Creating society for unified action

The most logical way of acting and organising oneself as an intelligent and creative being seems to be through creating connections and a network to exchange ideas, information, and resources as well as engage in mutually beneficial projects together.

My partner and I have therefore created Wäderby Orchard to facilitate both this society as well as begin by establishing an agricultural base which can be contributed to by further start-ups and business projects to expand our resources.

According to your political philosophy, would you have other people (particularly those on this forum) live in some way that was different than they do now? How and why?

Resources for what? Buying land?

Return. To Walden or, the sixties revisited.

One could exchange money as a resource to buy land or things such as tools, or whatever would be mutually necessary or beneficial to people who were allied. I personally wish to spread what are called forest gardens. That means that for me, I would see it as a benefit if others had forest gardens. It is not necessarily in my power to purchase everyone lands with houses and forest gardens outright, nor to give all the aid needed to cultivate one’s land, harvest, store, or even give means for exchange. But I would like to band together with others to aid them in acquiring forest gardens.

Forest gardens are, of course, not the only thing I believe to be important. But with forest gardens one could have wood to build houses. If someone worked in a metal-working industry, I would see their needs as being different but not opposed or misaligned with my own, as gardening requires tools and metal-workers require homes and food. I hope this was an adequate introduction to what I mean.

Certain others may have even more farther removed needs and goals. Some might be able to be unified within the society, some might be opposed to the society. Our goal would be to find those who could unify their actions. I can give an example - I like to do art, and I could use my art to make posters. While those posters could be seen as mere propaganda (and there would be some truth to that) they would also be means of allowing people who did not know about us to learn of our existence for the first time… and so, though my interest is in forest gardening, I could expand potential allies to include artists, various tradesmen, engineers, and of course philosophers, as we would want to continue to work on and refine our system of collaborative action.

  • How would this network be governed? - How would decisions concerning the participants be made?
  • How would resources be distributed?
  • How would it be defended - protected from aggression?
  • How would it be protected from corruption?

The network would be governed on the basis of participatory and collaborative democracy. So you define your own contribution (more or less like a forum).

Right now, my thought is that the network would help facilitate trade among those with mutually compatible interests as well as joint/collaborative projects which are mutually beneficial.

I’m not really sure what defense you think we would need. This is a society which would exist immediately within current relations. If we were collaborating and you needed protection, I would ask what kind of protection you need. We would have to collaboratively protect ourselves.

It depends what you mean by corruption. Because (hypothetically) we are talking about you and I (as an example). What corruption would we engage relative to one another? You wouldn’t have to redistribute your resources in any way. You could maintain them. You would choose when and if you wanted to exchange or collaborate with me. Among other things, our network could also facilitate its own growth in the case that you did not feel like you and I in particular had something to exchange or collaborate over, we might have a mutual interest in expanding our network so that we can have new friends and contacts to discuss and collaborate with.

Also, the reason I wish to discuss with philosophers (especially on a collaborative project) is so that the practices of the network could also be collaboratively built upon rather than dictated from above (I suppose in this project ‘above’ would be by me). Hope that helps!

You haven’t mentioned what country you are intending for this project? Different strategies work in different countries - and only last as long as that country’s government allows. If you are in the US, things are changing very rapidly and any scheme you imagine might be hard to maintain.

I think how decisions are made is highly critical when it comes to ensuring the longevity of a group - constitutional, communistic, socialist, capitalistic, democratic - a combination - something else maybe?

I am about to get into a deep analysis of another society project that someone proposed on this board. It involves a constitution for small groups with networking for connectivity, expansion, security, and maximal liberty - yours reminded me of it.

In this interconnected world, my plan is to make this network extend internationally. I am currently in Sweden. If we had a member of a network who was in another country and could aid them in some way, I would not see a problem with that. If a government does not allow something which is perfectly reasonable then we could still contribute in many others ways to aid that person and not simple allow them to be swallowed by their fate.

I am not exactly sure which decisions you (or the group) are deciding to make. I feel that I am already ready to collaborate and exchange with others and those who feel likewise may find allegiance with me.

It is interesting that there is another group wishing to create a network. It does sound like they may have good ideas.

For a group to maintain (be “anentropic”) it must have a framework. In Sight of SAM, I Am - is a thread written by an analytical reductionist philosopher (very much into “why” concerning everything - including governance). He isn’t on this board any more (an American). I study/analyze his writings. I have been intending to get around to his “Constitution of Rational Harmony” and “Angel Network” concepts to see how realistic they are. So far I have just made a cursory review. You might want to give it a quick read just to see what I mean by a “framework” and “decision-making”.

Sure, I’ll look into the framework, but my own position is similar to an organicist position. Very briefly put, I believe that these things will grow up organically. An example would be English common law, which you write down and codify through praxis. I also have a number of group strategies. You can find them through this forum post. It is an external forum which in turn takes you to blog posts. I’m not sure if that is allowed. I will be willing to explain my positions on this website, but since there is a lot of work already done it is easiest to refer to these collective posts: https://waderbyorchard.freeforums.net/thread/6/intellectual-society

You might also need this link - Constitution of Rational Harmony- I don’t know why James didn’t include that in his thread (and why he didn’t make more threads on relevant topics). And it gets discussed in the latter part of this thread - New Forms of Government.

I took just a really short look into your link - obviously it takes a lot more to examine your thoughts. My first reaction is a concern for the architecture of the organization - “organicist” bothers me. What naturally grows without forethought - naturally gets destroyed without forethought. :smiley:

From which source does the forethought arise? It seems like you want to make a criticism of how I’ve organized my notes. You can if you wish. Humans are organic creatures. Our forethought is based on instinctive needs as well as our ability to store information both through memory and artefactually and use that information to create and learn new forms.

That I have created a blog format as well as a forum, I do not think, shows a lack of organization.

I do not think that this idea of a constitution aligns with my own. I imagine people who would want to associate with us would feel more religiously. They would feel like they could put down all that is dear to their survival and life and thriving, and such a document would speak about all the universe and with us they could seek and preserve what they cherish.

For us, that is our relation to nature and the universe. Our relation is both physical as well spiritual. I have written a little more in the recent What is Wäderby Orchard thread.

And, so, what exactly does Wäderby Orchard do?

Wäderby Orchard is the project created by my girlfriend and I. Wäderby Orchard is our own workplace and projects and we will be offering services to physically plant forest gardens and teach the methods to maintain it locally. We will join our network with tradesmen of various kinds, but particularly those connected to construction and agriculture. We are also working on our own forest garden which will provide fruits, vegetables, spices, and other useful plants and wood as well as contributing to biological diversity and clean environmental practices. (I speak a little more about this aspect here: https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=197275

We would also like to spread the forest garden so that people have access to these own resources personally. We can do that through various ventures. One is through services and various outreach programs that would either be performed by us or any else in local movements. We make art and write philosophy both as a passion and also in contribution to help the advertising and marketing of our ventures.

Along with that, we are hosting the platform which we intend to keep forever free of charge where you can host your own content as well as find others to network with both locally and internationally.

We also want to create a new form of educational facility based on personal research, guidance, and practical application of skills. Ultimately, we would like to connect this education to our networks of forest gardens as well as trades, such as mining and production.

At this point, we both work with agriculture and desire to crowd-fund our project rather than going, for example, to a bank. To take a bank loan is to accept certain conditions of the marketplace. The reason we are speaking with philosophers in particular is because we wish to have direct communication with our associates, to collaboratively contribute towards our future in a mode of mutual harmony which is accountable to you personally. If we make ventures as an organisation, we could be fallible, but if we are engaging collaboratively and with participation together towards mutual goals then we may cease to be impersonal institutions towards one another but rather humans seeking our best way of life.

This sounds very interesting, since I’ve often felt drawn to the idea of living outside in nature, in a forest, for example. I’m not quite sure what it is you’re trying to set up though, as there appear to be a lot of different ideas involved. As I understand it, you don’t currently have a tract of land, but are trying to raise funds, is that right? And you’re based in Sweden?

It is rare in the Uk by in my town we have a community orchard. It has been planted with plumbs, apples mostly since they are the best able to grow in the climate.
Originally was funded with a public grant but as to be maintained with volunteers. People are free to collect fruits as they choose.
Mostly its just a nice place to walk the dog and most of the fruit dropps from the trees to feed whatever insects and other animals are around. I made some excellent plumb jam this month.

Clearly. in most cases, the problem is money and other resources, as well as taking the time to convince people of the benefits.
How do you get the time and resources to continue?

We currently have a small piece of personal land which we do grow crops on. We believe that the forest garden is worth spreading for a number of reasons. Many modern countries have a lack of forest due to deforestation for industry. More forests will also bring people closer to nature which has been shown medically to help with mental health. Because a forest garden incorporates a vast arrange of different ‘perennials’ (plants which re-grow seasonally, as opposed to annuals which must be replanted), then the forest will remain as a system. There will not be reploughed fields. Paths are planned into forest gardens so you walk between the shrubs. We believe that people would feel happier if their lifestyle was reintegrated into nature, particularly as opposed to apartments.

Our main goal is to help people spread the forest garden. Right now, we are doing that by spreading the idea as well as growing our own and helping others who have forest gardens locally. If we could, we would do all of our work free of charge. That is why we offer collaboration with others. Despite that, because nobody has endless time and resources, we also want to take other measures to gather money (this can be through selling out own produce locally here in Sweden, doing art to sell online) only for the purpose of spreading forest gardens.

There are reasons to spread the forest garden which do not rely on profit-gaining. Because natural environments are affected by their neighbouring ecosystems, if the nature is flourishing around then the growth will be greater within the garden. This has to do with a number of more technical factors like the amount of nitrogen in the soil, moisture contained in the air (which is contained for example in forests because the leaves shelter the sun’s rays from drying the natural ground water).

We also have ambitions to begin with schools. Ideally, these would also be run with non-profit motives. One reason that we believe new forms of schooling is important is because we would like to teach others how to plant and maintain forest gardens, but also because we feel that there is a democratic deficit in conventional schooling. The current form used in schools has a teacher acting as an authority and students as passive recipients. We would also like to promote self-guided studies and research as well as the practical application of our knowledge as early as possible for children, with teachers acting as something akin to lifetime learners and guidance counsellors, who would understand different teaching styles and be able to direct children to different aspects of society where they could learn through direct observation, engagement, as well as research. This is a school system we are currently developing, and in some ways hold to be of second priority to the forest garden but with virtues itself.