So you rebuilding the railroad? A lot of small towns only existed because of the railroad. Now some of them only exist because of the interstate.
A lot of towns are rotting because there’s no real reason for them to exist anymore, and for some of them there wasn’t a real reason besides a truck stop for them to have existed in the first place.
Perhaps we should look into kick starting and crowdfunding solar punk technocratic communes in rural middle america.
Not to poo poo your fantasy or whatever, but this sounds like every tech bro’s “build an island country” when they get their first billion.
Most cities weren’t built where they were purely by chance or coincidence. Infrastructure is hard and complicated to build, and relies on natural resources being somewhat available locally in most cases.
Even if you manage to build it, there’s no guarantee they will come.
This is the efficient resource allocation, organization of labor, and innovation for which capitalism was created and a real-life example of why government should never interfere in its miraculous operation.
DISCLAIMER: This is a complete tangent from comments on the original post, but the original post is likely garbage anyway so I’ll just go with it.
I don’t know why people think that creating a copy-cat version of Reddit with “federation” will do much of anything to solve the problems with online “communities”.
The problem with Reddit may have been partially the for-profit corporate part, or the admins, etc but it was definitely not exclusively those things.
Every single online “community” that has popped up since Web 2.0 has versions of the exact same problems. Maybe they’re difficult to solve inherently, but I am not sure because it seems like everyone just creates the same site structure and I think at least some of it has to do with the structure.
Is there anyone trying to not make the next Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or Reddit? Someone that’s trying to actually make something different? Like something useful or with a fundamentally better moderation model? Because if so maybe I should waste my time on that instead of these copycat platforms.
It’s not just “they’re bots” or “they’re Russians” either…because Nextdoor has a pretty stringent verification policy, is based around localities, and it’s still essentially Facebook for NIMBYs.
The basic paradox is that you’re better off with more miserable people who barely want to live than with less people who enjoy their lives a tiny bit more than that.
I ultimately think it’s a load of bunk, but that’s the supposed paradox.
It’s worth pointing out that the two opposing countries / nations / city states in this cartoon would have to have similar governments with similar charters, and similar selection processes for their representatives.
It is lunacy to say things like “Obummer was a dictator!” when he was selected twice by people voting, and then peaceably left the office after his two terms completely in line with the Constitution.
Now can you say the same thing about, for instance, Putin?