Lain Commune Thread #2

Last thread hit the bump limit so I'm making a new one. There is some good discussion and I think that we might actually be able to pull this off if we tried. The questions below are copied from the last OP. --- 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.

what IRC are we disscussing on? just the Lainchan one? also vermont is better than washington

Meeting on the IRC every Sunday at 20:00 UTC. irc.lainchan.org:+6697 #commune Logs: http://muskox.me/commune.log Etherpad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/laincommune-keep Used to centralize information and opinions.

>>1784 >Where to build? In a first-world place like North America or Europe? Something more rural like South America, Africa, South Asia, ...? I always wanted to live on an oil rig with fibre access. Because we would have no food we could exchange it for TELCO services to nearby ships. Electricity is generated from underwater impellers driven by the motion of the ocean, also driving a water desalination plant. >How do we govern ourselves? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Tribunal_for_the_Law_of_the_Sea No one else except these guys have jurisdiction. Murder is still punishable, also there will be a brig where perpetrators only have access to facebook as their only form of communication.

>>1793 Ocean Thermal power, bitch. And use the nutrient-laden water from underneath to run a fish farm. We could run a data haven and become a micronation, selling ship registrations. If we legalised weed, prostitution and gambling we could make bank. Set up some Goalkeeper point defence systems and Sub-Roc missiles, and found Lainopolos.

Current state of affairs : The general consensus seems to be to form two communes : one in the US, possibly in Maine, and one in EU, possibly in Slovenia. Those commune would be set in a rural setting rather than urban, and would be kept entirely legal, no squatting. The current priorities are establishing a list of interested people, and agreeing on a mission statement. If you are interested, you can add your nick and location on the pad, in the "where are we from" section. https://pad.riseup.net/p/laincommune-keep You can also answer the survey at the end of the document.

As to the mission statement, I tried to write something in the pad, and I'll duplicate it here for more visibility : >The goal of the commune is to maximize the freedom of its members and their ability to realize their personnal projects, be they artistic, technologic or otherwise. >Any other goal, such as reaching self-sufficiency, is in service of this main goal, and should only be pursued as long and as far as it does contribute toward. >The goal of the commune is NOT to make a political statement, NOR to be a social experiment. While it might de facto be one, given that such a life mode is rare in the first world, this should not be accepted as being part of the identity of the commune. No instability should be brought to the commune for the sake of experimenting, only if it contributes toward the main goal. While each member is free to do what he wants on his own, the commune as a whole and its ressources should not take part in any political movment. >In order to maximize stability, to remove single points of failure, decision making and legal ownership of the commune's land and constructions should be as distributed amongst the members as possible, to whatever degree is allowed by the local laws. As well as sources of income, knowledge of the essential systems, and so on. >It is essential to preserve the freedom of each member to leave, thus a member leaving should not impact strongly the commune, so that they do not feel a moral obligation to stay against their will. They should also be able to retrieve their monetary participation within a reasonable lapse of time. This is of course not a definite statement, just something to kindle the discussion.

>>1794 >If we legalised weed, prostitution and gambling we could make bank. fuarrrk that is pretty good thinking, sailors would be all over us. Especially rich Saudis. So we would have to locate the rig near a popular ship route of them. But since were no slaver scum we would have to offer the girls something in return. Even though they are the main attraction, the real money would come from the other services you mentioned.

>>1797 >were *we're

>>1793 >>1794 >>1797 So is it just t3hw3ird samefagging or are there actually several of you tempted by this stupid idea ? I hope you have a few tens of millions to invest if you want to make this real.

>>1799 >>1796 >>1795 You're samefagging pretty hard yourself and there are at least two people coming up with fresh scenarios. If no new ideas are tolerated because the Maine and Slovenia locations are set in stone why even ask in OP for our opinions?

>>1800 Maine and Slovenia are not set in stone. New scenarios are welcome as long as they have chance to be realised. It is however pretty much guaranteed that noone here has even a percent of the money necessary to setup a seastead. This has already been pointed out multiple times.

>>1802 http://www.worldoils.com/marketplace/equipdetails.php?id=473 Electronics 2 - Furuno 24 Miles radar 1 - Loud Hailer Intercom with six (6) speakers 2 - VHF Marine Radios (1 emergency as per USCG) 2 - Single Sideband 1 - Digital Depth Finder 1 - G.P.S. Well no fun allowed then.

>>1804 http://www.energyfundz.com/buying-selling-rigs-trends-2017/ >Prices here range between $4M - $9M for rigs built in the early 2000s with fully re-certified drilling packages. Older rigs are popular for the same reasons as the offshore industry - to keep rig crews busy and employed.

Whoever is pretending that there is some kind of consensus over Slovenia is starting to annoy me. There have been more suggestions about settling for western Europe (Netherlands, Catalonia) than eastern Europe (Slovenia). That means, by definition, that it's not a consensus.

>>1806 >>1806 I was under the impression that Slovenia was widely considered a good choice, I don't remember reading many arguments against it. I'm sorry if I've unwillingly misrepresented what lainons thought. I'd also be interested in knowing what you or others feel that, say, Netherlands offer to make up for the cost of living being double that of Slovenia. Catalonia on the other hand I'm fine with, warm and on the cheap side. Also I'm being neatpicky, but Slovenia is not Eastern Europe, but center/south.

Yes hello, regarding initial capital and where to build i have been playing with an idea: How about we "crowd fund" the acquisition of some land or real estate. The idea is that we only need little space. But $ per area is small for big pieces of land in the country side. So if we find enough interested buyers for small pieces of real estate and somehow get them to in advance legally declare to buy hypothetical land under specific conditions, we can something big and devide it and pay only for what ever little room we need. The concept is the same as with any other crowd funding I guess.

>>1808 >crowd funding Or you know, you could just have real money first and then see how much land and buildings this gets you. And if it isn't enough you save more money or downsize further. >and somehow get them to in advance legally declare to buy hypothetical land So basically you propose running a scam instead?

Land in Bulgaria is fuarrrk-right-off cheap, if you don't mind Russian mafia and being torn apart by packs of wild dogs.

>>1809 Of course this idea is really complicated and it's possible that it is too much of an effort for something we could do more easily. "Hypothetical" may have been a poor choice of a word. Let me say it in another way. From the sellers perspective, somebody has to pay the whole undivided real estate. But we can not just in advance collect the money from everyone. So i propose potential co buyers and dividers declare first what they will be getting after the divide and, as a function of that, how much they will contribute to an acquisition. Then the moment we find a real estate that is dividable in parts that fit each co buyers needs and is not more expensive than what everyone has said they are going to spend, we can just buy it because all of us are now obligated to pay up. This whole thing occured to me because before this thread existed i have been making plans for me alone. And I have no idea if this is actually even possible.

Lainon here, I have land in Italy. Yep I have the fuarrrking land so why are we discussing where to go?

>>1821 Nice. Its Sunday, so why not get together on the IRC this evening around 20:00 UTC. We will probably need some explicit data (location, type of land, infrastructure), but this might be a good start.

>>1821 >I have land So are you going to set up some real plan to share it with the rest of us or what? You don't expect me to just flock on over to you just because you say you have some land to spare, do you? I'm not tilling your soil as rent while you sit and drink fruit juice is what I'm saying - catch my drift? Write out the situation and provide a real plan if you actually want to share the land with us for this project.

>>1821 >I need to fill my pasta dungeon with gullible lainons What is the current financial state of Italy? And IIRC citizenship is hard to acquire, I agree that it's worth looking into, but you may be asked to agree to sell land to others if you are serious. You aren't just trying to get rid of a bunch of land because of taxes are you?

I'm curious - I've been reading threads like this about "/v/ mansions" and such for years, but has it ever worked? Has an online community ever established a successful real-life commune? And if they failed, what can be learned from them? Have any of them been documented?

>>1821 This is good news.

>>1821 >so why are we discussing where to go Because you didn't announce this until now. If you are serious, could you provide us with some more information ? Approximate location (at least latitude and altitude), surface, how far from the nearest village / town, preexisting buildings, how many trees, any water source (plumbing or spring or river), on or off the electrical grid, how much taxes, any remaining mortgage ... If it is close enough to the french border I might be able to drop by for a week-end and lend a hand while everything gets started, until I'm in a position to leave my job. >>1825 The sort of person that frequents lainchan is, hopefully, more qualified to make this succeed than those of 4/v/.

Italian lainon here. I was tipsy when I wrote that post, anyway it is formerly my grandad land so not literally mine. It has been years since I went there the last time but I plan to go check how things are and will deliver. It is at less than 1 km from the nearest village btw

Do ask him if he could pass it over to you. I think the most important step here is to get the land / a piece of it in your control. The other scenario, a bunch of weird cyber-people asking to buy it collectively for a "commune" will most probably not work so don't even mention that part lol.

>>1829 >>1828

>>1828 So the best that we can hope is that your family let us stay for free, and we'll always be at risk of them changing their mind. Even if your parents just offered you their share, I don't think your uncles and aunts would give you theirs for nothing, so we will still have to get the money if we want to own the land.

>>1825 > Have any of them been documented? See >>793

I liked what one person said in the last thread, he talked about how some of his friends moved into the same neighborhood block and then made a little community center where people with similar interests can come and go. But if it was me, I'd keep it small and exclusive. I'm working with my family to make it easier for everyone involved. In fact, family, depending on the kind of people you deal with, might be an easier way to have a "communal home" of sorts. I wouldn't have it larger than maybe 15-20 people with what I have now. So, I would have a large house everyone would live in together, everyone can have their own small space. I would just have a few rules, namely you have to have a job to pay your rent OR you do something that helps the house as your job. Once you pay your rent, you can live the kind of lifestyle you want, as long as it's drug free and legal that is. If the goal is to reduce costs, then this house could get jobs close to each other, negotiate regular hours, and people carpool to work. Like the one or two people who can't find a job or doesn't want a classic job can be the house drivers full time. But people are also free to buy their own cars, pay for their own insurance, and drive themselves and it'd be preferable if everyone who is able to drive has their driver's license. The rent money would be pooled into the mortgage (if there is one) and utilities(water, power, internet, cellphones), plus food and house repair since if you have 5+ people paying a small $400-500 a month, you are going to have quite a bit of surplus, might as well spend it on fixing the house. I'm not at all worried about food or clothes. While I wouldn't do any dumpster diving myself and actually, I'd likely forbid my group from doing it if only to avoid drawing attention to us. Places like Walmart have constant clearance sales for clothes and with the amount of money pooled for the house, it'd be easy to buy food with it being so cheap, plus you'd have your own spending money from work to buy your own food. It'd be for the best if I have an interview/group meeting about any new member especially if they aren't family/friends. So I guess this would be democratic. I don't need the kind of drama I've seen with people who refuse to pay rent or are just mindlessly acts and causes problems, like that older sister or aunt who flushes their pads down the toilet and clogs it or the guy who has soda and beer cans all over his room. I know my idea isn't very cyber but a group of people living together absolutely has to bring in some money or some time so everyone else can have a reduced load.

>>1833 You're already outright forbidding petty soykaf like dumpster-diving? I think you're misunderstanding what it means to manage a space collectively. If you're gonna role play as a micro-Stalin already then forget it. We'll just continue working out cheap land to buy together somewhere wholly unrelated to your imagined power trips.

>>1836 It's obvious who is and isn't prepared and understanding of what a collective situation is like and should be like. I've lived in punk houses across the country for 6-7 years now, some great, some not so great, and have a decent general experience on turning cheap housing opportunities into great community experiences, but there are several things that need to be present in someone's attitude and personality for it to be a working situation. It's hard to screen someone for that through a image board post, though. And I'm sure some of these people are just LARPing, but I'm excited to see if this ever turns into anything.

>>1837 It sounds like you're already deciding on the groundrules before anyone has even joined.

>>1837 The point is not that your suggestions are intrinsically bad, it's that your post read as if you want to dictate them as rules, which is a huge red flag regarding your own personality.

>>1838 >>1839 I'm not that guy (>>1833) at all, I'm against what he shooting for lol

>>1836 Wait, role play as Stalin? That isn't how I indented that post, I just didn't want people to draw too much attention. Besides, I'm basing this off my own expeirences with living with family. Please explain everything wrong with my ideas, I'm open to ideas.

>>1841 Why would you care about drawing attention if you keep things legal anyway ? And how would dumpster diving attract attention to the commune unless you're doing it right next door ? Overall you sounded like you wanted to controle everything to ensure that the commune runs smoothly. That's fair if you own the place and are inviting people. But I don't think that's the kind of environment people here are looking for, so you might not get many applicants.

A thing to look into: are there government programs to encourage repopulation of old half ghost villages? We could get an old house for cheap under the condition that we bring some fresh blood and economic activity to the place.

>>1842 My mistake was mentioning that. I own the house and surrounding land and should have made it more clear that this would be more of a friends and family thing, not people from the Internet. We would have similar values and have the same goal of just living easy and not working ourselves to death. I even said that its not very cyber, implying not a lot of people here may not care for it. Serious question, do I really sound controlling? Like in a bad way?

>>1844 > not people from the Internet Did you read the fvcking OP and endless discussion previous to it?

>>1845 I did. I was going off one post that stuck out to me and I referenced it in the first sentence of my post. In fact reading the previous thread made me question how well getting a bunch of people from the internet together would work for a commune, hence why I posted one way I think one could make it work.

Hey, there was a lot of good links and information in the last thread. Can someone please link me to the last thread? I cannot find it.

>>1844 >Serious question, do I really sound controlling? It's not so much that your rules are very harsh, it's just that you sounds intent to be the one and only one to set them. >Like in a bad way? I don't know another way to be controlling. Again, in the context where you own the house it's fine, it's just that this isn't the context of this discussion. >>1847 It's on the second page of the board, I'm sure you'll be able to find it on your own.

>>1848 Well, in that case, I'm not too keen on how you guys want to run yours and I have zero interest of moving out of what I have now. But I'm cool with helping you guys out. Like if I find anything interesting that might be useful I'll post it here if I remember. >Again, in the context where you own the house it's fine, it's just that this isn't the context of this discussion. I just didn't like being compared to Stalin.

>>1849 You can be Hitler this time, it's my turn to be Stalin anyway. That other Lain always gets to be Napoleon too and that's not fair.

>>1850 >a house where everyone has to role play as dictators I'm surprised this was never made into a tv show. Jokes and my posts aside, would you guys ever consider just buying out cheap homes in a poor neighborhood? I see a lot of post talking about just buying land. Getting a cluster of cheap houses like in pics related would help a lot. Plus if you go to even big box stores, you can easily work deals for clearance building materials to make the houses livable.

>>1851 Forgot to say, the house in the pictures is $5000 bucks but the city has been struggling to keep people in it due to crime and people not really caring. Definitely a more dangerous idea depending on the area but it could be done. Sage for double posting.

>>1852 If it's that cheap, the city will say it needs some work to get up to code. The work will be more than the sticker price.

>>1853 Man fuarrrk building codes, building codes are some authoritarian soykaf.

>>1854 Well... a property being in disrepair makes it a threat to surrounding properties if it's a breeding ground for rats or roaches, or constitutes a fire hazard. Rules wouldn't be neccessary if people took care of their own problems but, you know, sometimes they don't.

>>1853 >>1854 >>1855 Another thing is that assuming that the person selling the place is honest, you'd be able to scout out houses and see just how bad it is. If it just needs a new floor and a coat of paint plus whatever appliances then it'd still be pretty cheap especially if it's a foreclosed home. Again, materials can be pretty cheap if there are clearance. Some places that sell carpet for example will sell the last of the roll at low prices and depending on the place you can easily get enough for a small living room or bedroom. If you have cool employees and managers at the stores you could easily several rolls of carpet or boxes of tile really quickly. Carpet is the cheapest option though.

There is now a very basic wiki at http://commune.muskox.me:4567 I copied most of the info from the pad but didn't have the patience to clean up the layout. Feel free to edit and create new pages, the goal is to have a discussion a bit more structured than is possible in linear mediums like this thread or IRC. Remember : the goal is not just to list your preferences but to explain why you hold those, so as to convince other people and reach a consensus. And this for location, rules, etc. There is no form of identification or authentication at the moment. I'll think about it if vandalism occurs, but hopefully it won't be necessary. In that case I might install wiki.js instead of gollum, both use git as a backend so migration will be easy. Unless someone has something else to propose.

>>1806 Why Catalonia? The south of Spain is much much cheaper (or Portugal.... it's insanely cheap). It also already has a lot of communes here (Spain), I am literally surrounded by them. Its not unusual to live on 50 euros a month if you know what you're doing.

>>1861 >Why Catalonia? The south of Spain is much much cheaper Ah, I had no idea. Thanks for the heads-up. The 'south of Spain', as in 'Andalusia'?

>>1861 Is cannabis decriminalized in 'Spain proper', while Catalonia especially recently legalized it? Does that mean you could grow for personal use in Andalusia still or?

I've been following this project a little and it really caught my eye after I took my first Permaculture Design Course recently. I think someone said this before in regards to the commune, but I'll bring it up again.You can't create something off of ideas and data(cool pdfs) alone, you need people who are either willing or now how to do what needs to be done.What this anon might have missed is that we don't know if we have those resources yet, so I think it'd be wise if we somehow collected the data on all of the resources available to us at the moment.If lainons could somehow contribute in wiki or exel format or whatever; what resources each lainon has available it would certainly speed things up and give us an idea of where we're starting from.It'd definitely solve the problem of: >"why is everyone looking for "insert", I already have "insert" " >"WELL lainon we didn't know because you waited till now to tell us!!!" PS:I guess a mumble would also be cool for those that feel comfortable.

Because of the legal nature of its existence and how literally anybody can travel there, Svalbard may be another place to think about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Treaty >The Svalbard Treaty (originally the Spitsbergen Treaty) recognises the sovereignty of Norway over the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, at the time called Spitsbergen. The exercise of sovereignty is, however, subject to certain stipulations, and not all Norwegian law applies. The treaty regulates the demilitarisation of the archipelago. The signatories were given equal rights to engage in commercial activities (mainly coal mining) on the islands. As of 2012, Norway and Russia are making use of this right. >Uniquely, the archipelago is an entirely visa-free zone under the terms of the Svalbard Treaty.[2]

>>1859 Could you please add a Let's Encrypt TLS certificate to the domain? It's free (as in price and freedom) and setup is streamlined to take 2-5 'clicks' between options. I just think it'd be good, there are so many security vulnerabilities with normal HTTP.

I just looked at the muskox page and realized there was a survey already?... when was this? and is it still going?

>>1877 In that case, we would have to focus on creating a stable source of income first. We would not be able to grow food, generate solar electricity, and will have to pay tons of money for heating. There are not many jobs on Svalbard either, and I don't know if the internet connections up there are good enough for remote work. Overall, very hard to survive somewhere as a self-sustainable community where people in general are fully dependent on support from outside.

>>1879 If you mean on the wiki, it's just a copy of what had been written in the pad over the past month or two. Feel free to add you own information. >>1878 I'll try to, but I'm not sure of how to configure gollum, as it doesn't use nginx or apache, and the documentation isn't very detailed. If anyone knows how to tell Ruby to use TLS, that will save me an hour or two. >>1877 As cool as Svalbard sounds, I'm not going to consider it a serious possibility unless you explain precisely how you will make it possible to live over there more easily than where I'm currently. >>1876 Strongly agree with you. I intended the wiki to be used to centralize all those informations in a structured and stable manner. (As opposed to IRC or this thread.) An issue that we might face is if everyone is skilled in computer technologies, and nobody can actually build a dwelling or farm the land. Very cool that you're studying permaculture, I've read nothing but positives about it. >>1861 >>1872 And another thing to add to the wiki is info on each potential location, if possible collected by a person living there. Cost of life, cost of land, relevant laws, etc ... I'll start with my own country when I find time for it. Again, the wiki is at http://commune.muskox.me:4567/pages

>>1881 Yeah I definitely think TLS is necessary considering this most probably will continue to be facilitated over a public forum. It would make it far harder for potential external elements wishing to sabotage our effort I could name a couple of rivals chans/communities to have any point of leverage. I can't provide any coding-related help, sorry.

>>1883 If we are worried about interferences in the process, we should set up authentication to edit the wiki before worrying about https. And for all we know, the wiki itself might be hosted by a follower of a "rival" chan.

>>1885 ...Maybe we should?

>>1877 the only jobs in Svalbard are science research jobs. We will have no money or food.

>>1890 I worry that people who are only slightly interested wouldn't bother adding information with a higher barrier of entry. People who wouldn't join the commune but might provide information on such or such country.

>>1893 Is there a way to automagically backup changes to a git repo or something? That way if things go south it still exists. distributed source control has higher barrier to entry, but each contributing party has the full backlog and can undo changes. Every repo but one could be derezzed and that one could rebuild the wiki. I'm sure there is some way, if not via git, then via backups. No matter the problem, be it malware or hardware failure, redundancy & backups are the answer for data corruption / loss.

>>1894 The git repo is now duplicated at https://gitlab.com/nyanstar/laincommune So we now have three copies of the data : one on commune.muskox.me, one on gitlab, and one on my own computer ; and then anyone can replicate the data further from gitlab. The gitlab repo should be automatically updated after each edit on the web interface. >mfw trying to make this work

>>1893 I think you underestimate how much a lot of people would appreciate a social space like what we're cooking up here. A lot of people feel isolated and alone in late-capitalist society. Considering we're three threads in on this subject which has mostly consisted of written communication I'd say that alone demonstrates a lot.

if money, and remaining in the EU are chief concerns for you bloaks really ought to consider Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, and Lithuania. For US based lainons I'd encourage you to stay east of the mississippi more or less if you're intended in farming, cheap land is pretty much everywhere in the US so it shouldnt be a issue finding somewhere if you start looking (at >20acres you can often find land under <$1k / acre) I think it's important to note that a system to divide up labor is critical, one of the primary reasons for both the developement of totalitarian structures, and communes collapse is folks getting pissy about freeloaders, I think Twin Oaks does this best with effectivly a labor voucher system. Thats atleast what history says considering they're still around while so many have fallen. A second key to the success of Twin Oaks and this was sort of mentioned earlier is a method for screening those who want to join, this is the most important thing for maintaining the structure and culture of a small democratic community. If I understand correctly you folks want more of a "house of lain" than a lain commune (atleast at first), this makes the organisation of labor far more difficult but still very possible. You need some means to generate funds for food, power, internet, property taxes etc. and you need this to be some set of jobs which can be communally contributed to usually this is filled with low barrier to entry work but considering the reasonably common background of lainons in cs you might be able to work something out there. In general it would be of value to study the successes and failures in relative to what you want to do. Kibbutz's, and Twin Oaks for example. Anyway just thought I'd throw out some ideas, best of luck.

>>1900 > a method for screening those who want to join, An initiatory rite of passage. What would a not-so secret society of Lain be like?

>>1901 I just ment like a interview or a trial period kek. That might work too though :P

>>1900 Christ, I must've been really tired when I wrote that. I think the points are valid though if you're willing to deciphering my broken english.

Commune threads never amount to any results, at least software projects on /g/ produces neat logos.

>>1904 Nice try saboteur but that's just straight-up not true. We've got way more productive soykaf done in these threads than merely creating logos.

>>1898 I think you overestimate the amount of effort people are willing to put towards what is, at the moment and at best, a possibility in a few years. No matter how much they would enjoy the realization of this possibility. >>1905 Such as? There was some enjoyable conversation but I can't think of anything concrete.

>>1906 >>1904 Why even bring it up mate? Sure very few threads of any sort amount to anything, but that doesn't mean you should go and point it out on the threads that are talking about doing something. The only thing that does is derail the thread you know?

>>2103 To be clear, you're addressing two different persons. I'm >>1906 and I don't agree with >>1904 pessimism. But I also think that the posts I was responding too were too optimistic. My point, which maybe I should have made more clear, and that I'm now going to make too dramatic, is as follow : It is way easier for this sort of project to fail than to succeed. There will be many occasions for failure, and all of them will have to be successfully overcome before the commune is established ; even then it will have to be continually kept alive. Everyone needs to be aware of this for the length of the project. Everyone needs to understand the amount of effort that is required of each individual. Each of you reading this who wants the commune to be, it will never if you don't personally make efforts toward it. You don't have the luxury of waiting for other lainons to build it for you. At the very least you can gather information on your local area and feed it in the wiki. That will help tanking decision further down the road. A list of successful communes to visit would also be good. I understand that it's summer and not the most active moment on the web, but I fear that everyone is waiting for something to happen, rather the making it happen themselves. That's why I'm bringing it up.

>>2106 I'm sorry for making a rash judgement of your post. You're completely correct. Truthfully I'm part of the problem seeing as I can't practically dedicate to the project until I'm finished with university in 3 years. I have made similar suggestions on the study of communes in this thread >>1900 and more importantly I'll likely be able to expand my small garden into a small farm ~2 acres in a matter of months so long my folks move as planned, giving me knowledge and experience which can apply to directly to the project or a similar one in the future. (I'm basically going to try to implement Masanobu Fukuoka's techniques for those curious) I'll post some of my findings, resources, and experiences to the wiki, and conduct some more research. Thank you lainon.

Does anyone here have access to Jstor? I'd like to read "Living Walden Two" when I'm done reading "Walden Two" and doing some independent research but I can't find anyway to gain access beyond paying the 30$ for it. I've tried sci-hub, libgen, opendirectories, and local library search but I just can't seem to get ahold of it.

I've done some research regarding real estate in France, and I've come to two conclusions : Office space is really cheap to buy. Needs some work to be liveable (kitchen, shower room, etc), but so much easier than building a whole house on bare land. More limited space for large scale projects however. Taxes are fuarrrking high here. Even after we fully own the place, loans repaid, we'll still pay several thousand euros every years. (Let's say 30% of what the rent would be.) In those conditions, being off grid to save money won't make sense, water and power prices will be only a fraction of the taxes. So a french commune won't be able to be 100% independent, we'll need to sell our labour to produce tax money forever. >>2105 No worries friend, looking forward to hearing about your successes in farming. What do you intend to plant ?

>>2108 Christ that's heavy, I guess it makes sure land is well utilized though. https://www.landwatch.com/Marshall-County-Alabama-Land-for-sale/pid/25064758 >The median property tax in Marshall County, Alabama is $388 per year for a home worth the median value of $101,300. Marshall County collects, on average, 0.38% of a property's assessed fair market value as property tax. I've had lots of success with various squashes, tomatilos, and beans in the past, but these aren't really enough to live off. I've got to sort of radically change my practices and what I grow inorder to actually feed myself

>>2110 I am angry I didn't mean to post that. I was going to say "Burgerland has more plights than I can count but property values/tax aren't one of them, to a extent I'm sure many burgers aren't even aware." and that "because it's going to be maybe a month before frost when I can actually start work on the farm I'm likely only going to have the oppurtunity to plant cover crops, probably winter rye, a variety of brassicas, and white clover this year. After that I really havent decided yet."

having lived in a college dorm structured similarly (democratic, work and resources shared, etc) this sounds like something that's a good idea on paper but would be poorly executed >slackers are inevitable, might break the rules outright because consequences are nil, or may just follow the rules to a minimum >power tripping authority very possible >living conditions brought down to the lowest denominator (down to the dirtiest person possible, since they do chores according to their standards, so if they clean something half-assedly, everyone has to live with it) >people have no fuarrrking idea what they vote for(no matter if it's direct or representative democracy) >nepotism favors reigns hell(could be good or bad, depending on circumstances) that is, if the whole commune doesn't turn into a pedophilic nazi apocalyptic militant sex cult

>>2112 see >>1900 >I think it's important to note that a system to divide up labor is critical, one of the primary reasons for both the development of totalitarian structures, and communes collapse is folks getting pissy about freeloaders, I thi nk Twin Oaks does this best with effectively a labor voucher system. Thats at least what history says considering they're still around while so many have fallen. >A second key to the success of Twin Oaks and this was sort of mentioned earlier is a method for screening those who want to join, this is the most important thing for maintaining the structure and culture of a small democratic community. I think that's at least partly the solution to these problems. I'll expand on this a bit with a brief summary of the labor system of Twin Oaks the core of it is that you have to work 42 hours a week in a job of your choosing from a list of available work, with additional hours for certain other tasks. At the end of the week you get 75$ and all of your necessities + most else paid for the following week, all extra hours go to vacation time. On the issue of democracy I've read far too much on group psychology to entrust groups with their own management. You need to reduce the amount of thinking the group as the whole has to do as much as possible while allowing for the accountability of leaders to the group, and where possible divide the group into smaller subgroups. Groups largely are only reactionary which means you need some system of identification of groups of leaders or ideas which they can rebel against when they don't like the way things are going. Leadership needs to be a balance of the views of the people so as to avoid situations where the wants of the many destroy the needs of the few. Lastly the leadership needs to be unencumbered so as to be able to respond to problems that it must face and avoid grid lock. I've got many other ideas but I don't want to rant too much. (biproportional (for example Droop quota & Borda quota) unicameral parliamentary system with a closed list)

I'm currently living in the artic in a gold exploration camp of about 50 people. I am a geologist and would like to describe our isolated society. We do not use money up here. In terms of structure we about an order of magnitude greater than normal society but an order less than military camps. Everything is very clean and well looked after and even the people you seldom see as they work a different position in the camp are very considerate. The reason this society works is because we have 1) very good food 2) we are all profiting together generously thus a major incentive to have things run smoothly 3) we have a strict heiarchy as we are a corporation that lives with itself and not some loose collective. If you want a collective to not become a drug haven I'd suggest the more militaristic route as capable leadership can circumvent a lot of problems. Respect is key here if you respect the society you're trying to cultivate than the dishes will get done a lot sooner. Out of curiosity has anyone considered instead of collectively living in a field buying a small apartment building and renting them out to lainons? This way you can build the community you desire while the landlord(lainlord)/boss can regulate maintenance and collecting rent and evict trouble makers. People could organize how they please beyond that but the essentials would all be met and the set up would be very easy.

>>2114 I tend to agree. Important to note are two things: Accountability of leadership is extremely important in a community, the situation you've described is fairly unique in that this accountability of leadership can simply be provided for by a combination of the profit motive and having to recruit in demand talent. This is not a set of things that a "house of lain" would necessarily be able to achieve. Second if you start out with no more than folks paying rent and living in a common house you pretty much guarantee you're not going to progress any further than that, some system of collective governance, profit sharing, and even collective industry have to be established at this point if any progress is to be made. The reason being that without these formal systems in place planning, saving, and investing in the future become very difficult to organise, you also make it very difficult to do things like job training of new recruits if they've got will but no relevant skill or achieve the necessary hierarchy you mentioned.

>>2114 >Have you considered only reproducing the structures of the society you already live in anon? No, as that's not the point of this project. >hierarchy gold mining corporation >collective organizations are just for druggies Nice ones. Are you also funded by the World Bank?

>>2118 >hierarchical*

>>1795 maine would be pretty cozy, lain.

>>2123 >maine would be pretty cozy, lain. If you (or anyone) have good reasons for thinking so and want to convince everyone, you might want to pour some information in this page : http://commune.muskox.me:4567/Places/Maine

wait just a second, there's a lain "Southern coast of Maine, USA." ?! I'm honestly surprised that there's more than one of us in this state. I'm in the irc, maybe our paths will cross someday, lainon.

>>1827 Gonna check the land before September in my plans, will post all the info I get

On Freedom & Dignity Facts Man is deterministic, his every action and thought is a product of his environment and his genetics. proof: you can't will what you will only operate on it. If you accept that we live in a deterministic world you have to accept that we are deterministic beings because it's impossible to make a indeterminate machine from determinate components. Many of the significant problems facing humanity can be averted if we change the behaviour of man. proof: while their are diseases yet to be cured and old age other than this almost all of mans problems are man, pollution, war, and the allocation of resources being but three. Claims In-order to solve many of the monumental problems of humanity a technology and a science for the manipulation of human behaviour must be discovered. The only means of short and medium term manipulation of human behaviour possible is a modifying of the environment which shapes man. The quest for freedom is not a quest for a individual free from the controls of others, as this isn't possible, but rather a quest for a elimination of specific type of control by others: negative reinforcers (punishment). This confusion between control and negative reinforcers must be elimination in-order to allow for a science of behaviour to be put into practice and make a better world. Additionally this confusion of control with what is really a avoidance of negative reinforcers means a perusal of permissiveness in the face of longterm aversive actions such as gambling or drug abuse. Credit is something rewarded to individuals in relation to how little we know about the manner in which they came to be doing what it is they're doing. Individuals attempt to manipulate one another and their environment in order to preserve their credit. The Ludites were a example of this as are individuals who disguise their reason for doing what they're doing. Credit must be given to the environment rather than the individual if at all if a science of behaviour is to develop. Other than when one is physically restrained one is least free under the threat of punishment. Individuals are not likely to change behaviour after being punished but rather to learn to avoid punishment, possible ways of doing this are to develop neurosis, or performing the punishable offence in environments where you wont get caught. Considerations for how society ought to be manipulated is broadly to make that which benefits society benefit the individual. A major step in the creation of a enduring culture is inducing the cultural practice of working on the survival of the culture by its modification as effects of the culture become clear. "If there is any purpose or direction in the evolution of a culture, it has to do with bringing people under the control of more and more of the consequences of their behaviour." Culture is the embodiment of collective behaviour. When designing culture the survivability of a culture is what gives it value. Those that have been induced to work on their culture must be able to forsee some of the problems to arise from their culture. In order to have a culture designed focus must be put additionally not on who the benevolent designer is but on the environment which would lead to the development of a benevolent designer. A exchange between control and counter control (or controller and controllee) is necessary for the evolution and improvement of a culture. This should not be confused for a limitation of the ability to control but a steering of control. Walden Two By all members taking a critical eye to the cultural traditions of your community and a constant attempting to improve you can additionally reduce work and make life easier in as simple a thing as the way you serve tea. By collectivising you can dramatically reduce hours spent working, for example it's easier to bake 1 very large meal than 50 people make meals individually, it's far easier to maintain a communal house with people tasked to doing so than for 50 people to do so individually having constructed 50 independent houses etc. By industrialising/mechanising the collectivised labour you can make even more dramatic improvements such as by adopting the dish cleaning solution of a large hotel with its mechanisation. One of the most significant ways to reduce uneccessary work is to reduce the habit of consumption. The example from the text is by ignoring fashion. By operating society on a staggered schedule you can dramatically reduce the amount of space needed to sustain a group, for example by having multiple showings of a play, staggered work hours, and staggered meal times. It also helps to avoid the creation of crowds which are for a variety of reasons bad. Rather than have a assignment of eating, working, etc times the community simply posts on a board when their is more space open and individuals self regulate to avoid lines and such. In order to reduce the labour of any individual task certain innovations are made such as transparent serving trays to allow for them to be more easily cleaned. All goods and services are free but every individual is required to earn a certain number of labour hours a year, in the novel these are weighted according to difficulty. This includes things such as giving tours of the community and even more or less personal things. All individuals must have at least 50% of their labour hours come from physical labour, the idea being that this allows for a more beneficial balance of intellectual and menial tasks for all people. (in twin oaks and its descendents all tasks deemed worthy of a hours work are rewarded with a hours pay, this was done in response to some difficulty of which I don't know the details) (additionally I'm not sure all individuals are required to do physical labour in real communities like twin oaks) Individuals are not guaranteed to be given a position they would like if the community has no need for their services so individuals preparing to go into prolonged periods of job training are warned ahead of time about the number of positions in a given field will likely be available. The board of planners is a body of 6 individuals (3 male 3 female) each serving for a maximum of ten years, they are tasked with the review of managers, the creation of new policies, and they operate in judicial roles. The board selects their own replacements from a list provided for by the managers. The board of planners is not capable of useing any sort of force. Managers are individuals selected for their skill in their relative task by the board of planners, they can requisition labour according to their needs and operation as managers of their given specialty. They work through lower jobs until reaching their position to gain additional skills and understanding as well as for assessment. (while this is very meritocratic I have concerns about the requisition of labour) A scientific method to the creation of the super ego is perused. Cultural policies are developed and tested. Chief of these goals was instilling a sense of self control, that is ability to control yourself to the morals of the community. Through various stages of gradually increasing difficulty children are inoculated to the difficult emotions of the world and given techniques for dealing with more advanced issues. These techniques are codified in a community guild line made by the board of planners. The most important aspects is the scientific legislation (following the scientific method) of nonpartisan board. Current Understanding of Groups Group actions are dictated by sentiments forged by group norms. Neither groups nor the member of groups operate rationally. All thought takes on the form of religious sentiment in groups. Groups are incapable of creative and/or intelligent tasks. Ideas must be radically simplified before a group is capable of taking grasp of them. This leads to the development of turns of phrase and images which replace the nuance of original ideas. Group norms are products of previous group norms and group experiences. A destabilising group experience can call into question previously established group norms and lead to the development of new group norms at whatever scope the experience occurred at. The scope of the group norm to apply is derived from the level of accountability of members of the group for their actions. The more anonymous members of a group are the more they are able to diverge from the established broader social norms. When groups first establish new norms in reaction to a event for which no norm has been established before, they often follow the first suggestion. This environment creates what appears to be a contagion of ideas and actions which spreads over the group from the origin. Individuals are largely products of the various group norms established in them. Even once a individual has long sense left a group the sentiments established by the group norms will remain within the individual. Democratic style leadership is more productive than authoritarian leadership or no leadership at all. Leaders of groups are merely a reflection of group norms rather than a director. The truth is not a intuitive notion that will rise from groups left to their own devices. A slight change in a group norm can have a domino effect on other group norms. [1] Deindividuation and Antinormative Behavior: A Meta-Analysis [2] Propoganda [3] Resolving Social Conflicts Selected Papers on Group Dynamics [4] The Crowd a Study of the Popular Mind [5] The Formation of Social Norms: Revisiting Sherif's Autokinetic Illusion Study [6] The Psychology of Social Norms

I couldn't find easy access to a discussion of the ideas of Twin Oaks and the other Walden Two communities so I ended up having to go straight to the source, I've also included my past research into groups. Twin Oaks has largely abandoned the behaviorist vision of B. F. Skinner while retaining the general structure and other ideas of the Walden Two community. Another community which has been around just as long without abandoning the vision is Los Horcones. The only criticism of Twin Oaks I've seen is a failure to retain folks because of the lack of privacy of communal living, I've not heard a criticism of Los Horcones but that's not likely because it doesn't exist. After the reading I've done thus far it seems to me that this is more or less a sound way to establish a community. I think the abandonment of the history of governance is however a bit of a mistake, even when designing a scientific form of governance it seems to me having a separate judiciary to enforce scientific governance and to prevent use of power is extremely important. Also the board still determines the allocation of resources which is a significant power in its self. Many of the specific social policies also seem problematic to me, for example the destruction of the nuclear family in favour of communal upbring seems to me like something which might be more easily and comprehensively done through the teaching of parents rather than the teaching of parents who then operate in shifts on the collective children. This is by far the most radical example I could have given but it makes the point. So what ideas might a lain commune be interested in keeping, and what ideas ought you currently reading this consider based off these ideas? Ideas A scientific legislator pursuing the modification of the behaviour of the group through non-violent means. A system in which labour is demanded but all goods are free with a meritocratic system of management selected for their skills by the government. Maintaining a critical eye to the cultural traditions of the community in order to reduce work and benefit the community. Collectivising and industrialising common tasks, cooking, cleaning, etc. Useing a staggered schedule to reduce infrastructure cost by informing individuals when less people are useing infrastructure. Having a sort of ideological education to perpetuate the notion of this critical eye. Creating a moral code of conduct with techniques. Other Ideas A system of adult education potentially modelled after st. john's college. A simple means for groups of individuals to pursue new economic projects and gain the support of the board. A democratic form of government similar to that mentioned earlier in the thread but with the here mentioned scientific legislator. (min max group power & accountability) A number of very small homes rather than a few larger communal houses for the sake of privacy and such. Practising "Do Nothing Farming" as explained by Masanobu Fukuoka. Allowing for individuals to do only intellectual work to better allocate resources, especially with the idea of running a small software cooperative. For infrastructure which doesn't have a issue with load you should likewise reduce the labour load of these things, for example by opening a clothing "store" for only a hour. I'd love to hear what you folks think of these ideas.

>>2131 Also if any of you want something explained or something like this I can attempt, it's not one of my strong suits though.

>>2129 Assuming you're Italian, could you add information to the wiki on the cost of land ownership (acquisition price + taxes + whatever else) in Italy, as was done for France ? It would be good to have that for each relevant country before we decide where to settle.

>>2104 Who made this image? It's really neat.

I know someone who is selling a few acres of land in the central US, I can get more information tomorrow if anyone is interested

>>2135 The third of September(or a near day) I'm gonna check everything

I don't browse lainchan that often. But I found this thread, and I thought I should try and share some knowledge. This book goes into a great amount of detail about land preparation, agriculture, harvest seasons and plants, pasturing, butchering, hunting, canning and preserving. There is even a section on beekeeping! And toward the back of the book, there are less lengthy methods on energy production which include wind power, water, solar and even methane. (I believe these were introduced in the second edition of the book, the first edition was published sometime back in the 1970's). On top of this, there are some useful sections regarding things like weaving, carpentry, masonry and a nice little variety of other crafts and trades that are well explained. tl;dr This book contains all that a person could really think of in regards to self sufficient living.

thanks lain, I have actually been looking for this for years, I used to have an actual hard copy of it from the 70s (iirc) and i let someone at work borrow it, and he lost it. I could not for the life of me remember the name or author.

>>2209 Also this one, "The Concise-Guide To Self Sufficiency" (published 2007) is just a more modernised version of the same second edition text as I've uploaded. According to the foreword, the author has wrote methods on how to apply self sufficient living standards into normal hum-drum life. But skimming through the rest of the book, it seems like the core content apparent in the 1997/2002 version I've provided is mostly the same - with exceptions to illustrations, readability (I cannot read the sow/harvest chart on pg 161 of the 1997/2002 edition) and some new sections right toward the very end of the book. Definitely you will need read this alongside the older version if you want to take advantage of the legible sow/harvest chart in the later edition.

Hi folks, I came to this thread late, but it doesn't look like my idea was already covered in this iteration, so... Has anyone given thought to a distributed community? Rather than finding one place to call home, work with what is available and take advantage of multiple locations. For example, I happen to live in a location with some spots of grow-able land. In fact, the neighbors frequently grow roses, tomatoes and so on in these spots. Right now they have mint growing. There are also some spots where nothing grows and I suspect this is because they haven't been cultivated yet. I also recall sites that listed places throughout the city to pull fruits and edibles. In addition, I think therre are places to rent for urban farming (in some cities, maybe not all). Finally, there's food to be found for those willing to go into surrounding forests or mountains. I hear that cattails are a very good food source and pretty much grow year-around. Let's assume for the moment that enough people within a given geographic area can grow something or anything. Come harvest time, the foodstuffs are pulled and brought to a weekly community meeting at some park for distribution. Maybe once a month everyone gets into a van and goes harvesting from various urban sites found on the websites. These weekly and monthly meetups are also a good way to talk about various issues and share other materials like clothes, equipment and so forth. So now there's a basis for some kind of community. Once a regular pattern gets going, plans can be made to take over some apartment complex. If the ambition and money is there, the group could buy out a place and give low rent to the community members and profitable rent to other renters. Community renters could lower their rent further by labor for upkeep and maintenance of the complex. Assume for the sake of argument that this happens in multiple locations in a given country. People that can meet and reinforce community bonds do, with the rest communicating over the Internet. Resources are shared in-person or by shipment. This continues until a stable pattern is developed. Once things are ready, it's time to start trading with the outside world. Going with the apartment idea, I recall one apartment complex I saw that offered a community office space on the top floor. A coworking space might not be a bad idea. Assuming the permits were available, a place that sells sandwiches and fruit drinks might be profitable as well. Extra points for entertainment. Profits go into a community fund for all groups. I recommend a credit union. During the 2008 recession, as I understand it, credit unions had much less drama surrounding them due to how they are structured. So, I think it can be seen how this would work in stages. Start with small community colonies that share basic resources then slowly grow into a distributed super-colony that interacts economically with the outside world. I think the major thing people don't discuss is scale. Methods of society-building that work for, say, 100 people, aren't going to work for 1000 or 10,000. There has to be a plan for growth and how to change governance and resource distribution and circumstances change. The plan has to be known and discussed regularly so that when it comes time for change, no one is caught off-guard and there is enough time to generate enough buy-in that a forking of the colony or super-colony won't happen. I think this would be easier to implement relatively quickly. I'd also just like to say that recession is a natural occurrence in the major capitalistic economies. Even though the governments in question can ease the adverse effects of a recession, having a network to buffer the blow could also be very useful. Anyway, just my two cents. Take it for what it's worth.

>2212 Such a community exists already. There's at least one not horribly large city with a fairly large, and definitly active community of lain, centred mostly around the local hackspace. I won't dox it, as I'm only tangentially related, but if you're reading this, you know who you are. Why don't you make something greater of what you already have ?

I haven't been active but if you manage to settle somewhere in EU I will definitely come check it out, that is if you don't mind guests. Please get this thing going, can't wait to meet you.

There are some really cheap houses/land here. The entire north is crumbling, though there is not much gentrification heading up that way. It's 1/4th abandoned at least. Right now it's a commune of 1, me squatting and building captial through precarious af means lmao. We could start here for ~2.5 btc if anyone can round that up somehow... fuarrrking I would erp with n33r for 3 weeks straight just to get a plot of land with a shipping container covered in solar panels for now. Anyone close network w/ me I'm the japanese noise band in #lainarchy

re: location https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperate_rainforest#Global_distribution http://www.chileproperty.com/category/southern-chile/ lots of 500+ acres with fruit trees, timber, grazing, and glacier rivers for ~$1M USD

>>2250 500 acres and $1M are probably too much for the number of people interested. But 50 acres would easily provide for 10 persons, and would costs 10 or 20k eurodollars, rather feasible. How is the political situation in Chile? Nothing too unstable or authoritarian? What about the economy, good enough that we needn't fear roaming bands attacking us?

>>2251 *10 or 20k per person* (which by the way is a sum I could gather in a year or two, but that might not be the case of everyone here...)

>>2212 Assuming you can find enough lainons with the financial resources to back you and invest, yes it could be completely doable. Money's always been the issue though... Not to put a damper on your idea. A community of like-minded people starting out as a (mostly) self-contained residence/workspace is basically a contemporary arcology and I'm all for that. In the meantime, maybe a badge, icon, or other indicator of lain residents around the world? My place is set back from the street but the window is easily visible, and if anyone were to look up and recognize the logo they'd know another serial lainist was in the area Just a thought >>2251 Dunno about Chile but if it's anything like Argentina the political situation is relatively stable for now, though the pendulum is swinging steadily away from equilibrium. And again if it's anything like Argentina, it has really strict import laws. That sort of bothers me. If those cons are not just theoretical, and outweigh your pros, should reconsider. Once you get past the language barrier, Japan has a nice sense of community, is very polite and tactful, and is the homeground of the self-contained/insulated culture, so anything there wouldn't be out of place per se (advance apologies to the firearm bois). Market availability is off the charts for anything tech related, though housing is difficult and I'm still figuring the ins and outs of it. Hokkaido would be a good climate in summer and manageable in the winter but it just got dicked over by that earthquake, otherwise I'd recommend taking over ownership of a sharehouse as a starting point. I'm just going off of personal experience, if anyone is more informed about the things I'm saying, feel free to step in.

>>2253 I think the idea with >>2212 is that you don't have to buy anything initially, it's honestly a brilliant idea. Just setup a bunch of urban gardens in unused areas and have community meetings to distribute goods and ideas. It's even more well suited to the US where so much of the population is suburban with plenty of land for gardening. It's really a much more natual way to form a community, you get to have knowledge about a area and a group of people before you all pack your bags and move in together. Also you can attract a number of people at first only interested in the community and the culture to a more outlandish notion of a new society. It seems that due to cost being a major factor and the distance of most lainons from Japan that it would be quite a unjustifiable destination. Chile is a bit better but not much when you consider how much cheap land there is relativly close to lainons in eastern europe and rural US. In general I think the best move is to go where the people are.

So have you guys figured out how to feed yourselves yet? Make money somehow? Manual subsistence farming?

Can we have some of those please?

>>2256 Food would initially have to be handled via manual farming, at least in the beginning. This has some export benefits, though. Assuming a liquor license isn't too much (or otherwise unnecessary) the colony could start up a microbrewery and sell indie beer. This is quite popular in the United States, at least. Production would not be large, initially, but there is growth and buyout potential. Beyond that are arts and crafts. There's a place in California called The Salton Sea. Land is relatively cheap because no one wants to live next to a rotting lake. Some entrepreneur has been buying up land over there to start a permanent art colony. It's in the early stages, but perhaps a good example for study.

>>2256 Depending on the location, property taxes might be high enough that buying food would not increase our need for cash much. Buying the bulk of calories in the form of flour, lentils and such, and only growing vegetables and chickens for vitamins and proteins would make the task much easier and the required area smaller. 1kg of flour is enough calories for two or three days (4000kcal), 150kg would feed a person for a year and cost like 200€$ for good quality whole flour. Compare that to easily 1000€$/year in property taxes where I live ... Not much point in growing wheat.

>>2261 I'm not sure this is the case. If you shop around there are many places where you can get a acre for around $1000. At even fairly high property taxes for the US of 3% you'd be at 30$ a year per acre. The average America is often said to need about a acre of land to feed themselves including meat products. That's 30$ per person per year, it's pretty hard to feed someone for less. American prisoners are fed a diet of about $2.50 a day that's ~$900 a year. So growing your own food would well pay for its self in two years even if you ate like a prisoner otherwise. The reality is even further from this because otherwise you wouldn't eat like a prisoner, you're unlikely to live somewhere that has 3% property tax, and you're unlikely to eat a average America diet if you're growing all your own food, in fact the UN FAO says you only need .17acres to feed a person eating a predominantly vegan diet. So .5acres per person might be more realistic. So long as you are zoned somewhere agricultural your housing wont be taxed.

>>2262 This is just for the US though, if you're elsewhere, like France as was mentioned earlier this is not likely to be the case.

>>2262 What happen to the taxes if you make improvements to the land (building houses, digging a well, etc...), bringing the potential selling price from 1000$ to 100 000$ ?

>>2264 Many counties provide exceptions for houses built on agriculturally zoned land, meaning you don't have to pay property taxes on them at all. Alternately if you live in a tiny house with wheels you can live in any county without having property taxes on your house. I can't speak for wells or etc it's possible to increase the value of a property and the taxes would go up whenever the local property appraisal happened. You might be able to get away wighout doing such things but maybe that'd be pushing it a bit, the real thing to note is that digging a well isn't going to increase your property taxes at minimum 30x which is what it would take to cost more than buying food.

>>2265 >exceptions for houses built on agriculturally zoned land I imagine that you have to actually grow food on it? Any idea if there is a minimum production, if you have to sell it or something? Back to France, as is written in the wiki, land where you're allowed to build a house is about 20 times more expensive than land where you can't. Even mobile homes, tiny houses and such are forbidden on the latter. But apparently you're allowed to build on a land that you're actively farming, even in a "no-build" zone. I'll have to look more into the details and add it to the wiki. How nice would it be if someone did the same for the US! *winks*

>>2266 >I imagine that you have to actually grow food on it? Any idea if there is a minimum production, if you have to sell it or something? Unfortunately it largely comes down to the state and the county there is typically some sort of a requirement ranging from a certain amount of income from agricultural production, to simply having a registered agricultural business, here's a example of new york, it applies to all property taxes in the state: https://www.tax.ny.gov/pubs_and_bulls/orpts/farmbld.htm >How nice would it be if someone did the same for the US! *winks* wew okay I'll try to gather information.

>2266 okay I've started it: http://commune.muskox.me:4567/Places/United-States

>>2268 I've fleshed out the research a bit more, Oklahoma seems like the best option from a cost/production veiw not sure if things like socio-economics or politics will play into it, if they do New York and Maine are also options. Anyway Oklahoma has extremely low property taxes at around .74% with the addition of the earlier mention excemption. Extremely cheap land around $1740 a acre for crop land. Some of the highest grade soils, and although not a lot, enough water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship

>>2125 Oh yes, hello. I am here. Do you use Jabber?

>>2130 That entire first paragraph is some real fascist soykaf.

>>2290 I don't think it fits neatly into a category personally. For example it's staunchly anti-traditional with a focus on the development of a new culture and the constant evolving of this culture. It's focused on resolving humanitarian crisis, such as war, violence, and especially environmental problems. It's also opposed to punishment as a method for correcting behaviour entirely. The most fascist thing is what is effectively a dictatorship of scientists, which I don't agree with just because accountability is important, but even that's not really fascist because they can't do anything but "influence" anyway, they have very little real power. It might be the way I summerized it that gave that appearance. I think the main take aways for our situation are: number 1. Groups should take a critical eye to their culture. 2. Groups should attempt to modify their behaviour to resolve their problems through "influence" and non-violence. 3. Groups should make systems to align the interests of individuals with that of the group. I think the implementation of these things would be beneficial even in a non-political commune such as this one. The Walden Two section is basically these three rules applied to American culture providing suggestions that are useful but shouldn't be followed in their entirety as seen by the real life attempts. I might make a more detailed post on specific institutions based on what has and hasn't worked in practice on the wiki.

There doesn't seem to be a clear direction in either of these threads about what particular shape this commune should take. Many are talking about buying land and farming it. I don't intend to be rude but this place isn't exactly /fit/, it's an imageboard based on an Jap cartoon and nearly every board is dedicated to either computers, media, or some form of introspection. How many of you here have ever grown a single thing? How many of you work out? How many of you have ever worked a job doing manual labor for any length of time? Buying a plot of land, growing food, living off the grid, it's a nice idea, but it's not a good idea. It's not playing into the strengths of most of the people here. Say we buy land, what is going to be on this land? Do we buy an existing farm with a farmhouse already built? Do you buy an empty piece of land with nothing on it? In which case, where do you live? Out of tents until you get a container or a load of tires and hay bales shipped to you? Get a bunch of lainons to build a house from scratch? Who has any actual experience in any of the fields needed? PDFs just aren't going to cut it people. That's the hippie lifestyle: simple, old-fashioned, close to nature, and tech exists only as far as to power their needs, which is little more than a few lightbulbs and maybe a laptop for some light browsing. They're not going to be having homelabs, servers, or little data centers in the countryside running from three solar panels, two bike generators and some hydro from a nearby stream. Simply put, rural sounds like an absolutely dreadful idea right now. A bunch of anti-social NEETs meeting for the first time in the middle of nowhere trying to start a little society almost from the hunter gatherer stage? It's a recipe for disaster. If people are serious about attempting that life, the first thing they should be doing is trying to get into existing communes, see if they'll let you stay even if it's for a few weeks or months. Talk to them in person, see with your own eyes exactly what their life is like and the effort involved to live it. Learn the hands-on skills they've used, the challenges they've faced and still face, and the time they have to commit to making it all work. Do that for a year at the minimum, and only then start looking at land for yourself.

>>2296 idk, I do SL 5x5 monday, wednesday, friday (given only for healthy body healthy mind reasons), and I've got a garden with sweet potatoes, beans, kale, tomatillos, and a ghost pepper growing atm. I've also got plans to scale up the agriculture production to feed myself completely after next spring regardless. I might be a outlier but I doubt I'm completely alone in having these occupations, and even if I were I'm sure many folks just don't have the opportunity and would like to.

>>2296 >It's not playing into the strengths of most of the people here. I would be genuinely interested if someone could propose a plan that does. But it's more complicated to conceptualize than an idealised "return to nature". >It's a recipe for disaster. I don't know, people can be very resourceful when the need arise, as long as everyone is of goodwill, which should be the case here as participation would be voluntary. >the first thing they should be doing is trying to get into existing communes Yep. There was some talk of at least visiting one or two next summer.

>>2301 >I would be genuinely interested if someone could propose a plan that does. But it's more complicated to conceptualize than an idealized "return to nature". If the commune has any chance of working it needs to be in a town or a city. We'll have running water, steady electricity, transport links, maybe even a fiber connection. Don't bother buying warehouses and factories, buy a cheap house, or even a pair of apartments to start with. Have one apartment full of bedrooms, use the other as a workshop/resting place. Planning on doing work that isn't safe to do indoors? Get a garage nearby. We'd still be able to pool resources, buy in bulk, have group dinners to save on time and effort, allowing us to dedicate more time to the things we want to do. As time goes on we could buy additional apartments or houses, take over an entire block. It would also allows us to fail as gracefully as possible. Lot of talk on these threads has been about logistics but kinda forgotten about us, the human element. Maybe we'll meet up and fuarrrking despise one another, maybe we're too awkward or for whatever reason soykaf just doesn't go according to plan. We do this out in the country and it'll be a complete failure. We do it in a town or city and we just revert to housemates, and can go about our lives. There are also a few questions regarding how we want the world to perceive us. We're not missionaries, the aim isn't to spread any belief, and I don't think I'd be alone in saying I quite like my privacy. A load of foreigners moving into the countryside will gather the attention of locals, doing the same in a more populated area won't. Do we want to live anonymously or do we want neighbours knowing we're all one group who have deliberately come together?

>>2311 We would still need to work for money. Given that the commune's goal is to escape the 9-to-5 hole, how would we do that? From what I've seen with a 5mn research, the remote work market is saturated with east european, indians, pakistanis and such, who can sell their labour for very cheap, given their cost of life. To align with them we would need to relocate in similar areas, which might not be appealing to some. Or start our own company? Pen testing or software development or? >Do we want to live anonymously or do we want neighbours knowing we're all one group who have deliberately come together? Don't announce our presence. Maybe open a hacker-space at some point and through it meet people who could be interested in joining the commune.

>>2312 >Or start our own company? >Pen testing or software development or? This was more or less what I was thinking aswell. As I mentioned earlier your only options really are to have a system of capital or a communal organisation of labor, it's very difficult to maintain independent workers in a capitalist society contributing to a voluntary communal end. I feel like software development is a fairly reasonable thing to get involved with, it doesn't seem like it would be very difficult to train new recruits to design and implement UIs for example, or customer service, or basic systems administration, while more seasoned developers manage functionality. The only problem with this is that you aren't takeing full advantage of the "the fastest way to be well off is to spend less" thing, you're still buying a house in the city and you're still buying all your fooc. You are spending less because as mentioned you're buying in bulk and you're making more per hour than you would in a different company (assuming you're makeing the same product and no economies of scale) because there is no management or owners to pay for your work. All in all though if this is more pragmatic then it's more pragmatic. >>1900 >I think it's important to note that a system to divide up labor is critical, one of the primary reasons for both the developement of totalitarian structures, and communes collapse is folks getting pissy about freeloaders, I think Twin Oaks does this best with effectivly a labor voucher system. Thats atleast what history says considering they're still around while so many have fallen. >If I understand correctly you folks want more of a "house of lain" than a lain commune (atleast at first), this makes the organisation of labor far more difficult but still very possible. You need some means to generate funds for food, power, internet, property taxes etc. and you need this to be some set of jobs which can be communally contributed to usually this is filled with low barrier to entry work but considering the reasonably common background of lainons in cs you might be able to work something out there.

>>2313 >I feel like software development is a fairly reasonable thing to get involved with Building a company with a bunch of lainons sounds like leaving the dream, and I'm sure there are enough competent devs and admins here to make it work but ... I don't know, there have been so many projects that stopped with the idea guy making a logo that it's hard to believe a proper company could be successful.

Maybe these threads would get somewhere if you retards didnt have the visionary consistency of a bowl of diarrhea

>>2315 If you're refering to >>2313 I just woke up, what I meant by this was what I was thinking aswell was this was what I was thinking aswell in regards to a urban commune. My preference is for rural living, I'm just trying to contribute.

>>2315 Do you honestly think a group of people from an anonymous message board who don't know each other's names, ages, genders or anything else are going to convene and start either a land project or move into a house in the city together? It's not the fundamental ideas that are weak, it's the concept of gathering your group of friends, coworkers and roommates from a website like this all at once. Sure, people find the love of their life on sites like this (yes, it has happened) but that's two people not 10-15 and in the end they are probably living a fairly conventional lifestyle together, not an experiment like this. You're all better off looking around your own town or region to see if anything like this exists, or if there is someone interested in starting it. Get to know them first, see if you like them, if you think you could live with them, and if they are dependable enough (three not necessarily coinciding traits).

>>2320 Katawa Shoujo and Tox are good examples of imageboard users coming together to build something. But I agree that these didn't involve relocating to another country.

>>2321 Sorry, but if you haven't noticed both of those projects don't require anyone to leave their basement.

>>2289 I've never heard of jabber until just now haha hope all is nice in your neck of the woods

>>2315 Why do you think a bunch of people from different paths of life should have any >visionary consistency ? What do you think the whole point of discussing any question is? Hint: to confront various opinions and let the best one emerge. This thread is the method through which we might arrive to a >visionary consistency It would be pointless if we already had one.

>>2321 >>2326 Starting a software company might not require relocation either, and would be a way to build trust between participant up to the point where moving in together feels like a safe move. The chances of such a company to succeed and lead to the formation of a commune might be small, but at least it only requires time investment, not to buy land and quite your job to move there.

>>2331 And unless someone has another idea, I'd think that porn games would be the safest product to sell. Not as much potential as inventing the new googlebook, but you can find plenty of rather crappy such games on patreon making enough money to feed a few lainons. I'm sure we could do the same. Very high tech low life too.

>>2331 A software company is in many ways an even larger challenge than building any sort of commune. You'd have to deal with the business plan, hierarchies within the organization, shares of the company, the legalities of where it would be set up, the day to day running of it etc. That's an entirely different kind of thread altogether.

>no money Well , for starters why not start a criminal organization and once we've collected enough funds start a commune , like God intended to .

>>2334 Well, if nothing else an international crime syndicate born of a shady website is rather cyber. I'm in.

>>2335 You could do both. A while back someone posted a pdf in /hum/ that outlined creating an underground digital currency gambling system. People basically play cards in real life but profits, wins and losses are tracked on a server somewhere. People could even bet on players based on win/loss scores Can't remember the details, but if the post hasn't been removed for any reason, the attached PDF might be worth looking at.

>>2336 That's actually a really interesting idea. Trust would be an issue though. If you're there in person you can get a feel of the place, if you're watching a stream then you don't know if all the players are working together. Though we would be criminals, so naturally we would be working together to con people.

>>2334 >>2335 >Reminder that feds may or may not browse lainchan ;^) I doubt that many lainons would want to participate in a criminal organization started on the internet for IRL meetups, not to mention what some of the other lainons said. even the thought of people attempting it may deter people from actually trying to form this commune

What do you anons think of this? https://farm.bot/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FarmBot

>>2339 Is this a joke? Seems like you'd be raising the cost of operation, and getting started for no reason? Gardens aren't hard to maintain, I don't even weed my beds I just grow stuff that's stronger than the weeds. Planting is even easier, most things in my bed this year came up from stuff I had thrown in the bed the year before, we planted some new stuff too, but that didn't take 30 minutes. Harvestings the hardest part, but even that doesn't take a hour once every few months, or whenever I need something just the time it takes to walk over to my garden. The best way to make your life easy as a gardener is grow stuff which grows like a weed, or is a perennial. Companion planting can be nice too, in order to avoid having to spray things at regular intervals if you have to plant something a bit weeker. These shift work out into the planning stages and away from the manual labor, which is even more important when you're trying to feed yourself entirely. I don't know why anyone would buy this thing.

>>2340 >grow stuff which grows like a weed, or is a perennial And which are those? In your garden that is, I expect that would change a lot with climate and soil. >when you're trying to feed yourself entirely Are you? Could you tell us how much you produce vs how much labour you need?

>>2341 >And which are those? In your garden that is, I expect that would change a lot with climate and soil. In my garden it's tomatillos, beans, sweetpotatoes, kale, cilantro, and pumpkins. In a annual garden climate isn't so much a concern, so long as you have three months or more of reasonably warm climate. Tomatillos for example are from Mexico but are declared a invasive species by north carolina. >Are you? Could you tell us how much you produce vs how much labour you need? My folks sign for 5 acres in the country today. The plan is to feed myself after next spring. As far as production goes, a few pounds of beans, a few pounds of tomatilos, a bit over 10 pounds in pumpkins. Sweet potatoes we haven't had a harvest yet, kale and cilantro we harvest as we go, so I can't speak for these. but that's all for either basically a hour and a half of work every few months or as much work as going into the other room if you're harvesting something as you go. I'm expecting labor needed to sky rocket a bit on account of having to add canning to the harvest time, aswell as having to harvest grains, which seem a bit time consuming, but I'm planning to just project grain seeds, and many of my anuals so planting shouldn't take more than a day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_artichoke would be a example of a weed, calorie crop. I'm not sure on flavor, but it seems like it certainly be a survival crop. It only grows in temporate areas, in tropical places yams tend to be what replaces it in my mind.

These guys don't know how to smile.

>>2340 So growing enough crops to feed a person requires virtually no labor?

>>2351 I'm willing to believe it. There was a time when humans literally picked food they found growing on trees. But then if you want to grow more calorie dense crops (grains) that can be kept for the whole winter, and be used to feed animals ... You end up with more work, in exchange for a more plentiful and safer way of life.

>>2351 I think regardless of what you do harvest is work. preserving organising and storing food for the winter is where your energy is going to be put in. if you've got a tractor and a combine you can get away with very little work at all beyond the preparation, storage, and preservation. even if you don't a scythe and a man can clear a acre or two of grain in a day, and machinery to separate the grain from the straw (a thresher) isn't too difficult to produce or get for cheap. planting is basically no work, up keep can be no work, but harvest is a entirely different ball game.

>>2344 >soy face Prevalent in left wing politics, eh?

>>2353 Just to add to your point about agriculture being work, the reason society has had so much innovation is because someone or something else did the work, leaving open time to invent and innovate. It's no accident that early inventors were either quite well off or had a sponsor. Isaac Newton, for example, contributed a great deal to science thanks to the fact that he was quite wealthy and could hire people to do busywork for him. Thomas Jefferson, as I understand it, was an inventor himself and benefited both from wealth and slave labor. Committing to an agrarian lifestyle is not going to be easy and it will consume time. There might be the benefit, however, of self-sufficiency. We've been slowly moving into a cyberwarfare age for some time now and it's only a matter of time before some country decides to shut off another country's power grid. Having the ability to live off the land might provide some buffer against that (for those that take the time to develop that lifestyle)

>>2370 >Having the ability to live off the land might provide some buffer against that (for those that take the time to develop that lifestyle) Sounds like Victory Gardens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden

Maine guy here again. Digging holes and putting seeds in them is really not some monumental amount of labor. Just dig holes with a tiny spade my dudes. Water that soykaf. Wait. Gardening is not a big deal.

>>2370 this is not at all what I was trying to say. farming is probably the easiest way to provide for yourself on the planet. you've got maybe 3 weeks of actual work a year.

>>2377 What were the medieval peasants even doing with their days then ? Sure there were plenty of holy days and they probably had to work for the local lord but still ...

>>2377 a lot more than 3 weeks there buddy, and your equipment maintenance takes up time, not to mention food preservation and processing. And if your tools break, or you are using artificial chemicals or systems to ensure growth, you introduce the requirement of outside materials which require some kind of purchasing (unless you steal or salvage, both of which are either frowned upon or require additional work- also crimes relating to agriculture are classified as acts of terrorism in the united states) >>2378 peasants had a lot more free time, but they could only work from sun up to sun down, electricity changed that a lot. any modern experiment would require continuous income to enjoy modern amenities (like internet or electricity) unless you have a large self sustaining economy that incorporates energy production and processing (even an oil well is useless without a means to turn it into fuel) unfortunately most techniques for processing energy mechanically are too expensive or too complex for one person or a few people to manage without extensive training in the field

>>1793 offshore nuclear desalination/electrical production is a profitable future industry, good luck finding people to manage the system (6 figure job in the corporate sector) if you could pull it off, you could make ridiculous amounts of money, and then you would still have the infrastructure to support an internet node. but as a commune with no connections, setting up a facility is legally difficult and financially almost impossible

>>2378 idk, but I know they weren't in the field 9 to 5. the only time when you do anything with agriculture is harvest planting and preservation. you only do these things in bulk at the start and the end of the growing season. The only reason you'd have to go into the feild other than these time periods is to get something to eat that day or in modern times to spay or water. Spraying and watering aren't neccessary if what you plant and where you live are chosen not based on price, but rather on production. actually here I'll look it up: "typically there were around 80-100 holidays spread across the year_more time than we now enjoy." that's with them not just feeding themselves but more or less making everything they use, chopping wood for the fire cobbling together tools and clothes, making toys and entertainment, and it's also not including how you don't farm in winter and the seasons yet the seasons not a holiday. also the fact that they're often produceing more than to just feed themselves to support the leisure class. Also the fact that tooling was much worse they couldn't have a gas powered thresher for their grain and likely not a well made mill, these things being cheaply purchasable or even manufactured now. >>2379 >equipment maintenance takes up time a thresher and a scythe kept inside in a dry area don't need maintenance just like a generator or a shovel sitting in your garage don't need maintenance. the only maintenance you really need is after use and it is reasonable. >if your tools break this does not add substantially to the time needed to farm in a year, unless you are using exceedingly expensive equipment. >using artificial chemicals or systems to ensure growth, this is a waste of resources in my opinion, nitrogen fixing cover crops have been proven to remove the need for fertilisers and older varieties of crops are far more resistant to pests and fungus. Like I said I'll be feeding myself after next spring, on the 5 acres I have access to out of town, perhaps I could make a time log for you folks.

>>2352 Actually, there was a time when humans mainly fed on large animals they took down via persistence hunting. Living has never been easy.

>>2339 Bullsoykaf made for zomzoms. Waste of high grade material and computational power, four fuarrrking thousand dollars with a design retarded to boot. Would have made way more sense if it was a small autonomous tractor, but that would have required actual effort to make and there would have been actual challenges which would have translated in real life technological advancements instead of making an oversized pick and place machine.

>>2386 >living has never been easy persistence hunting isn't that bad. People run that much for sport in first-world countries, and it's a highly calorie positive activity, which means you can spend a bunch of calories hanging out with your hunting buddies when you finish. Subsistence farming and herding are pretty easy. I'd say no more than 4 hours of work per day per person, except during harvest and planting seasons. It's really not that different from chores. The tradeoff is much worse nutrition.

Any real cons to setting up in Slab City? I can only think of a few: >Arid desert, could prove difficult to live/impossible for some >Lingering possibility of the state deciding to sell the land >Have to protect our set up from junkies and wack-o's But... >Welcoming community, needs more numbers >Could learn their methods of self sufficiency for that environment >It's fuarrrking free

>>2405 I don't think it would be as easy as you make it out. You can't really be self sufficent in that enviroment, and you don't have any infrustructure through which to make a income like internet or the postal service. the only real means to make a income is light manufacturing exporting and importing all forms of comerce including food yourself. additionally if I remember correctly their was only one anon west of the mississippi so it's very far from where we live.

>>2407 Unfortunately this guy is right, we really need somewhere with a good internet connection.

Anon whose mom lives in the Maine woods, I added to the Maine page on the wiki.

>>2409 Maine also seemed best to me based mostly just on the metrics: http://commune.muskox.me:4567/Places/United-States Anywhere in particular you folks up there have in mind?

I forgot I made these a while back. Not sure if it'd be useful to any of you. Basically what I did was I started with the state fragility index, I said that the state had to be "stable" or better. I then filtered out all options with a cost of living higher than that of the US using some cost of living index which I've forgotten (sorry). That got me that options.png. Next I filtered for density because I was looking for something agrarian that got me density_2.png. I filtered for cost of living a second time for bellow 80% the cost of the US that got me cost_2.png. These filters were all rather arbitrary but it gives you a general idea I think.

I've tried connecting to the IRC channel, but the server just keeps telling Weechat "Connection refused."

>>2412 Do you have TLS set up on your client? Lainchan IRC requires it.

>>2411 I am surprised that there are so few countries in options.png If this is the Fragile State Index (FSI) that you used http://fundforpeace.org/fsi/ should there not be more countries? Or did you set it to automatically discount any countries that are not in South America, Europe, or Asia?

>>2414 I can't remember the index I used for cost of living but it was similar if not the same as the attached, I was looking for a non-western cost of living even in the first round. Several smaller states were unfairly removed in the first round, even by these metrics: Taiwan, Costa Rica, Kuwait, Brunei, and Baharain (I think that's all). The other maps are likely even less helpful, I think at some point I even removed places where agriculture wasn't possible, I can't really remember, they weren't made to be shared, just the way I was working through the process of where I'd go if I left kinda thing. I actually had another set of maps after this which limited it even further by a even more arbitrary measure that doesn't pertain to this conversation.

>>2415 my bad, I didn't remove places where agriculture was impossible atleast not without saying so, that's arable acre's per person not just population density, like I said I made these awhile back.

nah actually it's just a dumpster fire.

to update those interested, I ended up getting ~19lbs of sweet potatoes from ~4ft x ~6ft area. In all fairness though the vines were taking up maybe 3 times this space, I didn't harvest from these areas because of the damage we had caused to the soil in the main area and because we only had 2 main plants this area was fairly new growth and seemed to have smaller tubers. I don't think I'll grow any root crops in my garden beds for harvest purposes again just because of the mentioned damage.

>>2434 the extra space which wasn't harvested might have made a difference, I did the math and at that production rate eating nothing but sweet potatoes you'd need 2190ft2 or .05 acres to feed a person. that seems sort of insane considering I didn't do anything (fertilizer for example). that's about half of what the UN estimated the minimum space needed to feed a person, this could be related to the "only eating potatoes" bit though. what do you folks think?

>>2411 Might be worth to look at some country's unique characteristics. I.e. eastern Germany is far cheaper than western Germany (Especially remote places in Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). I'm sure similar things exist in many other countries too. I believe French rural areas are cheap too. Pic is purchase power per capita in Germany, in which you can clearly see the east/west divide.

>>2436 certainly, I just didn't have that data when I was making the maps, and I was more or less just trying to get a general idea. pertaining more directly to this project france was ruled out largely due to rather harsh property taxes, any idea how germany compares?

>>2437 Pic related would be the property tax for a 350k€ property with a one family home in a random village in the Uckermark. Note that our property tax was rule unconstitutional and is supposed to change at the end of 2019. prices seem to range from 80k for a remote farming house with 1400m² property: https://archive.is/qBZop to 315k€ for a larger house with 6794m²: https://archive.is/hmv5N

>>2438 Also just remembered that there's already an independent commune in South Africa. Might be worth to take a look into their organization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orania,_Northern_Cape

>>2438 that seems like a very reasonable tax rate, but a exceedingly high property value. I suppose I lack context for the european situation though.

>>2439 There are lots of independent communes all over the place, I don't think anyone here speaks Afrikaans or lives anywhere near South Africa, and if they do they haven't made themselves heard.

>>2441 nvm completely mis-read.

Might be a bit late in the thread but Slovenian anon here, though currently diaspora. Any timing I can clear up?

Have you guys thought about cooperating with others chan?

>>2446 I've got two questions : Do you know how welcoming people would be to the establishment of a commune near their village? Could you give us an estimate of the price of land in Slovenia, and the assorted annual taxes on it?

Very interesting thread. I like this community.

Can we possibly set up a commune in siberia? The cold is like kicking dead whales down the beach but it's nothing unmanageable with wood and winter clothing plus the land is cheap as dirt. If we settle near Novosibirsk (the largest city in siberian region) we get access to a major airport and a relatively developed city

>>2487 I've heard that Putin is actually giving out parts of Syberian land for free, so you even have a chance to do it legaly.

I've started some research on crops to grow on the land next spring, I stumbled across ``Edible Wild Plants Wild Foods From Dirt To Plate'' and I've enjoyed it so far, it's just a book on ~20 wild greens. I plan on devoting a quite large area to a salad garden of some of these plants. It seems a reasonable low maintenance nutritional base can be had when combined with Jerusalem Artichokes, (tbd) other root crops, (tbd) fruit trees/bushes, and eggs. If handled in a 自然農法 (do nothing) manner I think this can even provide the desired lifestyle of many here, that's the plan at least. What do you folks think?

>>2487 Only if we call it "Cyberia".

>>2487 >>2488 FREE land? In Russia? Man, if my home gets any more soykafty I know where I am going.

>>2488 You have to be a citizen/national and it's only 2.5 acres not to mention you have to make the land into something taxable within 5 years we are better off forming a company and buying a land that way it doesn't matter if it's %100 foreign investment either

Honestly land is already so cheap in the US though, a grand an acre with 1% to 4% property tax and no tax on buildings in agriculturally zoned areas. It makes a little more sense for the euro users but Siberia is so far from where any of us live, so much worse for growing and living than anywhere else mentioned, and it's so much lower a standard of living than many here want I believe. The euro users seem to want to stay in the EU, and even in western europe, and the burgers seem to want to stay in burgerland, and close to their state (which mostly means NE).

>>2473 As regards the first question; I imagine it would vary depending what part you settled in, and how rural you go. I imagine it would be either slightly negative or mostly neutral. Don't expect older people to speak very good English though. As regards price I havent the slightest. I can ask around though

It would be ok with me if we have two different team. Team Europe and Team North-America. Sure it's dilluting man power quite a bit but I feel like a core crew of seriously motivated and able guys is enough to kickstart things. Beside it add the fun to follow each other progress on the internet and gives us the chance to go visit the other squad or transfer place in case you dont get along with current team// feel like you'd be more at home with the other team. Are most people against this idea?

>>2498 I think everyone agrees on this.

>>2499 Yes, this is what we seemed to agree on from the start. >>2489 Hope you guys are all doing well. Just to give another little update, I've been considering using agroforesty to transition into perennial agriculture without having harvest gaps. The idea being to have your trees planted on contour with your current production annuals (in this case weeds) in between the trees until the trees begin to produce. Generally speaking nuts and drupes can replace and outperform grains, the specific trees depend on your area but the following collectively cover most the world: pecan, chestnut, walnut, oak, date, brazil nut etc. Fruits are likely to be perennial trees anyway, but vegetables are a bit more tricky, the only production vegetable tree I can think of is Mexican tree spinach and that doesn't grow in my area, so I need to do more research. Regardless as it turns out I'm not going to be able to stay on this property as long I'd like, only ~4yrs so I'm more setting things up for myself over that time period and my family so they can enjoy the fruits of nature after I leave. That gives me a solid year and a half after college to build up savings with no expenditures but a vehicle. Hopefully in that time frame I can save up enough to get established somewhere else.

>>2502 There's a couple files on agroforestry here... http://www.pssurvival.com/PS/Agriculture/index.htm

>>2505 funny how useful a site made by tinfoil loonies can actually be. their apocalypse scenario may be bullsoykaf, but rhey did take prepping seriously.

>>2505 >>2505 The .PDFs on hydroponics in here are great.

>>2507 >>2508 Lol, even broken clocks are right twice a day. The prepper community in general is an amazing mixture of super-competency and absolute bugfuck madness. All the tactics and none of the strategy. I consider myself a survivalist, but not a retreater. I was lead by TVtropes, of all places, to these people: http://www.co-intelligence.org/index.html Their gist is that historically, in first world countries that have collapsed suddenly to third world conditions, that the solo survivalists and homestead preppers and communes are the first to be killed, overrun by mobs, murdered by bandits or executed by what's left of the police and military for "hoarding". Smart money is to network with your neighbours for mutual support and protection. You need to build a bigger gang than the one that is going to come down that road, and you need to do it fast. Anyway, I came here to share a video I found of a long-running anarchist commune in California who seem to get soykaf done with a minimum of drama, despite, or perhaps because of, being drugged up to the fuarrrking gills. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bs24nK5er8 Yeah, yeah, I know, VICE, but remember what I said about broken clocks. Free bed, board, and drugs for an hour's work a day? I am sorely tempted to sell the house, flip the boss off, and spend the rest of my life stoned off my gourd on shrooms and weed, balls deep in some wookie pussy.

>>2518 >Anyway, I came here to share a video I found of a long-running anarchist commune in California who seem to get soykaf done with a minimum of drama, despite, or perhaps because of, being drugged up to the fuarrrking gills. I'm straight edge but even to me that place looks super cozy. It really feels like a strict labor system is all you need, and nothing else matters.

>>2518 I'm not into drugs and I would never trust californians but damn it that cool.

>>2518 yeah, hippie communes work a lot better than serious thinky leftie communes. Lefties like to think about anarchism, hippies like to practice it.

>>2518 >>2519 >>2522 >>2523 btw it's very clearly in British Columbia, not California.

>>2524 Close enough for television.

>>2523 you can like books and live the life style my dude. if anything it helps.

>>2526 it's not that, it's that lefties tend to be very serious. Seriousness doesn't work well.

>>2527 how odd.

>>2527 Hope you're not implying it should be right as opposed to left. Far-left communes are fuarrrked, but far-right ones are like Waco or the FLDS church. Uuuugh. Politically-aligned is going to be too serious in any case. Allow and learn from different political leanings or perish in a classic zealotry arms race.

>>2536 I'm implying that hippie communes(which do qualify as "left" depending on what you think of social anarchism) are the only good form of commune

Phillyposter here, still going at it solo, squatting every single day since August, would love a partner or twelve. Is there any physical place to go to yet? I'll shoot up to Maine if anything is happening, but if nothing forms in the next few months then I'm heading to slabs. I've been homeless way too long, this is getting insane, but I'll die before throwing my money at a landlord while the US holocaust is brewing

>>2549 how long have you been in philly? i lived there for the past 6 years and just recently moved north. seems i missed my chance to meet an irl lainon..

>>2549 The closest thing we've had to land is to live in italy-poster's pasta dungeon, not sure what happened with that. I'll have land eventually and I don't think I have a problem with lains working part of it but it's going to be half a decade before I can graduate and build up enough savings to do that. I think your best options in your situation might be to figure out if one of the existing communes would let you in, this is almost all the communes in the east: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Egalitarian_Communities

>>2549 This might help. https://stw.darknedgy.net/index.php?title=Free_Philadelphia

I don't know if anyone has picked up on this yet, but Japan is giving houses away for free thanks to all the young 'uns moving out of various communities in droves. Presumably this is a native-Japanese-only situation, but if assuming a couple of houses could be obtained, then the rest of the group could come in. If some of these houses are in rural areas, that might mean fertile land for growing stuff. Also, unless the communities were truly isolated, there might be enough Internet connectivity to be useful. The downsides, of course, include the potential radioactive pollution from Fukushima. Also Japanese tend to be a bit on the xenophobic side, so there might be issues there as well. https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/05/asia/japan-vacant-akiya-ghost-homes/index.html

>>2579 I wonder if the SDF-Japan members might be into this.

New England tr(an-com)mune?

Cheap land in in Missouri/Southern Illinois/Indiana. Ancap. Memes. Done.

I posted this in the IRC channel too... https://tulsaremote.com/ Tulsa will give you $10k, a desk at a coworking space, and a housing stipend to live there for a year if you're a remote worker. Sounds appealing if you're a 'digital nomad'.

>>2608 this looks really interesting, is there a catch with these kind of programs?

>>2609 The government steals other people's money to give it to you. That's a pretty big catch.

>>2608 I was expecting this to be a soykaf town but it actually looks pretty nice.

>>2610 It’s actually privately funded.

>>2615 > ILLOGICAL! ILLOGICAL! WORLDVIEW COLLAPSING! TIME... TO... THhh...

>>2518 That Vice video was super interesting. It reminded me of an article I read years ago of another California commune that was based on unused military land. In that case it was more depressing; largely a group of elderly who gradually assembled there over time to wait out their life. It seems to me what makes Slab City and similar encampments successful is, in part, their sheer remoteness. Clearly this is all squatting, but also so far away that no one wants to make the effort to move the squatters out. I think that suggests that a viable option is to simply locate a suitably remote location and set up an encampment rather than try to purchase land. Even in California, one of the most populous states in America, such places exist. I recall reading about a forested area where there was an abandoned gold rush-era mine. Technically the mine and surrounding woods are part of the zone of some city, but the place is remote enough that no one goes there, at least regularly. Supposedly it is east of the Salton Sea, itself a fairly remote location.

>>2617 There are lots of similar things in Appalachia, state owned abandon coal mines just sort of litter the country side. They tend to have polluted ponds and ground water but other than this are completely safe, the government would like to restore or reuse these areas but the funds simply have better places to go. I wouldn't be surprised if the state was simply willing to give them to you.

>>2597 >>2597 Soon please?

>>1825 There is this thing called The Kitten Chateau, its a kink commune (bdsm) sooo, uh there is that.

>>2617 I enjoy the idea of becoming a windigo in an abandoned mine in california. Sounds like a good way to wrap things up.

I planted some egyption walking onions today so that I can grow transplants, and topsets for the move to the farm in ~1yr. Also my coriander is still alive despite it being the middle of winter, pretty surprising, I still need to purchase a "Pokey Joe" plant so that I can have some more genetic diversity in them (it's now f2 of a self pollination). Only other thing alive in the garden currently is my two kale plants, and the only other thing garden related I've done recently is select some fruit tree varieties for disease resistance and flavor.

>>2549 soykaf man i just moved south. I was 30 out of philly. Any Missouri Lains out there?

> Where to build? In a first-world place like North America or Europe? Something more rural like South America, Africa, South Asia, ...? Come to southern Chile: relatively cheap land, great climate (like Oregon), low crime, friendly people, political stability, low taxes.

Have you guys thought of buying a large ship? We could use satellite for internet.

>>2686 Southern Chile does seem very nice. Although not necessarily represented in this thread or the wiki there are a good number of lains in the southern cone. Perhaps there could be a third hypothetical commune down there? >>2687 I'm pretty confident boats are more expensive than land, and likely less convient.

>>2688 If you live in international waters on a boat year round you can claim to belong to no country and go taxfree. There are luxus liners exclusively for such people. Of course there are obvious downsides to it too and you need a high enough income to make it worth the effort. Personally wouldn't want such a live but it exists and people do it.

>>2687 4/k/ ran that idea once, even a cheap ship is still a few thousand dollars, and the price per square foot is uneconomical, not to mention being able to operate it is difficult and larger ships get around 1km/100L or worse of bunker fuel which makes moving the home ridiculously expensive. a raft city out at sea might be feasible if it is just a bunch of tethered personal migratory boats, but things like pirates and hurricanes/typhoons would become a problem, not to mention there is no economic benefit to living waterworld style. the alternative is squatting an island. or you could go to puerto rico which has virtually no taxes

>>2436 Note that purchase power does not equal how much it costs to live. You can see that with university cities - students have low income but still need to rent. This lists them low in purchase power while having higher rent prices. Such outliers aside i read a lot about dead cities in the east. Towns with no jobs, only old people and lot's of empty houses. >>1797 >>1794 This is how monaco made it - build a huge casino while being on main train route that earned so much king didn't need taxation anymore to survive.

>>2688 Yes, I moved here myself just to live far from the regions like Europe and North America where something always happens. The immigration process is still easy: show $800-1,000 monthly passive income (rent contract, investments) for a rentier visa or bring your uni diploma for a professional visa (you'll need a job offer from a local company but you can get one in expat groups). If you are polite and don't behave like an entitled gringo asshole, southern Chileans are the friendliest people I've met (and I lived in Thailand which is considered a "land of smiles"). My poor social skills were showing when I try living in extroverted California for a while but here it's a perfect balance between openness and not talking too much. Everybody minds their own businesses in general. Nobody will be surprised by a small commune of foreigners, there are some already around Valdivia and Puerto Varas (ecology-focused, libertarian). >>2251 Chile is super stable. Argentina doesn't even come close with all its corruption, economic crises and decades-old political turmoil. Also, infrastructure in Argentina is crap while in Chile you can easily settle in 50-80km from some small city and still have great roads, water, and electricity.

>>2692 Chile seems culturally like England but with better food, drink, dance, & sport to me.

>>2692 and the south of chile is really beautiful

>>2692 Do you know if any of those small communes have websites or some kind of web presence?

>>2711 Most don't, it's just a few like-minded folks leaving on plots of land near to each other. Here's an example of a New Zealander starting a project like this: https://www.allchile.net/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=16528 I wouldn't recommend the libertarian one unless you are a hardcore libertarian yourself. They are obsessed with US politics and crypto stuff, also they sell the plots like 3-4x more expensive than you can buy from Chileans at the same location.

>>2711 The federation of egalitarian communes and many of its members have websites: http://www.thefec.org/communities

>>2711 Sorry I didn't read the post that you were responding to first. I thought you were just requesting information about communes in general.

so how's this project going? has there been any real progress? what about something like this? https://liveinguardians.com/

>>2722 >so how's this project going? has there been any real progress? No progress. It'd take a lain with lots of spare space to make things happen I think. >what about something like this? https://liveinguardians.com/ I think purchasing a abandoned place would be reasonable for a urban commune.

>>2722 >> letmeguardyourpropwhileyouarebusysuckingdrysomeoneeles.com What are you talking about? Help some fuarrrker guard their props? Thats plain atrocious.

I think Maine is good for the Americans. Should probably all live in an apartment or loft kind of thing to start

>>2725 >I think Maine is good for the Americans. The data doesn't lie, but it does agree (more or less): http://commune.muskox.me:4567/Places/United-States >Should probably all live in an apartment or loft kind of thing to start. Not the worse idea.

>>2724 the trick is you just don't give it back and you're protected under squatting laws

This is just a reminder that a good bit of the northern hemisphere starts planting in the next few months, so now would be a good time to decide what you want (and where) to grow this spring. Personally I'll be growing some of Bill Best's beans & tomatoes, Russian Mammoth Sunflowers, & Thai Basil, in my garden (along with any volunteers) & some Jerusalem Artichokes in a abandoned lot. Any of you have any gardening plans, or want any suggestions?

What's the current state of the commune? I've been out for a couple of weeks.

Do we have some public document that keeps track of how much money each individual is willing to contribute to the project along with the conditions they require to be true in order to contribute? If not, can we get one? There's no need to wait for some rich lainon to finance everything when we can pool our resources. Also, I take it that the old wiki is down?

>>2836 better yet: do a physical meet up. What a lot of people don't get about communes is that, especially if you're organizing it over the internet, you're basically uprooting your entire life to go live there. It can be hectic and scary and not everyone is really willing to do that.

>>2837 Yeah, well, there does seem to be some central conflict in the idea of a bunch of people with problems socializing in meatspace who join together on the Wired because of their love for a show about having problems socializing in meatspace using the Wired to attempt to gather together for the purpose of socializing in meatspace.

>>2836 >pool our resources Ok, so let's say we have some amount of money from lainon 1, some amount from lainon 2, and some amount from lainon 3. How do we get it from these separate individuals into one sum and then ensure that sum ends up going where it's supposed to go? I don't think anyone is going to give what could potentially be thousands of dollars to the first anonymous individual who says he'll use it to buy commune land. This is an important practical hurdle to get over if we want this to happen. Would we use some kind of escrow service?

>>2839 It would be best if everyone involved in the commune became a co-signer on a charter for a workers cooperative, or perhaps for a land charter before and after purchase of the communal properties. This way everyone has legal recourse for the money they put in initially but agrees to the long term collectivization of property and labor as laid out in the terms of the agreement, and enforced by local law.

>>2838 my thoughts exactly

>>2841 I honestly expect that any Lainist commune would crash and burn, but I think that it would be interesting, so I still want it to happen. If I can get a front-row seat (a place in the commune), well, that's even better. Of course, it might succeed, and that would be better still. >>2840 I found this article, which seems pretty comprehensive (for US law, anyway): https://www.ic.org/wiki/legal-structures-intentional-communities-united-states/. It seems that our best options lie under the "Nonprofit Corporation" heading. If we select the "large urban building" option, a housing cooperative seems particularly promising. That option does not seem to work well for an agricultural community. This is all new to me, and I'm not a lawyer, so if anyone knows about this, feel free to chip in. Particulars aside, I think the important thing here is that this is legally doable (even if there is some irony in a bunch of cyberpunk fans forming a corporation). It looks like this is the plan for the US commune at least: 1.) Decide on the form the commune will take (urban vs rural, etc.). 2.) Take stock of the resources each would-be participant is willing to contribute to the project. 3.) Select a state based on the results of steps 1 and 2, as well as other factors like where participants currently live. 4.) Form a nonprofit, nailing down details of governance and placing resources from step 2 into the care of the corporation. (I suggest that we get actual legal help once we hit this part). 5.) Use the corporation from step 4 to purchase property, provided that we don't already have property from some contributor. 6.) Pack up and move in. Once again, I'm not a lawyer, so if something looks wrong, say something. It looks like we're still arguing over step 1. Remember, we can worry about the particulars of governance, etc., when we reach step 4, as that kind of thing is apparently covered in the creation of a corporation. Here is a poll to help us with step 1: https://www.strawpoll.me/17736390. If you select "Other," please post an explanation below, making sure to link back to this post. Obviously, if you aren't interested in participating in the United States branch, do not vote. Make your own poll.

>>2836 >Also, I take it that the old wiki is down? The wiki is back up at commune.lain.ovh.

>>2852 It still seems to be down. That may be ok, though, since the poll regarding the US branch (>>2842) has only had one vote in a few days, which makes me wonder whether the interested individuals will ever be able to synchronize their efforts.

>>2855 commune.muskox.me is down. commune.lain.ovh should be up.

>>2856 Maybe it should be, but it is not. I checked with one of those "is it down" sites.

>>2857 Ah, my bad, I repurposed an old host and forgot that there were firewall rules blocking the port 80. I could access it but no one else could. It should be fine now.

>>2858 Do you know whether there is an archived copy of the first thread? The link given just leads to a 404.

>>2859 It's on the wayback machine at least. We have the posts and the thumbnail, but not the actual images and pdf. Hopefully someone saved them if they were any good, and will repost whatever is relevant to the continuation of the conversation.

I'd be down for it honestly. A colony of lain-oids working and living together would probably be pretty fun, there are some cool castles for less than a New York Apartment

>>2870 Well, if you're interested in participating in the American commune, vote in the poll here: https://www.strawpoll.me/17736390.

Did you folks ever actually form your commune?

>>2880 No, most people here (and similar spaces online) are incapable of ever acting on something that requires individual willpower to accomplish, or in this case start. People get caught on things that only matter if your thinking about something like it will never occur, for example the one guy who derailed everything for a couple weeks because of some unrealistic and frankly retarded boat idea. Once your in this mindset, the entire group also thinks in this trivial way, such as if our lala land commune ever exists, we will all vote on a panel and form a co-op as a business entity and prosper etc.. If the people putting together these ideas had any form of initiative or willpower communes like this do exist and have worked - except nothing has occurred here because they wont act for whatever reason. At this point, there is only a few possible ways anything will ever come of this at this point: 1. A single person or small group of people who are already close will come into possession of land or a building or something of that nature and offer for people to live for a cut of expenses. Which is totally fine except the lala aspect of everyone having a say wont be the case, it will be ran exclusively by those who took the initiative to start. 2. Is essentially a few people getting together and basically become roommates, nothing really else to it. So best case scenario this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skatopia which isn't really a failure relative to reality but with the expeditions people put forward here..

>>2881 >form a co-op as a business entity The idea behind this is to have a legal basis for pooling funds. I don't see how that's "lala land" thinking. If this were a project of a smaller-scale, we might just use a crowdfunding service, but we're potentially asking for thousands of dollars from individual participants. It looks like the bigger problem is lack of interest, seeing how the poll in >>2842 only has five votes, as of this posting. It would probably take >= 10 individuals to make it happen.

Just wanted to remind folks of: http://commune.lain.ovh/Places/United-States The main take away was that land in the US can be had for $1,000 a acre, but typically only at moderately large scales, if I remember correctly ~20acres. A acre per person of farm land is a safe amount for individuals farming in a non-biointensive style, with livestock. It seems to me like most of the cost would come from establishing housing and utilities in any northern climate. On the extreme low end I think this would cost $5,000 a person for a `building' per person. That could be in the form of a earthship, tiny house, yurt, cob house, or whatever. A communal complex could make this cheaper, but I'm unsure of how any of us would feel about that. I doubt implements would be a substantial portion of the costs assuming a non-till or biointensive style of soil management. End cost would likely be somewhere between $2,500 & $7,000 a person.

>>2882 >It would probably take >= 10 individuals to make it happen. Actually, I'd like to retract that statement. It's not like I calculated the costs or anything. I don't know why I said that.

>>2885 >It would probably take >= 10 individuals to make it happen. >Actually, I'd like to retract that statement. It's not like I calculated the >costs or anything. I don't know why I said that. From what I've seen most communes start with less than ten people. Twin Oaks started with eight, and many others started with four. Five or six seems to be the average. Regarding 2. ``Take stock of the resources each would be participant is willing to contribute to the project.'' I think it's important to take stock of time and experience as resources, with these two things any agricultural loans could be payed off reasonably even without other sources of funds. Given folks were determined and skilled enough you can live off a third of a acre and sleep in a tent with basically no starting capital and a small loan until you could become more established. Obligations can also radically change the time frame of the project.

One could set up a solar farm to make the commune energy neutral, or to use extra power for blockchain mining, or just flat out sell it to other folks.

>>2897 blockchain mining would be a huge waste of power if you're going solar. Maybe if you want electric heating, it's slightly more efficient than a space heater because you get internet funny-money for it. But you will only rarely be running the heater during the day time.

Well, since arable land is currently winning out in the U.S. commune poll (https://www.strawpoll.me/17736390), here's a YouTube channel that seems to provide useful information on the topic of gardening efficiently: https://www.youtube.com/user/OneYardRevolution/videos. I can't vouch for any of this, though, on account of not knowing the first thing about gardening.

>>2926 >I can't vouch for any of this, though, on account of not knowing the first >thing about gardening. Much of gardening is best learned through practice honestly. Through practice you can learn about your local pests and the plants and varieties that do best in your micro-climate and soil. As a example in my area southern cabbage butterfly are a issue that I was running into, I learned that they rely heavily on color for camouflage to hide from predators and to select locations to lay they're eggs, so I started growing dark varieties and no longer have a issue. This allowed me to get rid of the southern cabbage butterfly without harming beneficial insects. Another example, I have a quite serious issue with Figeater Beatles which lay their eggs in compost piles, the main solution here was to adopt a more sane composting system. Neither of these species can survive in most of the US so it's likely that different plant varieties and growing methods are better elsewhere. Soil management is a huge factor that needs to be localized. For example western soil management methods don't work in the tropics, you end up killing your soil in 20 years and drinking your pesticide. Conversely good luck using no-till methods in heavy clay soils, or tilling on a heavy incline. The fertilizers or cover crops as they apply you use on your soil can even vary year to year as you plant different things consuming different resources. Even after you establish things the best they possibly can currently be in your environment the localization never stops. At this point you stop changing your methods and your relations to other peoples plants and start making your own. There is nothing more useful than being able to use the full force of evolution in your garden. So if you want to learn to garden start gardening! Throw some seeds in a abandoned lot if you need to!

>>2941 Hm, so we'll have to figure it out when we get there, to a degree. Well, that seems reasonable. That said, I'm really only interested in gardening as it pertains to the commune, which is to say that I'm not interested in doing it as a hobby. Thank you for encouraging me, though, Lain. Do you think we should all practice gardening before banding together? Would that improve our chances?

>>2942 >I'm really only interested in gardening as it pertains to the commune, which >is to say that I'm not interested in doing it as a hobby. That's understandable, I think a lot of the interest in communes is in reclaiming your life, and dedicating a potentially large portion of your time to something you're not interested in for its own sake is a bit of the opposite. >Do you think we should all practice gardening before banding together? Would >that improve our chances? I think you get two or three things from practice relating to the commune. First and most importantly you'd learn how to make observations and adapt to conditions, which is a skill. Second you'd have more confidence in your ability to grow your own food perhaps encouraging you or others to join. Third you'd shorten your runway to feeding yourself on the commune by avoiding any obvious problems. That being said I might have let my passion for gardening get in the way of the objectives. Many (most?) communes have been established by individuals with little or no agricultural experience, so perhaps it's not as important as I would like it to be.

>>2942 If your worry is survival and/or self sustainability gardening is just a small part of the equation. I have been researching the topic for over a year at this point and there are so many things you can do to help a commune. Most valuable is: carry your own weight. My favorite source is this: http://www.survivorlibrary.com/library-download I would say this: knowing basics of gardening will help you in the commune. However... Every person in the commune should be able to survive on their own - work on your survival/bushcraft skills. Learn navigation without GPS or technology. How to start a fire. Learn how to track, trap and hunt animals. Learn how to raise farm animals. How to prepare wild meat. How to spot edible plants. How to predict weather. Create a shelter. How to craft certain items. How to fix broken items. How to prepare long lasting foods. How to store food. Learn about medical plants. How to first aid. How to clean and stitch a wound. The list goes on and on... Even though everyone should be able to survive on their own, they should also be able to help others. Lone wolfs don't survive for long. Humans are not meant to be lone wolfs for long. Look up a documentary called "Happy people". It's 4 part docu about people living in remote village in Siberia. It can give you a general idea how they live in a commune with limited resources. As for gardening, if you want to focus on that, look up permaculture or closed loop gardening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture

>>2856 >commune.lain.ovh I added some stuff.

>>2944 So many of the books here are old as heck. That's not a bad thing per say, but still.

>>2946 Bushcraft doesn't really change much over time unless it involves new inventions.

>>2946 When it comes to crafting anything, I find these books more helpful than newer ones mainly because of how low-tech the instructions are. No complex machinery, just your hands, patience and some tools that you can easily come across. There is always something to say about simplicity of old times... Some info is definitely outdated (I assume in areas of science and medicine), so use common sense when reading them.