It trike me that your bullet points under Empowerment say the same thing in different ways--but there is another reason why collaboration is vital. There may be opposition from the (corporate) state, if our effort become big enough to draw attention--which we need them to do. A handful of people doing things in a way which adds nothing to the corporate coffers or the state's revenues, and which threatens to spread, may be seen as a problem in need of squelching. It isn't hard for corporations to pass laws to make opposition illegal-and we seem to be moving in a direction in which the rich and powerful no longer need the figleaf of legality to do as they wish. In that situation, having a lot more than a handful of people working together visibly to the public at large in their region, may be able to defend each other and make the price of cracking down on them much higher.
It's a good point you make, Mary. However, very unfortunately, there are so few of us Departing from Ruin that I think neither governments nor corporations are worried about our tiny numbers. I wish it were otherwise, of course. And if there were enough of us engaged in this way to cause them worry, we'd also be enough in number to collaborate on defending ourselves against the potential abuses of the state or the corporations.
At the moment, I mostly just want to catalyze conversation on how it is we might grow our numbers enough to begin to worry the powers that be. I don't really see that conversation happening... anywhere.
Thanks for bringing your voice to it! Hopefully others will also begin to speak up here ... and we can get some conversation going. I think change must begin with conversations.
It trike me that your bullet points under Empowerment say the same thing in different ways--but there is another reason why collaboration is vital. There may be opposition from the (corporate) state, if our effort become big enough to draw attention--which we need them to do. A handful of people doing things in a way which adds nothing to the corporate coffers or the state's revenues, and which threatens to spread, may be seen as a problem in need of squelching. It isn't hard for corporations to pass laws to make opposition illegal-and we seem to be moving in a direction in which the rich and powerful no longer need the figleaf of legality to do as they wish. In that situation, having a lot more than a handful of people working together visibly to the public at large in their region, may be able to defend each other and make the price of cracking down on them much higher.
It's a good point you make, Mary. However, very unfortunately, there are so few of us Departing from Ruin that I think neither governments nor corporations are worried about our tiny numbers. I wish it were otherwise, of course. And if there were enough of us engaged in this way to cause them worry, we'd also be enough in number to collaborate on defending ourselves against the potential abuses of the state or the corporations.
At the moment, I mostly just want to catalyze conversation on how it is we might grow our numbers enough to begin to worry the powers that be. I don't really see that conversation happening... anywhere.
Thanks for bringing your voice to it! Hopefully others will also begin to speak up here ... and we can get some conversation going. I think change must begin with conversations.