TerranFenrir

Bi = A potentially doubled dating pool = potentially increased probability of landing a relationship. Still not getting anyone? "Dayum you suck".

6/10 haha

Haha they really have been going, huh. Not complaining though... Been there, done a lot weirder stuff than posting mildly funny horny memes

Heyy thank you for the response and the words of affirmation :)

You can go much bigger than that! How could you inject, for example, production into your idea? How about mutual aid (non-monetary)?

That is definitely something that I'm hoping for. However, I want to make this as modular as possible, in that the project doesn't become too big to interest anyone. As I have 0 experience dealing with stuff like this, I would like to start super small and low risk to see what it feels like and if it even works haha.

Have you read any books on the matter?

Nope.

Here’s an excerpt from Slow Down by Kohei Saito

I see that you like making direct quotations from books quite a lot through your comment history. Thank you for the excerpts you provided here :). They're kinda inspiring.

Keep going, we are millions!

I mean it doesn't feel like we are. I tried looking up irl leftist groups that do stuff like this here in Calgary, but it doesn't seem like anything remotely close to this exists. There is one non income sharing intentional community, but it's not accepting any new members. Are you in Calgary? Do you have any such groups/connections that could be used to build solidarity?

Hahaha well, whenever these folks speak in French,. they're not "translating" stuff they say in English. They're literally saying the other half of the speech NOT SPOKEN IN ENGLISH in French.

Oh wow, I didn't know about tithe. What do church events look like though? Aside from the cultey "worship sky man" and all that, what does the socialisation look like? Is the community "close knit" or whatever?

For example, if you set aside the singing, clapping, and sky fairies you’re pretty much describing a church.

Not Christian, so don't know what church life looks like. But isn't the financial side of church spending basically charity? Is it democratic? Does the church like have a board of directors that is democratically elected? Or is direct democracy used? I'm pretty sure that there isn't a requirement for folks to contribute proportional to their income.

In my experience, which is not overwhelming but not nothing, a group like you’re describing wouldn’t be able to stay cohesive for very long.

I kinda expect something similar. Although, I'm very interested in seeing how the breakdown happens if it does. Is it because of internal groups that start not liking each other? Is it because of folks with authoritarian tendencies? I'll be honest. I've been lately attending some queer socializing events here in Calgary. The folks that I've met have been nothing but nice. I'm kinda interested in knowing how far someone's niceness and cooperation can go. Can it go far enough to form a commune?

At the same time, I've seen communists parade the idea around quite a lot. I want to make up my mind about its viability by actually seeing it and experiencing it myself in a way that won't hurt too much if it goes wrong.

you don’t need to pool money and form a commune to do this. There are many different kinds of groups already doing this. There are business groups that refer customers to each other, and online communities sharing investment information, et cetera.

But there's no financial incentive for anyone to do that, is there? For me, if you are a commune member, I would be more incentivized to see you earn more money, as that would mean increased contributions to the fund, meaning more welfare for me.

collective bargaining power - there just isn’t enough sorry. You need a much larger collective. Also, for purchases where it makes sense, you can join group buys online, and in some areas there are “co-op stores” which are the same idea.

Agreed to a certain extent. But group buying also means creation of a safety net. If I get less hours of work from my employer this week, and if grocery is socialized, I don't have to worry about thinking what to feed myself. The collective fund could look into extended healthcare like pharmacare, vision care and so on. Again, the safety net advantage shows up here.

There would likely be a contract length for what one agrees to contribute a percentage of their paycheck. Tiers of membership would be decided based on the length of the contract. Higher length memberships could see advanced welfare like the aforementioned extended healthcare, or even funds for upskilling like an undergrad degree and so on. Again, I'm not talking about having welfare programs like these NOW. I'm talking about conducting an experiment with very low contributions (say 1-2%) for one month and seeing what happens. That's all. Basically, I want to test my hypothesis in a probably fun manner.

To your third advantage - social gatherings - again you can do this without pooling your money.

True. But in my opinion, pooling money is a step up from simple "accomplice" level relationships. Giving and receiving help feels good (if consensual). This is just an organized way of doing that I suppose. But again, these are simple hypotheses which mean nothing till they're actually tested out. Maybe this is a horrible idea. Maybe it isn't. Maybe people are way more cooperative than one would expect. Maybe they are not, and quite difficult to work with. We won't know for sure till we actually try something like this out (in a very low stake manner obv).

Secondly, it’s extraordinarily difficult to take a vote in order to select from a range of options. In a democracy you vote for representatives. Very occasionally you may vote on a more or less binary decision (in a referendum). In meetings of small community groups or shareholder meetings you can vote on “motions”, but this is pretty seldom, everyone has a shared interest, and probably minimal personal direct benefits. If you’re talking about a situation where people could vote on beer or bitcoin or groceries, people will naturally become disenfranchised.

The structure of the commune and its size would play a big role here. I personally think that the disenfranchisement issue would start creeping up with commune size. Till then, direct democracy would work very well imo. But again, we need hypothesis testing to know for sure.

I admire your enthusiasm, and I wish you well

Thank you haha.

sadly I don’t think this is the right way.

I appreciate your opinion. However, I believe that there isn't much experimental data to have an acceptable conclusion (for me at least). I've been reading about communes of different types irl and in fiction, which is what interests me a lot in them. I would've gladly joined an intentional community if it wasn't for the massive risk of leaving friends, family and job behind to potentially end up in a horrible place. This seems like a pretty low risk experience of understanding what human group dynamics look like in a setting like this. Of course, this is not an "objectively good idea" that everyone would enjoy being a part of.

It's just a little experiment where I'm looking for like-minded-ish individuals to try something out with.

I don't get the jokes about cults. Is there a meme or something I'm missing? Why does this sound like a cult to you? Aren't cults about worshiping something/someone? How is creating a mini-cooperative/commune similar to a cult?

Holy frick that's a really beautiful cat

I'd honestly love to see a world war between circumcised and uncircumcised folks. I wonder who would win.

If reading is like eating, then watching a video is the tube feeding thing (the tube that they put through your nose).

Video is simply superior when my brain's at 50%.

Awwww