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Like everyone else, I've been real interested in doing a commune-style thing with some friends, kinda off-grid-ish, because "lil tribe in woods" is the ideal, right? And I still want it, but sometimes I wonder if we've been too permanently socially crippled to pull it off. 1/n

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Aella

@Aella_Girl

Aug 23, 2021

I would fail as a survivalist. I don't have the knowledge to repair tools, to forage, how to prevent mold, treat wounds, etc. I was formed in a 'civilization' mold, where the most I need to know about my own shit is how to hit the flush lever. Set me into the woods, I'd die. 2/n

Aella

@Aella_Girl

Aug 23, 2021

I wonder how much something like this is going on with cultural tribes. Are our attempts at tribe building doomed to fail because we're trying to come at it through a 'civilization' mold? How much do we not know that we don't know about how to sustain this type of community? 3/n

Aella

@Aella_Girl

Aug 23, 2021

Like, did our cultural 'handle-conflict' skills get shaped by a world where you don't live near each other? Are we doing something fundamentally wrong for a lots-of-time-spent-together context? Do we have values like self expression that just don't work out in the "wild"? 4/n

Aella

@Aella_Girl

The vast majority of commune attempts fail. Group houses have high turnover, and (tho low sample size) I don't know a single 'friend-family' attempt that's lasted more than 5 years. Given how much everybody seems to want a tribe, the high failure rate is a bit weird. 5/n

1:19 AM · Aug 23, 2021

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And normie stuff like jobs and housing don't help, but my guess is there's also a ton of default, invisible orientations we have to "how we are supposed to be with others" that are incompatible with long-term tribe success, and we don't have good ways of identifying them. 6/6

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Communal goods are under communal control, and that means internal politics. If the communal goods are substantial, the politics easily escalate well beyond the bonds of mere friendship or community spirit, and many people just leave when they don't get what they want.

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consider divorce rates people want good but fail to plan for bad

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Tribes were never friends living together. They were related families living and working together. If you want friend-tribes, buy an apartment building, not a house.

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I'm convinced the key is build a village, not a group house. Group houses are lazy and force low-social people into thinking they are socializing because they see each other. Make commitments, do things, choose to be together. The village just lowers the cost of the choice.