Reddit reviews A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster

Something about the disruption of routine and forced interaction with people outside your normal social sphere has a very powerful impact on us. It's a sociological phenomenon that's finally beginning to receive a decent amount of research; if you want to do some reading on the subject, the phrase often used is "disaster utopianism". There's an actually-fun-to-read book called A Paradise Built in Hell that does a great job of chronicling some cases where these acts of selflessness became temporarily commonplace, and musing on some of the potential reasons why disaster utopias crop up in times of need -- I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's one of those books that I keep buying for myself to re-read, then loaning it out to friends and family when one of these conversations comes up or when someone insists that people must be inherently evil.

Collapse offers the possibility of freedom from the life-numbing boredom and vapidity that pervades modern existence:

https://youtu.be/xDGh58khe_c

Collapse is exciting, dangerous, risky.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Force_That_Gives_Us_Meaning

In collapse suddenly our families mean more, our friends mean more, our daily activity means more. Our decisions matter in a deep way. We aren't just shuffling meaningless things around like most jobs.

It is the possibility of a world where I have to be adaptive, freethinking, risk-taking, clever, heroic, noble, self-sacrificing. The possibility of a world that I live in, a new approach to the physical world. To possibility. To no schedules. To the end of consumption for the sake of consumption.

Maybe even a little bit of utopia in the chaos:

https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Built-Hell-Extraordinary-Communities/dp/0143118072

If anyone else is interested in the spontaneous communities that arise during crises check out Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell.

The risk of a backlash is not what I fear. It's the risk that people start believing XR and start a Greed New Deal or massively authoritarian Manhattan-style mobilization for climate change. Look at the carbon footprint of Roosevelt's New Deal and you'll get an idea why we can't afford to have a Greed New Deal. We simply need to deindustrialized, and localize - not hyper-industrialize and mobilize. If XR succeeds, it's likely legacy will by a fatal hyper-industrialization.

XR needs to get it's thinking straight. Rupert Read, for example, wants a huge government mobilization one minute, but then the next he praises works like A Paradise Raised in Hell. which talks about the dangers of Big government and how communities organize without them. You can't really have both.

XR needs to start trailblazing a paradise raised in hell, and that implies the retirement of government (by force if necessary).

Quite true. I've seen more neighbors, and actually talked to them and their kids, more in the last day than the last two years. There's something disarming about this shared abnormality. Rebecca Solnit captured it well in A Paradise Built In Hell.

I don't think I'm right. I don't even necessarily have a position on some of these things, but I think it's helpful to ask questions and to really consider the value of arguments from all sides, even if we don't agree with them.

I'd be happy to see a single-payer system in the US. I'm fine with having a military for the purpose of national defense and even intervention in very specific instances (e.g. the Rwandan genocide). I used to consider myself a Libertarian, through and through, but not anymore. I guess Libertarian-socialist is more fitting at this point (yes, it's a thing). I think that the Austrian economists are generally right, especially when it comes to things like the unintended and unforeseen negative consequences of government intervention in markets and economies. And I think it's very likely that Peter Schiff will be right, again, and this whole thing will come tumbling down at some point.

I think most people don't really understand the Libertarian philosophy behind deregulation, which is basically that people are capable enough to figure things out for themselves and will form more organic and effective means of regulation than can be devised by government. It doesn't mean no regulation. Most people look at the world and think deregulation is a crazy idea because they see it as giving corporations more leeway to fuck people over and do whatever they want. But if you move in the direction of reducing the scope of government, you also move in the direction of reducing the scope of corporate influence and power. But in order for this to work, people have to start taking more responsibility for themselves and for the world around them. And to move in that direction requires a certain degree of trust in humanity and the capability of people, which is something that has been eroded by our society/government. A Paradise Built in Hell, a book that Chris has mentioned many times, touches on this quite a bit.

I'm fine with having a social safety net; there's no reason for anyone to have to worry about keeping a roof over their heads or feeding their children if they get laid off, especially in this country. But again, we can't ignore the unintended consequences of having such a system. Some people are going to exploit the system and be worse off because of it. Politicians will feed off of and exploit these people to stay in office. But maybe the worst thing about it is that it makes it very easy for people to stop taking responsibility for the world around them. It makes it easier to look at the suffering around you and say, "I don't care; it's the government's job to take care of the poor, homeless, hungry, etc."

I have no idea whether or not Peter Schiff really gives a shit about the homeless, or people who can't afford to pay their medical bills, or kids growing up in places like Flint or Baltimore. But there are Libertarians who really do care and really do believe that these ideas have merit and can make the world a better place. There are people who really do believe that we would be better off without a social safety net, and that the poor, displaced, homeless, and hungry would be better served by people and communities rather than government. But it's so hard for most people to imagine that world that they quickly dismiss the ideas and the people who support them. Maybe the best thing that Libertarians can do is to start moving in that direction no matter what.

A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit is a good one. Its not "counter culture" as in 1960s counterculture. Its about the "counter cultures" that result from disaster situations (9/11, earthquakes, fires etc) that resemble anarchies because of their horizontalism and sense of community. Also a lot of people find so called disaster situations funner and with more opportunity than the media/history makes them out to be. The book was based off ethnographic studies and people's histories. Highly recommend. It was a joy to read.

Provo: Amsterdam's Anarchist Revolt by Richard Kempton. This is closer to the 1960s counterculture, but like 100,000 times better. Provo was a sort of anarchistic counterculture group of the mid 1960s. Its a short but fun read.

Squatting in Europe by the Squatting in Europe Kollective. I actually haven't read this book yet (my reading list is like 100 books deep as it is) but I would like to and it sounds like something that you would be interested in.

Made me think of this: http://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Built-Hell-Extraordinary-Communities/dp/0143118072

https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Built-Hell-Extraordinary-Communities/dp/0143118072/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519698332&sr=8-1&keywords=a+paradise+built+in+hell