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Communities are not fungible

joanwestenberg.com

81–90 of 112 posts

Re: Communities are not fungible

#81

When thinking about online communities I think the lack of "global" identities has dramatically hampered community migration and evolution. I fully agree with the author that you can't just pick up and move a community wholesale but irl we do see patterns of migration, disaporas, etc that bring along with them relationships and trust networks. That's been basically impossible to do online. The networks where most of…

I guess I got my language wrong here. Maybe what I'm talking about is about portability more than global vs local. Identities should exist at a layer higher than any given social context, and should be "materialized" into that context with local information. It's not about using the same identity everywhere, it's about being able to take the identity where you want to. Similarly it's not about the same information being available everywhere, but information being relative to durable identities, not ephemeral ones.

Re: Communities are not fungible

#82
post #42

Communities are not fungible, but they are also not permanent. Because humans are mobile, the community changes as people, institutions, infrastructure, and industries come and go over time. Even if a substantial fraction of the population never leaves the geographic boundaries that contain the community they were born in, their web of relationships constantly changes as old neighbors leave and new neighbors arrive,…

>Communities are not fungible, but they are also not permanent. The same is true of individual humans. And yet, that is not a great argument for killing them.

He not implying impermanence is an effective primary argument for killing a community, as in "This community is impermanent, therefore we must destroy it" in a vacuum. Additionally, humans and communities occupy different ranks in a moral hierarchy. I'm not sure your point is coherent.

Re: Communities are not fungible

#83
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An unchanging community is a dead community, period. Attempts to "preserve" a community, both online and offline, tend to end up preserving unhealthy power dynamics within the community as well, which would have been slowly replaced with something else if you had just let the community evolve (or disappear) naturally. Often, members of the community who benefit from the status quo are the ones who cry the loudest for…

NIMBYs

I don't think NIMBYs have much of a community to begin with.

Re: Communities are not fungible

#84
As there are no references to "Seeing like a state" by James C. Scott, let me recommend it. A great read that explains how hard is to create a city from scratch, how illegible community value is and how big organizations cannot see forest for the trees when using KPIs.

Re: Communities are not fungible

#85
Best quote: "When Alice doesn't need "a neighbour" but needs that neighbour, the one who watched her kids that time, the one who knows she's allergic to peanuts. The relationship is specific, and specificity is the enemy of fungibility."

The memory of what the community was or had eventually vanishes. Jane Jacobs (referenced in the article) was the reason that I learned that the sidewalks in NYC's West Village weren't always so narrow. They were made narrow to accommodate more cars, which in some ways don't help geographic community strength.

Re: Communities are not fungible

#86
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gratis in terms of dollars, but not free. You pay by letting them take your community hostage.

> Gratis in terms of dollars, but not free. That is what "free" means.

"Free" in English has more than one meaning. this has led to an attempt to be more clear by using 'libre' or 'gratis' loanwords to differentiate (see libreoffice, liberachat), but this isn't universally accepted.

Re: Communities are not fungible

#87
post #53

When thinking about online communities I think the lack of "global" identities has dramatically hampered community migration and evolution. I fully agree with the author that you can't just pick up and move a community wholesale but irl we do see patterns of migration, disaporas, etc that bring along with them relationships and trust networks. That's been basically impossible to do online. The networks where most of…

I can’t disagree with this more. Even on discord I have four accounts for different contexts. One, my real name. Another, my gaming name. Another, my music/stage name. Another still, a different gaming name. Why? Because I don’t want people in any of those contexts knowing anything about who I am in the other contexts. This is a feature, not a bug.

same here, i keep my game and tech groups on different accounts. that's one thing that keeps me from joining facebook. it doesn't allow pseudonymous identities.

Re: Communities are not fungible

#88
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a city that consistently builds about 3-4% of the number of homes we need to build each year. We don’t build rail, we don’t electricity transmission infrastructure, all of which increases our cost of living. NIMBYs are doing great, I’d say.

That would imply that 96-97% of population growth in your city immediately becomes homeless. Obviously, that is not the case.

I've seen people live with their parents till 40 while waiting for a tiny room that will cost 2 or 3 times what their parents pay for their large villa with large garden.

Its quite simple to me. We the grown ups (together) are to facilitate housing for the kids. If we can't do that anymore we should ask ourselves why we don't want to do that anymore?

Quite interesting is how the (now proverbial) 40 year old isn't really attacking the problem.

I won't be around but I'm curious how their kids in turn will share the tiny room till 40.

Re: Communities are not fungible

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you consider to be anglo incompetence in dwelling construction that isn't NIMBYism?

Owning land. Whoever came up with this idea needs to be hung and revived a million times, and then tortured to death a million more. Our society has been mutilated as a result. I think you could ascribe this to either NIMBY or YIMBY harebrained thinking. We need a third option that's pro-human. We need public fucking housing.

[dead]

Re: Communities are not fungible

#90
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem fairly keen on building public housing. Wouldn't that qualify you as a YIMBY? The YIMBYs are the lobby that tends to be pro-new-buildings. If you want to build public housing, only the NIMBYs would really oppose the idea.

> Wouldn't that qualify you as a YIMBY? YIMBY is the pro-private-development lobby, as best I can tell. PHIMBY is the term I've seen. > If you want to build public housing, only the NIMBYs would really oppose the idea. I suspect most who go by YIMBY would also oppose this.

> I suspect most who go by YIMBY would also oppose this.

Well I'm not sure what you're proposing but if it can be characterised as "mass public housing" it sounds like a terrible idea on the face of it, and most people would probably oppose it on that ground. But the YIMBYs would have to agree that you're allowed to try it if you want, otherwise they'd be NIMBYs, on the basis that they are telling other people they can't build on their land.

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