Netsteading: A Possible Future For Self-Sufficient Network Communities

TLDR: Open discussion on the potential for self-sufficiency in future pop-up villages and network city-states.

The 1960s/70s saw people leaving urban life to start farms, communes, and intentional communities, seeking self-sufficiency, meaningful multi-generational relationships, and environmental stewardship. They felt empowered by post-WW2 industrial tools and knowledge, believing small groups could live off-grid for the first time in a new context.

While many experiments failed (e.g., “hippies” returning to office jobs), the ideals of the Back-to-the-Land movement overlap with today’s nascent network-state community ideals. Perhaps the technology, economics or need was insufficient then, but now, self-sufficient villages may be economically and socially feasible and desirable.

Historical and contemporary examples [1], like Kibbutzim [2], show success in producing surplus agriculture and even high-tech goods. What can we learn from them?

I hope that many people with experience can come share their insights while also keeping the discussion dynamic and more akin to a survey/brainstorm than a lecture.

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Discussion Ideas:

- Nature & Self-Sufficiency: Being in nature is beneficial, and self-sufficiency could reduce the need to spend time near legacy infrastructure. Expansion is known to have a negative effect on the environment. Can we pursue from first principles that are ecologically conscious? Can "Netsteads" be designed in a way that they are not more detrimental to the environment than cities (which have many efficiencies)? How much trade-off is worth it?

- Remote Work: Remote workers can afford to experiment with self-sufficiency without full dependence on the land. Water sovereignty alone could be a satisfactory goal for Netsteads.

- Seasonal Villages: What if villages were seasonal? People could come for a growing season without needing full self-sufficiency.

- Sovereignty Spectrum: Is homesteading a way to increase sovereignty without needing recognition from host nations? Could 300 people produce their own food, water, healthcare, and entertainment, eventually minimizing reliance on external systems? By distributing netsteads, there would be less strain on municipal infrastructure, under the radar or at least minimizing complaints from powers-that-be.

- Urban Proximity [3]: Does a self-sufficient village need to be far from a city, or could it exist within one? Should we buy a $1 ghost town? A chateau in the countryside?

- Transient Communities: Many communes failed due to social friction and boredom. Could transient eco-villages allow people to stay as long as they want, full-time or just for a weekend, before returning to city life?

- Scale and Minimum Viability: An entire city can take decades to build. What are some low-hanging fruits to get started? Water rights? Can this be built incrementally? How can we document designs so that they are modular and replicable, aka open source?

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Technology & Governance:

- Tech: Solar, aquaponics, remote sensors, automation, 3D printing, and self-driving buses/ferries connecting network villages. Small-scale nuclear. Open hardware laboratory benefitting global commons.

- Governance: Shared ownership and responsibility for ongoing costs. [Possibly out of scope]

- Alternative Income: Examples like Feytopia rent out spaces for events. Could pop-up villages generate income through tourism, specialized crops, or selling electricity from solar farms? Imagine a monthly event wiping down dusty solar panels while listening to music and dancing with your friends.

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Cultural & Social Impact:

- Cultural Incubators: Villages could host refugees, offering smaller, meaningful communities that help integrate displaced people. Even locals face alienation in current, impersonal societies. Imagine the struggle of asylum seekers? Refugee crises will only grow due to globalization and climate change—let’s design humane solutions now. These are the same designs that benefit privileged digital nomads. This line of thinking could open avenues for access to federally owned land and grants.

- Revitalization: The community itself is the most valuable part of pop-up villages, revitalizing areas and fostering wider flourishing. Partnerships with businesses, universities, and institutions could bring in mutually beneficial people, collaborations, and infrastructure.

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Additional Thoughts/Out of Scope:

- Circular Economies and Temporal Efficiencies: Permanent villages can be more efficient and less wasteful, benefiting from long-term planning and economies of scale. Take your time to arrive instead of having to fly.

- Specialization & Trade: Network cities could specialize in products for inter-commune and exo-commune trade, fostering resilience and self-sufficiency, similar to workers' unions.

- Social Cohesion: How can we incubate new social paradigms while maintaining social cohesion? Strict applications/vetting? Probationary visits? Skill requirements?

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Pre-Readings:

- [1][Back-to-the-land movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-to-the-land_movement)

- [2][Kibbutz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz)

- [Homesteading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homesteading)

- [We Can Terraform the American West Article + Discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41951420) ESTIMATES $16Billion USD for large project, $1Trillion USD in value generation.

- [Let's Terraform West Texas](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pihPzjYgwKiBexytF/let-s-terraform-west-texas) ESTIMATES $100,000USD/farm.

- [3][Edge City New Locations Scouting](https://app.sola.day/event/detail/11557)

Fun Neologisms:

- Communauts: People exploring the frontiers of community, like "psychonauts" explore the mind.

- Soverent: Sovereign + Resident/Constituent, emphasizing autonomy within a community.

- Netsteads: Network homesteads, somewhere between a pop-up village and a network-state, in the realm of permanent hubs.

- Cultural Oasis: Social/community being our main import/export.

Possible Post-Readings:

- *Small Is Beautiful* by Ernst F. Schumacher

- [The Whole Earth Catalog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Catalog)

- *Trout Fishing in America (1967)* and *In Watermelon Sugar (1968)* by Richard Brautigan

- *The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture (1977)* by Wendell Berry

- *The Peace of Wild Things* by Wendell Berry, in its entirety:

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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