(Part 1)
Hello Clippy, I see you have been here since around the reddit migration. Something that isn’t lost on me. My account is freshly minted, so please bear with me as I get familiar with the space.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. You bet your ass I plan to give the conversation a similar level of commitment lol. I don’t expect you to respond further in kind. However I do wish to make responses so others can see. If you’ll let me I’d mine you for whatever perspectives you might be willing to offer.
It is important to keep in mind the scale and funding I have been designing around. Three to five billion of non-profit funding deployed to approximately 100 community land trust locations over 5 to 10 years.
Participation would be through what is best recognized as a networked startup business model with a 5-6 year on-ramp/vestment period where 80-120 people utilize approximately 20-35 million dollars to revitalize and improve exhausted agricultural land according to shared principles as well as permaculture, polyculture, regenerative agriculture and sustainable infrastructure guidelines. Just like any startup there would be protocols and policies related to joining, leaving, or such things as medical complications.
It isn’t so much drawing people together under an existing team, but rather collectively offering a set of tools, framework, and mentorship through which it becomes easier for symbiotic relationships to gravitate towards each other. Also worth keeping in mind that about 20-25% of the 400 pages I have drafted so far relate to governance, social technologies, and related frameworks. People would be spending about 1-3 hours a week for 2 months networking remotely with diverse skilled and knowledgeable individuals, then spending a week on site further getting to know each other in person before ever starting to process of making a commitment. The intended framework and progression maintains a failsafe mindedness which acknowledges the potential for unforeseeable and catastrophic failure and allows for rolling back, pausing, or even dismantling at various stages. No one would be facing financial ruin by participating.
As someone at least beyond middle age as you mention, years bear with them a degree of life experience and perspective on human failings which isn’t lost on me. I am aware the pitfall of personalities which represents the one bad apple’s ability to spoil or derail well beyond what most might believe.
I mainly chose to focus on millennials and gen-z as they are likely the most able-bodied available for portions of blue collar work and are typically less set into their lives. Not adverse to older individuals, just aiming at center-mass so to speak. More formal polling will come in time. Right now the feedback vibe is decidedly more a temperature check and first impression.
Question #1 response: Understandable. It is neither a small commitment nor unexpected that someone beyond middle age would have some roots which can cause hesitancy and a degree of risk aversion.
Question #2 response: You would have spend at least 2 months and about 20 hours of loosely guided remote video call gatherings with the full 80-120 people in your cohort. All throughout however would be available asynchronous social media topic discussion groups where everyone may organically gravitate to each other. Housemate pairing would be through a perpetual weekly private rank choice vote and subsequent satisfaction measurement before the recursive voting process cycles back through towards the highest satisfactory measurement. Switching would be possible or even ideal, though may require negotiation with additional others which could necessarily become involved. Perhaps the group would collectively make prior intentions for everyone to swap housemates every X number of months. Plenty can be leaned on from the various conflict resolution processes university housing professionals utilize regularly as well.
It would be a four seasons yurt, meaning insulation, heating, cooling, power, water, shower, etc. While adaptable to most bio regions, my current regional intent is looking at hardiness zones 6a through 7b. Many yurts aren’t just tents, but can be built to permanent housing building codes standards while yet maintaining relatively greater mobility. You pay nothing to participate, having all reasonable living expenses covered. After 5-6 years you are assured lifetime residence in a newly constructed 2,000 square foot passive house built with sustainable materials that has no maintenance cost or utility expenses. First refusal rights would belong to your children so long as they intend to participate as well. Continuing to reside and participate means: free education, free primary healthcare and perhaps more, free fully rounded nutritional needs comfortably met, a stipend aimed at meeting all outstanding debt payments within reason for 5-6 years, and facilities space with utility bills paid for in which you and your chosen startup co-founders can deploy sufficient grand funding so long as your goals are toward the betterment of the human condition in some fashion. After reaching stable business success, opportunities for income expands rapidly and potentially shifts various funding and expense models.
Question #3 response: Off course I’m not looking towards 72 hour work weeks. Life needs balance, also all work and no play burns everyone out eventually. The goal is to do the most with the least. Ideally this means 16-32 hours of combined blue and white collar work weekly with no single mentioned category reaching more than 24 hours weekly. The ranges given are to account for a diversity of abilities and availability As the years get on the hopes are to progressively be able to concentrate more and more time into education and leisure. If someone wants to only work 32 hours a week that is fine. If someone wants to work more than 40 hours a week that is fine as well. Everything obvious would meet labor law requirements. The 8-24 of leisure time is more to so insure no one works more than six days a week, ever, even during the busiest couple of weeks around harvest season. The other side of this is routinely having days where only 8 hours of blue collar work a week during winter is needed. Want to have a vacation? Save up 8 hours of leisure quota a week to be scheduled whenever.
Question #4 response: I partly answer this above. The primary incentives are having virtually zero monetary living expenses with comfortable living arrangements for a minimum of 5-6 years while having access to facilities, funding, expertise, and co-founders with which to turn a startup into a stable business with. Someone who is fresh out of school and owns practically nothing but student debt can literally live rather comfortably. Never working more than 32 hours a week for more than 5 years while ending up a partial business owner on the other side, who has the option of continuing to never having living expenses so long as they continue to uphold the communities social contract.
I don’t believe land should be owned either. The land and select infrastructure is held in a nonprofit community land trust while the houses and facilities spaces are held by a nonprofit mutual housing association. Mostly common tripartite governance with elected community members keeps everything on the level. The community itself sets its own bars and thresholds. The decision and conflict resolution bodies are nested based on the subject and intensity at hand and always maintained through rank choice voted positions. You would be the management, if not directly then by chosen representation. Everyone holds each other to account because the ultimate success depends on the diligence of the collective. You and your 100 closest friends would be building the homes. The stronger the community, culture, and dedication are the greater and sooner the desired outcomes arrive.
Question #5 response: Think of it partly as contractual collective homesteading or business building of sorts where ample leeway is afforded for mitigating and unforeseeable challenges, be they individual or more ubiquitous. Unless someone truly needs to leave a community, their residence is ironclad for a minimum of 5-6 years. This also extends to living expense which are fully covered while a stipend covers all outstanding debt payments within reason for the same period. The model is designed such that members are afforded comfortable living standards while being insulated from antagonistic factors which plague typical western economic models. Admittedly having one’s income tethered to performance such as seen in commissions or proportional business profits isn’t for everyone. Although, I have spoken with plenty of recent graduates who say they would jump at an opportunity to live isolated from financial obligations while building their desired business with the assistance of sufficient grants and investments.
Ah sorry forgot to answer your last question. Yes, I have experience in intentional communities and governance models. Thus far the first draft of governance documentation is over 150 pages.
The subject of my post is currently under R&D and NDA. So no pilot program for the foreseeable future. I am largely looking for feedback and insights here at the moment.