to make it If not, I will leave the gist of my research results on the paste

>>1568 What's a date and time that would work well for you? Would Sunday be better for example?

>>1569 No, its alright. I will most likely be there, just wanted to give a heads up in case I won't.

>>1566 Sounds good, but if anyone needs a different time, I'm quite flexible.

Sorry for tardrage, just was frustrated at the lack of meaningful discussion. I read over the logs and realized you guys are on the same page as me and I just didn't realize it. I'll be there next week and will have some ideas to propose.

currently researching regulations in Europe. Will be posting some general stats/maps as I make/collect them.

Maybe before embarking on a massive effort like setting up a commune/squat, it would be worth just doing a little meet-up of interested parties? Eurolains could gather somewhere in central Europe (since that's looking like the most promising region) just to get a feel for who we actually are?

>>1589 I'm for this, although it would have to be a little while in the future to allow poor users like me to save for plane tickets and other costs.

>>1589 >Maybe before embarking on a massive effort like setting up a commune/squat, it would be worth just doing a little meet-up of interested parties? I don't see why that would be necessary. A lot of the work involved here could be done with a person and a network connection, like it has been done so far. I'm thinking about these types of contributions that are stacking up: >>1583 >>1406 which could/should be compiled into a wiki, organized. >Meetup Haven't there already been a bunch of these? I don't see why it'd be necessary for continuing the work. >in specifically Eastern Europe Why meet in a region where the population most probably doesn't speak English? I don't know any Balto-Slavic languages and my guess, since we're a mostly English-speaking website, would be that most others don't as well. If some want to go ahead with a euro-meetup I'd suggest north/west Europe. Like the Netherlands. They are fluent in English there and it's not separated from the rest of continental Europe by sea, as are the British Isles & Scandinavia. Re-contextualization? But this has got me thinking. Maybe we should start re-contextualizing this project from the perspective of a 'single' commune, to the possibility of several emerging, perhaps naturally separated by the continents. I mean is it really sensible to require, say a person with relatives, friends and work in Asia to relocate to America or Europe because that's where "the LainCommune" appears? Same case for if the commune finally first materializes in Asia or Europe. Right now it seems most people are referencing the US, Europe and southeast Asia. The Americans should probably, from a practical POV, start thinking of it as LainCommuneUS, as they seem to be set on locating a commune in the rural parts of the US. The Europeans, of which I am a part, should probably thinking in terms of a LainCommuneEU. I mean I don't want to move to the US. Simple as that, and I don't think this is a very unique sentiment coming from someone having grown up here, AKA this might be an issue if we were to think of LainCommuneUS as "the LainCommune". There are also the socio/economic/cultural barriers of language (especially between east/west), regional economics (think regional currency, banking, laws, certifications, etc.) and custom (mostly east/west again). Also having an immaterial productive framework of several LainCommunes emerging allows for more all-encompassing research and hence resilience against unforeseen abrupt societal changes. Hypothetically, having three LainCommunes (separated by continent) would also allow for very interesting possibilities of federated development. Now you have three unique but similar experiments being conducted and able to learn from each other and exchange experiences and cultural materials. Just some thoughts.

>>1592 >cont. in regards to re-context. ...not to mention ease of relocation. I think the hypothetical of three LainCommunes would accumulate a steady stream of residents and activity faster than if it were one.

>>1592 You are right. Moving people across continents for an experiment like this doesn't make a lot of sense. If we create multiple seperate communes (for the start, a US and a EU one, I don't know if there are enough East Asian lains to warrant a third), we could solve potential residence/immigration restrictions, while still being able to cooperate on things like software development and exchange ideas across the ocean. I would be in favor of this concept.

>>1592 >>1594 I thought this what we already had figured? Either way this is what will most likely happen

>>1589 >doing a little meet-up of interested parties Definitely, and probably living together for a while before investing too much money. I'm not buying a farm with some random lains before knowing them better as persons. >>1591 >to allow poor users like me to save for plane tickets and other costs. and to allow wageslaves to beg for a few vacation days from their master. >>>1592 >Haven't there already been a bunch of these? I don't see why it'd be necessary for continuing the work. I've never been to one, and as I said I want to know the other lains better if we're going to invest money together. >north/west Europe Much more expensive than central Europe. Slovenia was proposed, which seems to have the political stability of western europe, good weather, and still only half the cost of life. Cost of life won't matter once we're 100% off-grid, but it will be precious while paying for the land. (If doing remote work and being paid to US / western Europe rates.) >>1595 At least for me that was very clear.

>>1589 >>1591 >>1638 What would Euro-lain think about contacting an established commune in Western Europe and asking to cohabitate for a few days/weeks in exchange for work? It might be a great way test our teamwork abilities and do research on commune organisation/self-sufficiency while keeping accomodation cost down.

There is a rather large and independent commune in Amsterdam, which is not too far away for me. If we can provide useful skills, they might sympathize with our cause and let a few lains live with them for a short while.

Yep my comment >>1589 had been presupposing that only people in/near Europe would be willing or interested. It's been pretty clear from the beginning that very few people are willing to cross the US border in either direction. That's fine --- I love the idea of a "community of communities" emerging out of this. But of course it's going to happen very slowly if at all, and sitting down for a beer seems like a reasonable first step. Also, central Europe was just an example, because of the Slovenia suggestion. (To add to it, I know people who have travelled there and been very impressed by the squatting scene in Ljubljana.) Totally open to meeting wherever, though. This place >>1641 is very impressive, but even after 20 years' occupancy it looks like they're at risk of being kicked out[0]. A lesson worth considering while we make plans, I suppose. [0] http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/178272/raad-van-state-beslist-krakers-adm-terrein-mogen-voorlopig-blijven

>>1639 >What would Euro-lain think about contacting an established commune in Western Europe and asking to cohabitate for a few days/weeks in exchange for work? As long as it's not one of those religious/hippie communes. There's a lot of those around. >It might be a great way test our teamwork abilities and do research on commune organisation/self-sufficiency We're on the same page here. I'd like to technologize this as much as possible and most communes unfortunately have some spooky moral goal of their association as a primary reason for operating. >>1641 Now this on the other hand is the cool type of commune. I can't believe I haven't heard about this one. I know Spain (specifically Catalonia) has a lot of these as well. Renewable energy, often a lot of anarcho-techies involved, operating community wireless. This would mesh (no pun intended) perfectly with what I have in mind. Maybe we should list and map already existing communes so as to perhaps take into account settling the LainCommune in their general vicinity?

>> >A lesson worth considering while we make plans Absolutely. One recurring pattern I've come across when studying lasting squats/communes is they all started with cooperative investment of the (often cheap, remote) land. Squatting is getting harder and harder to pull off in any lasting sense and, at least for me, are not worth it as a strategy.

>>1647 >>1645

If we were having a discussion on IRC today, I won't be able to make it. But my idea of buying cheap land in Arizona is bad after I looked into the logistics and costs of utilities (water & food). Water collection is too impractical. If anyone can fill me in on what was discussed or direct me to the logs of the session, that would be appreciated. Sorry about not being able to make it, but I have some errands I need to take care of this Saturday.

has the discussion concluded already? #lainarchy seems dead

>>1662 So did the discussion even happen, I don't see any logs or anything posted?

Is this thread/idea dead?

>>1664 I hope not, we had great discussion last saturday. I will research some more and get back next saturday. Hopefully some other lains will be able to join us.

The next scheduled meeting is: irc.lainchan.org:+6697 #lainarchy Sunday at 20:00 UTC

>>1667 I will try and be there lain. Ill be doing some mechanic work so I might not show, but I will put it on my calendar and get finished ASAP so I can drop in...

There really isn't anything stopping a bunch of computer nerds from buying land next to each other in a building code free area and working together on rad projects.

Fun thread. But this commune would have no women in it. Does this truly not bother you? Especially if in a rural area. The celibate monks in medieval monasteries managed fine, but that is because they emphasized discipline, including schedules. Lainon lacks such discipline and sees schedules as totalitarian.

>>1670 as long as we don't settle in an extremely remote area, you will always have the opportunity to visit the nearest city if you need female companionship. I'm sure we will eventually find some ladies who are willing to help us out or even join (if only part time). I think you're underestimating the amount of adventurous and unconventional women out there.

>>1671 There are many adventurous and unconventional women, but surely they are drawn to very different environments and causes. The lain kind of ideas (anonymyty, bodylessness) are very rarely attractive to women. As you say, if there is civilization nearby, then perhaps this is not terminal. All the same, I think it is exactly the kind of consideration that a lainon will pretend not to care about, and then suddenly care about it a lot when it becomes acute. It is, I think, actually a very strong argument in favor of urban settlement (assuming you all are serious about this, rather than theorizing for fun, of course).

a few general maps of Slovenia

http://infotujci.si/en/third-country-nationals/temporary-residence-permit/ Among the requirements are a purpose of residence, which can be self employement, interested in the country, or being European. And a minimum income of 300 euros. Easily doable I'd say, even as a freelancer.

>>1674 additionally, EU citizens can acquire and own land there pretty easily

http://fr.arkadia.com/eden-t49578862/ Trying to find a range of price to buy land. This one is a farm for only 33 000 euros, but other than that most houses were not that cheap. Slovenia is by no means third world tier.

>>1676 It depends on the region, too. The central and eastern parts are cheaper, but with a harsher climate. The mediterranean east is very mild by comparison, but more expensive to buy land in. The climate matters more if the commune does have an agricultural conponent, of course, but the tourism industry in Capodistria has the best wageslaving opportunities for foreigners outside Ljubljana, too.

>>1677 Speaking of tourism, working as an inn for travelers would be an easy way to make some money and maybe some interesting encounters.

The meeting is in one hour (20:00 UTC) in #lainarchy in the Lainchan IRC.

Here are the logs from the meeting: https://my.mixtape.moe/qfghnx.txt This is the etherpad we worked on: https://pad.riseup.net/p/laincommune-keep The next scheduled meeting is: irc.lainchan.org:+6697 #lainarchy Sunday the 17th of June at 20:00 UTC If you want to change the meeting date and time go ahead.

So, what was said amongst the brewing soykaf this time ..? Lainons location: 5 in UE, plus 1 in UK and 1 in Serbia 1 in Australia US ? Asia ? Concrete plans for the future: visit squat in Amsterdam next summer and/or Freetown Christiania in Norway Longer term: getting an apartment to live together for a time before launching a full scale commune Questions to be answered: drugs: forbidden, dedicated room, ..? personal bedrooms only or is a dormitory acceptable at the start ? Proposed locations beside Slovenia include: France: "would be cool" Scotland: gun laws, squatting laws Australia: plenty of room, but it's australia rural, in a farm ? urban, in a warehouse ? in a squat ? Two points that I think will break the commune if everyone doesn't agree on it: >structurally anarchist, hopefully. but i wouldnt want it to engage in activism/politics directly >We should be a legal commune Of course we can make a legal commune and an illegal squat, but in a given location, we will have to agree which path we follow before starting anything. Idem for the power structure.

>>1687 > 1 in Australia +1. (But will be in the EU later in the year.) > drugs Hopefully no one's addicted to anything so hard it needs to be sectioned off in its own area? > bedrooms yes please, although if it's some warehouse that's obviously a goal to work towards rather than an ex-ante requirement > rural/urban I think urban makes the most sense, but I've posted about that above. > locations Slovenia and Scotland both seem like quality candidates. Obviously Australia sounds good to me, and the weather is way better either of the other two, but our govt is pretty hectic. >>structurally anarchist, hopefully. but i wouldnt want it to engage in activism/politics directly >>We should be a legal commune Yeah basically. I think discussions about formal power structures only need to come with growth, and that's a long time away (if at all).

I suggest running it as a food co-op and maybe install a multimachine for a makerspace. "Food co-op" sounds better than "hackerspace", if you don't want country LEOs breaking down your doors and tasering you in the butthole. Or worse, FBI burning the place down with you in it and blaming the DEA.

>>1687 add 1 US to that.(Texas) >drugs unless it is rural, or in an extra liberated zone, I do not see this working out too well on any time scale due to legal and medical liabilities. >bedrooms Each person or incoming group should arrange and be responsible for their own housing and sleeping arrangements on site >rural/urban I prefer rural due to reduced legal presence and greater space to expand. Moreover, rural areas have more directly and simply accessible resources that do not have substantial direct competition for them. >locations Australia is a good bet. Going Mad Max out in the outback sounds like a good way to go, though I think water scarcity may prove troublesome unless we do some serious planning first. >Structurally anarchist, political nonparticipant, legal commune We will need some sort of distributed work assignment system and some way to harvest and process local resource, regardless of where we set up shop. We might consider a setup like Slab City USA. No reason not to copy success. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slab_City,_California I also agree with >>1689 We need to make ourselves as stealthy as possible until we have enough man power and resources to establish ourselves permanently and resist the likely show(s) of force trying to stop us.

>>1687 >drugs I don't see this being a problem there's no reason people can't just go outside if they want to smoke a joint or something. >bedrooms obviously preferable but dorms wouldn't be the worst thing ever >structurally anarchist, hopefully. but i wouldnt want it to engage in activism/politics directly this seems okay to me. Horizontal structure makes the most sense for this kind of thing and is a tried and tested model on this scale. >We should be a legal commune I don't care, whatever's easiest or happens first. I'm gonna start looking around my city see what I can do this week.

>>1695 >I don't see this being a problem there's no reason people can't just go outside if they want to smoke a joint or something. I think the issue wouldn't be the occasional smoke, but rather drugs more addictive, expansive, and generally life ruining. Is heroin consumption a sufficient reason to kick someone out ? >>1689 >>1693 >LEOs breaking down your doors >as stealthy as possible [...] likely show(s) of force trying to stop us I've read a lot of this line of thought in the thread. I might be naive, or too used to the more mellow European police, but I don't see why there would be such an attack on us from the authority as long as we keep things legal ? Surely the concept of a hackerspace is now common enough that we wouldn't get attacked over a misunderstanding of the scary name ? That's also a point we can discuss with the people from Amsterdam.

>>1696 > Is heroin consumption a sufficient reason to kick someone out ? Well... with punk squats in the 90s and early 00s there were generally two types. Ones that derezzed heroin and ones that were overrun with it. The ones in the middle never stayed that way. They became overrun too or they made a stand and kicked that shtt out. Not so good for people struggling to quit unfortunately but you can't help anyone while looking over both of your own shoulders constantly.

>>1697 >>1696 I would be okay with drug consumption as long as the person can still function as a working member of the commune, and it doesnt draw LE attention. No problem with soft drugs as long as you're not a dumbass. People with crippling addictions should seek help first, really for their own good. I can support an addicted friend, but I can't take responsibility for someone i just met.

>>1688 >>1693 And I forgot, if you want to be counted, you can add your location to the pad[. https://pad.riseup.net/p/laincommune-keep I won't do it myself, I wouldn't want people to be counted twice.

You'll have to have strong policies on drugs, or junkies will just move in and turn it into a shooting gallery. Bikers might try moving in, too, if they get wind. You should have a definite plan for if you get raided by the police, they'll decide you're a meth lab and wreck the place, and make up whatever story they want afterwards. And beware of political activists, they'll make you crash and burn and then move on to the next bunch of suckers. At this point there's no difference between the commies, the Nazis, and the agents provocateur employed by the police. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Food_Cooperative_Wars

>>1700 I can't believe there's a wiki article about that. People I met who were involved in that never wanted to talk about it except one, and he insisted that there was never a good book or essay written on the subject and never would be. I'm not sure how relevant it is to this project anyway, that was a diverse group of people struggling to hold on and build something permanent as all the massive dreams of the 60s died around them. The co-ops just ended up grocery stores like any other but with different brands on the shelves. The restaurants and cafes that came out of that movement had more meaningful lifespans as community projects.

Guys you're overthinking this way too much. It's just gonna be a few lains living together, none of us are heroin addicts, there won't be any randos moving in with us because its our house we can just, you know, not let them in. At most maybe one of us has a friend who wants to join in which case we can decide case by case. As much as I hate police, I would have thought they had higher priorities than fuarrrking with a few technohippies. And hey if we end up in a poor country with corrupt cops we can just pay them off. We can easily present two images of ourselves simultaneously depending on our goals. To the authorities we can pretend we're a group of tech-bro entrepreneurs trying to start a "makerspace" business and thinking outside of the box to get our company going. To the people who will help us with coop stuff we can present as leftist hackers trying to subvert the system and create a DIY space for the community or something. It doesn't matter if any of that is true but we can use it to our advantage. The great thing is it doesn't matter if one group finds out we're playing both sides because we just say we're playing 4d chess and "we're really on your side we just pretend to be X so the others don't bother us". It's really not that complicated at all we just need some real meatspace action, don't wait around for someone else to do it for you start actually looking for places to buy/squat in your area or online, start researching about the income generation techniques listed in the pad, start getting to know the other lains better on irc, find out how to grow food, etc etc. I just did 5 minutes of googling and found a service which lets you stay in abandoned buildings as a "guardian" for extremely cheap, and I found a country club for £350pcm to £650. From the pictures it looks big enough, but it might be soykaf, either way that's with 5 minutes of effort. I'm sure we can figure this out.

>>1664 This thread is one of the least dead threads on lainchan right now.

>>1681 I made a channel, #commune, for future commune discussion. Logs are public at muskox.me/commune.log.

Do you know about 4/diy's bunkerbro? He bought an old bunker in a Scandinavian country. I wonder if we could do the same in a country warm enough to farm... But then again he was rich, not a broken neet.

interesting idea from another imageboard. would a trailer park layout be good for the start to provide private living space for everyone?

Would a moving commune be less expensive than a sedentary one? If you travel on land with vans you have fuel to pay instead of rent, so I guess it depends on where you are. With sailboats however you can travel for free with wind power.

It seems to me that there is a bit too much talk about where and how to build the commune, and not enough about what the purpose of it is. The way I see it, the purpose of getting together will always be economies of scale, but that can be applied in two different direction. Either to reach autonomy, as would be done on a farm, where we would be able to produce food and energy ourselves, mostly removing need for money. That would lead to a rather frugal life. Without a mean to earn serious money anything cyb is going to be limited to diy and dumpster diving, which is hard away from big cities. Or to maintain a similar lifestyle with seriously reduced work constraints. One because living together is cheaper ; two because we can mutualise work. Instead of having each person working part-time, have two persons work on one full time job, one week each alternatively. Leaves you every other week with nothing to think about but your own personal project. Of course this imply remote work, I don't think your boss would agree to see a different person show up each week. But I'm sure we can find freelance jobs as web-dev or something that would fit this. (Oh and of course another purpose of getting together is companionship, but I'm too autistic to take this into consideration.)

>>1731 Living in vehicles negates economies of scale : an apartment for five is much cheaper than five apartments for one ; but you're going to need one car per person to make a travelling commune liveable, so no savings. It might still be cheaper, but for the price of five cars plus gas for a year, we can probably buy a nice farming land. Someone else can do the maths, I know nothing about cars.

>>1732 This whole thread should start with 3 random people on here moving in together just as regular roommates at first near an area that those 3 decide they like and is cheap. THEN after we get past that stage we can talk about, do those people like each other enough to share/pool resources? How do we structure this already existing housing unit to grow and become more communal. This is all putting the cart before the horse. Just talk to each other and move in together and let the commune grow as the friendships do. What we are talking about doing here isn't even that crazy IMHO. Like in NYC a bunch of my friends all vied to over the course of 4-5 years all move in next to each other all in a row, so these guys literally have a big chunk of a block in a neighborhood that is all our friends. Then they opened a social center/storefront/club that we could all hang out in, and have events in. Then you make it really easy for people to come and go from the rented houses via subleasings and then you have a continuous flow of cool people that are friends of friends interested in the same things flowing through. This is something normal people like my other friends do all the time. It really isn't something special and you guys are making way to big of a deal about getting things off the ground. Just fuarrrking go someplace and rent houses together and start building up a IRL repore with each other for fuarrrks sake.

Remember remember: irc.lainchan.org:+6697 #commune Sunday the 17th of June at 20:00 UTC

>>1734 A Lainclub would be awesome, especially if it was decorated in authentic retro-cyberpunk tech-noir style, and had a video arcade and a Soylent dispenser.

>>1736 Ugh, Soylent? You tasted that stuff? It basically tastes like dead people. God knows what they make it out of...

>>1734 You're right. If something does get arranged and we all have different goals for a commune we will obviously fail spectacularly and quickly. I'd be open to rooming/squatting with some lains to try and sort something out. I'm limited to the Jersey City area currently. If anyones close drop an email or something

Sorry, missed the meeting and just want to weigh in: >>1687 Lainons location: >5 in [EU] + me >drugs: forbidden, dedicated room, ..? >Proposed locations beside Slovenia[?] Surprisingly (for me) there are actually quite a lot of areas of Europe with decriminalized/legalized cannabis laws (because I'm fairly certain that's what most of us are talking about; not heroin). I'm very optimistic about the commune being in Catalonia. There is a lot of unused land there and I think the language/script/society/culture/laws are very compatible for lainons. To give some examples: Romance language (relatively easy for most of us to learn), Latin script (which we all already use), active society with a lot of ideals and movements involving people-power, active punk and freetekno music scenes, most political squatting by area on the planet, "cannabis social clubs" recently legalized (previously decriminalized), meaning it's legal to grow plants indoors (as long as it's not visible from the public street, which would be a punishable offense by merely a fine) as well as private, non-commercial "cannabis clubs", where you can go and grow socially in a designated building. Catalan climate is also Mediterranean, which would be ideal for solar/renewable farming projects. >rural, in a farm ? urban, in a warehouse ? in a squat ? I think the best would be somewhere in between rural and urban, like >>1670 seemed to alluded to as well. Not in the middle of absolute nowhere, going by price alone; but also not in the direct vicinity of the regional metropolis, which would make it prohibitively expensive. >Two points that I think will break the commune if everyone doesn't agree on it: >structurally anarchist >We should be a legal commune Absolutely agree. This would work best through cooperative investment and management. Every individual involved in the LainCommune would become equally involved in maintaining it, both economically and socially. One meeting per week for collaborative planning would be ideal and make this a relative breeze. I personally prefer majority rule to consensus for various reasons. Keep in mind these meetings would primarily involve economic/productive activity, where definite conclusions to problems are crucial. But I'd be fine with consensus decision making being used in areas of interpersonal / relationship disputes.

>>1739 Good points. >climate Mediterranean climate is preferable to temperate for a number of reasons. Drastically lower heating expenses during the winter, more reliable solar power and the ability to grow crops that don't tolerate freezing. >language Catalan/Spanish would definitely be easier to learn than Slovenian for Western Europeans >cannabis not a regular drug user, so I don't care, but if other lains deem this important, sure Regarding decision-making, I don't think we would have too much trouble reaching consensus in a small group. Not completely against majority votes, but would prefer them only to be used as a last resort in case consensus appears impossible.

>>1739 There's still an hour and half until the meeting.

The next meeting is: irc.lainchan.org:+6697 #commune Sunday the 24th of June at 20:00 UTC Logs from the meeting: http://muskox.me/commune.log Etherpad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/laincommune-keep

>>1742 the log is down

I have popped into this thread from time to tome, and am glad to see that you guys finally started to take action towards the end goal. I do have a few suggestions after reading the log >group ownership can be achieved via a limited liability corporation LLC or a trust in the united states (ownership would be divided between people who pay into the system) >The state of Tennessee offers a viable location option with natural resources, and cheap land, and also no state tax and lots of opportunities for home farming >depending on prefab structures (like sheds or hangars) you can set up a very simple compound provided you install community amenities. much of rural TN is off the grid anyway, so you can easily establish community infrastructure and get a satellite internet connection at $3000 each, you can effectively house 10 people so the cost is not exactly too high.

I lived in a squat in SF in 2012-2013 and later pooled enough money for a "commune" in SF with a bunch of computer nerds. I gained a lot from the experience but it was a harder slog than I could have ever imagined. The only people who came out of it really well were the ones who had deep ideological commitments to making it work.

Attempt at a summary of the meeting, or what I remember of it. There appeared to be agreement on the following points : * keeping things legal * any money invested can be retrieved, given a reasonable delay * necessity of acting in meatspace rather than talking endlessly online Things that need to be discussed : ( Tell us what you think in the thread or in the pad ! ) * what are the minimal acceptable living conditions ? Back to stone age or cyber commune ? * process to accept new lainons beyond the initial group ? Things to do before the next meeting, or at some point : * writing a mission statement (draft on the pad) * how large a land is needed to produce enough wood for heating ? and how expansive would it be in, say, Maine ? and Europe side ? At this point it appears that a US commune might appear before a euro one, more people there in a hurry to act. Possibly in Maine, in a rural setting for the cheap land, in a place without too much buraucracy hassle. Roadmap to this end : * mission statement so that there is no misunderstanding about the goals * clearly establish who is interested in being in the initial group, and how much money can be quickly invested * find a suitable location while everyone prepares funds * buy the land * build shelter, from local wood ? from prefab ? * and then ? crops, energy, manufacturing, cyberpunk larping, ..? If this point is reached more lainons can be expected to come. The same can be done euro side, if there are people here who are ready to act quickly.

>TINY HOMES -cheap -fast -portable -efficient You can get these for less than 20,000 with a full bathroom, bed and small kitchen. Plus you can easily install a washing machine. In the middle of nowhere, how are you going to wash your clothes during winter in an off grid wilderness. It will be great for winter because it has thick insulation for a small structure. A log per day could keep it heated with the windows open. If you need to move or the place we chose doesn't work out, you can just hook them to your car and leave, nothing lost but time. They are great to put off grid as a home for the first settlers of the lain colony. incredibletinyhomes.com

>>1748 >how are you going to wash your clothes With a bucket of water and some soap ? If I can get water warm enough to wash myself, I can wash my clothes. If I can't even wash myself, washing my clothes is pretty pointless. That being said, a tiny house or any sort of transportable housing would be very useful for the initial group, until they build up something larger and more comfortable.

>>1748 >20k yeah no

>>1749 It is trivial to get hot water in the winter with those black/glass hot-boxes. Funny story, I lived in an offgrid house back in 2013 that used these rooftop hotboxes to heat the water and they also used it to help heat the house through the winter but we ran into this issue where the water was consistently so hot that it was completely unusable. Like the water would just constantly be boiling-tier and we would have to wait for it to cool to take our showers. There is absolutely no issue with getting water hot enough in the winter, that persons comments show that they have never actually tried to do what they are talking about.

>>1750 More expensive than that ? Or is even 20k too much ? (That would be as much as the whole land...) >>1751 I imagine those boxes would only work in direct sunlight though. But even then we can warm enough water on the stove once a week. We'll need to for cooking anyway.

>>1752 You can build one for basically nothing or buy a beater trailer for at most a quarter of that. fuarrrk off with the hippie consumer bullsoykaf

>>1752 >>1753 you are all thinking so small scale. first you take the number of people you want to support, then you multiply that by the cost to sustain one person. you are going about it wrong. stop looking at "how many people can we sustain" and look at "what would it take to sustain x amount of people" solar works for lots of things. Sun heaters and other methods of heating are nice, but what you want to look at is the method of sustaining people, heck you could even all live on a boat and become members of no nation

>>1756 grrrr this is a stupid approach. The best approach is to say "we don't have a set number of people" and make everything modular and scalable through that modularity in design. overthinking things again.

>>1756 Go roleplay or something, your views have no place in this discussion.

>>1756 After reading your rambling I've still no idea what message you hoped to pass. Make your point more clearly if you want people to care about it. Boat commune is stupid for reasons that have already been listed during the first meeting.

>>1743 Sorry, logs are now at http://commune.muskox.me/commune-log. Raw logs are at http://commune.muskox.me/commune.log.

>>890 I know I'm a little late to your post, but Vermont is fuarrrking great to be honest. Nearly complete lack of gun laws, we get pot in 9 days, weird seasons (but that just means long summer, short spring, long winter and decent fall). Maine is like kicking dead whales down the beach to be honest.

>>1748 Or heavily modify a large shed. It can offer better space options than many pre-built tiny homes.

>>1763 I second Vermont. Great place.

>>1765 >>1763 Any reasoning? It's nice that you like the state and all but does it bring more to the table than maine?

>>1304 >Yeah, the world is like kicking dead whales down the beach. Go out and make it better. 30yo boomer spotted

>>1763 Vermont is too cold, Washington State is better.

I'm interested in joining. I think an urban commune would be more optimal, then eventually a rural commune if it proves to be unsatisfactory. I have a background in political science; I would be happy to go about drafting a charter. >>1697 I agree, there need to be ground rules put in place. Not strict ones, but junkies need to autoderezzed. Heroin once or twice... who cares. If you're liable to start stealing soykaf to feed your habit, however, you pose a risk to the community. As for the name for the community, "makerspace" is an innocuous term for a hackerspace; calling yourself a commune (outside of internal discussions ) is liable to get you treated poorly by outsiders, harassed by the police, or attract faddists or parasitic people who are just in it for 'no rent.' Speaking of rent (and taxes), how would this work? Would it be registered under a single person's name and everyone contriboots?

>>1772 Would work however the person who starts it wants it to.

>>1742 Remember, meeting tomorrow on the IRC.