 
To: Bill Eichman 
Cc: +dist+/afs/andrew/usr/js9b/Public/camc.dl@ANDREW.CMU.EDU
Subject: Re: Hard Head 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 11 Sep 92 00:19:26 EDT."
             <4u6wqB2w165w@hogbbs.scol.pa.us> 
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 10:53:28 -0400
Message-Id: <8903.716223208@KANGA.FAC.CS.CMU.EDU>
From: Thomas_Price@KANGA.FAC.CS.CMU.EDU




>But, if ten people got together, a hundred acre farm near many of the
>major cities would become a real and practical possibility.

Here's another possibility: excellent agricultural land in Northern
Virginia (my favorite part of the Country so far) can be rented for 
~$50 per acre per year, so long as it is used primarily for agricultural
purposes. A complete home solar energy system, 12V converters, etc, and
a semipermanent dwelling (a yurt or geodisic dome) can be had all for 
an investment of between ten and fifteen thousand dollars. One can easily
imagine a family living in their geodisic dome on the edge of the woodlot
next to their large hand-cultivated plot of land. Figure the whole thing
working out to $3000 per year for five years ... it could be an excellent
option for some people.

>Naturally, I have to point out that this guy is doing, on his own,
>exactly what I think we should team up and do-- buy rural land and build
>business based on electronic home offices, save enormous amounts of
>money, and live a more laidback lifestyle, eating food from organic
>gardens, and raising kids who start playing with computers and looking
>at bugs under microscopes when they're a year old.

>No amount of conversation on this network is going to lead to a local 
>culture renaissance.

Oh, I don't know, linking people together with complementary minds will lead
to something, and since all of us live in an area local to us, it'll spill
over ...

I am very much looking forward to raising kids. 

>places-- it would be great to have some mountain retreats, but mountain
>retreats won't work that well as a women-and-children attracting
				    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>community.

I've seen this sort of sentence on this maillist before and I don't really 
understand it! What is with this us vs. them implication with women, as if
"they" are going to have completely different needs? The communities which
I am a part of will always be composed of individuals, some of whom are
in all likelihood going to have uteri. You know? I expect to be married
some day; it is not possible that I could marry anyone who wouldn't have
lifestyle ideas compatible with mine. 

Sometimes I consider the idea that we should be trying to get out ahead
of the twenty-first century, or be social prophets, or whatever, to be
almost manaically hubristic. To think that we owe anything to society
is a delusion, because society is incomprehensible. Let's just do what's
good for us and seems to be the most harmless and potentially beneficial
course of action in general. So, the idea that "the new communities" are
going to be intentionally engineered and require all sorts of mixed of
people is, I think, backwards. It's just asking for trouble to say "we need
a population dynamicist and an astrogator and a veterinarian" and then 
hope that they'll be able to live together. I'd rather build up and extend
the circle of my intimate friends and then go live somewhere in an attempt
to provide self-sufficiency for ourselves, but if we need some additional
expertise then we go to the local vet, for example, and pay him for his time.
We don't have to do everything for ourselves -- what purpose does all this 
serve, ultimately? Are we sacrificing our lives in order to get a particular
structure off the ground, or do we have goals of how our human spirits will
turn out, and a big grab bag of tools and options for giving ourselves
freedom and stimulation (and being harmless and doing good socially)? I say
the latter, and if all we ever do is live simply in a group house and belong
to a food co-op, but we're very happy and accomplish our work, then that's
great.

Now that I've said this, I should day that I'm glad that other people are
looking at things differently and doing things differently. One of my closest
friends is pursuing a PhD in international politics at GWU, as we speak!
Ick! And he's interning on Capitol Hill right now! But it's good that he's 
doing this, because he understands what I'm doing, and he can communicate that
to the people that he's around, who are the kind of people whom I would never
otherwise meet. Likewise Bill's corporate emphasis on alternative lifestyles,
that too is encouraging ... maybe someone he knows won't be into corporate
tribalism, but will end up meeting me ... and then through me meet these 
folks on the Hill and will become a volunteer for some mainstream third-world 
sustainable-development think tank. Connections among energetic people are 
by far the most important thing that we've got.

I've got to stop writing now. Darn! More later.

Tom

******************************************************************************
         Tom Price  |  tp0x@cs.cmu.edu  |  Simplicity, simplicity
******************************************************************************
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