Introduction and business model design feedback

Ayla_Leren@slrpnk.net · edit-2 7 days ago

Introduction and business model design feedback

moonlight@fedia.io · 7 days ago

I think many of these questions are too vague to be answered productively, but I’ll try. I’ll just answer for myself, as I think there will be plenty of people who agree with me, and it seems kinda irrelevant what the average person thinks as long as enough people are into it. Also, your brief set of questions isn’t very brief, and I think you’d get more answers if it was more focused and pared down.

Very willing if it looks well thought out, has some assurance that it will stay around, and provides a good quality of life. Otherwise, no.
Is this just a random person? That’s a reeallly hard sell. A friend, or better a partner? Yes, assuming it’s nicely furnished, and is in a nice surrounding area, and has supporting infrastructure.
8-24 hours is such a big range that I couldn’t possibly answer, but I’m guessing it adds up to 40 hours. but I’m not sure how leisure factors in here, is this . I think a flexible 40 hour work schedule that factors in learning and unstructured productivity would be very appealing.
Definitely, and think it does change my answer for question 2, but only if there is a strong assurance that this community will exist indefinitely, or in the event that the community dissolves, that the house would then go to me.
Without hearing details I can’t really give an answer, but maybe? Also would I not be allowed to generate income from external sources? That sounds a bit controlling, but I’m not categorically opposed to it. I also think it would be good to capitalize on individual skills when possible, not just a few set businesses.
Again, 8-24 hours is a huge range, but generally yes, although I would want vacations, and exceptions for disability, sickness and old age.
No change, I don’t really need a big house, anyway the yurt would be the limiting factor. I think that making common spaces might be a better use of resources.
Direct democracy is pretty much a requirement for this sort of thing, but it would also need a ‘constitution’ that is guarantees the basic premise is maintained and nobody gets screwed over.
I think this is going to be the hardest part to get right. , but I think there would need to be some criteria for this, otherwise it would be abused.
I think this could be a real positive if done well. If there are multiple sites, I would also consider making short term stays possible. I don’t think this really changes any of my answers though.

Anyway from what you’ve hinted at, this seems like a pretty compelling idea for a commune. I would look into existing communes like Twin Oaks as examples of what works. I do think the Solarpunk/automation angle could make this really unique, though, and it could result in a really high quality of life.

I know this is probably for a school project or something, but if it’s actually something you’re thinking about for real, I have a lot of ideas, and I would be very interested in discussing it more (and maybe joining!).

Ayla_Leren@slrpnk.net · 5 days ago

Hey their friend, thank you for your reflective response. I am just now getting around to responding to people and noticed much of your comment overlaps with another one I just finished replying to at some length. I would encourage you to look at the other comments and responses as they cover ~95% of what you typed up and I would prefer no to make duplicate responses for everyone’s benefit.

I am also curious to see where this conversation may go in time, andlooking forward to hearing back from you :)

stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net · edit-2 7 days ago

(clippy) It sounds like you’re trying to build a commune. Would you like help with that? (\clippy)

So I’m going to try to answer your questions, but before I do I want to emphasize the commune issue. It sounds like you’re trying to draw people together, artificially build a community where people live, work, and play in common under the guidance of the same organization, and keep them working together for a lengthy period of, frankly, impoverished struggle.

You’re trying to build a commune from the top down.

The problem with communes is they require a HIGH level of trust between members BEFORE they commit to sharing their lives, finances, and other resources. because of how quickly they can lose everything if the commune’s leadership exploits or fails them, and how easily they can be exploited by free riders and abusers.

And they need members who won’t abuse that trust. Which, historically, has been the sticking point.

When you set up a situation like this, where a person’s employment, housing, and social life all depend on maintaining their status within the same organization, you’re building a fragile edifice. Because if that organization fails, either through bad decisions, exploitation, or reasons out of its control, everyone who relies on it goes down with it.

It’s the opposite of the sustainability and resilience that we need in the uncertain future.

And it attracts a higher than normal share of desperate people, exploiters, and bad actors. Because people with good prospects in society won’t gamble those prospects, and people with strong economic and social ties to society won’t give those up, by submitting their entire lives to the governance of one organization.

Also, I am NOT millennial or Gen-Z so am not going to speak for them - polling people in those demographics directly would be a lot more helpful to you. And since the answers to a lot of your questions will reasonably correlate with age (e.g. older people who already own homes will be MUCH less likely to go live in a yurt), I think adding age ranges to your more formal polling will really help you focus on your core age demographics.

Anyway:

Q1. I’d be mostly unwilling, primarily since I’d have to quit my job, though I’d at least be curious. Not speaking for other generations.

Q2. It depends VERY MUCH on the details your question leaves out. Do I know the person? Can I choose the person? Can I switch people? Being stuck with the same roommate for five years can be fine and can end up a complete nightmare - the situation would need a strong conflict resolution model at minimum.

And then there’s the environment. What are summers and winters like? What heating and cooling exists? What kitchen/bathroom facilities are there? Is there any privacy in this four seasons tent? Is this going to be five years of basically camping?

And what’s the incentive? Do I have to pay for five years of camping? What do I get out of it and do I get any of that reward if I back out before the five years?

PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO ANSWER ALL THESE QUESTIONS. I’m not joining your commune and don’t need the answers. I’m just bringing up things people WILL want to know before committing.

Q3. Holy labor law violations, Batman! I count a max of 72 hours of blue collar + white collar + teaching work in there, and I would absolutely not sign up for anything even remotely near that without seeing a contract with much clearer labor terms and worker’s rights protections. And how exactly is the 8-24 hours of “leisure” separate from the rest of your life during that week? Is this managed leisure of some kind? Honestly that description reminds me of a 996 startup grind and I would come at it with extreme suspicion.

Q4. And there’s the incentive: five years of camping with a roommate and 996 grinding in exchange for the lifetime right to live in a 2000 sq ft house. For me: absolutely not. For younger people who have basically no chance of ever owning a house in this economy? I won’t speak for them, but maaaaaaybe?

Here’s the thing. I don’t believe land should be owned. I believe land should be managed by communities, with usage rights to a home guaranteed to the members of that community who reside in it. So from THAT standpoint your idea sounds like a great prefigurative phase shift from private ownership to community ownership. But it’s still ownership, because we still live under capitalism - and if I don’t own the home I live in, who does? What rights do they have that I don’t? And what happens when we disagree?

And circling back: who decides what counts as “satisfactorily maintaining”, and to whom can someone appeal if that decision-making body abuses its authority? Because if it takes five years to vest in a house, and in year 4 management realizes they’re not going to have enough houses for everybody and decides to kick out half their workers…

Q5. Fuuuuuuck no. This is where a lot of communes fail - because they’re totalizing, and the worker’s homes are linked to the worker’s jobs are linked to the worker’s status in the community, and if the employment fails everything fails. (Look up “The Farm” in Tennessee.) I think a community that relies so heavily on one employer, owner operated or not, multiple divisions or not, is dangerously fragile.

Q6. As long as it takes? Not writing any startup a blank check for my labor. Sorry.

Q7. Won’t change. My problems with this setup have nothing to do with the size of the house.

Q8. Holy shit, no, fuck that. So abusable.

Q9. My first reaction is to fear for victims of domestic violence.

Without going on an incredibly lengthy rant, the best way to protect individual human rights is to guarantee those rights universally, and, if those rights have to be restricted or removed for some reason, have a carefully structured procedure with objective oversight, checks and balances, and an appeal process, before anyone’s rights are restricted. And if this sounds like a court system, that’s because taking away people’s rights for the good of society is what a court system does, and even then there are some rights not even a court can take away. And evicting someone from their home should definitely be under the jurisdiction of such a court system.

A system where someone can lose their place in a commune - lose their home, lose whatever sweat equity they put into the work of the commune, and so on and so forth - if a sufficient number of fellow commune members hate them enough to vote against them, is a bad system. The way it could facilitate racism, bigotry, prejudice of all kinds, should be obvious.

And I bring up domestic violence in particular because I’ve seen too many people somehow find the courage to accuse a well-respected community member of abuse, and end up ostracized, punished, even banished from their community, because the community took the side of the well-respected member and believed they’d falsely accused a good man of a heinous crime.

Direct democracy may not be the worst possible way to run a judicial system, but it’s really, really close.

Q10. That question has so many caveats and unknowns that the answer to it wouldn’t change anything for me.

Ayla_Leren@slrpnk.net · 5 days ago

(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.

Ayla_Leren@slrpnk.net · 5 days ago

Question #6 response: Aren’t most of us already forced to maintain a blank check as you say for the majority of our adult lives to make ends meet and uphold some degree of prosperity? Is it not better to participate in a cooperative model through which you have equal share and effort which translates to direct improvements to the quality of life for you and your loved ones? The progression of automation development ultimately results in a transition away from physical labor towards and through cognitive labor and resulting in greater concentrations of time available for learning, teaching, and leisure. However related activities would still be subservient to the communities desired tempo. Intensity of labor is always at and under the will of the collective wants.

Question #7 response: Noted. Would you be more interested if instead the housing addition was as a second floor build as a second residence available to your loved ones with its own entrance? Or maybe some other proportional boon which otherwise offers some form of benefit unrelated to one’s home?

Question #8 response: Are you familiar with the concept of liquid democracy? How much do you know about Dunbar’s number? Even at full community carry capacity there is never more than 300 voters for topics where direct democracy had been chosen as preferable by the community. Someone wouldn’t be voting alongside strangers, but rather their peers who they cross paths with weekly, if not most days. Culture and social utility in such situations enables the leveraging of symbiotic interest, accountability, and understanding toward cohesive governance, solidarity, and responsiveness.

Question #9 response: Clearly it would be much more procedural, guided by policies, protocols, and knowledgeable expertise. Community members would have also mutually agreed on contractual guidelines prior to residence. There are plenty of examples of contract and integrity agreements tied to occupations or residency from which can be learned and borrowed. A community wide vote is reserved as a last resort. It is important for any culture to have unbiased collective methods to address antisocial behaviors and other persistent human fallibility. Some manner of exile when penalties prove to be ineffective or insufficient under righteous just cause is perfectly acceptable and common; often preferable to lawsuits and incarceration even. Liquid democracy offers pragmatic utility among such things as well. There are additionally much which can be learned from the various existing community land trusts and mutual housing associations that have had to deal with all manner of sensitive realities.

Question #10 response: Perhaps a decent way of thinking of the topic is what may come to mind when observing how athletes tend to migrate between sports teams under various circumstances and motivations. Not a perfect analogy admittedly. Imagine one’s personal or professional interest shift over the years as tends to happen throughout life and result in an altered set of preference to what was once held a decade ago? Think empty nesters, long term research partnerships, new domestic partnerships, changes in health, etc.

—-

I understand if you might not have the gas to continue the conversation, though I would appreciate your further insight as someone who might have another decade or two under your belt than myself.

underline960@sh.itjust.works · 7 days ago

How willing are you and how willing do you believe millennials and gen-z are to relocate their life some number of hours away to participate in a funded solar punk initiative?

I wouldn’t be able to give you an honest answer to this unless I knew what we were building and what the compensation model looked like.

So far it sounds very vague.

Ayla_Leren@slrpnk.net · 7 days ago

That is fair, I am trying to explain as much as possible without giving too much away for strategic reasons. Think it as somewhat subversive efforts akin to market Aikido that uses its own weight against itself to move towards its broader obsolescence and replacement.

I’ll also add that someone’s early exposure in spending 1-2 months using available social media and video meeting tools to collect and get to know groups of 80-120 people of diverse expertise asynchronously through posts and comments throughout the week, and 1-2 hour loosely guided video meetings. Ultimately turning into a one week trip to intended site so everyone can get to know each other in person before fully committing.

I am also designing the funding mechanisms for all of this. So assume you and 80-120 others would spend 5-6 years utilizing 20-35 million in funding towards actualizing the meritocratic and direct democratic communal infrastructure design.

A brief list of the things to build includes: permaculture, regenerative agriculture, polyculture farming practices, design software, manufacturing software, governance software, education models, aquaponics, animal husbandry, sustainable electricity and other utilities, modular housing manufacturing methods, rapid deploy off grid housing kits, information architecture, and more/

CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world · 7 days ago

I think for 5 we’d need to see some numbers first.

And I’m concerned about 9. Feels like a great way to either trigger discrimination or scare away victims.

Ayla_Leren@slrpnk.net · 7 days ago

Regarding #5: You and 80-120 people you’ve intentionally spent at least 1-2 hours a week networking with for 2 months choose to relocate to approximately one square mile of exhausted agricultural land. Land which has been acquired by the nonprofit land trust to which you have voting rights. You have 5-6 years to deploy 20-35 million dollars to improve the land in alignment to permaculture, polyculture, and solar punk principles, while also building out 4-8 start up businesses to which you have proportional share through a cooperative model and labor commitment. Admittedly aimed at the entrepreneurial minded.

Regarding #9 It is certainly more nuanced and carries stipulations beyond just a simple voting process. The primarily intent is acknowledging the necessity of protocols for both positive and negative reasons for onboarding or releasing people from the community.

A governance rabbit hole of a conversation for both of these points which is partly beyond my available bandwidth to entertain or intended scope at the moment as I respond to others here as well.

CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world · 7 days ago

Where is this 20-35 million coming from…? That’s a decent amount for early stage startups.

I think it’d be difficult to find 100 random people with the necessary skills and motivation to do this. Maybe you can do this with a group of families from the same culture/religion? But then you’re bringing along that baggage as well.

Do you have experience living in co-ops already?

Ayla_Leren@slrpnk.net · 5 days ago

I’m not at liberty to say exactly where the funding would be coming from yet, only that it would be strategically nonprofit investments. The quantity is due in part to the broaders goal of maximizing novel production methods and diverse infrastructure access sustainably, and toward supporting underserved surrounding communities.

Sourcing the right people won’t be simple, though it also isn’t difficult. Part of the model currently in R&D is focused on leveraging existing tools in specific ways which incentivize and draw the right individuals out of the ether. Methods leverage the modern reality of distributed epistemic tribal culture affinities and innate social drives for parallel offline connections. Imagine spending 2-3 months and 1-3 hours a week getting to know your nearest professional peers quite well and the broader group fairly well before meeting in person on-site for a week before making any lasting commitments.

CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world · 5 days ago

Is there a pilot program that’s already running?

And again, have you participated in any co-op living situations? I ask this because it’s not a simple thing to get right, and even successful ones tend to have a large transitory population. I imagine both co-working and co-living is even more difficult.

Ayla_Leren@slrpnk.net · 5 days ago

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.

CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world · 5 days ago

Well I think overall it sounds interesting.

Presumably you’d need some speciality professions: doctors, childcare, etc especially if you’re doing blue collar work.

How do the work assignments happen? It seems like people would probably have preferences on specialization? Also, how do you handle people who aren’t very motivated/competent? Are there productivity targets for individuals and as a group?

Also concerned about the 8-24 hours of leisure. This seems… quite low to me? With a normal job you could get something like 40 hours of leisure a week. Or people with children who ideally would want to work less and spend more time with their child.

Is there an expected amount of turn over? I’d figure this might be quite high as people might be excited to sign up at first and then realize it’s not for them. Or if a specialist decides to leave?

On top of getting specialists, what if the overall demographics are heavily skewed? Will there be discrimination in order to meet expected ratios (mainly concerned with a high male/female ratio, but other types of imbalance exist as well).