[WarmWash]

The problem is that communities are grossly inefficient.

Look at what happened when big box stores came to local communities. "We are a community" goes out the window when walmart milk is 30% cheaper than Mom and Pop milk. Why? Because massive centralized operations are inherently more efficient, and they can leverage that efficiency to offer the lowest prices. And people on the whole will always, always, always, shop for the best deal.

Look, I'm someone who spends weeks every year in Vermont, which is the last place in the US that still has "community" focused living (if you have never been, it would be magical for you). No big box stores, no strip malls, no franchise chains, all local farms, local businesses.

But you know what the truth is? They are all dead broke with stagnant industry and a total dependence on outsiders bringing in money to keep their "community living" theme park alive.

[ahhhhnoooo]

Inefficient, probably, but remember that you are operating within a system where people need to shop for a deal. There are other systems one can consider. And don't think of community as a single local place, but rather multiple interlocking sets of people. I'll give an example.

One of my communities is farmers. Farmers get paid ~$7 for a bushel of grain (~50lbs). Those same grains can cost $5/lb at the grocery store. When I buy from the farmer, we've settled on a rate of $18/bushel, or <$0.50 per pound. I turn around and feed people for free with this. 50lbs of barley or wheat or whatever is an enormous amount of food, and $20 is a cost I can absorb every few months.

So, now two communities that I'm a part of benefit - the farmers earn more for their product, the hungry eat for free. The farmer community doesn't have to know the hungry community. And the only financial input is purchasing the grain for FAR less than retail, and without every middleman taking a cut.

Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread hypothesizes that if we gave the farmer everything they needed to farm and live comfortably, the farmer would give away the grain. If the grain was free, we'd have people make bread and feed others for free. (This part is at least partially true, because I know I do it, and I'm not the only one who does.)

People like making stuff. People like sharing.

I'm trying to find an in to a biodiesel community, to see if I cannot connect them as well, benefiting the farmer community and giving food and material to the biodiesel community. Haven't connected there yet.

Don't think of this as small town isolationism, but rather a distributed system of syndicates producing and sharing their excess with others who have a use for the excess. Makerspaces on a grand scale, with the resources of many, many people.

[WarmWash]

>everything they needed to farm and live comfortably

We discovered long ago that farmers in Brazil have much much lower standards for "live comfortably", because they don't have first world neighbors swimming in a first world life.

Most people aren't aware that Bernie (once again back at Vermont, heh) was/is (I'm sure he still is, but definitely hides it for obvious reasons) an ardent supporter of tariffs. Knee cap the Brazilian farmers so American farmers can charge more and "live comfortably".

Which is nice, but ultimately is just nationalistic hypocrisy. People are forced to pay more for food so that they can artificially hold up farmers in the US. That might feel good, but on a humanitarian level, it's crippling to Brazilian farmers who are just as human as American ones. Export the economic loss to poorer countries...how first world

Well, ok so we can erase the hypocrisy and flatten the global economic terrain. But then we are all living like the farmers in Brazil, an upgrade for many billions and a massive downgrade for maybe a billion.

Very noble, but good luck getting anyone in the first world to actually vote for that.

[ahhhhnoooo]

Yep. You described a state I'd like - lower quality of life for some, massive increase for nearly everyone else.

But you are also right, the people with power aren't ever going to vote for that.

So I focus on my scale. I'm not here to change the world, I'm not here to run a campaign to change the world. I help a few dozen people, I talk about it openly but don't judge others for disagreeing.

And over time, people sometimes decide to get involved in their communities. I stopped charging rent because I read about someone else stopping charging rent. N-count of 2, but maybe someone will read what I did and stop charging rent and we'll go to n-count 3.