A lot of the things we do on a daily or weekly basis have ways of doing them that can either be private or communal, some of these which we do not think to consider as having that characteristic.
For example, bathing in the Roman Empire used to be communal, but then Rome fell and citizens in the splinter countries began taking baths privately.
Receiving mail is another example. There are countries which don’t have mailboxes and everyone gets their mail at the post office in the PO boxes. It was the United States which pioneered the idea of the modern mail system, which is why we associate it as a private act.
There are activities as well which don’t have any history as jumping between one or the other that might benefit from it, for example I think towns might benefit if internet was free and freely accessible but only at the local library.
What’s a non-communal aspect of life you think should be communal?
Cooking. 5 people working together can cook for 100 people easier, cheaper, and less wastefully than 100 people can cook for themselves/their families.
Unfortunately the current restaurant system in the US is incredibly wasteful, expensive, and pays fuckall.
This makes me think of the Sikh community’s charity/giving (can’t remember the term) food giving that happens in most towns globally where there a Gurdwara.
There has to be a better way than waves hands everything, really.
I sometimes think about automats, and what a modernized version, designed to both be healthy enough to eat as one’s primary meal source without ill effect and efficient enough to compete in price with home cooking, might be like. I suspect it would probably involve a lot of soup and chili and the like, just because that stuff is relatively simple to produce in large quantities, and uses cheap yet generally healthy ingredients
We should be using neighbourhood food co-ops to purchase and distribute food from farmers and wholesalers rather than from retailers.
A co-op has been in the works in my town for the last few years and it’s finally about to open. I can’t wait
Owning tools and equipment. I wish my neighborhood or town had a tool library.
I use a chainsaw maybe two hours a year. Same with my neighbors, yet each of us owns a chainsaw.
Google your city name and “maker space” to see if there’s any near you. Not only does my local library district have them, there’s another local option with a monthly membership fee. They have large equipment like laser engravers, CNCs, drill presses, etc. They usually also have small stuff like drills that you can check out and bring home. Also a great way to meet other makers in your community
I tried looking for something like this in the UK and it turns out the nearest one for me got shut down during COVID, the rest are all an hour or two away at least. It’s a great idea but I guess it’s unsustainable without some sort of external funding cause the local one was already running at a loss before 2020 according to their website.
I’ve seen those public bike repair racks with attached tools. I feel like that’s the closest thing to that we have
I always see those with the tools cut off. Feels bad :\
The public library has tools and such in a lot of places.
That’s a real thing, there’s one near me
Re: internet only available at the public library.
Hell no. That would really fuck over disabled people.
Plus, nobody needs to see the porn I watch.
Yes, but some of us do, so give us the goods already
I mean, we could make that a communal activity too…
That would mainly be because they can’t easily get to the library, probably because your city is too low-density and car-dependant.
Once again, all problems are zoning problems in disguise.
Wait, it would? My local library’s biggest demographic is disabled people.
It would fuck me over.
Management and operations of any apartment buildings.
Make em all co ops.
I think towns might benefit if internet was free and freely accessible but only at the local library.
Are you saying that private access to internet should be illegal?
Or that your libraries don’t offer internet access to its patrons?
If it’s only available at one place, it’s not freely accessible.
Logistically, how would that work? Libraries would have to be everywhere and they’d have to be massive. The IT infrastructure to support that would be immense. How would privacy work? Where could I go to have a private telehealth appointment, for example?
Freely accessible just means anyone can get to a library, no? I’m not saying that internet should ONLY be at the library. That’s OP, lol
Libraries where I live offer internet access to any patron (who must be a resident of the city). I can comfortably walk to 3 libraries, but only 1 is within a 15-minute walk. Not everyone in my city is so fortunate, but someone with limited internet needs has many options for free here.
Oh I understood. I agree with you.
I would argue that something that was once available at home that is then restricted to a single place that must be shared with lots of people isn’t freely accessible.
My local library is within walking distance, but it’s pretty small. The Internet is free but not awesome in terms of speed.
The first one. Or perhaps it shouldn’t be illegal but rather discouraged in some way.
You do realize a significant portion of the internet is porn, right? There is no world in which everyone has to go to a communal public building for their pornography consumption that I’d be happy with.
I wish it was illegal but only for you so I don’t have to read nonsense like this again.
Gonna be honest there are few things I would like less than the criminalizing of my main way of keeping in contact with people. I genuinely think doing that would cause a spike in suicide rates because there are so many people who would just suddenly be completely isolated from having any community
What possible argument could you have for that? That’s just absolutely ridiculous.
Out of curiosity, why?
I’m also curious as to why! (And I didn’t downvote you)
Please let me know if you share in another comment!
Clothes being optional
Im not saying we should be nude all the time. Clothes have their purpose.I think we should have the option to be nude in public, without making it sexual
Nude beaches are nice places for exactly this reason. It’s like everyone tacitly agrees not to give a shit.
You can walk past people with your balls waving in the breeze and nobody even blinks - and more importantly, someone can walk past you with their tits akimbo and you don’t even blink. It’s not sexual, it’s not even interesting, it has no significance here. It’s like seeing someone breastfeeding: yes, boobs are still great, but we’re not doing that right now.
And that’s just a really nice headspace to be in. All of the unconscious monkey-politics games just go away, you don’t have to think of people in those terms, or concern yourself with where you stand relative to them, because we’re just not doing that.
Oh no, you’ll see unattractive naked people! Yep, most of them in fact. And honestly that’s kind of awesome. 85yo woman pottering around living her best life stark naked and not giving one single shit: you go girl. Fuck yeah. You know how people say they look forward to being old enough to just not give a fuck any more? You can have that yourself right now, right here, for free.
It’s funny, walking past clothed beaches afterwards, you realise just how sexualised many swimsuits really are. A bunch of naked people are honestly about as glamorous and exciting as a pile of dead sheep; fashion designers do one hell of a job creating drama and hype around it all.
Most places in the US legally allow nudity, with the main barrier being people calling the police and making a big deal out of doing something legal.
What? I don’t think this is true.
Many places allow toplessness but very few allow full nudity.
It isn’t about allowing. It is about not prohibiting.
Most places haven’t prohibited nudity because most people don’t choose to be nude.
It’s often covered under obscenity and sex offender laws, though.
In my area, you can be nude on private property as long as a neighbor has to make an effort to see you. My back yard allows it.
I never feel inconvenienced by having to wear clothing. I suppose part of that is because as a man, I can go shirtless without getting stares and I wouldn’t want to be without underwear (for support) even if I were on a deserted island. I wonder what the circumstances you have in mind are in which you would like to have the option of being nude in public.
Edit: Now that I think about it, there have been a few times when I wanted to go swimming and just swimming in my underwear wasn’t an option because I would have to walk while wearing it later and that would be uncomfortable.
… Why should private internet be banned or discouraged? What benefits would that being?
It’s a bit of a cop out, but maybe talking about and dealing with feelings. At best people usually only talk privately with a professional for money. Normalise just having regular group therapy for everyone that they can just drop in and out of.
Or if we want to really push boundaries: Orgies and kink parties. Sex is a natural part of life, no need to keep it secret.
I’m not sure that something like a public orgy would be a good idea, not because of “morals” (I tend to think modern society is far too repressed about sexual stuff), but because of the health implications that would come of encouraging sexual contact between large groups of strangers. That sounds like a recipe for STI spread unless you were very strict and thorough with testing, vetting participants, and enforcing protective measures, which inevitably not every instance would be.
However, if talking and partaking in sexual acts is less stigmatised, people will hopefully feel a lot more comfortable about getting tested and talking about it.
And honestly, if it does turn out to be that big a problem, vetting and requiring regular testing seems a reasonable thing to require before people are allowed in.
Production
REproduction
I’m with it
are there actually places where the public library doesn’t already offer free internet access?
This is very close to your mail example but can we please move on from delivering items directly to houses? Just give me a destribution center or box at a 10-15 min walking distance and I’ll gladly pick up everything from there when it’s actually convenient. We can still keep the other model for special cases.
“special cases” being everyone who doesn’t live in a town? I’m lucky in that my village post office hasn’t been shut down, but I’d still have to drive to collect my post every day. It’s much more efficient that a single vehicle delivers post to hundreds of houses.
Maybe it makes sense in urban areas for able-bodied people. Still a drag to have to walk there every day when you don’t even know if you’ve got post because something important might have arrived.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to poop on your idea so much, it is a genuinely interesting idea, I just don’t think it works with the way society is currently set up in my country
Or disabled.
So they just need to build a post office closer to you
Sorry yes this assumes you live in a place where you can walk to something like a post office or a supermarket. Rural US may not have this but that’s already kind of a problem. You don’t have to go every day though. You can just get a notification when your delivery is actually there. This is already done in some places by companies but in a smaller scale where the available boxes are very limited and only for smaller items. With special cases I meant people who have trouble leaving the house for whatever reason.
Honestly If I could just get the part when they notify me when there’s something to pick up and make junk mail illegal that would be great. As it is I hate checking my mail box every day just to dump literally all of it directly into the trash. I would love to just be notified when there is actually something I need to pay attention to.
Usps has "informed delivery ", where they send you pictures of all of your mail before you get it, so you do know if you are getting something important.
I could see delivery drivers really appreciating this. They deserve a break.
transportation, natch
Generally think private homes are a giant waste, both in terms of wasted physical space and energy lost due to poor insulation.
Living should be communal. No residential construction should hold less than eight housing units.
After you do this, you can consolidate a bunch of an amenities - washing machines, parking, central heating/AC, pools, gardens, outdoor grills, wet and dry bars, basements, rumpace rooms, home theaters.
It all gets so much nicer when it’s a communal living space.
This is a wild take. There is value in privacy. There is value in quiet! There is value in space. Electricity efficiency isn’t the only important thing!
washing machines, parking, central heating/AC, pools, gardens, outdoor grills, wet and dry bars, basements, rumpace rooms, home theaters.
Aw hell naw. Tell me you’ve never been poor enough to have to use a shared washing machine or even a laundromat without telling me you never had to. Those things are absolutely disgusting.
I used to believe in dense housing in cities until I had two sets of psycho upstairs neighbours and no thanks, I want to be as far away from another human being as reasonably feasible at all times, nevermind not share a fucking pool with one.
Greetings from Sweden, here shared washing machines are really common and generally not disguisting at all.
There are also solutions to people behaving badly in apartment buildings. Unfortunate if nothing was done at yours, but it’s definitely not an impossible problem to solve.
I’d rather put a bullet through my brain pan
Some people like living in communal spaces and some, like me, loathe it. Seriously, fuck that. Maybe more and affordable complexes do need to be built, but it should never be the only option.
Poor introverts in this scenario.
That’s a nice idea, but how do we decide on who gets to live in the communal space?
