Autist Micronation - supporters

Post Reply New Topic

Ah, right. I wasn't suggesting that it would be an autist-only community; I have no problem with employing Enties, as long as they're aware and accept that it's an Autist community...

Under thirty are idealists, over thirty understands this is a fight to the death, the civil version of war, but the intent is the same. You avoid losing by staying alive longer.

The kiddies whine about how life is unfair, water wet, and the sky blue. They claim we who have withstood the best shot of millions of apes and are still standing, do not care. We do, I rarely step on a roach by accident, I do it because I care, and do not like roaches.

Over thirty it becomes obvious if you read the obits, 43 is much worse than war. Like sure, there are old people dying, but 43? Yep, twenty years being the overachiver, graduated from this, scored in that, joined the others, and rose in the ranks of the young and dead. Joggers on the death march, came in first again.

For those of us who are slackers, shuffling along watching all the beauty of life fade, songbirds vanish, no more butterflies, and paving, condos, suburbia and malls cover all of the sweet memories of our youth, our detachment gives us another twenty years.

Now it is not the overachivers, but security, joined the service at eighteen, and a union when released at twenty, and plodded the same rut for forty years, to golden retirement. A year to a year and a half later they make the obits. All pensions and Social Security are based on this group. At least old horses are put out to pasture, they are just left in a stall.

What can I say, both of these groups treated me like dirt. Those who die first are willing to walk over bodies to get what they want, and the second wave avoids all contact outside their group, and limits that to their life program. I lived their whole lives within sight, and never got a nod to acknowledge I was alive. They have gone to a better place, and made this one better by leaving.

Finally the Death March has better company. They have some common factors. One, none were members of the first two groups, they were the rejected misfits that chose playing jazz, drinking with friends, or gardening, or lived a dozen lives in five year segments, never making something of themselves.

They never change, I know one who after sixty five started a recording studio, ran it for twenty years, him and the customers drank all the profits, and got invited to the good parties. Lots of people he played with became famous, wasted life in dedication, making playing music work, but not him, he stayed true to the cause, and is beyond famous to the famous.

Now he has started teaching again. There are families who he was their music teacher for three generations.

After Katrina, I lost everything, worse my customer base, gone for good, so I started a new business, and he was there to tell me, you lived it, know more than anyone, did what they are doing forty years ago, of course your business will work, all the troublemakers are dead.

People live to 84. but the ones that check out young, or 43, or 65, are in that number. After that comes the last of life for which the first was made. Never retire, stay involved, keep working, and the mind and body keeps working.

So which group would you like to do the thinking for a project?

The first three will say you cannot go hang gliding off a mountain cliff when you are 94. The last group will ask what kind of hang glider, want to see it, and backpack it to the mountaintop for you.

There is a motorcycle gang I would like to join. At sixty five you can become a prospect, and be considered for membership at seventy. They never seem to get older, have connections that span a hundred years, and enjoy life.

People die from leading meaningless lives. What should I think of the distain of people who I know will not be around for long?

Autistics are naturals. A lot of the ageless I meet would fit in here. after a long and mostly enjoyable childhood of sixty five years, we own the playground. Those with a long and active future would fit well in an Autist Micronation. I doubt their NT status, like me they just got away with it.

They are the traditional knowledge base of humans, the revered wisdom of age. They have skills, crafts, gardening, carried forward from when the world was a better place. Many remember the Great Depression.

Lacking common sense we still need it, they are available, and would like our world. We need allies.

Chinese Proverb, "If you wish to succeed, ask three old people."

If it was possible I think it is a good idea. I've only seen, I think, one other thread like this that was ideological in content restricted to Autistic people only.

Seems to me like this was a good approach just to see if there is any interest at all anywhere and if there were any hotspots of support that would make an effort feasible. That is a realistic approach.

Objectively, though, judging from the comments, there is not a great deal of group think here, required for the actual creation of an idea like this to come to fruition. Good individual thoughts, but not likely ones that would gain compromise between sufficient numbers of autistic individuals to gain any real start.

Better yet might be input to other organizations that actually have the ability to make living accommodations possible for groups of autistic people, letting them know our ideas on what accommodations are needed for a decent life for autistic people. Judging from this small thread, it is likely our individual opinions would be diverse.

The best of all lives for us, I think, is when we are fortunate enough to create our own individual worlds out of what is available. I doubt the majority of us are that fortunate, but those of us that are, are probably the ones that could make a realistic stab at something like this, from a logistical standpoint. It's really not likely that many of those would venture far from their safe nests. The others that really need this kind of support are hoping that one day it will be available.

It may be some of us that needs to provide input for the government agencies or organizations that may realistically be able to provide something like this for those that are going to require it for survival in the future.

I'm not sure how well our input will be received or applied, but if we don't provide it, chances are, those of us that need help in community living, in the future, are going to be stuck with the decisions made by those that are in a position to provide something like this in the future.

My perspective on this, is limited to the US, though.

Pointing us out we are a horrible problem. We cost billions, and never do anything.

We are only a part of a larger problem, folks who retired to Florida, and bought a house in 2005. More than half of the retired now have zero or less net worth.

Before the crash people ran the numbers and said, we need communities where people can live on Social Security and Food Stamps. Their income would not cover rent.

That left out those with a nestegg, they could get into real estate, but that did not work out, so more people who will live on less than $1,000 a month.

The War Babies are just coming up to retirement, and a lot of them are broke.

Even after the crash rents are high, and something has to be done about all the non productive people.

This is not just us.

I like diverse ideas, but I am selling the lesser evil plan.

The problems of the homeless and destitute have come up before. The Work House, Labor Camps, The Pest House, the Orphanage, Bedlam, were the only answers.

Your end of the boat is sinking.

I would first look at what has worked. Those I have met that got by had some skill, and providing some service to the world they prospered. There are some values, not buying a new car every two years will buy a machine shop.

The problem I see is calling the world NT, and blaming it for everything. They are all mentally diverse, and autists have not been dealing well with diversity.

Most of the population does not deal well with anything different.

After the Depression, the war, no one asked the people if they would like to live in a new way, they just built suburban housing and put up billboards.

Before then no one asked if they wanted factory jobs, they just put a sign saying Hiring.

People adapted themselves to the new oppertunities. By becoming factory working sububan dwellers, they quickly became it, like it had always existed.

People seek a place for people like them. They do not think it up, create it, make the thousands of connections needed for it to function, they just join as the lesser of evils, then become supportive of the local culture.

Our industries came from one person seeing a need for a product, like when Henry Ford quit his bicycle shop and started making a motorized four wheel vechicle.

Our living quarters start post war with Levitt, who built Levittown, thousands of near identical houses. They sold and the race was on.

There was not a type of person who worked for Ford, bought a track house, they all did. They adapted to the market.

What worked when it was one person's idea, failed when it was driven by market study that showed people wanted an 8,000 sq ft house with pool, and several 2 1/2 ton SUVs.

That could only be supplied by expanding debt, which lead to the current situation.

The customer will chose from available products on the market in their price range.

Most Autist Micronations have the idea of self government, no economy, and not a clue of how to pay for it. They are not customers.

Market demand from the non productive is for low cost long term housing, with more support than any other living system. It must have fixed costs over time for they have fixed incomes.

The only way is to design self supporting into the system. Food security, food can be produced from dirt and garbage. It has to have some economy, particularly for items consumed. It has to be located where taxes will not be a burden. Being structured to be exempt from property taxes is needed.

It also has to meet the needs of those who live there. They are subsistance consumers with more medical needs.

The only thing that fits in my mind is a rural village.

A group home on a farm might work for six, and be expensive per person. My unit is a thousand, where food production, processing, and goods of local manufacture can supply most needs.

I think an acre per person, and most living in or near the village. The most suitable location I can find, good soil, well watered, close to hard roads and medical services, runs $2,000 an acre.

On a per person buildout cost, about $10 Million. That is $10,000 per person. $2,000 for land, and at $100 a sq ft, 800 sq ft living space per person.

I think an autistic community would fail. It will call for some structure that runs all the time. It could work where support for the autistic becomes a cottage industry for the retired. A 50-50 mix would solve two problems.

Both the autistic and the retired can supply the labor to build, and the ongoing operation as it is built. It will develop skills and structure, and as living quarters become available, new people can join an existing system.

It is well worth working out this model for the need is for thousands of villages. What it offers is lifetime support for people who are not the most productive, but can meet most of their needs, and live in a peaceful and understandable system.

Bottom line, an affordable life for millions, at a lower cost than currently expended on a lesser product.

A secondary use is the labor pool is productive, and can produce surplus for export. This will add to the overall economy. Locally a thousand people need clothing, shoes, dishes, pots and pans, which is quite a base for small craft business. Bringing in dying arts, like hand crafted and fitted boots and shoes, training some to continue the art, there is a market.

Machines that are no longer competitive, machine tools, printing presses, are still valuable if you have a small local use.

Reduce costs, increase the economy, provide rare services, and maintain a high quality of life.

It is planned from the beginning, has a set population limit, and a cost structure where most will become owners. In some ways a closed planned economy, in others an open base for new developments.

It becomes an economic unit that can buy more land, develop more industry, provide more services, while keeping the quite village in the country set size.

We can and do create the future.

Is it possible to convince enough people to upstakes and move, though? Even getting a thousand people to move without pre-existing infrastructure is going to be very difficult...

If, however, you could get the government and/or parents/parent organisations to fund/support it, it would stand a much greater chance of thriving. That's why I was suggesting an Autist school, so that we can get the government and parents to fund the formation of an Autist hotspot. Later, businesses which cater to the Autist market would gain a foothold in the area around, and a village could develop.

I'm telling you, Hogsmeade businesses do most of their custom during termtime...

Not all at once, and few to install the infrastructure. Laying water and sewer, gas, electric, fiber optic, does make a mess. The same for trenching fields and laying drainage. This is one place the building codes cannot be evaded.

After that comes a lot of hand labor phase, I am looking at local stone, but as built, it becomes useful. I have an RV for field work, tents, and most land that size would have a house or two. While I wish to use people labor, nothing is as cost effective as big machines and operators who know what they are doing. Once the well, water tower, septic plant are in, with all the pipeing between, building becomes people.

Teaching people to dress stone, build with it, which is up to code, also builds a common culture, and the cost of building goes into their ownership. They will need support, so a hotel, dining room, bakery, all useful later, can house the crew. Many can work, and only one has to be a Licensed Plumber, Electrician, to sign off the job.

People did this hundreds of years ago with only animal and human power, and turned out buildings with style, that are still in use. When I was in Europe I saw people living in houses built by Vikings in 900.

By directing the cost of building to those who would live there, and teaching building skills, they can spend their off hours building for themselves.

Legally it has to be a subdivision, clear ownership of lots and buildings. Even after spending $4 million, the land would cost $4,000 an acre, but of course prime lots in the village would be worth more than the eight per acre they cost. While the investment would be $500 per lot, there is a limited supply. Some should be publicly owned, the commercial around the square, This is income property, commercial, and would be rented.

Pay people to build the heart of the village, and let them buy a lot a block away. We will get all the services in, and the first builders, who can now build for others.

Perhaps $5 Million to get to were a thousand lots are available, builders on site, and those that qualify can buy in. First, they are going to pay more than it cost for the land. Next they are going to pay for a house being built. Building in stone is mostly labor. That stays in the community.

Selling lots for $5,000 would recover all the project costs to date. A house will cost more, but a simple cottage, or a walled garden, have various costs. More people is more labor, that might not work stone, but there are other jobs. Builders will not be overpaid.

Apartments will be for rent around the square, people can see if they like the life, have a place to live while their house is being built. There are a lot of people that could live here, that otherwise would need to live in a group home. In the world, they need more support, here they have that and an independant life. No traffic, a walking town, little noise, and soon a familiar place. There will be food served, food to go, food delivered, and for me, Chinese, Sushi. There will be a bakery, stores and markets, a simple but good life.

The economics of shop rental replaces tax. There will be an ongoing income. Merchants who charge too much get their rent raised, an income tax that keeps prices down. Everyone should profit from their labor, but at local rates. All economies are rigged, it is just a matter of intent. With rentals and public finance, the operator does not have a Capital Investment to recover.

Farming is a Public Works project, marketing and food prep is private.

This leaves lots of opertunity for developing products for export. A low cost structure on the production end, and going rates in the world. From selling food in farmers markets, to computer code over the web, there are openings to prosper. Some of that income stays in the village, some is private, but we can make sure that the people with the least income, SSI, who cannot function in an economic sense, will not be poor.

There has to be a government, public safety, fire, police, medical, and in our case, social services. We are subject to National, State, County Laws, but having your own, can keep most problems local. We will need more community involvment than most. We will have to work that out as we go.

There can be a sense of a whole community, and there will be smaller groups with interests, and people who have little involvment. I do not know the people who live on my block.

While the village is enough of a center for life, turn the other way and take a five mile walk around it in nature. Fresh air, bugs, the real deal. Trees, creeks, land. The village is in the center of a private park. There are places to get away from all the hurry of village life.

It could do a lot of things, could make alliances, people would want to study the Anthropology of it. What happens when a type that is one in a hunderd, becomes 50%?

I think it a worthy experiment.

A giant apartment complex for supportive services might be a step in creating the community, but to truly make it sustainable it will require a development project. Small communes work okay for very crude self sufficient living if that's all that you are looking for, and that may work for a lot of ASD people that are too high functioning for a group home but not up for independent living. Many of those would eventually be needed and eventually you can expect lots of families to try and move ASD relatives to a place like that. But in order to make the community thrive, you are going to need businesses that specialize in different products and services and houses. The NT's in the community have to go somewhere and you will [moderate] business and property taxes to keep it afloat. For my purposes I'd need a small house, room for a shop, and a bare minimum of about 320 acres (1x0.5 miles), and get it zoned so that anyone who moves near me has to sign a waiver.

If we formed a complete new city, taxes would need to stay reasonable, approximately within a percentage point of surrounding areas, it would require business friendly city ordinances or they would just set up shop right outside city limits, set most city ordinances and fees similar to the surrounding area, and severe anti-sanctuary city laws to ensure that those in the community who are harder to employ have a chance. For other laws on controversial subjects, it might be best just to favor individual liberty, which for example would mean permissive gun laws for those eligible to own them, no local regulations on abortion or medical marijuana, and no local laws on carbon emissions. There might be some activities that it might be best to keep located away from each other, but that's really complex and would happen on a case by case basis.

And if legal under state and federal laws, it would be best to try and prevent high school dropouts and full time keyboard commandos from participating in local elections or holding local office. I'd imagine that this hypothetical community would be fairly environmentally conscious even without regulations for it and that it would have really strong social services compared to anywhere else in the US, so we don't need a bunch of uneducated w*kers that hide from the real world telling the city council how evil the productive people are for not giving them more, or how the sky is falling because we are not aggressively fighting global warming.

Utopias are fun to imagine.

They tend to go horribly wrong when taken seriously.

I've noticed that several people expect someone else to fund their experimental societies.

I've also noticed that several people assume that people will participate willingly according to the Wonderful Plan.

Have you ever tried herding cats?

I am not at all opposed to trying to imagine a better future and trying to move in that direction, but I think the place to start is with myself, doing what I can to get my own life together a bit and trying to make life a bit better for others.