Community Development Ideas

Discussion in 'Back to Basics' started by Seacowboys, Mar 4, 2011.


  1. Seacowboys

    Seacowboys Senior Member Founding Member

    It was unfortunate that our most recent experience with community development was a corrupt political organization with a huge socialist agenda (ACORN). It is my contention that the only means of salvation for our country will be through small groups or communities. I have started threads on community farms to replace the giant corporate ones that essentially destroyed the small American family farm as a way of life. I strongly believe that the Tribe will be the only viable means of recovery from a total SHTF. Urban population centers will become prisons and eventually graves. Small groups will begin gathering and building what they need and a new commerce will develop from the barter of surplus. We have instituted a small farming program for our employees at work to not only help stretch their pay checks but to teach them the need for self-sufficiency and group effort. I would like to start this thread to further ideas and means of developing the tribal community. Ideas such as food co-ops, group purchases, community farms, johnny appleseed planting of food crops and fruit on public property, and most importantly, bartering.
    I need a brick oven to bake bread using wood or other fire producing fuel and will trade an equal amount of time canning, drying and preserving food for long term storage without electricity. Here are the seeds, my friends; let's plant them and see what grows?
     
  2. UGRev

    UGRev Get on with it!

    I think the development of a community starts with understanding what the basis is for a "community". Lots of people think a community is there "help" each other out. I disagree. A community is there for a symbiotic support system. Where EVERYONE has a job and performs that job. When people stop doing that job, the support system breaks down.

    When a person(s) stop working, new people must fill that support position for the community to continue functioning. EVERYONE must understand the importance of EACH job in the community. Therein lies the problem. Take, for example, your garbage collectors. Lots of people look down on them.. but without them, there would be a **** ton of garbage piled up on your property.

    It breaks down to awareness and PARTICIPATION. If I had a 3 days stint on the garbage truck, I bet I would appreciate it even more. But I always wave to them and thank them when I can.

    I digress. Another problem is size. When communities grow, a critical mass is reached and structures separate into modular sections. Workers, Worker-Thinkers and Thinkers. In other words Delegates, Teachers and Doers. This is where we are at now. Part of this problem is that this modular system attracts parasites that will attempt to feed off the opposing structure. There are people who fail at supporting their structure; these participants will attempt to feed off the other structures. It's a vicious web.

    How do you solve these problems? Well, obviously you have to identify the parasites and eliminate them from the community and hope they'll figure it out on their own; that the system is symbiotic, and not a teet. You also have to identify the attack vectors for these parasites. If you don't participate and support your structure, you simply are not allowed to partake in the results of the system. Close it off. This is a continuous task as parasites evolve.

    Critical mass is tricky. At smaller sizes it's easy to have a leader. When your community reaches a size where his/her leadership is not seen the same way as a large (not necessarily larger) portion of people, you end up with factions; those who support and those who do not. We are here right now. The USA has reached a critical mass and something must happen. One side is going win and one side is going to lose. There is never a balance. Balance is a myth. Centrists are mythical creatures much like skittle shitting unicorns.

    In the past, critical mass has always been solved by war. War can take many shapes and have many faces; political, economic, physical etc. We are running all three at the same time. This is dangerous.

    This is also ALL a cycle. I don't have the answers to Community sustainability. There just isn't any, in my opinion. They eventually break down because people figure "Someone else will do it". Then people see this behavior and figure "Why participate when no one else is participating". The system self destructs and the cycle starts over. But thus far, it has been war that is the ending and beginning of these cycles.

    So I wish you good luck on your experiment.
     
  3. Seacowboys

    Seacowboys Senior Member Founding Member

    You makes some interesting points that I am sure are valid but I see the glass as half full and so many people only recognize the unused portion so it is always half empty.
    The problem and the blessing of being an optomist is that how-ever destined to ultimate failure, one meal puts you ahead of the game and the only duration that concerns me is that within my lifetime. I'll have to trust my children to provide for themselves but I can leave them to tools and knowledge to do it with. A community only has to consist of the core group that works for a common cause or a common end to the means. It does not have to be related by location, just communication and common objective. I have the curse and blessing of never admitting defeat while still breathing; therby, I have never lost, only experienced temporary setbacks.
     
  4. UGRev

    UGRev Get on with it!

    I like to remain optimistic about the idea and utopia of a well formed, oiled and functional community as well. The only way I see this happening is if freedom, true freedom (which includes ones acceptance of responsibility) rules, not some single individual. After all, a leader is only a leader when people are willing to follow, but when each person, collectively, leads, then there is a wave of agreement or disagreement. Freedom is the only salvation of community IMO and anyone who seeks to control people should be ousted post haste.
     
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