What world to build? Three problems worth fighting are modern humans’ alienation from each other, nature, and spirituality. One solution is to scale the hippies. --- ![[scaling_hippy_city.jpg]] **Too busy to bond** Humans evolved to care about the social ladder, because only those who topped it would reproduce. The problem is that status is a zero-sum game. For every rank I go up, someone goes down. If you create a system that’s insanely efficient at transforming time into capital (capitalism), and make capital a key determinant of status, then modern humans must toil endlessly to keep up with their congener competitors. More work hours means less time to bond. I remember reading about studies modeled upon the Bible’s Parable of the Good Samaritan. Researchers ask subjects to fetch an object from another building. The path entails crossing an actor who fakes falling and getting hurt. If researchers said, “please hurry, we’re late”, significantly fewer people stop to help the fallen actor. Running after time kills bonding opportunities. **Transactional corruption** When people work so much that free time becomes scarce, they start to optimize it. They start measuring the benefits of spending time with an acquaintance compared to another. Relationships become increasingly transactional. One starts reading tweets stating, “I only befriend 150+ IQ men. If you’re a male, you must educate me”. We start hearing the words “dating market”. We fear being ostracized should our market value goes down. This tendency is all too apparent for Europeans who discover the USA. The 20+ I’ve discussed this with were all shocked at how transactional and lonely Americans are. Or how they personally became such by living in the USA. **Nature starved** - The last centuries promoted a gigantic population migration from rural areas to cities. In cities, we get alienated from nature. Whether living in New York, Paris, London, Hong Kong, San Fransisco, and Taipei, I spent weeks moving from housing boxes to working boxes and food-gathering boxes, without ever looking at the sky. I miss nature. **Alienation from spirituality -** Modern westerners’ belief systems have alienated them from spirituality. Our ancestors’ **religions anthropomorphized God, turned him into an idol, and built corrupt social structures around it. Free spirits later destroyed such structures with the hammer words: “God is Dead”. This left westerners with no forum to marvel at existence's mysteries and share related [intuition pumps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition_pump), [koans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan), and similar tools. The few remaining hidden forums, like the Free Masons lodges, became networking clubs. The most eloquent account of the resulting despair is probably [Tolstoi’s confession](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confession). **Anecdotal evidence of wholesome living** ![[scaling_group_of_hobbits_having_breakfast_outdoor_during_a_sunny_day_2.jpg]] The people I know who seem to be doing best in terms of connexion with others, nature, and spirituality are my family members who moved into small communities. My cousin built an epicure-style house with fellow architects. Shared ground floor (Epicure’s had dedicated rooms for philosophy, theatre, poetry, etc), first floor for private rooms, and a huge garden. My uncle lives on a small plot of land co-managed by a community of 6-7 houses. It’s less than 10 biking minutes away from the city center of Montpellier, a 300k inhabitants city. They shared a vegetable garden, beehives, and a small meditation chalet. The most shocking with these two communities is how “normally” people live. They don’t trip on drugs, play guitar until sunrise, and discuss encounters with sacred spirits. They have standard modern lives, with a tad more community belonging, proximity to nature, and space to grow their spirituality. Both communities also encourage the most eco-friendly lifestyles I’m aware of, monkhood aside! They have a zero waste policy, compost, shop local, haven’t taken a plane for years, repair their clothes, etc. **The bell curve curse** Instead of talking about creating a community, could I simply move to a small village? Well, I fall in one of the extremes for most bell curves you could draw. Same for all my best friends. It’s already difficult finding people I naturally bond with in large cities! Statistically, moving to a small village is social suicide. This makes intentionally created communities appealing. **The community market (or lack thereof)** Marketing distinguishes needs (”I’m thirsty”) from wants (”I want Coca-Cola”). Many need belonging but don’t want “to live in a community” because building one is too daunting, and the market offering is limited. Most communities I’ve heard about are impossible to find online. The most famous ones are hard to join unless you were born there (Israeli [kibbutz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz) and USA [Amish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish)). The others are so far away from mass adoption you won’t hear about them unless you spend hours looking for them. Examples include the nascent [Network States](https://thenetworkstate.com/dashboard) and the self-managed city of [Auroville](https://auroville.org/). Could we productize and scale community building? This word concatenation is somewhat shocking unless you know about the Dhamma school of Vipassana Meditation. **Vipassana, aka scaling the mystics** ![[scaling_futuristic_meditation_center_crowd_of_people_praying_glow.jpg]] The [Vipassana meditation school](https://www.dhamma.org/en-US/index)’s story is fascinating. The story starts with a businessman’s debilitating migraines. He tours the world’s best doctors for years: Geneva, New York, Paris,… none manages to cure him. His only solace lies in lowering the pain with morphine. One day, a friend tells Goenka about a peculiar meditation teacher who coaches government officials. Goenka rushes to the teacher. “Meditating will cure your migraines, but this is not a wholesome motivation. I will not teach you”. For more than six months, Goenka insists until the teacher finally accepts. After several months, the migraines are gone for good. Goenka remodels his life around spreading Vipassana. Teaching in a spare room of the finance ministry is limiting, so he finances the opening of a meditation center. Soon it is saturated. So he opens another one. When the old teacher becomes the bottleneck, he formalizes the teaching style so that other people may share the meditation instructions. When financing becomes the bottleneck, he templates a business plan and financing plan. And it scales! Fifty years later, ~340 Vipassana Centers are running in 94 countries. They welcome about 120,000 students every year. Everything is donation-based, and only people who have finished the introductory 10 days meditation course can donate. In short, Goenka grew Vipassana like he grew his family business, and it worked. I joined a center for a 10 days retreat and was taken aback. There were toyotism-inspired process cards everywhere, explaining everything from the ideal cooking quantities to the best way to clean the shower. It’s a process nerd’s dream. **The answer to life, the universe, and everything - scaling hippy communities** ![[scaling_futuristic_city_peace.jpg]] Goenka scaled Vipassana meditation. I want to scale the hippies. The masterplan is the following: 1. **Study the hippies** - learn from both the old ones (Auroville, Kibbutz, Amish, etc) and the new ones (my family communities, the [Network States](https://thenetworkstate.com/dashboard), Bretagne farming communities, etc) 2. **Build a hippy community** - build several units and iterate. 3. **Scale the hippies** - craft a business plan and scale. Like Auroville and Vipassana, let outsiders try the lifestyle for a few months to see if it fits them. Spread the word through mimetic warfare. I’m focused on scaling GitStart for now. This might take a decade or two. In the meantime though, I’m gathering “user feedback” by working from places like Auroville and Prospera. Ping me if you’re like to venture these communities together. *Written in 2023*