[jaxtracks]

I'm really fortunate to be in a very outdoors and offline community that values our personal ties above most things. We spend a lot time playing music around campfires, backpacking in the mountains, and cooking up good food together. We spend the hard times together too. Sometimes you drop everything to go winch a buddy's truck out of the mud, help someone move, or take five hours of your day to go on a hike long enough to really talk about what a breakup means.

I'm back in a city for a bit, hanging out with a more mainstream crowd, and the difference has been jarring. Dinner means an hour or two in a busy restaurant. Playing music is a planned event with low priority amongst busy schedules. Nobody helps eachother move, there's an app for that.

I'm shocked to see how quickly those norms have changed how I interact with people! I'm ashamed that I drove past a guy who clearly needed a hand changing his tire when I had my impact in my truck earlier. I don't know who I would call in this group for more than an hour over a beer to talk through heavy stuff without feeling I was imposing. I'm spending time with far more people, and on paper I'm doing so many things, but we're all a lot lonelier in this crowded place than my group and I were out in the woods.

Luckily it's a simple fix. I'll get back to focusing on my people soon, and will give them the effort and time that keeps us all thriving amidst the social wasteland. I don't necessarily need to leave the city to do that, but it's a lot easier to see what's important out past the pavement.

[natmaka]

L. Kohr (who was the inspiration of "small is beautiful"), shows how and why it is of paramount importance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Kohr#The_Breakdown_of_...

[aredox]

I read the wikipedia summary, and it was full of half-truths or outright lies.

>small state is internally democratic and its government has to serve the individual

This has never been true, there is no relationship at all between size and democratic nature. In fact, I'd argue the opposite: small societies are more oppressive.

Neither has there been any relationship between "small states" and Peace. Again, one can see the opposite throughout History.

>disputed territories such as Alsace could become autonomous or sovereign instead

...Not even wrong.

>He predicts that the unity of the Western world will be realised by "by every Frenchman, Dutchman, or Italian becoming an American".

A prediction completely wrong.

A theory completely disconnected from Reality.

[natmaka]

>small state is internally democratic and its government has to serve the individual

For many reasons (one being the risk induced by endogamy) it is way more difficult for masters of a small state to bar the individual from knowing what is going on outside, to escape... It fosters a healthy pressure on potential or effective abusers.

> Peace

Search for "Duke of Tyrol": https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/leopold-kohr-the-bre...

((quoting the source)) >> Kohr states that a disunited world would do away with territorial disputes and conflicts since cultures that currently demand autonomy will receive it, and disputed territories such as Alsace could become autonomous or sovereign instead.

> wrong

This is a suggestion, not a prediction ("could").

((quoting the source)) >> circumstance that illustrates the main difference in the manner in which Russians and Americans organize their respective empires. We proceed with seduction where the others use force. We assimilate the world through our goods, the others through their ideology. While the unity of the East is brought about by every Czech, Russian, or Chinese becoming a communist, the unity of the West is created by every Frenchman, Dutchman, or Italian becoming an American. This is preferable, I presume, but it spells national extinction for the peoples concerned all the same. We may say that, as Americans, they will at least be free, but so will all Czechs or Chinese once they have become convinced communists. Assimilation does not destroy freedom. It makes it meaningless.

> A prediction completely wrong

As a Frenchman or (remote) Russian origin living in China since 2017 I disagree.