I think it needs to be acknowledged that in the past efforts to imagine a widespread society intentionally created have been the stuff of science fiction and efforts to create communities have been too small scale and lacking the radicalism needed as participants were often still embedded in the prevailing culture.
This is different as it is clearly designed to be realised and has a wider and deeper ambition.
It feels well thought out and the basis of shared values and flexibility meets many of the needs of a society that will endure. I am struggling though with the way this comes into being. Does it emerge from a group already engaged in community activity for example, accruing more scope over time or is there a leap: an intentional decision to set up a community with entrants invited and structures already in place.
There is also the question of how existing capitalistic structures will respond to what may be seen as a threat particularly given that authoritarianism is on the rise. It is hard to imagine such societies flourishing in the absence of significant collapse although I have no doubt that that will happen.
This is valuable work which needs wider exposure.
Having access to the means to grow food seems essential. This suggests in turn that towns and cities may struggle to transform unless they can create space for this.
my vision for the future is one of organic transition through prefigurative community building. this starts small and through "rhizomatic seeding", expands through replication in context.
Obviously I've done the entire Prefigurative Community Building series based on this conception, but maybe I need to do an actual essay on multiplicity and plural approaches to transition.
And on the question of how Capitalist Structures will respond, the obvious answer is "with hostility", but what is missing, is detail. The problem, of course, is that while the logic of domination is predictable, the various methods within that logic are plentiful and hard to pin down. Meaning that attempting to predict a future response could map all of capitalist history, and still fail to accurately anticipate reaction. It is covered to an extent in this essay, but I'm now thinking of broadening the response to be more actionable.
I like the plurality and spontaneity of this vision. It feels more real than any wholesale plan on a nationwide scale. There is work to do to aid the spread of intentional communities who will seed these developing societies.
At 67 I find my peer groups are rather spooked by talk of collapse and while generally neighbourly do not seem that interested in assuming agency in local matters. Time to move somewhere with more vibrancy!
I think it needs to be acknowledged that in the past efforts to imagine a widespread society intentionally created have been the stuff of science fiction and efforts to create communities have been too small scale and lacking the radicalism needed as participants were often still embedded in the prevailing culture.
This is different as it is clearly designed to be realised and has a wider and deeper ambition.
It feels well thought out and the basis of shared values and flexibility meets many of the needs of a society that will endure. I am struggling though with the way this comes into being. Does it emerge from a group already engaged in community activity for example, accruing more scope over time or is there a leap: an intentional decision to set up a community with entrants invited and structures already in place.
There is also the question of how existing capitalistic structures will respond to what may be seen as a threat particularly given that authoritarianism is on the rise. It is hard to imagine such societies flourishing in the absence of significant collapse although I have no doubt that that will happen.
This is valuable work which needs wider exposure.
Having access to the means to grow food seems essential. This suggests in turn that towns and cities may struggle to transform unless they can create space for this.
my vision for the future is one of organic transition through prefigurative community building. this starts small and through "rhizomatic seeding", expands through replication in context.
Obviously I've done the entire Prefigurative Community Building series based on this conception, but maybe I need to do an actual essay on multiplicity and plural approaches to transition.
And on the question of how Capitalist Structures will respond, the obvious answer is "with hostility", but what is missing, is detail. The problem, of course, is that while the logic of domination is predictable, the various methods within that logic are plentiful and hard to pin down. Meaning that attempting to predict a future response could map all of capitalist history, and still fail to accurately anticipate reaction. It is covered to an extent in this essay, but I'm now thinking of broadening the response to be more actionable.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment
So here's the initial response to the idea of transition, a piece of speculative fiction written from a fictional future looking back
https://substack.com/home/post/p-168198770
I like the plurality and spontaneity of this vision. It feels more real than any wholesale plan on a nationwide scale. There is work to do to aid the spread of intentional communities who will seed these developing societies.
At 67 I find my peer groups are rather spooked by talk of collapse and while generally neighbourly do not seem that interested in assuming agency in local matters. Time to move somewhere with more vibrancy!
This has really opened up my thinking, thank you will dig through your other posts. Have been grappling with alternative organising models from the perspective of AI ethics as seen through the lens of community development. Would be very interested in your thoughts given what I’ve just read: https://open.substack.com/pub/blackerthanmirrors/p/baking-with-marble-agora-crumble?r=5v4urt&utm_medium=ios