Ever since I was young I always dreamt of a world different from reality. Perhaps it was the loneliness of how I experienced life, but happy, sad, conflicted, neutral, empathetic, apathetic, I always had a vision of how I want to live my life, without the current structures that plague us today. I still want that dream, and it's what motivates me to keep my hope and faith for a better future so that I don't have to associate with the current system one bit
Well said. We would be happy to do work that motivates us and fulfills us if we could rest assured that our essential needs are met and we had time to change our minds about things. I hope we're not screwed by the objective mathematics of our species' position on the spectrum of self-destruction--/--self-realization.
Me too. From the age of 10 I started endlessly fantasizing about the end of the world. It seemed the only possible way to have the life I wanted. That's how deeply ingrained the capitalist system was into my mind as a child. I literally thought there was no alternative without an apocalypse. I love the fact that no matter how hard the system tries to indoctrinate us, there is always a percentage of the population who are born non-conformists and refuse to swallow the myth. And there's nothing they can do to stop that, it's in the DNA of our species. I believe that has been integral to our development as a species. We have an inbuilt defence mechanism against total conformity.
I designed a system very similar to this or William Thompsons idea of a social structure for a school project once. That teacher said it would not work…
@@ajankytoucan The problem isn't that it's optimistic, the problem with all of these ideas is that they're not actually solving anything, they're just reinventing the wheel. If this bolo bolo thing was going to have any chance of doing anything differently from how modern society it would first of all need to include cell division that would prevent any "bolo" from growing too large. And it would need to focus on resources distribution and how it's done. In this model it's just suggesting trade as normal, but it's also saying we don't use money, which makes no sense. If we're going to have trade we're going to need a form of money, beause nobody is going to want to look at an infinitely long list going "1 goat is worth 37 apples or 24 oranges or 78 grams of iron or 1 hand crafted cup, etc for infinity", so of course people are going to just convert the value into a number instead, which is money. And how are the groups of bolo's going to build roads without taxes? Or maintain anything else? So resource distribution is central to building any kind of system like this, something which wasn't mentioned here it all, and it made it all just sound like a very unrealistic utopian fantasy that completely ignores reality. We likely have more than enough resources on Earth to make sure everyone is okay with sugar on top, but if we can't figure out how to distribute it without fighting/dueling over it then we can't solve it. Should a bolo keep everything it produces or should it all go to a central authority that redistributes it? What if one bolo lives on a gold mine while an other bolo lives in a barren desert? Should the desert bolo challenge the gold bolo to mortal combat? And if so, then how is it different from how things already are?
In chapter 14 (Strategies for an alternative nation) of "Permaculture - a designer's manual" by Bill Mollison, nearly fifty pages are dedicated to exploring the social, cultural, political, and financial strategies of how to structure society within bioregional units. It is one of the most comprehensive tools I have seen for building the future. I am curious to learn more about bolo'bolo!
Sure, a fantastic person, except for the way he founded and promoted permaculture on ideas he learned from the indigenous people and reaped the benefits for himself without giving appropriate credit where it was due.@@ricos1497
I ran a comparison of these two books through chatGPT. I am not convinced Bill's book is anticapitalistic and anarchistic enough to not fall into the trappings of the current dystopia we find ourselves in. I could be wrong however.
When I first started dreaming of utopia, I was kind of thinking in this direction, but as my thoughts evolved, I struggled to make such a rigid structure mesh with the freedom I desired. I have been coming more and more to the conclusion that the systems we create need to be more organic and improvised. The principles of welcoming guests and providing for each persons needs though is right on point.
We already have a system for welcoming guest, it's called a tourist visa, and a ton of countries have that agreement with each other. In the description in the video they are allowed to refuse people if there is no more room. So it's basically saying "open borders until we can't support any more people", which is basically how it is now. Yeah, for the most part we don't provide people with free accommodations, but we can buy and rent accommodations pretty much everywhere. And the visa is required to keep track of who is a visitor and who is a permanent resident, otherwise you can just show up and pretend you live there. Something I personally would like, but I can see how it could be problematic for locals that would get their culture deluded if too many show up. Something which is a real problem for tropical paradises or other desirable locations. To me this book makes no sense because it's just using a bunch of made up words to describe how things already are then pretending it's different somehow.
@@daniel4647 You seem to be stuck thinking within the structural limitations of some of the institutions put in place by the Machine described in the video, such as money or owning property for the purposes of profit. Tourism, as it is today, exists purely to serve the purposes of the Machine; those with the privilege of discretionary finances and time use it to escape from the mundanity and misery of life in the Machine. And their destinations are cultivated and dominated by those who would seek to gain from it, rather than the peoples who call those destinations home. In the world of bolo'bolo, where the Machine has been dismantled, day-to-day existence sees success in our tendencies as social animals turning it into an enriching team effort to help everyone make it rather than a depressing rat race for relative privilege. Tourism, then, would undergo a radical change and degrowth away from a temporary, expensive (preconceived & profitable!) escape from droll monotony and towards the further enrichment of all peoples involved through the exchange of the materially valuable and the valuably immaterial: goods and ideas. With no countries between which to obtain visas and require money, the world of bolo'bolo utilizes the most base desire of every human everywhere at any point in time to fulfill every single one of the same. Providing all you are able for your fellow humans, in bolo'bolo, means that you can be guaranteed the same. Just as everyone wants a place to belong and thrive, everyone assists in cultivating such a place themselves, and until the Machine is dismantled, bolo'bolo will remain fiction and humanity will remain vulnerable to the base impulses of fear and violence, unable to fully belong and thrive and unwilling to afford any others the same.
@@daniel4647 A tourist visa is NOT at ALL what this is talking about lmfao that's such a baffling misunderstanding of how visas work. Most people on earth cannot just get a tourist visa to go anywhere they want, and even if they could they would not be able to afford actually going, which is another thing specifically brought up. "But we can buy and rent accommodations pretty much anywhere." You either did not watch the video or you did not LISTEN to it, idk what else to tell you.
glad you like it! i was racking my brain to figure out what visuals would give the vibes I was going for and the nostalgia train just hit me with inspiration.
I’m a software engineer that has been developing my own version of a system like this the past year. I don’t believe in personality cults though so I tend to only share it with friends/family and others I can build solidarity with (and I think that’s how you get around the surveillance problem), that being said I love the idea of these sorts of ideas becoming part of our language so that people can understand better. My hint to anyone reading this comment building their own systems on the technical layer would be to build for yourself an ontology (as in the information science sense). It can be something you share with others and refine as a community through asking questions and collecting data and feedback to build it out more thoroughly. An ontology at a later stage can be used as a tool for building out your actual processes.
My version of this (if I understand your use of the word "ontology") has been to maintain a personal wiki, which I have been doing for the last 22 years. I think we all need a mental space to clarify our thoughts where we can examine meaning and concepts in depth. Of course, it does also contain all my technical notes as well, so it has been very practical for me. :)
@@partypooper2591 22 years! I take it that it has been useful to you? A wiki and ontology are similar, but a wiki uses natural language descriptions and links, whereas an ontology uses properties and relations. An ontology has more of an emphasis on strict categorization and is more suitable for handling with automated processes.
You’re describing a cryptocurrency called Trac (origintrail) it is a public knowledge graph or a private one if you wish. It is open and uses hashes to stamp information on nodes to verify the content. It’s being used by many companies already and doesn’t capitalize on information like google or Facebook does since their knowledge graph is private.
Wow! Over 1000 people watched this in the first hour after it was posted. As a long-time participant in Midnight Notes, where Hans' "Bolo-Bolo" first appeared, I am excited to see the renewed interest in that work and in alternative possibilities. Thank you for this!
i have a question for you Steven, my name's Mike. are you aware of how closely this theory gibes with Guatarri and Deleuze Rhizomic model? it's a full step out away from unity, duality, multiplicity which multiplies the multiplicity so to speak. their "subject" is defined as "...nothing more than a desiring-production!" (Lacan's Real), which encompasses all the ego, super ego and id stuff. they would replace the word machine with a machinic assemblage of enunciation (you cant put parts from one machine onto a different type of machine and expect either to work). i know that's super obscure theory to either know or mention but with a little (25pgs) wrestling, they describe the Rhizomic Model vs an Arborescent model (which encompasses all the prior three models) in One Thousand Plateaus ch. 1 Rhizome yet never have i ever! this is great, i already bookmarked both M-N and O-O :)
@@amberpalmer3708yes, being told the machine can't stop and then seeing it brought to a halt and seeing many ppls lives get better (ish) lives as a result (pause on evictions, stimulus money, working from home, etc......)
I remember once having a kind of epiphany alone in my university dorm room about the world being composed of tiny communities (in my head I called it "micro-communism") of shared values and skills, and who could freely exchange with one another and I spent an hour or so just sitting there thinking about what it would be like. This video reminded me so much of that world I'd dreamed about years ago (of course with a bunch of other stuff too!). So interesting to see others in the comments with similar reactions, funny how ideas seem to spread unknowingly sometimes 🤔😄 I've been following you for a while and love the new format, hope to see more like it! Big up yourself 👊🏻
I don't know if it's similar, but I expressed a not so different sentiment, when my sister asked me how I think world wide communism could be structured. I told her in my mind a world like that wouldn't be rigid. It would be structured kinda like "15min cities" in mind, across the world, with different variations of "communism", which traded resources across the world from one city where it naturally existed, to places in need. But yeah kinda cool how similar ideas can grow spontaneously no matter how isolated individuals can be from one another, some more structured and more thought out than I layed it out though. That's just the nature of the current or any socioeconomic structure I guess, certain individuals are just fated to arrive at certain ideas that can lay the groundwork for the next system. Hopefully some day humanity will have something better.
I respect and honour PM's honesty in his writing. It's wild, it's crazy, and like any idea that involves multiple people, it needs refining with others' input and perspective of how they'd like to live in a better world, but it's a great starting point. And I hope many see your video, or come across bolo bolo anyhow and then look more into his idea. Your video boosts my hope
If you really believe we are evolved primates, then you realise everything is belief, every influence evolution, and we are products of our environment. If this is true, then money, advertising, debt has changed us as a species. There is one human race and everything else is variation. Out of all the energy we use, electricity is 20%, we could do so much more by using so much less, but we have to keep using so many barrels of stored energy, to maintain loans that are generated our of thin air, based on debt that might all be worthless during the next 100 years. Why not make the sure the world has shelter, food and medical care, we could do that using around 10% of the population on a rotating basis. If we just concentrated on this and didn't have to pay back debt generated with a 3333% return, we could lower emissions immediately and at least by half.
Thank you. I don't think I'll be able to dive deep into the world of bolo'bolo, but I am better off for having walked, however briefly, through its paths with you as a guide.
This is by far my favourite video you've made! (Library economies was before) Ive spent quite a few years talking with many peoples slowly constructing a world myself, and honestly the fact that so many concepts between my thoughts and bolo-bolo are similar, but also differences I never considered, it makes me so happy to see such imagination! I think being able to discuss and imagine these better futures and seriously considering different ways to get there is absolutely fantastic. Im definitely going to do a deep dive into this book, thank you so so much for introducing it to me!
Definitely downloading the PDF of this one. Don't know when I'll be able to actually read it, but having it on my computer will make it a lot easier when I do get the chance. As game developer, amateur writer and inexperienced DM, I'm very interested in fiction worldbuilding, especially of anarchistic societies, and you have definitely piqued my intrigue.
@@ricos1497 GM (game master) is another term you may hear for the same thing. Other ttrpgs will have their own label on what they call it, like Call of Cthulu will call DM "the Keeper of Arcane Lore". But GM and DM are more universal terms.
Andrew, this is AMAZING. I'm so glad Elliot Sang sent me here, such an eye opening and expansive look into something I could have never fathomed. Take care friend!
I like how this sort of conlang follows a very simple syllable structure, similar to Japanese, Swahili or Polynesian languages. I guess it's made that way so that it can be accessed by people of many cultures and languages, like the conlang Toki Pona.
The tiered structures at 30:35 reminds me A LOT of Stafford Beer's theories of "intelligent systems". He created something of his own version and called it the "Viable System Model". He described it in fairly neutral terms, as more of a tool instead of an ideal (in that such a corporation or state can use it) but his theories were experimented with by "non-soviet" socialists in Chile during President Allende's tenure, and pop up every once in awhile in anarchist and communist circles.
I've got to admit your criticisms are definitely valid especially regarding the bias towards solipsism, as regardless of if it is true, it is ultimately a selfish egotistical take, because - what if you're wrong? Also, I would argue that if we want to equate medical issues with bolo'bolo I would say rather than a cancer that mutates and deforms, killing indiscriminately, we ought to think of it more like an autoimmune disorder. Specifically subverting the already in place systems so that the system tears itself apart.
my thing is that I don't think belief in solipsism **guarantees** that a person will behave selfishly, but the correlation is certainly there in my anecdotal experience. Another commenter related the ibu to the Atman, a concept in various strands of Indian philosophy, and I think that interpretation of it may be a lot healthier, socially speaking, than the version of ibu that Widmer presents. Also, that's a much stronger analogy, thank you!
@@Andrewism yes I was a bit too broad in my hyperbolic judgement of solipsism. Also, I'll have to look into that! thanks for the tip, and thanks for always creating such absolutely riveting and diverse ideas that I truly don't see discussed much elsewhere! 💖 Your channel has really expounded on just how vast these philosophical topics are, and just how small my scope had been before I actively began seeking it out.
I just went from C to B, and it's better than it could be because I'm an anarchist, imo. I'm not buying in, i don't believe the bullshit about the morality of my position or anything like that. I'm literally just exchanging my time for a wage. I wish I'd had someone honest and knowledgeable to explain this relationship to me when i was younger, i wouldn't have experienced so much stress trying to make sense out of the absurd and capricious reality of wage labor. I'm at peace with this bargain I'm being forced to make, and I'm intending to use this new freedom of movement to acquire land and teach people to grow their own food and give food away for free, maybe open a radical infoshop. I'll never be rich and I'll never personally escape the prison of wage labor, but I'm secure enough that i can help educate and organize with my community and maybe make things better for the people who come after me.
This is the first idea for a post-capitalist society I’ve come across that actually seems like it would work. Many thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Read more, do more reasrch about Civilization. Its the Holocuast Machine, so long as war machines exist, somlong as the millitaru exists, as monocultres exists, as mines exist, then its annhilating all organic life.
When I hear how long it's been since people began to see the hole humanity was falling deeper and deeper into, I feel rage and upset because it's been so long, yet few people listened? No body really though 'hey, what if they're making some sense' and tried to look at other perspectives? But I also know how large and diverse humanity is, and I just go silent when I realise trying to rally up a class of 20 kids is hard enough, talkless of a whole country and those around it when you may not even speak the same language It honestly diminishes my hope attimes, and I feel tempted to look away and care on with ignorance. But I feel and know that won't help either, so I'm trying to still keep hope
Socialists, however misguided, help spread anarchist ideas. They talk about how wars are waged for profit and how the employer class have unfair leverage over the working class. True Anarchism is a type of socialism.
I'd say things are getting better in this regard. You're right, it is slow and grueling and at times it feels hopeless. But ultimately the tide is turning, and you may be surprised to know that when it comes to social movements, a study was released recently that says we just need a consensus among 25% of a population to tip the scales to the point that a change becomes inevitable. Being in that first 24.9% is scary and tough and exhausting and thankless, but once we hit critical mass, we will be unstoppable.
This is natural. You’re certainly not the only one. Personally, I find that seeking out people, communities, and organizations who are working hard to change things helps me to feel better. I also try to do some helpful things myself. Hang in there. As much as there is to be worried about, there is also a lot to hope for. ❤
Love the material and ideas you share. Can’t thank you enough for the thoughts and ideas that come forth while interacting with what comes up. This ibi benefits. Thank you.
The more I try to build a project based in a renewal of third places and reappreciation of manual crafts with a de-emphasis on the rotten bulwark that is marketing 101 through a more reciprocate use of technology within Mexico City, the more I realize people are either, justifiably afraid of losing what little they have or perhaps, way too comfortable with what Lacan describes as Death Drive... I wish for solarpunk and a better world, but it's close to impossible to adapt Andrewism's ideas to my neighbourhood, I seriously wish for the chance to try this anywhere else rather than aimlessly flop like a grashopper in a cuckoo's nest and a bit of help from the solarpunk community may help a lot!
I understand your frustration, it can often feel like the people around us aren't seeing what we're seeing or not mustering the same passionate drive for change that we have, but I hope you can connect with at least one other person in your area who's willing to pursue our vision for something different, even if it starts on a very, very small scale.
@@Andrewism I'm rather desperate here, since even at the university where I intended to begin, a continuous shift in the community board and overall disinterest from the laboral unions & administrative heads push back on it. It really feels like a dead end against the bigger issues, which just dwarf anything out existence! Which is the reason why I ask for help from the Solarpunk community on a larger scale and would deeply appreciate your help in a bit of guidance or connection towards people you trust, please...
I wouldn't be able to help much as I don't know the details of your personal situation, but perhaps you can discuss this challenge with others on my discord and figure it out collaboratively: discord.gg/jkAyqF6BMY
The Ibu sounds suspiciously like the tormented child of Omelas. Perhaps the "Utopia is not an option" crowd has even the most optimistic among us convinced that "there's got to be a catch." I guess the hardest thing to imagine is society without sacrifice zones. So we receive an irony-poisoned blueprint.
The 3 dyspo's would be an amazing occurrence to happened for countries in the third world like me and a buddy both Nigerians (even tho he was living there till this year and I wasn't) discussed what Nigeria needs i took a more radical approach and he said how would you organize people that have not been feed and have to live paycheck to paycheck he eventually asked me what would i do if my boss paid me less money then what is promised ( which is the case alot of times in Nigeria) he said you can't report to anybody so i said I'd do the barest minimum to not get fired then he said what if he doesn't pay you at all I said I'd quit because what would be the point of working there and he said that's true so that's one of the three dypos i forgot which one but you've really given a new perspective and i thank you for that
Despite the ocean that separates us, I believe Trinidad and Nigeria are facing some similar issues as former British colonies and I would love to see both of our homes freed from the mentalities, practices, and systems that have caused us so much suffering. Solidarity forever🙏🏽
It's the DUTY of all workers to do NO MORE than they get paid for. Anything more only encourages exploitation. And, of course, what I really mean, is doing as little as you can get away with. :) Productivity, my Farse! If they want it better, or faster, let them buy a robot!
Probably not the only one who hadn't heard of bolo'bolo. Interesting concepts and "rules" - maybe principles is a better word for it. Being born into a family that were C workers and being a A/B worker, it has felt like the hunger games and this video cements that feeling. I like most of the principles for the bolo'bolo. As people and places transition to something like this, I wonder, what happens to them in their early phase isolation, surrounded by existing machine? And what technical and technological understanding would be required to support such a transition without losing powerful tools (and the means to achieve them) as such as the internet, mobile/cell phones (and networks) and more unique projects like the ISS?
This is blowing my mind, which is to say activating my imagination and amplifying my desire for community and its solutions. I'm truly looking forward to the dysco. See you all there. There's so much food for thought and room in what you're presenting here. Thanks for bring this forth in such a thoughtful and useful manner. I see myself revisiting this quite often.
One question that immediately comes to mind is - who is enforcing this global set of customs and rules? How will the system deal with the free thinkers and radicals who will inevitably disagree with it's moral codes? Looking at human history, I assume there will always be a certain percentage of psycopaths, sociopaths and narcissists etc. These people will surreptitiously accumulate power and influence, as they always do. Then it is only a matter of time before they secure power over an entire region and are able to invade and colonise other regions. Basically, systems like bolu bolu may well have existed all over the world in the deep past. But they have almost all been violently colonised and replaced with capitalism. So how do we avoid just making the same mistakes all over again? How do we make sure we can stop the despots before they even start to accumulate power?
For one, remember that we're not instantaneously teleporting from our current world to the world of bolo'bolo. It is a system that will be born from people organizing, navigating disagreements, sealing with external and internal challenges, coming up with customs and rules that suit their unique circumstances etc. it is not an instant nor top down imposition. The whole point is that it's collectively organised. Part of what anarchic systems like bolo'bolo emphasize is that it is not enough to simply be against hierarchies that the power hungry will seek to climb. You must actively, consciously, and continuously organise AGAINST the accumulation and centralization of power. A system like this is not set it and forget it, it will involve ongoing grassroots efforts to ensure that such routes to hierarchical power cannot crystalise. WHAT IS POLITICS, an anarchist anthropologist and TH-camr, has a video on consciously anti-hierarchical organisation, I can't recall which one at the moment, but I intend to do a Livestream q+a this coming week that you can potentially tune in to or check out later on. I'm sure this question and others will come up again on the stream and so my colleagues and I will try to answer it more fully.
The individual is what we have lost and is the power of anarchism. An individual would choose death over slavery. A herd will sacrifice the outliers to preserve themselves. We're at a critical juncture where we have an opportunity to spread the individual spirit. But, the machine is using the same outlets to turn individualism into a product.
I loved this video! I didn't initially get the impression that ibus were solipsistic. They reminded me more of the Mahayana Buddhism perspective of an enlightened being. But I'll have to read the book more closely to determine if that assessment is anywhere close or not.
Fascinating take on bolo'bolo - thanks. I was a founder of Midnight Notes in which sections of bolo'bolo first appeared. I do encourage people to read it, but then also to see how P.M developed some ideas in light of developing ecological catastrophe and the need to lead materially and socially radically different ideas. See for example the short tho complex pamphlet, "'The Power of Neighborhood' and the Commons", also from Autonomedia Press, where he explores the limits to energy use and shows how we can have materially comfortable lives with vastly less energy use in the 'north' yet necessarily more in the 'south' (very rough approximations of geographical spaces in which too much or too little energy is now used). The proposed solutions are in line with the ideas of bolo'bolo.
As a neurodivergent person I'm very worried about depictions of the future that rely on social skills, reputation and ostracization. I have social anxiety, mandatory guests sound like hell
yeah I was considering that too, I found myself thinking about how dependent disabled folks would fit into this world too but it's an interesting concept
This was a phenomenal book to feature! I think it's so important for us to be envisioning better worlds rather than just critiquing this one. This seems to be a theme running through your channel, I notice and appreciate it. Also, the stylistic changes really paid off I think. As for the book itself, I share your perspective in that it seems adventurous and thought provoking but ultimately there are a few things that I'd disagree with. In practice, utopia isn't going to be something that someone writes a book about and then the world copies, but something we need to have conversations and dialogues about as we work toward achieving our collective vision of utopia.
Very thought provoking. I've always believed that borders make no dang sense. And rather, animals' migration routes, and seed dispersal ranges would be much better deciders of boundaries and trade
The one reason I’m not big on anarchism is because of the threat bigger hierarchies have to dominate them. I think there’s a way that states can foster an anarchist ethos all while actually defending themselves from outside and inside hierarchies
as a more or less convinced anarchist, i agree. there are instances where individual autonomy is a more agreeable method than delegation, essentially the inversion of issues we see today. we cannot be dogmatic. the conflict between individual and collective is inevitable. likewise, we cannot favor individual will over the will of the group, or we end up with oppressive structures we struggle with today. tiered levels of cooperation will likely lead to semi-permanent seats for delegates, who may grant themselves power to determine the lives of others. if this is to occur, it is necessary that smaller collectives have the power to rescind, to combat coalescing power.
I have been working on the development of a very similar system, using my worldbuilding as an excuse and a canvas. So this comes at a welcone moment to supplement my own ideas.
I think for the taku people should get at least a whole private bedroom instead of just a box. I want a place to go where I can feel comfortable and safe and private and where people can't just come in and take whatever they want.
I've always wondered why since you never decided to come here, you were expected to do something just to stay alive. Shouldn't food, drink, shelter, and basic necessities be like air: free and available? Then I heard a puzzling phrase: You have to make a "contribution" to society. Somebody made up this thing called "society", and I'm supposed to contribute to it. Why? What even is it? Apparently it's how everything we need gets made, so unless people continue we won't have anything. But most of the stuff it makes I don't need. To get food I have to pay someone else to grow it, and unless I work I can't even pay a single penny. Weirdly, some people just get a lot given to them for no reason. I often wonder what life would be if we were just here. You eat something, then just be. Animals do it. To them the world is made of food. But life has conditioned me so I can't do that, I have to be doing something to keep from going insane. I don't know why. And you have to be part of the Global Work Machine whether you want to or not.
Thing is, getting the food from nature is "doing something". Between that, fixing/improving your shelter and inventing tools/ideas to make your life easier, you would have more than enough to occupy yourself. Then there is art, music, storytelling, being with the people we love, patenting, exploring and enjoying nature... we certainly do not need work to feel busy!
The problem isn't society. Society is the assembly of humans, it's what connects us together. Our problem is work, separate from activity. I suggest reading Gilles Dauvé's works and bookchin's work called "social anarchism or lifestyle anarchism"
I would like to add a little piece to this idea, if I can. Customers and producers can't be divided. The best producers are the most passionate customers, those whose desire for the thing and to make the thing merge. Moreover, this makes it harder for the "producers" to want to exploit the "customers" since they'd end up exploiting themselves.
First of all loved the video absolutely amazing work. Second I’ve had a bit of time to sit on it before coming up with alternative points to add to this. The duel section for one was striking to me because I totally understand what he was going for but you’re right about the blood feuds. I believe that more friendly competitions between factions (those of the specializations like coding, science, sports ect…) can be solved through competition with rule sets that determine the winners agreed upon each side like how most sports are organized or even debates perhaps? This would eliminate the need for unnecessary violence (hopefullly) and still contribute to a more fun way to settle things. There are infinite potentials to solutions to these problems and all of them require immense thought. Even my own solution(s) will have many pitfalls in finding the best way but it might be a matter of time before we finally come together and figure this shit out. Utopias are a seemingly impossible height to climb for humanity to achieve but outright dismissing it is a gravely foolish thing to do. We must work on bettering ourselves and the conditions for our neighbours and for the “other” as well. It might not always feel like it but it will definitely have an impact down the line as a win win for evolving past our selfish and self destructive ways. Alright that’s enough from me I will continue pondering these issues
We will never change until we stop thinking in terms of right and wrong, and start only thinking in terms of what makes sense. With right and wrong we are always divided, with sense, we can hope to find unity.
I have a sneaking suspicion some version of this (bolo'bolo) will in fact exist, perhaps 100 to 300 years from now, in isolated pockets (above and below ground) throughout Earth, after the Great Die-Off. This all has a weird tinge of prophecy to it.
One very direct sort of 'build in place' activity which this thought experiment reminds me of is maybe the sort of fare strike where bus operators continue to drive the same route - but refuse to take money for it. No disruption in service, and everyone gets to ride without paying - building good will and replacing the existing system. I guess one way someone could go further in the direction of this with such an approach would be to remove things like cash registers and cameras that facilitate centralized control and a return to the previous system.
Nice putting it into words. I would and have called the 'Planetary Work Machine' after the demiurge of gnostic lore, our self-made blind god. Ever since I became aware as a child, I've known and felt the sickening wrongness of all that I was told, forced to do, and intended to 'enjoy' or find fulfillment in. Thanks for making this video.
I'm coming to watch this right after I watched the movie Walk of Shame. Idk why but it is seriously like this video is the answer to so many of the worlds' problems. I just want to raise butterflies and fireflies. I just want to ensure our insect populations are diverse and healthy. I want to make sure every pond and lake has plenty of dragonflies to eat mosquitos to reduce mosquito-borne illnesses. I want to raise mealworms to compost polyethylene. I want to do this as a profession, as a lifestyle, as a hobby, as an animal on this planet. It's all I want to do. I'm going to start doing it more seriously this coming year but it's so sad that this isn't a valued skill :( even though it would be so valuable to the planet forever and ever. If we lose fireflies, which we're heading toward, we will be so sorry and humans in the future won't even understand the value of the whimsy that was lost.
Yeah, even aside from the, well, whole existence of the pill as something that should be universal, I feel so unconvinced by how he described the psychology of it? Like, the idea that you wouldn't form deep emotional ties with people and feel bound by those obligations simply because their basic physical needs would always be met by the community seems absolutely buck wild (and not particularly aspirational)
Lots of members in DSA aren't democratic socialists but Marxist or honestly anything but. I've met anarchists, Marxists etc. We are just a big group of people trying to find a way to end capitalism, yes we do the reform stuff, but in a reform AND revolution method, we understand that there will be an opportunity, but we need the masses behind it before we are ready, also I appreciate you content, it's amazing and I love it, can't wait for the next video
What a wonderful idea ‘bolo bolo is! Thanks for introducing and explaining it to us Andrewism. I’m going to get this book by P.M. thanks for the recommendation
I’m in, let’s go. Bolo bolo time. Parallel structures and autonomy. It’s ideal. No suspension of disbelief required here. This is what I’ve wanted for years
Thank you for sharing this! I've been thinking for a long time about how I would represent an alternative possibility for living because I'd taken to heart that utopia should be a verb (I can't remember who had said this but it's captivated me ever since) and that I should dream and think and try to practice it. For me that does in part mean thinking through art and I've been collecting ideas I've wanted to tell as stories together. This video is incredibly helpful in that regard.
I read the book and as there aren't many utopian books/blueprints I found it inspiring at parts but also disturbing/incredibly naive at others: Nugo is a horrible idea - how many people who ever considered suicide are grateful they had a second opporunity to reconsider or to be convinced by other that despite what their current feelings they are actually loved? Bandit-bolos are far too quickly being dismissed - the Mongols (for example) were a bandit-bolos and look at the carnage they left at their wake. Also his understanding of money as a tool to set priorities (and not a tool to retain value) is flawed. But that said, the book did have some interesting ideas and I appreciate the review and would be happy to hear more about similar books. Peace. 🙂
I feel we could start with some semi-isolated communities like Lopinot, Paramin, Toco, Mathura, Rio Claro. They already into agriculture and have their own special culture around parang music, as well as links to the First Nations movement. Paramin and Lopinot still retain the old patois, at least among the old people. Have you had contacts with these villages?
Incredible video, thank you so much. I offer my (free) contribution for providing italian subtitles. I'm a native italian speaker ^^ Let's spread the message and the community!
Sonder is when I love humankind the most, how can people **not** want to empathize & relate to others?? *shrugs* Thank you so much to introducing me to this book! One thing I always had trouble with is if we all lived in big, huge groups like we still do, but this gives me a lot to think about! Small bolos is definitely a step away from that, it seems!
Compelling argument, done as well as can be in 2023. Harks back to days of old when inspirational speakers shouted to all who could hear at crossroads. I wasn't alive when the reformation happened, but this has the energy of the speeches recorded that I've read. Spirituality, Mysticism, and curiosity to totally new ideas. Love it. Can't wait for a Country without land where Anyone can gain citizenship online and see how the world burns in peace.
@@Laezar1 What's not a problem with it? What, you dont grasp how its the less civilized version of onogamy and lesss healthy in general? What, you legit thought 'Polyamoryis rare for NO reason' and 'Monogamys pravalance is a random fluke'? Yikes, if you thought this, i dont even know if i can anwer your question; i wouldnt know where to begin
@@slevinchannel7589 I dunno I'm polyamorous and been doing fine. But there seem to be a lot to unpack with your use of "primitive" and "uncivilized" so I should probably not engage further tbh, I doubt it'll be productive.
This seems like a fun read for sure! I see a lot of intersectionality in these ideas with the principles of Zapatismo and Democratic Confederalism, although through a more Western lense.
Ever since I was young I always dreamt of a world different from reality. Perhaps it was the loneliness of how I experienced life, but happy, sad, conflicted, neutral, empathetic, apathetic, I always had a vision of how I want to live my life, without the current structures that plague us today. I still want that dream, and it's what motivates me to keep my hope and faith for a better future so that I don't have to associate with the current system one bit
Well said. We would be happy to do work that motivates us and fulfills us if we could rest assured that our essential needs are met and we had time to change our minds about things. I hope we're not screwed by the objective mathematics of our species' position on the spectrum of self-destruction--/--self-realization.
Reading this comment makes happy in knowing that we're not alone in that thought
Felt this so deeply. Thanks for sharing your thoughts
Me too. From the age of 10 I started endlessly fantasizing about the end of the world. It seemed the only possible way to have the life I wanted. That's how deeply ingrained the capitalist system was into my mind as a child. I literally thought there was no alternative without an apocalypse.
I love the fact that no matter how hard the system tries to indoctrinate us, there is always a percentage of the population who are born non-conformists and refuse to swallow the myth.
And there's nothing they can do to stop that, it's in the DNA of our species. I believe that has been integral to our development as a species. We have an inbuilt defence mechanism against total conformity.
It was not reality for a reason. It could not be. Humanity is not a fit for heavens.
"... individuals cannot claim control over buildings they do not use."
love that
Yes, they can, but maybe it's smarter not to.
yeah what a concept, hey?
I designed this system with my mom. It feels so good to know that somebody else has also had the same ideas
??
It's so cool that you and your mom think and talk about such things :)
I designed a system very similar to this or William Thompsons idea of a social structure for a school project once. That teacher said it would not work…
@@arturintete2461 Did he give any reasons why, or was it the usual dismissal of anything even slightly optimistic?
@@ajankytoucan The problem isn't that it's optimistic, the problem with all of these ideas is that they're not actually solving anything, they're just reinventing the wheel. If this bolo bolo thing was going to have any chance of doing anything differently from how modern society it would first of all need to include cell division that would prevent any "bolo" from growing too large. And it would need to focus on resources distribution and how it's done. In this model it's just suggesting trade as normal, but it's also saying we don't use money, which makes no sense. If we're going to have trade we're going to need a form of money, beause nobody is going to want to look at an infinitely long list going "1 goat is worth 37 apples or 24 oranges or 78 grams of iron or 1 hand crafted cup, etc for infinity", so of course people are going to just convert the value into a number instead, which is money. And how are the groups of bolo's going to build roads without taxes? Or maintain anything else? So resource distribution is central to building any kind of system like this, something which wasn't mentioned here it all, and it made it all just sound like a very unrealistic utopian fantasy that completely ignores reality. We likely have more than enough resources on Earth to make sure everyone is okay with sugar on top, but if we can't figure out how to distribute it without fighting/dueling over it then we can't solve it. Should a bolo keep everything it produces or should it all go to a central authority that redistributes it? What if one bolo lives on a gold mine while an other bolo lives in a barren desert? Should the desert bolo challenge the gold bolo to mortal combat? And if so, then how is it different from how things already are?
In chapter 14 (Strategies for an alternative nation) of "Permaculture - a designer's manual" by Bill Mollison, nearly fifty pages are dedicated to exploring the social, cultural, political, and financial strategies of how to structure society within bioregional units. It is one of the most comprehensive tools I have seen for building the future. I am curious to learn more about bolo'bolo!
Yes, a fantastic book and a fantastic person.
Sure, a fantastic person, except for the way he founded and promoted permaculture on ideas he learned from the indigenous people and reaped the benefits for himself without giving appropriate credit where it was due.@@ricos1497
This is exactly what I was thinking!
Folks gonna have to suck it up and start learning in the long form.
th-cam.com/video/hZsGToHoHcw/w-d-xo.htmlsi=47h97XGMDNIlnwIX
I ran a comparison of these two books through chatGPT. I am not convinced Bill's book is anticapitalistic and anarchistic enough to not fall into the trappings of the current dystopia we find ourselves in. I could be wrong however.
When I first started dreaming of utopia, I was kind of thinking in this direction, but as my thoughts evolved, I struggled to make such a rigid structure mesh with the freedom I desired. I have been coming more and more to the conclusion that the systems we create need to be more organic and improvised. The principles of welcoming guests and providing for each persons needs though is right on point.
We already have a system for welcoming guest, it's called a tourist visa, and a ton of countries have that agreement with each other. In the description in the video they are allowed to refuse people if there is no more room. So it's basically saying "open borders until we can't support any more people", which is basically how it is now. Yeah, for the most part we don't provide people with free accommodations, but we can buy and rent accommodations pretty much everywhere. And the visa is required to keep track of who is a visitor and who is a permanent resident, otherwise you can just show up and pretend you live there. Something I personally would like, but I can see how it could be problematic for locals that would get their culture deluded if too many show up. Something which is a real problem for tropical paradises or other desirable locations. To me this book makes no sense because it's just using a bunch of made up words to describe how things already are then pretending it's different somehow.
@@daniel4647all words are made up and tourism does much more harm to culture than migrants do
Fully agreed!
@@daniel4647
You seem to be stuck thinking within the structural limitations of some of the institutions put in place by the Machine described in the video, such as money or owning property for the purposes of profit.
Tourism, as it is today, exists purely to serve the purposes of the Machine; those with the privilege of discretionary finances and time use it to escape from the mundanity and misery of life in the Machine. And their destinations are cultivated and dominated by those who would seek to gain from it, rather than the peoples who call those destinations home.
In the world of bolo'bolo, where the Machine has been dismantled, day-to-day existence sees success in our tendencies as social animals turning it into an enriching team effort to help everyone make it rather than a depressing rat race for relative privilege.
Tourism, then, would undergo a radical change and degrowth away from a temporary, expensive (preconceived & profitable!) escape from droll monotony and towards the further enrichment of all peoples involved through the exchange of the materially valuable and the valuably immaterial: goods and ideas.
With no countries between which to obtain visas and require money, the world of bolo'bolo utilizes the most base desire of every human everywhere at any point in time to fulfill every single one of the same. Providing all you are able for your fellow humans, in bolo'bolo, means that you can be guaranteed the same.
Just as everyone wants a place to belong and thrive, everyone assists in cultivating such a place themselves, and until the Machine is dismantled, bolo'bolo will remain fiction and humanity will remain vulnerable to the base impulses of fear and violence, unable to fully belong and thrive and unwilling to afford any others the same.
@@daniel4647 A tourist visa is NOT at ALL what this is talking about lmfao that's such a baffling misunderstanding of how visas work. Most people on earth cannot just get a tourist visa to go anywhere they want, and even if they could they would not be able to afford actually going, which is another thing specifically brought up.
"But we can buy and rent accommodations pretty much anywhere." You either did not watch the video or you did not LISTEN to it, idk what else to tell you.
i love the old windows media player visualizer it brings the whole thing together 😂
glad you like it! i was racking my brain to figure out what visuals would give the vibes I was going for and the nostalgia train just hit me with inspiration.
I’m a software engineer that has been developing my own version of a system like this the past year. I don’t believe in personality cults though so I tend to only share it with friends/family and others I can build solidarity with (and I think that’s how you get around the surveillance problem), that being said I love the idea of these sorts of ideas becoming part of our language so that people can understand better. My hint to anyone reading this comment building their own systems on the technical layer would be to build for yourself an ontology (as in the information science sense). It can be something you share with others and refine as a community through asking questions and collecting data and feedback to build it out more thoroughly. An ontology at a later stage can be used as a tool for building out your actual processes.
:)
My version of this (if I understand your use of the word "ontology") has been to maintain a personal wiki, which I have been doing for the last 22 years.
I think we all need a mental space to clarify our thoughts where we can examine meaning and concepts in depth.
Of course, it does also contain all my technical notes as well, so it has been very practical for me. :)
@@partypooper2591 22 years! I take it that it has been useful to you? A wiki and ontology are similar, but a wiki uses natural language descriptions and links, whereas an ontology uses properties and relations. An ontology has more of an emphasis on strict categorization and is more suitable for handling with automated processes.
You’re describing a cryptocurrency called Trac (origintrail) it is a public knowledge graph or a private one if you wish. It is open and uses hashes to stamp information on nodes to verify the content. It’s being used by many companies already and doesn’t capitalize on information like google or Facebook does since their knowledge graph is private.
Wow! Over 1000 people watched this in the first hour after it was posted. As a long-time participant in Midnight Notes, where Hans' "Bolo-Bolo" first appeared, I am excited to see the renewed interest in that work and in alternative possibilities. Thank you for this!
i have a question for you Steven, my name's Mike. are you aware of how closely this theory gibes with Guatarri and Deleuze Rhizomic model?
it's a full step out away from unity, duality, multiplicity which multiplies the multiplicity so to speak. their "subject" is defined as "...nothing more than a desiring-production!" (Lacan's Real), which encompasses all the ego, super ego and id stuff.
they would replace the word machine with a machinic assemblage of enunciation (you cant put parts from one machine onto a different type of machine and expect either to work).
i know that's super obscure theory to either know or mention but with a little (25pgs) wrestling, they describe the Rhizomic Model vs an Arborescent model (which encompasses all the prior three models) in One Thousand Plateaus ch. 1 Rhizome
yet never have i ever! this is great, i already bookmarked both M-N and O-O :)
It’s a collective awakening since the pandemic
@@amberpalmer3708yes, being told the machine can't stop and then seeing it brought to a halt and seeing many ppls lives get better (ish) lives as a result (pause on evictions, stimulus money, working from home, etc......)
The trauma of the pandemic forced many of us to face grief we've been putting off, and it made us more aware of each other...
I remember once having a kind of epiphany alone in my university dorm room about the world being composed of tiny communities (in my head I called it "micro-communism") of shared values and skills, and who could freely exchange with one another and I spent an hour or so just sitting there thinking about what it would be like. This video reminded me so much of that world I'd dreamed about years ago (of course with a bunch of other stuff too!). So interesting to see others in the comments with similar reactions, funny how ideas seem to spread unknowingly sometimes 🤔😄
I've been following you for a while and love the new format, hope to see more like it! Big up yourself 👊🏻
I don't know if it's similar, but I expressed a not so different sentiment, when my sister asked me how I think world wide communism could be structured. I told her in my mind a world like that wouldn't be rigid. It would be structured kinda like "15min cities" in mind, across the world, with different variations of "communism", which traded resources across the world from one city where it naturally existed, to places in need.
But yeah kinda cool how similar ideas can grow spontaneously no matter how isolated individuals can be from one another, some more structured and more thought out than I layed it out though. That's just the nature of the current or any socioeconomic structure I guess, certain individuals are just fated to arrive at certain ideas that can lay the groundwork for the next system. Hopefully some day humanity will have something better.
I respect and honour PM's honesty in his writing. It's wild, it's crazy, and like any idea that involves multiple people, it needs refining with others' input and perspective of how they'd like to live in a better world, but it's a great starting point. And I hope many see your video, or come across bolo bolo anyhow and then look more into his idea. Your video boosts my hope
I agree completely. And thank you!
If you really believe we are evolved primates, then you realise everything is belief, every influence evolution, and we are products of our environment. If this is true, then money, advertising, debt has changed us as a species. There is one human race and everything else is variation.
Out of all the energy we use, electricity is 20%, we could do so much more by using so much less, but we have to keep using so many barrels of stored energy, to maintain loans that are generated our of thin air, based on debt that might all be worthless during the next 100 years.
Why not make the sure the world has shelter, food and medical care, we could do that using around 10% of the population on a rotating basis. If we just concentrated on this and didn't have to pay back debt generated with a 3333% return, we could lower emissions immediately and at least by half.
Thank you. I don't think I'll be able to dive deep into the world of bolo'bolo, but I am better off for having walked, however briefly, through its paths with you as a guide.
Having the words to describe what I feel day-to-day is so helpful. Thank you as always, your knowledge does not go unnoticed
Thank you very much!
Really like the idea of breaking down societal organization into, essentially, hobbyist groups.
This is by far my favourite video you've made! (Library economies was before)
Ive spent quite a few years talking with many peoples slowly constructing a world myself, and honestly the fact that so many concepts between my thoughts and bolo-bolo are similar, but also differences I never considered, it makes me so happy to see such imagination! I think being able to discuss and imagine these better futures and seriously considering different ways to get there is absolutely fantastic.
Im definitely going to do a deep dive into this book, thank you so so much for introducing it to me!
This video hit different. Phenomenal project Andrew! Skillful editing, and what to say about the content? Honestly imo your best work yet!
Wow, thank you! I'm really proud of it as well.
Definitely downloading the PDF of this one. Don't know when I'll be able to actually read it, but having it on my computer will make it a lot easier when I do get the chance. As game developer, amateur writer and inexperienced DM, I'm very interested in fiction worldbuilding, especially of anarchistic societies, and you have definitely piqued my intrigue.
I'm learning to become a DM myself, and I would love to run a campaign set in the world of bolo'bolo.
As an extremely inexperienced DMer myself, I need a little help with the term DM! Can one of you enlighten me as to what it stands for? Thanks.
I believe they are referring to being a Dungeon Master. They help describe and navigate fictional game worlds(simplified version)
@@TheKingWhoWins thanks! I don't think I'd have ever worked that out!
@@ricos1497 GM (game master) is another term you may hear for the same thing. Other ttrpgs will have their own label on what they call it, like Call of Cthulu will call DM "the Keeper of Arcane Lore". But GM and DM are more universal terms.
Happy new year in advance andrew
Happy every year you will have, in advance.
Andrew, this is AMAZING. I'm so glad Elliot Sang sent me here, such an eye opening and expansive look into something I could have never fathomed. Take care friend!
New year ain't here yet and Drew already tryna give us an existential crisis again with that intro.
I like how this sort of conlang follows a very simple syllable structure, similar to Japanese, Swahili or Polynesian languages.
I guess it's made that way so that it can be accessed by people of many cultures and languages, like the conlang Toki Pona.
The tiered structures at 30:35 reminds me A LOT of Stafford Beer's theories of "intelligent systems". He created something of his own version and called it the "Viable System Model". He described it in fairly neutral terms, as more of a tool instead of an ideal (in that such a corporation or state can use it) but his theories were experimented with by "non-soviet" socialists in Chile during President Allende's tenure, and pop up every once in awhile in anarchist and communist circles.
Those all were snuffed out by the US very quickly.
I love the thoughtful way you incorporate art into this. The ideas you present are inspiring, as is this book you present.
I've got to admit your criticisms are definitely valid especially regarding the bias towards solipsism, as regardless of if it is true, it is ultimately a selfish egotistical take, because - what if you're wrong?
Also, I would argue that if we want to equate medical issues with bolo'bolo I would say rather than a cancer that mutates and deforms, killing indiscriminately, we ought to think of it more like an autoimmune disorder. Specifically subverting the already in place systems so that the system tears itself apart.
my thing is that I don't think belief in solipsism **guarantees** that a person will behave selfishly, but the correlation is certainly there in my anecdotal experience. Another commenter related the ibu to the Atman, a concept in various strands of Indian philosophy, and I think that interpretation of it may be a lot healthier, socially speaking, than the version of ibu that Widmer presents.
Also, that's a much stronger analogy, thank you!
@@Andrewism yes I was a bit too broad in my hyperbolic judgement of solipsism.
Also, I'll have to look into that! thanks for the tip, and thanks for always creating such absolutely riveting and diverse ideas that I truly don't see discussed much elsewhere! 💖 Your channel has really expounded on just how vast these philosophical topics are, and just how small my scope had been before I actively began seeking it out.
I just went from C to B, and it's better than it could be because I'm an anarchist, imo. I'm not buying in, i don't believe the bullshit about the morality of my position or anything like that. I'm literally just exchanging my time for a wage. I wish I'd had someone honest and knowledgeable to explain this relationship to me when i was younger, i wouldn't have experienced so much stress trying to make sense out of the absurd and capricious reality of wage labor. I'm at peace with this bargain I'm being forced to make, and I'm intending to use this new freedom of movement to acquire land and teach people to grow their own food and give food away for free, maybe open a radical infoshop. I'll never be rich and I'll never personally escape the prison of wage labor, but I'm secure enough that i can help educate and organize with my community and maybe make things better for the people who come after me.
i love your work so much and now i got a new book to enjoy aaa
Have fun, the book really gets into some of the weeds of potential. And thank you!
This is the first idea for a post-capitalist society I’ve come across that actually seems like it would work. Many thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Read more, do more reasrch about Civilization. Its the Holocuast Machine, so long as war machines exist, somlong as the millitaru exists, as monocultres exists, as mines exist, then its annhilating all organic life.
When I hear how long it's been since people began to see the hole humanity was falling deeper and deeper into, I feel rage and upset because it's been so long, yet few people listened? No body really though 'hey, what if they're making some sense' and tried to look at other perspectives?
But I also know how large and diverse humanity is, and I just go silent when I realise trying to rally up a class of 20 kids is hard enough, talkless of a whole country and those around it when you may not even speak the same language
It honestly diminishes my hope attimes, and I feel tempted to look away and care on with ignorance. But I feel and know that won't help either, so I'm trying to still keep hope
Socialists, however misguided, help spread anarchist ideas. They talk about how wars are waged for profit and how the employer class have unfair leverage over the working class. True Anarchism is a type of socialism.
I'd say things are getting better in this regard. You're right, it is slow and grueling and at times it feels hopeless.
But ultimately the tide is turning, and you may be surprised to know that when it comes to social movements, a study was released recently that says we just need a consensus among 25% of a population to tip the scales to the point that a change becomes inevitable.
Being in that first 24.9% is scary and tough and exhausting and thankless, but once we hit critical mass, we will be unstoppable.
This is natural. You’re certainly not the only one.
Personally, I find that seeking out people, communities, and organizations who are working hard to change things helps me to feel better. I also try to do some helpful things myself.
Hang in there. As much as there is to be worried about, there is also a lot to hope for. ❤
Love the material and ideas you share. Can’t thank you enough for the thoughts and ideas that come forth while interacting with what comes up. This ibi benefits. Thank you.
In a perfect world, in just 5 days we could all come together to create an imperfect world.
Truly inspiring!
The more I try to build a project based in a renewal of third places and reappreciation of manual crafts with a de-emphasis on the rotten bulwark that is marketing 101 through a more reciprocate use of technology within Mexico City, the more I realize people are either, justifiably afraid of losing what little they have or perhaps, way too comfortable with what Lacan describes as Death Drive...
I wish for solarpunk and a better world, but it's close to impossible to adapt Andrewism's ideas to my neighbourhood, I seriously wish for the chance to try this anywhere else rather than aimlessly flop like a grashopper in a cuckoo's nest and a bit of help from the solarpunk community may help a lot!
I understand your frustration, it can often feel like the people around us aren't seeing what we're seeing or not mustering the same passionate drive for change that we have, but I hope you can connect with at least one other person in your area who's willing to pursue our vision for something different, even if it starts on a very, very small scale.
@@Andrewism
I'm rather desperate here, since even at the university where I intended to begin, a continuous shift in the community board and overall disinterest from the laboral unions & administrative heads push back on it.
It really feels like a dead end against the bigger issues, which just dwarf anything out existence!
Which is the reason why I ask for help from the Solarpunk community on a larger scale and would deeply appreciate your help in a bit of guidance or connection towards people you trust, please...
I wouldn't be able to help much as I don't know the details of your personal situation, but perhaps you can discuss this challenge with others on my discord and figure it out collaboratively: discord.gg/jkAyqF6BMY
@@Andrewism
I appreciate this opportunity, thank you for lending me another sphere to interact with!
The Ibu sounds suspiciously like the tormented child of Omelas. Perhaps the "Utopia is not an option" crowd has even the most optimistic among us convinced that "there's got to be a catch." I guess the hardest thing to imagine is society without sacrifice zones. So we receive an irony-poisoned blueprint.
Even if I didn’t love your ideas and analysis I’d be here for your incredible voice.
loved the video. you really let your creativity flow with this one and I can tell how much you enjoyed it 💜
The 3 dyspo's would be an amazing occurrence to happened for countries in the third world like me and a buddy both Nigerians (even tho he was living there till this year and I wasn't) discussed what Nigeria needs i took a more radical approach and he said how would you organize people that have not been feed and have to live paycheck to paycheck he eventually asked me what would i do if my boss paid me less money then what is promised ( which is the case alot of times in Nigeria) he said you can't report to anybody so i said I'd do the barest minimum to not get fired then he said what if he doesn't pay you at all I said I'd quit because what would be the point of working there and he said that's true so that's one of the three dypos i forgot which one but you've really given a new perspective and i thank you for that
Despite the ocean that separates us, I believe Trinidad and Nigeria are facing some similar issues as former British colonies and I would love to see both of our homes freed from the mentalities, practices, and systems that have caused us so much suffering. Solidarity forever🙏🏽
It's the DUTY of all workers to do NO MORE than they get paid for. Anything more only encourages exploitation.
And, of course, what I really mean, is doing as little as you can get away with. :)
Productivity, my Farse! If they want it better, or faster, let them buy a robot!
Probably not the only one who hadn't heard of bolo'bolo. Interesting concepts and "rules" - maybe principles is a better word for it. Being born into a family that were C workers and being a A/B worker, it has felt like the hunger games and this video cements that feeling. I like most of the principles for the bolo'bolo. As people and places transition to something like this, I wonder, what happens to them in their early phase isolation, surrounded by existing machine? And what technical and technological understanding would be required to support such a transition without losing powerful tools (and the means to achieve them) as such as the internet, mobile/cell phones (and networks) and more unique projects like the ISS?
This sounds like a huge shortcut for creating revolutionary theatrical experiences. Thanks for another great video!
This is blowing my mind, which is to say activating my imagination and amplifying my desire for community and its solutions. I'm truly looking forward to the dysco. See you all there. There's so much food for thought and room in what you're presenting here. Thanks for bring this forth in such a thoughtful and useful manner. I see myself revisiting this quite often.
Thanks for everything Andrew! I appreciate it!
One question that immediately comes to mind is - who is enforcing this global set of customs and rules? How will the system deal with the free thinkers and radicals who will inevitably disagree with it's moral codes?
Looking at human history, I assume there will always be a certain percentage of psycopaths, sociopaths and narcissists etc. These people will surreptitiously accumulate power and influence, as they always do. Then it is only a matter of time before they secure power over an entire region and are able to invade and colonise other regions.
Basically, systems like bolu bolu may well have existed all over the world in the deep past. But they have almost all been violently colonised and replaced with capitalism. So how do we avoid just making the same mistakes all over again? How do we make sure we can stop the despots before they even start to accumulate power?
For one, remember that we're not instantaneously teleporting from our current world to the world of bolo'bolo. It is a system that will be born from people organizing, navigating disagreements, sealing with external and internal challenges, coming up with customs and rules that suit their unique circumstances etc. it is not an instant nor top down imposition. The whole point is that it's collectively organised.
Part of what anarchic systems like bolo'bolo emphasize is that it is not enough to simply be against hierarchies that the power hungry will seek to climb. You must actively, consciously, and continuously organise AGAINST the accumulation and centralization of power. A system like this is not set it and forget it, it will involve ongoing grassroots efforts to ensure that such routes to hierarchical power cannot crystalise. WHAT IS POLITICS, an anarchist anthropologist and TH-camr, has a video on consciously anti-hierarchical organisation, I can't recall which one at the moment, but I intend to do a Livestream q+a this coming week that you can potentially tune in to or check out later on. I'm sure this question and others will come up again on the stream and so my colleagues and I will try to answer it more fully.
@@Andrewism thanks for replying! I really enjoyed the video and it is a fascinating idea. Look forward to the Q&A!
The individual is what we have lost and is the power of anarchism. An individual would choose death over slavery. A herd will sacrifice the outliers to preserve themselves. We're at a critical juncture where we have an opportunity to spread the individual spirit. But, the machine is using the same outlets to turn individualism into a product.
I loved this video! I didn't initially get the impression that ibus were solipsistic. They reminded me more of the Mahayana Buddhism perspective of an enlightened being. But I'll have to read the book more closely to determine if that assessment is anywhere close or not.
Fascinating take on bolo'bolo - thanks. I was a founder of Midnight Notes in which sections of bolo'bolo first appeared. I do encourage people to read it, but then also to see how P.M developed some ideas in light of developing ecological catastrophe and the need to lead materially and socially radically different ideas. See for example the short tho complex pamphlet, "'The Power of Neighborhood' and the Commons", also from Autonomedia Press, where he explores the limits to energy use and shows how we can have materially comfortable lives with vastly less energy use in the 'north' yet necessarily more in the 'south' (very rough approximations of geographical spaces in which too much or too little energy is now used). The proposed solutions are in line with the ideas of bolo'bolo.
This is the best video I've seen on the internet in a long, long time.
As a neurodivergent person I'm very worried about depictions of the future that rely on social skills, reputation and ostracization. I have social anxiety, mandatory guests sound like hell
Yeah a lot of this is frightening to me too.
yeah I was considering that too, I found myself thinking about how dependent disabled folks would fit into this world too but it's an interesting concept
This was a phenomenal book to feature! I think it's so important for us to be envisioning better worlds rather than just critiquing this one. This seems to be a theme running through your channel, I notice and appreciate it. Also, the stylistic changes really paid off I think. As for the book itself, I share your perspective in that it seems adventurous and thought provoking but ultimately there are a few things that I'd disagree with. In practice, utopia isn't going to be something that someone writes a book about and then the world copies, but something we need to have conversations and dialogues about as we work toward achieving our collective vision of utopia.
Will need to take inspiration from this for a D&D setting.
Love the lingo involved here. Especially calling it "Dysco" is just brilliant.
Very thought provoking. I've always believed that borders make no dang sense. And rather, animals' migration routes, and seed dispersal ranges would be much better deciders of boundaries and trade
I Absolutely Have Ideas Right Now Thanks To Bolo Bolo
This is a very important video, and great inspiration as well. Thank you
so much of this feels so natural and right, but yeah definitely a few things that feel weird to me. definitely an interesting topic to learn about!
As usual, incredible video! Love the animations and everything
Fantastic video!
I don't have time to watch now but I wanted to like and leave a comment for sake of the Algorithm.
Outstanding video my friend.
The one reason I’m not big on anarchism is because of the threat bigger hierarchies have to dominate them. I think there’s a way that states can foster an anarchist ethos all while actually defending themselves from outside and inside hierarchies
as a more or less convinced anarchist, i agree. there are instances where individual autonomy is a more agreeable method than delegation, essentially the inversion of issues we see today.
we cannot be dogmatic. the conflict between individual and collective is inevitable. likewise, we cannot favor individual will over the will of the group, or we end up with oppressive structures we struggle with today.
tiered levels of cooperation will likely lead to semi-permanent seats for delegates, who may grant themselves power to determine the lives of others. if this is to occur, it is necessary that smaller collectives have the power to rescind, to combat coalescing power.
Thought provoking and insightful. Your videos never disappoint. Thank you!
Loved this video, cheers from uruguay.
I have been working on the development of a very similar system, using my worldbuilding as an excuse and a canvas. So this comes at a welcone moment to supplement my own ideas.
Same.
I think for the taku people should get at least a whole private bedroom instead of just a box. I want a place to go where I can feel comfortable and safe and private and where people can't just come in and take whatever they want.
Really cool ! Thanks!
It's good to know I am not the only one to think like this, sincere thanks to everyone here and Andrewism.
I've always wondered why since you never decided to come here, you were expected to do something just to stay alive.
Shouldn't food, drink, shelter, and basic necessities be like air: free and available?
Then I heard a puzzling phrase: You have to make a "contribution" to society.
Somebody made up this thing called "society", and I'm supposed to contribute to it.
Why? What even is it?
Apparently it's how everything we need gets made, so unless people continue we won't have anything.
But most of the stuff it makes I don't need.
To get food I have to pay someone else to grow it, and unless I work I can't even pay a single penny.
Weirdly, some people just get a lot given to them for no reason.
I often wonder what life would be if we were just here.
You eat something, then just be.
Animals do it. To them the world is made of food.
But life has conditioned me so I can't do that, I have to be doing something to keep from going insane.
I don't know why.
And you have to be part of the Global Work Machine whether you want to or not.
Thing is, getting the food from nature is "doing something". Between that, fixing/improving your shelter and inventing tools/ideas to make your life easier, you would have more than enough to occupy yourself. Then there is art, music, storytelling, being with the people we love, patenting, exploring and enjoying nature... we certainly do not need work to feel busy!
The problem isn't society. Society is the assembly of humans, it's what connects us together. Our problem is work, separate from activity.
I suggest reading Gilles Dauvé's works and bookchin's work called "social anarchism or lifestyle anarchism"
I would like to add a little piece to this idea, if I can. Customers and producers can't be divided. The best producers are the most passionate customers, those whose desire for the thing and to make the thing merge. Moreover, this makes it harder for the "producers" to want to exploit the "customers" since they'd end up exploiting themselves.
This was brilliant!
First of all loved the video absolutely amazing work. Second I’ve had a bit of time to sit on it before coming up with alternative points to add to this.
The duel section for one was striking to me because I totally understand what he was going for but you’re right about the blood feuds. I believe that more friendly competitions between factions (those of the specializations like coding, science, sports ect…) can be solved through competition with rule sets that determine the winners agreed upon each side like how most sports are organized or even debates perhaps? This would eliminate the need for unnecessary violence (hopefullly) and still contribute to a more fun way to settle things.
There are infinite potentials to solutions to these problems and all of them require immense thought. Even my own solution(s) will have many pitfalls in finding the best way but it might be a matter of time before we finally come together and figure this shit out. Utopias are a seemingly impossible height to climb for humanity to achieve but outright dismissing it is a gravely foolish thing to do. We must work on bettering ourselves and the conditions for our neighbours and for the “other” as well. It might not always feel like it but it will definitely have an impact down the line as a win win for evolving past our selfish and self destructive ways.
Alright that’s enough from me I will continue pondering these issues
this channel keeps me steady
We will never change until we stop thinking in terms of right and wrong, and start only thinking in terms of what makes sense. With right and wrong we are always divided, with sense, we can hope to find unity.
I have a sneaking suspicion some version of this (bolo'bolo) will in fact exist, perhaps 100 to 300 years from now, in isolated pockets (above and below ground) throughout Earth, after the Great Die-Off. This all has a weird tinge of prophecy to it.
Very interesting stuff
One very direct sort of 'build in place' activity which this thought experiment reminds me of is maybe the sort of fare strike where bus operators continue to drive the same route - but refuse to take money for it. No disruption in service, and everyone gets to ride without paying - building good will and replacing the existing system. I guess one way someone could go further in the direction of this with such an approach would be to remove things like cash registers and cameras that facilitate centralized control and a return to the previous system.
what a beautiful concept
Nice putting it into words. I would and have called the 'Planetary Work Machine' after the demiurge of gnostic lore, our self-made blind god. Ever since I became aware as a child, I've known and felt the sickening wrongness of all that I was told, forced to do, and intended to 'enjoy' or find fulfillment in. Thanks for making this video.
I'm coming to watch this right after I watched the movie Walk of Shame. Idk why but it is seriously like this video is the answer to so many of the worlds' problems. I just want to raise butterflies and fireflies. I just want to ensure our insect populations are diverse and healthy. I want to make sure every pond and lake has plenty of dragonflies to eat mosquitos to reduce mosquito-borne illnesses. I want to raise mealworms to compost polyethylene. I want to do this as a profession, as a lifestyle, as a hobby, as an animal on this planet. It's all I want to do. I'm going to start doing it more seriously this coming year but it's so sad that this isn't a valued skill :( even though it would be so valuable to the planet forever and ever. If we lose fireflies, which we're heading toward, we will be so sorry and humans in the future won't even understand the value of the whimsy that was lost.
Yeah, even aside from the, well, whole existence of the pill as something that should be universal, I feel so unconvinced by how he described the psychology of it? Like, the idea that you wouldn't form deep emotional ties with people and feel bound by those obligations simply because their basic physical needs would always be met by the community seems absolutely buck wild (and not particularly aspirational)
top tier vid youre quickly sailing directly to the top of my must watch creators
Lots of members in DSA aren't democratic socialists but Marxist or honestly anything but. I've met anarchists, Marxists etc. We are just a big group of people trying to find a way to end capitalism, yes we do the reform stuff, but in a reform AND revolution method, we understand that there will be an opportunity, but we need the masses behind it before we are ready, also I appreciate you content, it's amazing and I love it, can't wait for the next video
What a wonderful idea ‘bolo bolo is! Thanks for introducing and explaining it to us Andrewism. I’m going to get this book by P.M. thanks for the recommendation
I’m in, let’s go. Bolo bolo time. Parallel structures and autonomy. It’s ideal. No suspension of disbelief required here. This is what I’ve wanted for years
Quality of life has been sacrificed for the quantity of things
That's a quote I'm stealing. Perfect description.
Thank you for sharing this! I've been thinking for a long time about how I would represent an alternative possibility for living because I'd taken to heart that utopia should be a verb (I can't remember who had said this but it's captivated me ever since) and that I should dream and think and try to practice it. For me that does in part mean thinking through art and I've been collecting ideas I've wanted to tell as stories together. This video is incredibly helpful in that regard.
i always love your videos but is also love the art your use to make a point
Great video!! Thank you for you hard work! 🙏
Me giggling and repeating 'DUDI' at the exact same time had me crack up 😂
I loved this so much, I’ve watched it thrice
Update I have watched this 5 times
We have really went all in on a 1980s distopia
I read the book and as there aren't many utopian books/blueprints I found it inspiring at parts but also disturbing/incredibly naive at others: Nugo is a horrible idea - how many people who ever considered suicide are grateful they had a second opporunity to reconsider or to be convinced by other that despite what their current feelings they are actually loved? Bandit-bolos are far too quickly being dismissed - the Mongols (for example) were a bandit-bolos and look at the carnage they left at their wake. Also his understanding of money as a tool to set priorities (and not a tool to retain value) is flawed. But that said, the book did have some interesting ideas and I appreciate the review and would be happy to hear more about similar books. Peace. 🙂
Engagement for the engagement god!
I feel we could start with some semi-isolated communities like Lopinot, Paramin, Toco, Mathura, Rio Claro.
They already into agriculture and have their own special culture around parang music, as well as links to the First Nations movement. Paramin and Lopinot still retain the old patois, at least among the old people.
Have you had contacts with these villages?
Incredible video, thank you so much. I offer my (free) contribution for providing italian subtitles. I'm a native italian speaker ^^ Let's spread the message and the community!
You're really sweet Andrew. More than that. I hope to read you the story sometime.
This is astonishingly close to a system I have been imagining for years
Sonder is when I love humankind the most, how can people **not** want to empathize & relate to others?? *shrugs* Thank you so much to introducing me to this book! One thing I always had trouble with is if we all lived in big, huge groups like we still do, but this gives me a lot to think about! Small bolos is definitely a step away from that, it seems!
Compelling argument, done as well as can be in 2023. Harks back to days of old when inspirational speakers shouted to all who could hear at crossroads. I wasn't alive when the reformation happened, but this has the energy of the speeches recorded that I've read. Spirituality, Mysticism, and curiosity to totally new ideas. Love it. Can't wait for a Country without land where Anyone can gain citizenship online and see how the world burns in peace.
Amazing truly!
This is a university course! Interesting concepts, and the level of self-governance seems practical…fascinating
19:15: Ugh, Polycules. Primitive s-it that humanity should overcome even more than it should overcome Capitalism
@@slevinchannel7589 what's the problem with polycules?
@@Laezar1 What's not a problem with it? What, you dont grasp how its the less civilized version of onogamy and lesss healthy in general?
What, you legit thought 'Polyamoryis rare for NO reason' and 'Monogamys pravalance is a random fluke'?
Yikes, if you thought this, i dont even know if i can anwer your question; i wouldnt know where to begin
@@slevinchannel7589 I dunno I'm polyamorous and been doing fine.
But there seem to be a lot to unpack with your use of "primitive" and "uncivilized" so I should probably not engage further tbh, I doubt it'll be productive.
This seems like a fun read for sure! I see a lot of intersectionality in these ideas with the principles of Zapatismo and Democratic Confederalism, although through a more Western lense.
Madness and Badness combination sound like a soca intro. This was a really fun thought experiment.
Just seeing this and love it... Reminds me of the Becky Chambers book, A Psalm for the wild built.
This is brilliant. Thanks for making this!
It's time to deconstruct and destroy the Planetary Megamachine!
Thumbs up for the story telling