Patronage/Matronage

[7Wannabe5]

@Alphaville:

My last project was in the city. There is no shortage of bombed out properties available. However, my next project will be rural, so that I can avoid strict code and high taxes which are relatively more of a drain at my spending level. Also, my lungs are much happier in cleaner air setting.

[Alphaville]

i’ve always loved a gritty city and when i tried the rural setting it got terribly boring.

low taxes are low for various reasons, which are not always favorable. e.g. police & emergency response can be awful, medical facilities poor quality, access to markets is limited, which means limited economic opportunities, and your neighbors might love burning trash and then good luck getting them to stop with environmental admonitions.

nevertheless, rural can also be restorative to health, to an extent, provided you have an escape route and don’t become trapped in the boonies—we almost did but managed the extrication successfully. still, it’s nice to have a backup hut in case of urban catastrophe. but being stuck in the mud pining for the city was hard.

given dresden conditions i thought an urban permaculture with a food sales storefront or csa type deal could be a cool business experiment maybe, but due to intensity demands it would require associations with other people, and per cipolla (hahahahah cipolla is great, and new to me) high risk of σ interactions lmao.

[7Wannabe5]

@Alphaville:

I hate the suburbs, but rural vs city is a hard call for me. Therefore, it’s coming down to which is less expensive. Also, it is currently my intention to buy something reasonably close (in country miles)to a lakeside resort town. IMO, the biggest downside is that it necessitates owning a car or truck. I am hoping I can make do with my Smart car and a tiny trailer once I put some better tires on it. Obviously, (strict note to self!)I will have to trade it in for a truck if I find myself scheming Tom Sawyer (also ENTP) style about the likelihood of truck ownership among men I might date in rural district.

I have a rough list of items I might have to shake the piggy bank to acquire in order to avoid bossy old men; dog, rifle, chainsaw, etc.

[Alphaville]

smart car in the country no feckin way. not just the absurd size and lack of power but also getting a mercedes mechanic + quick cheap parts in the sticks.

ford ranger pickup, otoh, very workable.

i hate the suburbs too and my life in the boonies was the deep boonies.

you’ve lived in the boonies, yes? im just saying because i hadn’t when i moved there, my head was full of plans and dreams, and it was quite a shock. i learned to like parts of it a lot, but in the end it was a slow mental drowning process with the lack of quality small talk and sad boring parties.

lolololol @ getting men for their trucks.

[moderator: meme deleted, see forum rule 8]

in the boonies your car is your lifeline so balance that cost vs “low taxes”.

also, decent internet can be astronomical (literally).

[Alphaville]

@7w5

a couple of clarifications to add just in case...

by boondocks i mean the real boondocks not the suburbs as in the aaron mcgruder comic/cartoon

and the ford ranger i meant was the compact pickup that was manufactured until 2011? only, afterwards the model became a midsize. [need to check this, confusing]

the little pickups are awesome though and ive seen models with over 300k miles running up and down ranch roads no problem. you can get them fixed everywhere and everyone will carry parts, cheap.

there’s no new truck sold in that size anymore in america that i know, so i couldn’t recommend an alternative to it... but an old one theoretically is infinitely repairable due to abundance of parts and swappable engines and transmissions, provided the body is not corroded.

e.g, see: https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sal ... &zip=48201

[7Wannabe5]

@Alphaville:

Yeah, I know hoping to get by with my Smart car will limit my options. I’ve lived in 3 different very rural counties, although in small town settings, as opposed to acreage at the end of a rut filled road. So, I do know what it’s like to deal with only macaroni salad in the deli case and the pathetically small enclave of the same dozen people attending foreign film night at the adjunct university campus. However, since I am capable of preparing a decent curry in my own kitchen, and I rarely stay up past 9 pm, and I will be zipping back to cities to visit my kids and sisters, and I don’t intend to date, these downsides are less consequential.

I am thinking quite small acreage with something like a dilapidated single-wide trailer or moss-eaten cottage already grandfathered on site. So, quite likely to be found on the rough edge where rural county small town meets larger acreage. Therefore, internet access and cleared roads at end of short, flat drive for my Smart car might be available. In my experience, in my region property taxes in rural townships can be 1/4 of those on same assessment in city, and $500/year vs. $2000/year is huge differential at my spending level. Same goes for cost of permits, base water service fees, etc.

[Alphaville]

oh, adjunct university campus! nice...them's some fancy digs

edge of town seems like a good spot, yeah. my concern with the smart car was not that it would simply limit you-- but that it would become an actual liability, which happened to me. i had a nice sporty compact that got basically wrecked by rural roads. repairs were frequent and $$$ but covered by warranty. when that expired it was all on my dime i had to sell it and get a truck. expensive lesson, but oh well, ha ha ha.

are you already retired, or will you be working again? (i'm sorry i don't follow the journal threads much). we're not retired, hence in spite of higher costs the city has worked out better for us, with greater income, better working conditions, more business opportunities and more conveniences (e.g., cheap great internet, better delivery options, no need for long distance "town trips" to resupply and superior health care, plus the ability to ditch the car---a $6000/year cost).

we might some day retire back in the sticks, but i'm not crazy about rural health care options.

[7Wannabe5]

Apparently, I am permanently semi-retired. I can teach part-time or explore micro-entrepreneurial opportunities anywhere, and I’ll be living large if/when social security checks start rolling in. Also, once my permaculture project is fully developed, I should be able to reduce my expenses below my long time level of about $800/month.

The upside of rural health care is that I probably will have already met most of the local physicians at the foreign film night.

[Alphaville]

Apparently, I am permanently semi-retired. I can teach part-time or explore micro-entrepreneurial opportunities anywhere, and I’ll be living large if/when social security checks start rolling in. Also, once my permaculture project is fully developed, I should be able to reduce my expenses below my long time level of about $800/month.
ahhhh... i think i’m starting to see & understand the picture.

question because i’m curious and i’ve tried similar setups (but i failed)... once your permaculture gets going, will it all be for self-support, or will you sell the output?

and if for sale—how far will you be from people willing/able to purchase local permaculture products? lake resort folks into farmers markets i assume?

(i had no such population near and everyone was a walmart shopper. distance from markets was a huge hurdle)

The upside of rural health care is that I probably will have already met most of the local physicians at the foreign film night.

internet hi fives

[7Wannabe5]

I will be mainly aiming for self-support with permaculture project. Since I previously ran a small business dealing in rare books, I know that I don’t have the patience/energy necessary to deal in perishable goods. Therefore, any cash crop I grow will either be inherently non-perishable or processed to state of non-perishable prior to market. So, this leaves open the possibility of slow ship* internet sales.

*because no way I’m shipping stuff everyday.

[Alphaville]

but shipping aside— you also might want to bring a cart full of stuff to a farmer’s market on saturdays during the season, right? or no?

reason im asking is because in the sepp holzer book there is a design for a farm where the customer comes to you in a sort of drive-by scheme, so you have to “do nothing” to get to market (except advertise i suppose).

not that either scheme would be applicable to you. i just like to entertain myself by mentally solving practical-problem puzzles and scenarios

i guess i tend to see a message board as a mutual puzzle-solving society haa haaa haaa

the practical puzzle i’m trying to solve is wether to buy a car now that we ditched the truck. love having no car expense and would like to keep it that way. do i need to fear ubers and rentals? hmmmm... i really don’t know.

[7Wannabe5]

Yeah, I would prefer the super lazy drive-by design. As Sepp Holzer says, “If you don’t let the hogs do their work, then you will have to do the hog’s work.” One of my not yet realized innovations is a sandwich garden kit which uses turnips to slowly do the work of a rototiller.

IME, as long as you can walk/bike/bus to work majority of the time, you need not fear Uber/rental expenses. I think around $250 was the most I ever spent in a month where everything went wrong and I had to attend out of town event. I only broke down and bought a car because my current free suburban mooch locale is impossible to get around without one, so I was having to take Uber to work at a school that was only a couple miles away but located on the other side of a 6 lane highway with no crosswalks.

[7Wannabe5]

@bigato:

Right, my innovation was turning the turnip tiller concept into an easy to use kit for Level 1 suburban muggles, inclusive of appeals to kids mascot Turgor the Turnip and his Polyculture Pals!

[Alphaville]

you need not fear Uber/rental expenses

oh it’s not the expenses i fear, but the contagion...

yeah, a bit paranoid i know, but a real concern these days

[7Wannabe5]

@Alphaville:

Gotcha. Not paranoid. Oddly, because I do not go out at all, it is easy for me to momentarily forget about Covid.

[Alphaville]

yeah. i didnt need a car then the pandemic hit and now i want a motor vehicle again. but don’t wanna pay...

maybe i can look at monthly rental rates or something... idk.... bit of a puzzler

[classical_Liberal]

@7WB5
Not sure if you're willing to expand your geographical radius beyond L Michigan, and maybe L Michigan has areas like this, I'm not too familiar with it. But, the Midwest is brimming with college towns of 100-250k people, and just outside of the "city" (ie maybe five miles) there is nothing but rural acreage. It would really be perfect for you. Cheap rural few acres, and just a few miles from at least some culture. libraries, etc. Plus, a large enough built in base of customers for anything you'd want to produce from your land to sell for money.

[Frita]

@Frita:

I agree, although I would note that even the effective, empathetic Level 4 leader of the choir would unlikely be motivated by pure altruism. In fact, I would suspect the choir leader of being stuck in Level 3 if she thought she was motivated by pure altruism, even if the role was voluntary/unpaid.

Anyways, simplest explanation for your observation that overall functional level of organizations is falling would be that overall functional level of individuals in our society is falling. If so, why?

Are you saying that if the majority (58%) of the adult population is at Kegan 3, the choir director would be more likely to be functioning there? Or that someone at Kegan 3 would be likely to claim to be motivated as evidenced by voluntary, unpaid choir directorship with disadvantaged youth?

Agreed, there are many different reasons to what could appear altruistic: punishment avoidance, personal gain, image management/acceptance (self, others, community norms), adherence to personal values (Kohlberg’s Moral Development dovetails nicely into this.). I would think pockets of altruism could occur starting around Kegan 3 transitioning to 4. The appeared and/or stated motivation can be different than the actual motivation. And one can be aware or unaware of the discrepancy. Can pure altruism even exist?

As @daylen noted, economic inequality seems to be a factor in functioning. I would add population growth and increasing lifespans create more competition. What contributes to a a small percentage evolving creates the conditions for others to be stuck in lower levels. Under what conditions does one tread water? Under what conditions does one increase consciousness? Under what conditions can one devolve?

[7Wannabe5]

@classical_Liberal:

Just outside of college town acreage isn’t quite cheap enough for my budget, and I also want to be near lake, river, woods...not nothing but farms.

[7Wannabe5]

@Frita:

I meant that a Level 3 choir leader would be more easily self-deluded that her motivation was pure altruism.

Obviously, Kegan suggests that the higher educational process can promote growth towards higher levels. I think this is because the process is a form of good stress. I think either good or bad stress/change can lead to growth. For instance, I think going through my divorce (because drawn-out, self-aware process involving therapy)and running my own business were both processes that thrust me up the ladder. OTOH, stress can obviously lead to temporary devolution within individual or group. Maybe it has to do with whether stress/change can be reframed as challenge rather than accepted as permanent loss.

Absent stress or change to the external environment, I suppose one could just contentedly tread water, if it weren’t for the fact of your own encroaching decrepitude and mortality. It’s more difficult to gain perspective on the decrepitude of an organization or civilization of which you are simply one member.