Meeting, Engaging and Seducing non-ERE Allies: Carrot Vectors

[jacob]

Posting the keepie-uppie thing is still confusing. What if a bunch of other people are playing similar games that are distinctly not keepie-uppie but still involve skills that could eventually become soccer? In the original story soccer naturally emerges out of keepie-uppie, but does it? Would it not help if we also talked to people playing hockey, as hockey (to me) looks a lot more like soccer than keepie-uppie? Or maybe hockey doesn't exist yet, but someone is at least using a goal. Do we really develop the goal on our own out of necessity or are we more likely to figure it out sooner if we look at other people doing things similar to us?

Right, exactly. This is why seeking a set definition of where ERE2 is going---I presume that the mindset asking desires to cut the process into milestones----given how it's work in progress is not useful.

In intentionally trying to form our keepie-uppie group to see what emerges, are we including people who play similar games that are not keepie-uppie or only those who play keepie-uppie?

Yes. Afterall, keepie-uppie may not be an interesting game after all; it might not be the right game for the 21st century either. Maybe the right 21st game is hockey, not soccer.

Directly I am asking, are non-ERE1 people allowed in ERE2 groups. Again, asking this because the answer will obviously influence strategy.

Alright, I think this a key point of disagreemnt or any potential kind of misunderstanding or incompatibility with other vMemes. People are definitely allowed at all times. In terms of 21st century/post-consumer praxis, deciding who is let in decides the effectiveness of the solution. For example, if the Green vMeme that @7wb5 mentioned above becomes a priority, people are going to focus on intersectionality, inclusion, ... or presuming that the community takes care of all that. (That is Green failure-mode) Whereas if the Orange vMeme becomes a priority, individuals will FIRE by individual efforts using the current system.

Each new vMeme is a blowback on the previous vMeme.

The answer I am understanding right now is "ERE2 is what emerges when groups of ERE1 people meet. It does not include non-ERE1 people."

So, that depends on how far ahead or behind the curve, you're operating or looking to connect people on your local territory. See Stoa2 talk.

It's basically the old chain of being going all the way up. Maybe a good way to phrase it is that ERE2 is what emerges when people have dropped their individuals and aligned them with the objective reality of the 21st century?... such as weird skies, struggling economy, remnant financial system, etc...

[jennypenny]

The answer I am understanding right now is "ERE2 is what emerges when groups of ERE1 people meet. It does not include non-ERE1 people."

That's what I was wondering. I'm currently working with a group of homesteaders who are actively and deliberately trying to form communities (similar to here ... hence the personal interest in Howe again). They have almost the same issue in that 'homesteaders' are inherently individualistic so community-building isn't a natural occurrence. Church has usually served in that capacity but this group is trying hard to define homesteading in non-religious terms.

Through a series of meetings they've agreed that homesteaders (1) are striving (and demonstrating) to be productive, not consumptive; (2) are mindful of people, animals, and the planet; and (3) accept that their own success is tied to the success of the community at large. Given that definition, it seems like that kind of person would jive with an ERE community, even though most would never have connected with the FIRE community. Does that kind of community count? Would those people be useful members of an ERE community?

I'd suggest that if a person -- when faced with a problem -- always looks for solutions along the lines of resourcefulness, then resources, then requisition (and I'd probably add reexamination before requisition, as in 'is this a problem I really need to solve?'), then they have the basic structure in place to grok an ERE lifestyle. Aren't they worthy?


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To explain more about what they're doing ... they identified 4 cities that were once bustling but had fallen on hard times, so they had infrastructure but no 'life' left in them, lower real estate values, and local government that was eager to welcome people willing to help rebuild the community. The cities are all within a day's drive of each other so people can make occasional visits to the other towns to learn about a specific skill, or help with a large project, or share goods. It's been about 3 years and it's amazing how many have moved to those areas. Many are farmers or keep livestock, but some don't and live in town. The group has always recognized the need to have professionals in the communities (IT, doctors, lawyers, etc) and are trying to figure out how to draw artists (one suggestion being tiny houses on unused farmland offered up for artists-in-residence type situations.

----

ETA: Ignore what I wrote. I don't really get the direction of this. I understand the community building, but can't see how meetups at 'ft dirtbag' and discussions of 'wag bags' is going to appeal to most people, whether ERE or not. It's funny because I think jacob's lifestyle seems almost mainstream compared to the lifestyles I read about on the forum. Maybe it's just the outliers who do the most posting? or maybe the more mainstream folks strive to live at ft dirtbag? Dunno. I've got a community going and world events have pushed people them to see things more my way now (really jacob's way), making it easier to drag them down the path to ERE. No need for people to move to rural areas or try to understand the appeal of pooping outside.

[Jin+Guice]

Lol, I was just about to post a long dissenting opinion about why I think we should let non-ERE1 in, but how I am fine with that if that is what you decided @jacob. I'm going to catalogue it and post it if it is still relevant. Perhaps asynchronous text is not the best medium for this discussion.

I'm also not looking for milestones, I'm trying to define what we are doing so I know how to contribute to it, both in theory and practice.

When I made this thread I thought that it was not only ERE1 people and that we were looking pretty expansively beyond ERE1 people. So I was going to be like "how do we deal with the set of challenges related to that, mostly about these people not sharing our belief system?"

But right at the moment that I was asking that question, all of the sudden I started getting an answer that was "we are only allowing people who are ERE1. For the purposes of ERE2, It's groups of only ERE1 people we are interested in creating. These are the groups whose emergent properties we are interested in."

In which case, my defining question for this exact same thread that I made is "how do we deal with the relative lack of ERE1 people and their dispersion?"

The meme thing is still confusing to me. Neither Orange nor Green will create the group you are talking about? What is the Yellow meme version of this? That is the minimum of what is needed? (I still feel like I only grok SD ~80%).

Maybe a good way to phrase it is that ERE2 is what emerges when people have dropped their individuals and aligned them with the objective reality of the 21st century?... such as weird skies, struggling economy, remnant financial system, etc..

I think my dissenting opinion will still stand for this. This is still a relatively fringe and narrow belief. I'm not one to dissuade narrow fringe beliefs, especially if I share them. I get that FIRE was once narrow and fringe and still sort of is but successfully became more mainstream. The reason I decent is 1) I'm not sure ERE2 has the curb appeal of FIRE (what is the carrot other than shaking people and telling them to stop living in denial... that was NOT the carrot of FIRE) and 2) there are people who don't quite hold this belief, that still want change in the same direction and are doing shit about it. Interacting with these people COULD broaden our horizons and expand our solution set.


I also don't expect you to change what ERE2 is based on my dissenting opinion. I want a definition of ERE2 so I can 1) participate appropriately and helpfully and 2) say my piece about what I thought was happening and move on.

[mountainFrugal]

Perhaps some predictions following from theory are in order? I keep the language general because you can slot in the various details as long as the general structure is the same. As a first pass:

P1) The larger the number of capitals mastered between two or more people (any vMeme, any WL) the more interesting the outcomes of the interactions
P2) It will be easier to teach someone to expand the number of capitals they master if they have already mastered a few
P3) Interactions between two or more ERE1 people lead to more interesting outcomes than ERE1 + other competent people
P4) Interactions between two or more higher WL ERE people will lead to more interesting outcomes than combinations of lower WLs

Let's gather this data!

[AxelHeyst]

Through a series of meetings they've agreed that homesteaders (1) are striving (and demonstrating) to be productive, not consumptive; (2) are mindful of people, animals, and the planet; and (3) accept that their own success is tied to the success of the community at large. Given that definition, it seems like that kind of person would jive with an ERE community, even though most would never have connected with the FIRE community. Does that kind of community count? Would those people be useful members of an ERE community?

I think yes, as in yes obviously. I'd be so thrilled and honored to get to hang out with/learn from/hopefully contribute to people and a community like that. And I think that if a group of ERE people were to get together and say "Hey, why don't we try to start a sort of irl ERE community thing?" then a slam-dunk no-brainer move would be to try to either attract people like you described, or find an existing group like you described and see if they'd let us hang out with them/integrate. At least those are the kind of people I'd like to learn from/spend time with.

As an aside - I'd love to hear more about this community and your interactions with them... anything you'd be up for sharing about your experiences there I'm very keen to hear about it.

ETA: Ignore what I wrote. I don't really get the direction of this. I understand the community building, but can't see how meetups at 'ft dirtbag' and discussions of 'wag bags' is going to appeal to most people, whether ERE or not. It's funny because I think jacob's lifestyle seems almost mainstream compared to the lifestyles I read about on the forum. Maybe it's just the outliers who do the most posting? or maybe the more mainstream folks strive to live at ft dirtbag? Dunno. I've got a community going and world events have pushed people them to see things more my way now (really jacob's way), making it easier to drag them down the path to ERE. No need for people to move to rural areas or try to understand the appeal of pooping outside.

Ha! I'll have a word with my marketing department...

[AxelHeyst]

But right at the moment that I was asking that question, all of the sudden I started getting an answer that was "we are only allowing people who are ERE1. For the purposes of ERE2, It's groups of only ERE1 people we are interested in creating. These are the groups whose emergent properties we are interested in."

I mean, yeah, you were asking for the definition of ERE2 or what the aim of ERE2 is, and we were trying (in my case not very clearly, sorry about that) to answer that question, which is a very specific question. I'm pretty sure no one has said 'the only kinds of groups we're interested in creating or engaging with are ERE2 groups.'

People *have* said they are interested in creating or cultivating or keeping their eye out for ERE2 groups... but that is in addition to the much larger amount of personal bandwidth going to nonERE2 type groups and communities and etc.

If the question is 'what are we trying to do here', I'm reminded of the old joke about modern druids. Ask three druids for a definition of druidry and you'll get nine answers.

What are we trying to do there? We're trying to liberate people, save the world from itself, have a good time, live well, die well, take care of loved ones, pet cats...

I also don't expect you to change what ERE2 is based on my dissenting opinion. I want a definition of ERE2 so I can 1) participate appropriately and helpfully and 2) say my piece about what I thought was happening and move on.

I think you've got it now? But also now you can say f that that's a really niche thing, I don't really want to spend any time thinking about it, and that's totally fine, and we can talk about and collaborate on whatever that it is you do want to work on?

[Jin+Guice]

Mmmm, scarp the definition question. Also shoutout to @mF for what I think is perhaps a good working strucute?



Hello, my name is Jin+Guice and I am interested in participating in ERE2 and the ERE2 subforum.

When participating in the subforum should I ask questions/ initiate discussions assuming that:

1) We are interested in creating groups/ looking at the emergent qualities of groups who are ERE1 or ERE1 "naturals" (i.e. they don't participate in the forum or have never heard of ERE but have somehow managed to exit the cave)?

or

2) We are interested in creating groups/ looking at emergent qualities of people who are ERE1 or ERE1ish (i.e. they have noticed the cave and/ or noticed the cave and are in the process of escaping the chains, which they don't fully see yet, or have escaped and are wondering around the cave still sort of paying attention to the shadows, but have developed other interesting cave and post-cave strategies and ideas)?


or

3) Both



I'm asking because if the answer is (2) or (3), I'm going to start taking up space in the subforum/ other ERE2 spaces about (2). I don't want to do that if everyone is like "uhhh, we are trying to do (1) only, what are you doing?"

Using mF's proposed structure, the answer is (3), but (1) is most interesting. I'm still going to work on (2) if this is the case.

No matter what anyone says, I'm personally going to work on (1) and (2). I'm asking for structure so I can participate here appropriately and contribute to the collective goal.

[AxelHeyst]

(3)

ETA: Relevant:

So part of ERE2 is to figure out alternative routes into ERE1 beyond the "easy-mode" of a high-income salary that currently dominates the ERE1 discourse.

ETA Also:

No matter what anyone says, I'm personally going to work on (1) and (2). I'm asking for structure so I can participate here appropriately and contribute to the collective goal.

I am really psyched to see what you get up to. Following with great interest.

[jennypenny]

Ha! I'll have a word with my marketing department...

Sorry, I wasn't trying to take a swipe at you personally. It just struck me funny that those conversations were going on simultaneously with the 'how do we get people interested in ERE2' thread. FWIW, I had an argument with someone recently because they're definition of 'outdoorsy' was limited to camping/hiking/fishing in the woods and I tried (unsuccessfully) to argue that someone who spends all day surfing or gardening or boating is just as outdoorsy. Definitions can narrow quickly when people are enthusiastic.

As far as the other group, I'm not ready to discuss more here. I brought it up with someone in a PM and they were pretty dismissive (being mostly PTL types), so I'm not going to offer them up as fodder. Side note ... They are very welcoming as far as letting us be their northern outpost and helping us out, even though we're not PTL types or traditional homesteaders.

I'm with J&G's #1 -- I'd rather hang out with people who are ERE-adjacent. I'll learn more from them than other ERE people. Also, most other types are better at the group thing than EREs. When you worship St. Proenneke, community-building isn't really part of the canon.

[7Wannabe5]

I'm with J&G's #1 -- I'd rather hang out with people who are ERE-adjacent. I'll learn more from them than other ERE people. Also, most other types are better at the group thing than EREs. When you worship St. Proenneke, community-building isn't really part of the canon.

lol- It is true that even the disadvantaged third graders I am currently teaching in summer school are better at the task of sharing their feelings at circle time.

P1) The larger the number of capitals mastered between two or more people (any vMeme, any WL) the more interesting the outcomes of the interactions
P2) It will be easier to teach someone to expand the number of capitals they master if they have already mastered a few
P3) Interactions between two or more ERE1 people lead to more interesting outcomes than ERE1 + other competent people
P4) Interactions between two or more higher WL ERE people will lead to more interesting outcomes than combinations of lower WLs

I'm not so sure about P3. For instance, what if I were to send my ESFX niece who is a professional dancer in Vegas, has thousands of followers on social media, and recently experienced a spiritual awakening on a trip to Thailand, to EREfest 2023 as my delegate? Or in more general terms, there is a reason why humans are out-breeders.

[mountainFrugal]

I'm not so sure about P3...

I am not saying we actually do this because of the inherent semi-anonymous trust that is already built into the current iteration of the ERE-fest, but this would certainly increase the variance of ERE fest! Haha. However, would that lead to a lasting change or some enduring feature? Would that effect be more ephemeral? Or to put it another way, it might be interesting (broadly defined) at the time because of the novelty of it all, but how does that actually translate to widening views or overlapping understanding? It would likely make the fest more memorable to the participants and that is the enduring feature? Would your niece also be open to learning? These are the types of questions that could be answered with these types of predictions. Predictions are meant to be torn apart with data. I offered them as a starting place for discussion .

[Jin+Guice]

@jacob reminded me of the term "renaissance person" over in the ERE2 thread, which made this all click for me.

The type of person I'm talking about, which is an IRL person I meet frequently, is someone with renaissance skills who is not yet necessarily free of the consumer praxis. This type of person is often angry and disenfranchised by the consumer praxis, yet doesn't see the consumer praxis as the cause of this anger and disenfranchisement. As such, they may still be stuck working, but they see the usefulness of other skills beyond financial and have developed them to a high degree.

Something that I feel is downplayed is that the cave is not just a set of economic conditions. It is an entire way of life that everyone we know subscribes to. Identifying the critical flaw (which happens to be one of our most strongly upheld values) and freeing your mind from that way of thinking is fucking hard. It's hard to even see in the first place. It's hard to do. To a certain extent I feel like one must be WL9 (money is a solved problem + renaissance skills) to fully escape the cave. How many WL9 people are even on this forum? Certainly not me.


I *think* I understand the definition of ERE2 (or rather the initial conditions for ERE2) enough to ask some follow up questions:

So related to (1) above which is a gathering of ERE1 people. The strength here is that we are ideologically similar. We have a shared vision of escaping the cave of industrialized consumerism, whether or not we have personally done it. The weakness is there are not tons of us and we are not located in one area.

How should we go about organizing and meeting with other ERE1 people? MMGs is one way this has been done. Meet-ups and EREfest is another way this is being done.

What else do we want to do to gather ERE1 people together? Virtually? Meat space?

The other weakness is that we do tend attract a certain type of person. The weakness of idealogical similarity is becoming an echo chamber. How do we avoid becoming an echo chamber?


Related to (2) above, which is interacting with and integrating nonERE people who are ERE1ish i.e. have renaissance skills but are not hip to the whole "consumer praxis" thing:

How are yous guys finding people like this?

How are y'all interacting with people like this?




My next question is related to the consumer-praxis. There are two types of people I run into, both of whom are unaware of the consumer praxis and thus resistant to escaping it in various ways. Both types of people are disenfranchised by our culture. I believe they are disenfranchised by the consumer-praxis and its long reaching consequences. They usually say they are disenfranchised by some other part of our culture (billionaires, capitalists, liberals, etc...) beyond their control. As such, they have not escaped the consumer-praxis. Consumerisms and who they blame for their problems are strong-held beliefs that are part of their identity. So, it is not easy to convert them to anticonsumerism whole-sale.

These people fall into two groups. One group is doing something about it. They are living a counterculture lifestyle and developing renaissance skills. They are working on the parts of the consumer-praxis problem that they are passionate about. But they are still tethered to the cave and watching at least some of the shadows on the wall. The next group is not doing anything about it. As such, they tend to be even more unhappy with their lot, but also more tethered to the cave and the shadows.

Does anyone have a good method for helping these people put their own air mask on? I don't think it's necessary to convince them of ERE or FIRE, just convince them of a few ideas that they are open to, at the level they are open to it. Does anyone have concrete examples of doing this or methods that have worked for them with examples of how they were executed?

I also run into another type of person, which is someone who has a high-level of renaissance skills, but who is so captivated by the consumer-praxis that they have abandoned those skills for the most part. These folks are aspirational and not very counterculturey. They tend to be middle-middle to upper-middle class, i.e. the winners of the game of work. They also tend to have come from the lower or lower-middle class or to have experienced some sort of poverty in early adulthood. Right now our culture does not prize skills or knowledge. It prizes the money to pay people with skills and knowledge. How can we culturally change this at the level we have control (i.e. very local to our own groups)?


In theory, there are people who have escaped the consumer praxis without using financial tools. Like there are a ton of other forms of capital, so people *could* use those. In practice I think that money has become so ubiquitous, and it is so easy for those of us in the first world to get, that instances of people using other methods are rare. Do we have a list of the forms of non-financial/ economic capital? Do we want to add anything to that list? Are there any examples of people who have used non-financial/ economic capital to escape the consumer praxis?

[mathiverse]

Do we have a list of the forms of non-financial/ economic capital?

Here is one list we could use. Section 4.1 in the ERE book lists these categories plus there are two not listed, but that have been mentioned as useful additions:

• Physiological
• Intellectual
• Economic
• Emotional
• Social
• Technical
• Ecological
• Spiritual
• Aesthetic

[Jin+Guice]

@mathiverse: Thanks!

How does everyone feel about adding cultural capital to the list?

[jacob]

How does everyone feel about adding cultural capital to the list?

If you keep adding and differentiating capitals, you'll eventually run into the "library problem" + it'll dilute the idea of capital. Capitals are slices of a pie. If those slices are made smaller and smaller, they'll eventually cover less and less. If they begin to overlap... for example culture~aesthetics they become extraneous. Hack them up enough and we're back at "specialization", where someone might insist they're well diversified/integrated because they exemplify many of the now several kinds of capital available, e.g. aesthetic, cultural, spiritual.

Adding capitals to the set should only be done if the set has a gaping hole when it comes to postconsumerist praxis. I don't see how "cultural" does that or doesn't already overlap with aesthetics or spiritual or the other way around.

[Jin+Guice]

I''m convinced. Let's leave cultural off the list, unless someone has a strong argument to add it?

What are examples of people using different kinds of capital in general? To exit the post-consumer praxis? But I think put answers in this thread.

[7Wannabe5]

I am not saying we actually do this because of the inherent semi-anonymous trust that is already built into the current iteration of the ERE-fest

Yeah, I totally grok this. My niece tried to talk me into letting her make TikTok videos of me out in the woods talking about permaculture, and I was not down with that Just a thought experiment. Although, she would be interested in learning. I would think she would be most likely to vibe well with Jin+Guice and RoamingFrancis, because she is into the hip-hop music scene and the more spiritual aspects of permaculture.

Anyways, fairly hilarious thing that just happened was that I started searching for some of her hip-hop dance videos on you-tube, and the AI must have morphed that with my huge interest in permaculture videos, and this is what popped up to the top of my feed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoHXQ96N8Us

@mathiverse:

Two other frequently mentioned forms of capital would be Cultural and Sexual. These could be subsumed under Social or Physical, but it's easy to think of exceptions. For instance, Gomer Pyle has a high level of Physical Capital, but low level of Sexual Capital. Grandmother of 18 who has lived in same county her whole life has a high level of Social Capital, but likely lower level of Cultural Capital.

Also, there is pretty solid body of evidence that Sexual Capital actually is the original Capital, so IMO (and likely that of Kendra the Viking) it should stay on the list.

[AxelHeyst]

Sorry, I wasn't trying to take a swipe at you personally. It just struck me funny that those conversations were going on simultaneously with the 'how do we get people interested in ERE2' thread.

It's an interesting dilemma I've put some thought into: I happen to be dirtbag-adjacent (the person 'in pursuit of an outdoor passion at the expense of more mainstream options and commitments' definition, not the 'dishonest sleazeball' definition) but I don't want to give the impression that I think everyone else should want to be a dirtbag too.

But hiding or covering up what I actually like about my lifestyle (e.g. outdoor showers, building stuff out of salvaged materials in the mountains) would be dishonest. Like, am I supposed to pretend that I like boat shoes and gypboard? Nah, lies'd do no one any good.

Still, I'm sure I turn some people off because they conflate the principles (of ERE) that are what I am trying to get out into the world with my own manifestation of those principles aka lifestyle and it's not to their taste. But this goes both ways. Forumites who employ ERE principles and their manifestation aka lifestyle looks more mainstream are going to turn off the people who are allergic to anything mainstream. We want the whole spectrum.

[jennypenny]

I agree that you shouldn't pretend to be something you're not -- it's one of the best freedoms acquired through ERE.

It might mean that trying to appeal to people through aesthetics or lifestyle isn't the way to go since lifestyle tastes vary widely. IMO the appeal has to be through a message of 'you do you, and here's how' (ERE1), and 'we're doing our own things, but we're doing them together to amplify our own efforts'' (ERE2). Only the basic ERE principles need align.

-------

One caveat ... One of the most appealing aspects of ERE is the freedom to take advantage of any opportunities that arise. That's great ... except if you want others to commit to ERE communities. Why would I join forces with a bunch of people who celebrate their ability to pivot at any point in life? It's a great benefit for the individual, but a hinderance to community building. When you think of many of the paragons of ERE -- jacob, Ego, C40, theanimal, etc -- they are known for their wanderlust and how they take advantage of the serendipity that comes with ERE. They are praised for living that way -- which isn't wrong, but it doesn't entice people to form communities with them. What if they get a better off the day after you join the community?

I see this a potentially fatal flaw in building long-term ERE communities ... EREs pride themselves on not being confined to 'long-term' anything.

ETA: I’m not trying to be negative, just pointing out what I think is the biggest drawback as far as community building, since it’s not mentioned often. It’s another reason that I think these communities need to have more non-ERE people than EREs to maintain stability in the community.

[AxelHeyst]

I agree that you shouldn't pretend to be something you're not -- it's one of the best freedoms acquired through ERE.

It might mean that trying to appeal to people through aesthetics or lifestyle isn't the way to go since lifestyle tastes vary widely. IMO the appeal has to be through a message of 'you do you, and here's how' (ERE1), and 'we're doing our own things, but we're doing them together to amplify our own efforts'' (ERE2). Only the basic ERE principles need align.

I agree in principle but I've found many people don't do well with abstractions - some people find it difficult to take principles and then use those to apply to creating/designing/executing their own unique vision. They want to see some for instances... which is very tricky for the reasons you've pointed out.

This is one of the benefits of the journals sub. "You do you and here's how; and here's a whole smorgasboard of journals to show the diversity of ways in which a thousand oddballs have used these principles - what attractive-to-you vision will *you* manifest?'

-------

One caveat ... One of the most appealing aspects of ERE is the freedom to take advantage of any opportunities that arise. That's great ... except if you want others to commit to ERE communities. Why would I join forces with a bunch of people who celebrate their ability to pivot at any point in life? It's a great benefit for the individual, but a hinderance to community building. When you think of many of the paragons of ERE -- jacob, Ego, C40, theanimal, etc -- they are known for their wanderlust and how they take advantage of the serendipity that comes with ERE. They are praised for living that way -- which isn't wrong, but it doesn't entice people to form communities with them. What if they get a better off the day after you join the community?

I see this a potentially fatal flaw in building long-term ERE communities ... EREs pride themselves on not being confined to 'long-term' anything.

I think you make a great point here about community fundamentally. And it's something I can spot in my own life - telling friends I'm going to be living near them soon, and it never happens; sharing road trip plans with friends where I pivot halfway through and never even make it to their state; etc.

I'd also point out that ERE2 isn't necessarily or even at all about forming ERE communities in the sense of people who rely on each other; I can imagine a few manifestations of ERE2 or ERE2ish circumstances looking like:

• >A half dozen ERE1 folk, via talking on the forum and MMGs, realize they have a shared desire to one day build a completely FOSS weather balloon. And that for the next four months they all have open schedules. And one of the people has access to a workshop/small warehouse space in St. Luis. They all converge there, each contributing different/complementary/somewhat overlapping skills and experiences, and they build their FOSS over the course of eight weeks. Upon completion they all fistbump and disperse back to wherever.
• >An ERE1 person who owns a block of apartments in an interesting city notices that four units are evacuating at about the same time. The ERE1 landlord/manager lets the ERE1 network know about it and all of a sudden there are a half dozen or so (including partners) ERE1 people living under the same roof but with their own private dwelling units. Hijinks ensue. This could be the next Big Bang Theory. Something similar could happen in a neighborhood, for example, and all of a sudden you've got a fistful of acres owned independently by ERE1 people all running Retrosuburbia projects - and sharing skills, harvests, seeds, building materials, salvage finds, tools, etc.
• >An ERE1 person has an idea for a journey, a slowtravel, an expedition, and they mentioned they're open to travel partners. Four or ten other ERE1 people say 'sounds cool, I'll join', and all of a sudden there's a rotating caravan of ERE1 pilgrims bikepacking from Vancouver BC to Patagonia (who also meet up with and ride with nonERE1 or ERE1ish people along the way because yo it's a party, but the group maintains a sort of core ERE1-ish vibe and anyone who can hang with that is more than welcome). Along the way they repair a well, build an electric turbine out of junkyard scraps, teach some workshops on personal finance to college students, learn from locals how to filter scum water using old socks and how to dance the zamba, and three book deals come out of the experience.

I think we can even make this argument just using ERE principles. An ERE1 WoG has tensegrity. A properly constructed WoG will not fail due to the removal/death of one or even a few nodes.

Similarly: an ERE2, which is a WoG of WoGs, must also possess tensegrity. One or even several individuals leaving ought not cause the failure of the whole ERE2 shebang. We could even use this as a litmus test: is this group ERE2? Is there any one person that, if they left, the whole thing would fall apart? Well this might not be ERE2.

It's interesting to apply this to the forum. If Jacob decides to go Full Boyle tomorrow and just switches the forum off... would ERE survive as a movement? If not... it isn't ERE2!

A more traditional community structure like you're talking about, JP, just might not be ERE2 and might not be a good structure for ERE2 to try to conform itself to. And that is totally fine. I don't think there's anything about the idea of ERE2 that implies either that traditional community-building shouldn't happen OR that community-building should be composed only of ERE1 people. I don't think ERE2 implicitly says anything about that sort of community building at all. yay ere2. yay communities.

(See, I'm concerned that I'm saying something that could be misconstrued here. I'm trying to communicate that ERE2 isn't about yuking anyone's yum. And I think it's been inferred that it does, that it says things like 'yuk nonERE1 people' or 'yuk groups of people that aren't homogeneously composed of ERE1 people', and I just really don't think it does. Speaking for myself here, I'm really into JMGs take on dissensus and it implicitly permeates the way I think. I really like it when people do different things, even things that I think won't work or that I'm not interested in. Because I could be totally wrong about what a good idea is. And similarly it doesn't occur to me that when I say 'I like X' anyone might assume I'm also saying '...and therefore I DONT like notX. I only like X. Only X should exist.')