042 – Intentional Community Part 2

What this episode covers

Paul visited a few of other people’s podcasts about permaculture and was impressed with how professional they were. Paul liked Carol Steinfelds podcast in particular regarding composting toilets . Jocelyn mentions that Paul’s podcasts are more conversational. Paul discusses how his podcasts are going out daily and videos every other day and how there is not enough time in a day. Paul knows the three ethics but the 12 principles are not something he has memorized. Paul started doing podcasts because a bunch of people(about 25), begged him to do it. Now Paul wants to share what is in his head with other people. Paul feels that if he can get the information out then other people will take it and run with it. Paul believes that for as much he knows there is tons that he does not know. Jocelyn discusses how permaculture is a solution based system. There was five or so core ideas that Paul started with. Now that list has grown. Jocelyn does not foresee and end to Paul searching for more knowledge and understanding. The topic of today’s podcast is on community . Paul reviews the list of items related to community. Some people made suggestions to Paul about many of the things he does such as less background noise in the podcasts but Jocelyn and Paul agree that staging this would be less natural. Paul likes the idea of function stacking. Keeping things simple keeps costs lower and it is more natural to Paul and Jocelyn. There are about 1000 people downloading the podcast at this time. Paul mentions a community in Italy where 900 people live. Each house holds 20 people. Everyone’s day is scheduled and you get 8 hours sleep. This is a community of Artists called Dolimar. Paul thinks that if artists can get along most other people should get along. This community includes meditation time as part of the schedule. Paul mentions that in smaller numbers there are always problems. With 20 people there are 190 relationships. This community does not use consensus. This community elects a head of household. You can select a different household if you do not like the people you are around. There is also a spiritual component to this community. Jocelyn discusses how relationships impact a community. Paul mentions his hybrid document which he posted at rich soil.com. This document explains how consensus is useful at Java ranch. Paul wrote this back in 2004. If a consensus can not be reached then the tyrant dictator (Paul) steps in to resolve the problem. Paul learned that the sooner he steps in when things get heated the better. Paul believes this is a pretty good model even though it is an online community only. Jocelyn mentions John Gottman’s work and how he can identify successful marriages just by the way the couples talk to each other. Jocelyn explains how Paul stepping in is very good at Java Ranch. Jocelyn has two farms that she wants to use as examples. Paul does think that the tyrant hybrid is the best model. This is a fiefdom type model. Lost Valley is moving away from a consensus model. Paul brings up Alpha farm . They are located in Oregon. Paul paid them a visit and spent a few hours there. This community has existed for about thirty years. Paul asked many questions about their consensus model. Everyone there has to work.

Distinct summary based on available episode metadata or transcript content.