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Started by trix, July 27, 2016, 05:47:33 PM

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trix

So I searched these forums but was unable to find a thread on this topic so here's one.

At onecommunityglobal.com they are attempting to create a sort of Venus Project / Zeitgeist sustainable community that is both a tourist attraction and an example of modern living in comfort while using only sustainable technology.  I've spent a couple weeks reading nearly everything on their website, which is a LOT of reading and researching, and I have to say I very much like this project

However, some of the terminology they've invented and the way a lot of their ideas are presented makes me a bit... hesitant.  They seem rather heavily Holistic / PETA-ish in their way of addressing many things.  Maybe I'm just knee-jerking to the word "Holistic" and certain terms like "The Highest Good Of All" which reminds me of Grindlewald from the Harry Potter universe. ("The Greatest Good!")

I'm curious as to what the people here may think, being somewhat better than me at spotting bullshit disguised as goodness.

- trix
There's good news tonight.  And bad news.  First, the bad news: there is no good news.  Now, the good news: you don't have to listen to the bad news.
Zen Without Zen Masters

Quote from: Cain
Gender is a social construct.  As society, we get to choose your gender.

Q. G. Pennyworth

Being suspicious of utopias is almost always the right call.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

I see many, many, many words, most of which are the equivalent of handwaving and platitudes. I only looked at the "food" and "economics" sections, but man...

QuoteWHAT IS HIGHEST GOOD ECONOMICS
The One Community definition of Highest Good economics is business that is specifically pursued with the intention and long-term focus to function for The Highest Good of All people and all life on this planet. These businesses are fair, proactive and forward-thinking, ecological, transparent in their function and operation, and they provide value while creating positive impacts individually, locally, and globally. As an organization we are focused on demonstrating and open source free-sharing duplicable RBE, for-profit, non-profit, and entrepreneurial economics models that specifically meet all of these criteria. In so doing, they will function as a foundation of demonstrating that living and creating for The Highest Good of All can function proactively in existing competitive markets, free people from debt, and provide developing teacher/demonstration communities, villages, and cities on-going capital for upkeep and further expansion.

If you can pin down any specific aspect of their proposed economic system from that, you're one ahead of me.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

The whole website is AMAZING! It's like they took their cues from those business websites where you can never figure out exactly what it is that the business does. Clipart and everything.

Check this page out: http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/solutions-that-create-solutions/
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


LMNO

There's a lot of qualitative words there, completely undefined.  Didn't see anything quantitative.

Q. G. Pennyworth

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on July 27, 2016, 06:08:46 PM
The whole website is AMAZING! It's like they took their cues from those business websites where you can never figure out exactly what it is that the business does. Clipart and everything.

Check this page out: http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/solutions-that-create-solutions/

Did someone explain the White Savior thing to them?

LMNO

I like how they're very secretive as to where this will be located.  It's like a utopian Carmen Sandiago.

trix

 :lulz:

I love you guys!

They do have actual substantial things in there. quite good ones, but yeah it's definitely buried under metric fucktons of wordy handwaving.  They really make you dig for the substantial stuff.

I do like the weekly progress updates, but in general yeah they have way too many "self-taught graphic artists" and overly wordy fuckers posting on the main pages of the website.  It seems the more serious people doing the more serious work get their stuff linked to in a very dig-deep sort of way.

Finding the sitemap and going from there is helpful.  The website is really really large.
There's good news tonight.  And bad news.  First, the bad news: there is no good news.  Now, the good news: you don't have to listen to the bad news.
Zen Without Zen Masters

Quote from: Cain
Gender is a social construct.  As society, we get to choose your gender.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Someone put a lot of work into making that website and it doesn't really say ANYTHING at all. Also I love the more or less meaningless, yet busy, "maps". They almost look like something that was created for a video game.



"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: trix on July 27, 2016, 06:25:57 PM
:lulz:

I love you guys!

They do have actual substantial things in there. quite good ones, but yeah it's definitely buried under metric fucktons of wordy handwaving.  They really make you dig for the substantial stuff.

I do like the weekly progress updates, but in general yeah they have way too many "self-taught graphic artists" and overly wordy fuckers posting on the main pages of the website.  It seems the more serious people doing the more serious work get their stuff linked to in a very dig-deep sort of way.

Finding the sitemap and going from there is helpful.  The website is really really large.

If you can post links to/excerpts from the sections of substance you're finding, it would be really helpful - I don't really have time to browse the whole site, I should be working on my thesis right now, given that it's due Friday.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


trix

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on July 27, 2016, 06:27:56 PM
Quote from: trix on July 27, 2016, 06:25:57 PM
:lulz:

I love you guys!

They do have actual substantial things in there. quite good ones, but yeah it's definitely buried under metric fucktons of wordy handwaving.  They really make you dig for the substantial stuff.

I do like the weekly progress updates, but in general yeah they have way too many "self-taught graphic artists" and overly wordy fuckers posting on the main pages of the website.  It seems the more serious people doing the more serious work get their stuff linked to in a very dig-deep sort of way.

Finding the sitemap and going from there is helpful.  The website is really really large.

If you can post links to/excerpts from the sections of substance you're finding, it would be really helpful - I don't really have time to browse the whole site, I should be working on my thesis right now, given that it's due Friday.

Ok, here we go.  Even knowing I've seen these sections before it was tough locating them again.  Very tough. The website is most definitely a problem.  Their main writer on the site, whoever that person is, is clearly very overly impressed with their own ability to fill pages upon pages upon PAGES with meaningless bullshit, hiding the useful information quite deep.

Anyway, blueprints:
http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/earthbag-village/
http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/straw-bale-village/
http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/tropical-atrium/
http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/duplicable-city-center/
http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/hoop-houses/
http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/large-scale-gardening/
http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/aquapinis-and-walipinis/
...and more.

Most of those links also contain economic breakdowns of exact cost of materials, transport, etc.

Basically if you go to the SiteMap (Top Left, first option under the About drop down menu), and scroll down to the "Alphabetical listing of pages", it's a stupid way to organize things but I find it's the best way to find specific pages and information.

Also the Progress Updates show a lot of the actual work being done.

As for LMNO's comment about the secret location... I agree.  However their argument for keeping it under wraps until after it's been purchased might be legit.  I don't know anything about buying property so I can't really say.

Really though, they could just pick a place and claim they are considering it, if the goal was to mislead.

Hmm, I feel like I'm being defensive.  Maybe I'm just too easily impressed by 3D models, blueprints, and the extreme amount of planning and "surface work" they've put into it so far.
There's good news tonight.  And bad news.  First, the bad news: there is no good news.  Now, the good news: you don't have to listen to the bad news.
Zen Without Zen Masters

Quote from: Cain
Gender is a social construct.  As society, we get to choose your gender.

The Good Reverend Roger

This reminds me of "The Citadel" for hippies.

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

trix

Also it took me a few hours to make sense of their "Consensus" page about how they make big decisions, and that part specifically gives me a lot of pause.  They seem to expect that given enough of their Highest Good Propaganda people will generally just agree to things as they come up.  My experience with people tells me that even on something simple, like who gets the last capri sun, when it should obviously go to the person who has had the fewest, can turn into a shitfest really quickly and require a decision to be made over the strenuous objections of well meaning others.  In other words, as Doc likes to say, People Are The Problem.

I just don't think you can educate disagreement out of people, like their Consensus pages seem to think.  Maybe I got the wrong idea when I read it.  They do seem too idealistic as to people getting along.

That said, none of the above is a reason to discount the entire project IMO.  I think there's a lot of promise here.
There's good news tonight.  And bad news.  First, the bad news: there is no good news.  Now, the good news: you don't have to listen to the bad news.
Zen Without Zen Masters

Quote from: Cain
Gender is a social construct.  As society, we get to choose your gender.

LMNO

That website doesn't reflect The Highest Good a website can be.  That's not a good first impression.

It also does seem that the entire thing can be boiled down to 'things would be good if everyone were nicer to each other'.  The problem of this approach should be obvious.

trix

Quote from: LMNO on July 27, 2016, 07:07:27 PM
That website doesn't reflect The Highest Good a website can be.  That's not a good first impression.

It also does seem that the entire thing can be boiled down to 'things would be good if everyone were nicer to each other'.  The problem of this approach should be obvious.

I agree on both points.  For the website, I think a more wikipedia-like approach would be highly beneficial.  Especially as Wikipedia itself is "open source".  As for the idealistic people being nicer thing, yeah.  Very yeah.  They will for sure have problems with this.  I'm curious to see what they learn from it though.

All that said, I still think the actual community they are trying to build, if their planning and such is actually legit, could be a great example of sustainable living while still preserving a high quality of life and technology.  All the idealistic hand-holding crap aside, any example that shows people they can have all their creature comforts without dooming their grandchildren is worthwhile in my book.
There's good news tonight.  And bad news.  First, the bad news: there is no good news.  Now, the good news: you don't have to listen to the bad news.
Zen Without Zen Masters

Quote from: Cain
Gender is a social construct.  As society, we get to choose your gender.