I Want To Live In A Baugruppe - Less Wrong Discussion
In which I mumble about wanting to smush more people I like closer together.
yes! let’s make a little rationalist community where families can live and everyone’s not all crammed into the same single house! let’s buy out an apartment building and move everyone in!
Things I Think Would Be Nice To Have:
- basic units of 3ish bedrooms clustered around smallish living areas w/ basic kitchen + bathroom
- larger communal area for hosting Events
- larger fancy communal kitchen for cooking large group meals
- communal outdoor area w/ firepit and garden (particularly an edible garden with herbs, veggies, fruit trees, etc)
- dedicated co-working area (with a library!)
- guest rooms or units where visitors can stay
- bike/carshares
It would be cool to do it as a co-op situation and maybe rent out the guest units/event space (on AirBnb?) for extra income, to help bolster those who can’t afford as much rent?
This is basically my ideal living situation that you’re describing. I would like to add exercise equipment to the list of things it would be nice to have. (Only slightly related: if we got some kind of big building I doubt anyone would stop you from riding a bike in the halls)
Also, my mom suggests coming to Utah and buying an old mormon church. Of course that plan would require moving to Utah, so…
hey yo please read up on the history of communal living before you do this, there are best practices and known failure modes and subtle differences in founding design can matter a lot
American communalism comes in waves, the 1960s was the last, there was a big one in the 1840s. Tend to be thinky types into human perfectibility and complex sexual geometry, you guys fit in
Any recommended materials or examples of success?
This isn’t my specialty and I’ve forgotten a bunch of what I ever knew but like, look up the Oneida Community, and the Shakers, maybe ask a research librarian about “American communes” or such
Consider that you are building a micromicrostate for your subsubculture and act accordingly
Formalize your economic/sexual/other repressive structures or they will be a free field of social play
If this is communally funded, the difference in people’s economic situations is a real killer. Not just like coder/app-academy student but guy who gets raises every year/guy in a dead end, girl who just got laid off, think a decade out
People who make more money are not only going to resent paying to subsidize others, they’re going to expect better conditions and more status. They have the option of exit. Which means they have the *threat* of exit.
In cultures that make a point of material egalitarianism but also sexual openness, status and economic struggles can get shunted to sexual access
Honestly work offsite/contribute a high share (or all) of income is best suited to heirarchical or authoritarian communalism, if you want a stable quasi-egalitarianism you’re best if the residential collective participates in a high-skill, high-value added collective industry - look to the Shakers and their chairs, or the longer-surviving kibbutzes in Israel, maybe?
