asperger intentional community

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I'm below 30, but i want input from experienced with life aspies.
(i think i'm in the right forum)

My idea is, to form an intentional community, Aspies only(+ NT women for demographics), of around 100. This is not just hypothetical, i'll try to launch one.

"intentional community" (google it)

In general, internally it will work as communist and democratic, and externally as capitalist, with a business of its own, etc.... With an appropriate balance between private and community needs (example: every one his own room, not one giant dormitory, but community owned buildings, etc).

I'm theorizing, that will solve our problems this way. Community living is superior to individualism as now, NTs don't engage in it because they are lemmings, not because they thinked about it. Even if this is not the case, the disadvantages of living with NTs are important enough to make it an attractive alternative.

grandpas thoughts and experience are welcomed
Was this tried before? What was the results? Ideas what were the mistakes? Why this shouldn't work? Why should it work? You encourage me? Discourage me? Ban me ?

The issue falls inside my fetishes(details later on), there is considerable amount of stuff we can say on the issue. From the theoretical stuff i know on communities, psychology, sociology and leadership, it should logically work.

(edit: i screwed the poll)

Last edited by omicron on 05 Mar 2010, 6:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm sorry, I just think it sounds awful. How does someone who craves solitude live in an organized community? The very idea makes me gasp for air.

You are imagining an NT community because its the only thing you know on the issue. Am talking for an aspie community. In all cases you need to interact with others for money.

What exactly do you imagine that is so awful? There are many ways to organize a community. You can put everybody in a giant dormitory, but here everybody has his own room. I find it awful to sleep in a giant dormitory with 100 people or whatever, but one room for everybody is fine for me. Same thing with all aspects of life. Aspie community living is about pragmatically solve our problems, not to replicate the amish. Economies of scale will permit us to work less with same life standards, it could be that you'll have to interact less with people, simply because you'll be working less. I don't think there's anything that can not be arranged to be acceptable to a majority of us.

You also must comparing it with what you have now, not with perfection.

Why do you think community living is superior to individualism? For aspies, I would think the opposite might be the case. As natural loners, individualism works well for us. I also think democracy might not be the best way of running things for aspies since it tends to encourage politics.

I do agree that a community that was composed of, or primarily of, aspies would be nice. However, I think it would be more likely to succeed if it were larger and less organized than what you have in mind. Larger would be better because more of one's interactions would be within the community; less organized would be better to provide more leeway for individual variations in interests.

My experience with these things:

- I'm married to another likely aspie. This has worked well, after an initial teething period, because we can discuss things logically without worrying too much about politeness. However, it did require that we be very much aligned in our interests. Such alignment would be difficult in larger group sizes.

- There was a group I was keeping track of that was going to try to establish a small cooperative living arrangement, about half of whom were likely aspies. It fell apart because of differences between what the participants were trying to achieve. Specifically, some were trying to use it as a way to buy a home on the cheap; others had more money and wanted it as a way to get things, like a large shared ballroom, that were difficult to get in a home. Again, a larger group would have more problems, especially if they were trying to coordinate more than just housing.

- I went to a school (MIT) which was probably majority aspie, at least with respect to the undergraduates. This was a really great experience, and showed to me how a large aspie community could work well. However, it was large enough that people could spend 98% of their lives on campus, it was selected for particular interests, and it was extremely expensive. I think that would be hard to pull off in a group of 100 without a lot more commonality than just Asperger's.

Over 50% of economies of scale?

Not exactly democracy, consensus. Unanimity for small groups, and blocking minorities for larger ones. Example: first 2 readings require unanimity and the last one gets the blocking minorities, well the procedural details can be negotiated. Even if you are outvoted in the minority, the others are still expected to take you in to account in some form. We need the ability to take decisions, so unanimity can't be used as is for large groups.



More then 100 ? At more then 100 consensus cease to work. You get what you want with consensus. At more then 100 you have no choice, you need some form of democracy.

Consensus prevents that you get democratically tyrannized. I think that alone fixes your fear. You are supposed to have a lot of free time. My perversion is that we work only 4 hours, while keeping same life standards because of economies of scale.



marriage is a bad example. The dynamics are very different.



Half, not all. The differences followed the divide aspies/NTs? i would find surprising if many aspies want a ball room. One important thing its to WRIGHT DOWN a little constitution, that says precisely WTF we want to do together. States don't have objectives in there constitution just for propaganda. Other issues must be very procedural, and written agreements, including what happens if you break your word. The group you described thought that its going to be like a marriage, well its not.



Bad example, decisions are authoritarian there. The hard part is to take decisions together. For bigger structure, you can set up something like a confederation of communities, thats for later.

First step is to establish a little constitution. It must establish precisely WTF we are doing together. I hacked the bellow in 10 minutes, its proposals for a first draft. I think the most important features are consensus(no democracy) and the use of the net for social interaction between members. The last one alone should address the above main complaints. I'll repeat it here, yes we will be living right next to each other, standing in the same room even .... and communicate with irc, forums, e-mails whatever. Basically what we do right now.

I'm convinced we can hammer out a general aspie constitutional community compromise.

-------------------------------------------------
1.The constitution is amended with unanimity. New members are admitted with unanimity. Expulsions of members require a 2/3 super-majority.

Members are expected to be very pragmatic, they need each other to live beater, this is not a fairy tail. The constitution, votes and vetoes, are there to reduce conflict in good spirit, excessive or abusive lawyering(like wikipedia) will reduce social capital of the member and eventually lead to his expulsion. Decisions are encoded and must state in advance what happens if members break there commitments. All this micromanagement aims to prevent conflicts, its not because members mistrust each other.

Consensus, unanimous committees and rotational presidency, also aims in killing of politics. The community is not a democracy.

2.objectives: The main objective is to live cheaply, by exploiting economies of scale (over 50% easy) . Secondary objective is to have a common business. Third, sustainable living, bio, equitable trade, respect the environment, try to be as self sufficient as possible, etc, without exes. The community is environmentally friendly and ethical.

3.reconciliation mechanism needed. Members WILL, get in to disputes with each other.Trust building activities(mandatory) in common are needed, without prejudice to members individuality, details to be negotiated. Video Games ? Common BOINC team? eating together? mandatory presence at community forum(yes, we will live right next to each other ... and interact thrue the net, irc, forum e-mail...)? Wikipedia fork.Corresponding net etiquette decided by assembly? One? Several? More or less mandatory? To be negotiated. Keep in mind that you'll be working less because of economies of scale.

Less aspie friendly exercises, use of trust exercises(falling back)? Eating together?

seed of destruction: informal exclusions of integrated members will not be tolerated, no exclusive relations are allowed either. Metaphysical beliefs are private. how salary is spended is private.

4.Decisions: Assembly happens on community forum. first and second reading requires an active vote of absolute 2/3 super-majority and no veto, at third and last reading requires a absolute 2/3 super-majority and no blocking minority(to be negotiated). Absence defaults to veto. All votes, are open, except for expulsion proposals, of wich only the final results are communicated. Abstention vote discounts the vote from the absolute majority qualculation. Prospective members and children have a vote( fractional vote?) , but no veto. NT women group have a blocking minority of there own.

There must be a minimum amount of time for consideration of proposals before they go to vote and before each reading. Veto is to be used carefully, its for consensus building, voluntary compromises are expected, abuse makes you lose social capital and eventually expelled. There are possibilities for opt outs if members ask for it.

Conflicts over interpretation of rules and constitution are taken by the decision procedure. Misunderstandings should be resolved peacefully and consensually.

5.Executives.Committees get elected(decision procedure) as a whole, for specific issues, decisions are taken unanimously(impose a minimal size?), failing that issues go to assembly. Committees are not democracies, its consensus among experts. A blocking minority can bring down a committee.

Super committee is elected for a year, presidency rotates among committee members, emergency decisions can be taken by holder of presidency unilaterally. The super committee composition must reflect members composition(aspies, NTs, HFA). The super committee takes decisions unanimously if theres no time to call the assembly. The president facilitates consensus building and compromises, gives polite advice, he doesn't govern.

6.stuff. Demographic sex ratio at equilibrium 50-50, differences can be covered with NT women. Everybody has his private room. Community business, only members of the community can work in it. Members with outside salaries give it to the community. Equal weakly little salary for everybody.

use a taxation like system? little social security?

7. competences. If the issue is not in the list, community doesn't treat it(decision procedure too heavy).

exclusive community competences (if community fails to decide, nothing happens):
housing, utilities (electricity, water, heating, Internet), common utilities (washing machines, robot sweeping cleaner)

shared community competences(if community fails to decide, members are on there own):
community business, food

coordinating competences(voluntairy opt ins): help members to find a job, girlfriend ( yea what?), filesharing, entertainment

Last edited by omicron on 06 Mar 2010, 11:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

I could not live in that system any better, and likely a lot worse, than the current system.

People are born equal, and that is where it stops.

I am a very small minority, so no group rules work for me.

ASDs are a varied as the general population, but have interests which are personal.

I invent and write, what is mine is mine, yes, I am greedy and do not share.

I am also starting an intentional group.

As the least system works best, less to conflict with, most open to various goals, that is a Corporate Charter where all things are agreed on before joining.

Another is, The Articles of the Brotherhood of the Coast.

Both give a framework of agreed values that diverse people can function in.

What you bring up has the Polish Parliment problem. The King told Parliment he would do whatever they all agreed on, they never all agreed.

It starts with three people, where one does what they want, two what they agree to, three need a charter.

There will never be an equality of investment, labor, intelligence, so from each according to their abilities, to each according to their abilities.

Under your system my next Patent would become Community Property, as would the product development, my marketing knowledge, and I would not agree.

A system governed by current public opinion of the uneducated is not for me.

The Wheel has already been invented, and for three to any number, a Corporate Charter works.

By agreeing to a limited framework of methods and goals, before joining, with Limited Liability, it is clear that what you invest, will have a set share of the results.

This covers those who are just starting, and those who have made something, and those who inherited a fortune, equally. Anything they do outside of the Charter is no one's business but their own.

It does not involve living together.

A second value, it is organized around an idea. All of my ideas involve machines. Out of the millions, the sub set of ASD and Machines exists in large enough numbers, would all gain value by joint efforts, and would most likely be joined by the need to make a living, the mechanical aptitude, a machine head culture, with ASDs running dead last.

I have a two sided problem. The things I do take a large machine collection, space, and I cannot use more than one at a time. While it is great for prototype work, production comes from me moving from work station to work station, and being the sales, shipping, keeping the books, and planning for the future.

Employees be scurvy dogs what should walk the plank.

People with a common need for the machines can share in their use for some production work, or cash, or more machines.

This expands my production ability, opens prototyping to all, and as some do have talents, machine shop, welding, assembly, packaging, marketing, shipping, a flow can support many based on what they can provide.

I publish books, so writers, artists, editors, proofreaders, which can all be web based for no one would live with those types.

In publishing I find that there are thousands of books that might sell 1,000, which is too small for most to think of producing. Selling a thousand might take years, and the income is not enough to support one person. It is still an income stream, and is good money for a collection of part time workers.

Some machine shops make a living producing a few parts that are no longer in production, out of stock, and still have a small market.

People have various needs. Some have to take money now to live, others can take shop credit, something they can use to promote their project later.

Capital is needed to produce a product and market it. Wages have to be paid, materials, shipping, before a return. Right now there are few good investments. Interest rates are low, and risk is high. I am looking to join the creative mechanical intelligence with the marketing and money. It is a three legged stool, each are needed.

The advantage is mechanical leverage. We each play a part, but we each can get time of the whole.

We can educate each other, for around a common interest, machines, production, marketing, we have various talents.

Where my system is general, as a prototype shop has to be, a working product does not need it, and can set up with only what is needed to take a market. Marketing does not need the creative of new product development. Spinoffs call for another set of skills. They produce general employment.

One marketing and shipping can do ten products.

The core of my system is Thought Harvesting. The differance of thought and perception will see ways to improve existing products, which is most of the market. Pure Inventions are rare. Mostly it is producing something that better serves the existing market.

Each advance in technology makes many things possible that have all been thought of, but the means were lacking at the time.

It takes a base of knowing what has been done, and a feed of the latest information, to join the two into what can now be done, and the means to do it, and get to market first. 90% of new products last a year.

Some products start an industry. Half of the Fortune 500 fail every decade, and are replaced by a new product company.

A small company can go up against GE, IBM, and win, for they are faster to market, and do not have millions invested in the also ran products. They can also work the majority of things that do not pay in the millions, but do pay.

As a system it can be remote, part time, to full time, with room for investors. Where most seek to grow and go public, I think more than a dozen becomes unworkable, and should split. The main value I see is one can have the use of all.

Empower the Anti Social Loners!

(I edited my previous post)

In every organization economies and diseconomies of scale develop. You focus too much on diseconomies. A single person has 0 economies of scales. The bottom line is, you just can compete against a group of people alone, IBM are 300k, they have big diseconomies of scale issues, in contrast how many companies succeed with just 1 person?

Further more the little constitution tries to give an idea of what you can do. If you think that 100 is too much bring it down to 12. You can still participate in a louser community of 100 and a tighter community of 12. You can adopt a confederal structure. You can tweek whats part of comunity responsabolities. The idea is not to make a democracy, tasks are delegated acording to expertise and the simple workers never strike in exchange in having a say in some form, stock holders don't micromanage.

The possible arrangements are so great that even you, you should be able to find one that fits you. For your patent, you could add in the constitution that patents are private.... but the royalties are communautairy for as long that you stay in the community, if you are really selfish you can keep that too. Its a small draft i did in minutes, with all the needs of 100 members you could get a huge thing.

Everybody can ask for an amendment, and amendments must be approved unanimously, if you don't like the constitution and your amendments are refused, you can leave, by using a pre-agreed procedure. I don't see what everybody is so afraid of. You are required to respect what you agreed. Don't read the example as being a take it or live it proposal, propose your amendments.

I suggest you read Walden Two by B.F. Skinner for inspiration. If you like it, let me know.

(i just read the plot, not the book)

Actually i don't think the book is that far fetched and improbable.

I do see a theoretical basis for eugenics at group level, but you must couple it with some sort of reward to the individuals. You lose the right to reproduce freely, but in exchange all women become DRM free , or everybody becomes bisexual or many other possibilities(you breed these in). From an evolution point of view, you should keep eugenics at small groups only, so that natural selection keeps working on eugenist technics. With selective breeding, you can breed any human psychology you want, so all the rest become plausible, albeit they are not necessarily the optimum out comes.

I know you didn't meant the question this way, with out eugenics many stuff are too improbable and far fetched.

But i do follow certain of his principles. Basically i'm dissatisfied by current society and i think we can do beater then this( with no eugenics ). I'll just say that cultural evolution will happen for sure, to accommodate more community living. We have alredy solutions, we can apply them successfully today, we just need to implement them.

Is this Omicron from lunaticoutpost.com? In case you haven't stopped by lately, there are a few of us Aspies on there now.

(I clicked maybe I would join, BTW, reading more about the subject now)

"I'm theorizing, that will solve our problems this way. Community living is superior to individualism as now, NTs don't engage in it because they are lemmings, not because they thinked about it. Even if this is not the case, the disadvantages of living with NTs are important enough to make it an attractive alternative. "

Well, this is an interesting idea because NT's have a lot of problems living together on account of their ego, and always carrying around, pushing and fighting over their personal narratives that they are constantly role-playing.

IMO Aspies are less egotistical in terms of socializing, necessarily

Last edited by ephemerella on 06 Mar 2010, 1:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.

There is one major flaw with this: people with Asperger's can, and do, have NT children. What happens then? Would you kick the family out of the community, or would you wait until the NT child turns 18 and only force them out? Otherwise, it is no longer an Aspie community.

Edit: WOW, there is some bad stereotyping going on in this thread. Just keep in mind, when you are insulting NT's, you are insulting every single person in my family other than my father and I, in addition to all of my friends but two (undiagnosed, but obviously on the spectrum).

No, sory.



Yes i thought it too, but we do have certain needs. The important thing to know, is that living in a community doesn't come naturally, you need to set up proper structures, and now what you are doing in setting them. Naivety doesn't pay. I want to say, that yes in a way it will be easier for us in general, but you still need a little constitution, and formalized procedures, ect....

Does this mean you would be wiling to try it out.

Well, for inbreeding isues, you should kick ALL children out. Actually they will leave running, natural selection has alredy tweaked as for this. I'm not saying to shun them like diseased, the optimum would be that they join other communities, or start there own families. Children imprint with the people they grow up with(other children included), so almost all members of the community become sexually inatractive. Unless you plan to expand endlessly community size, they will be unable to reproduce. If they do reproduce inside the group, they will be all cousins in some generations.

You think i'm a computer? Or an extraterrestrial? I have a family too, and live on the same planetoid as you.
I suppose you are referring to the lemming part. I don't see what else. I admit i spiced the explanation a bit, to complicated to get all the meaning, you would never had got it.

Social animals have an instinct, that it just makes you feal good when you replicate others, it doesn't mater what the others are doing, it just works on average. From fish, to birds, to zebras and humans (and lemmings, i put it in for the double fuzzy meaning). This is how babies learn to speak ...... and deep autistics never learn to speak(well its not that simple of course).

I'm not saying we aspies would give all the correct answers, but will probably do beater on average. There are very good reasons why we attribute this to genetics and not just cultural conditioning. Your thoughts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRh5qy09nNw

I wonder if the author of the quote really understood the irony.

A tangent, but neurotypicals seem to be able to adjust better to aspie communication than vice versa. Evidently it's easier to learn to ignore the inputs that aspies don't get than it is to magically start getting those inputs.

What will you do when someone has NT kids?

I'm different, but I'm a human being. I like spending times with people like me, but also with other people. I will never give up my NT society or my NT friends, as much as I can be upset with them at times.