Still rent free: the time I did an assignment on my local bike repair/recycle non-organisation and the sustainability tutor gave only negative feedback about how my proposal wouldn't work in real life.
It was an observational report on something that was and is working in real life.
Me: this is how bikes get repaired and recycled in this one small town.
- The junkyard guy leaves nice ones out by his gate for a day or two before dismantling them for scrap.
- there are several people in the town who know they can come past regularly and take anything by the gate
- there's a guy who takes any bikes he thinks we can salvage, they are almost always kids' bikes, there are just more of those
- a rotating group of friends and people who want to learn about bikes work on them
- when they're finished we distribute them by word of mouth: is there anyone around 6-8yo who wants a purple bike?
- the bikes seem to come with lifetime servicing. No one mentions this until the bike needs servicing, then they just say 'we better get onto servicing your bike, hey?' and it happens
- you can do a trade-in/upgrade. Kids swap their bikes for bigger bikes, people service the little bike and give it to another kid
-there is no name, no official location, no contact details for this, it's an ephemeral property that emerges from the community every day that the community has capacity to do it. It is fascinating and I am glad to have witnessed it.
Sustainability tutor: so first off this could never happen without NGO administration, start there
First you grow the beans, then people eat the beans.
University: no no no no, first you count the beans.
@warkolm @Dangerous_beans @coolandnormal : I would like to ask if these beans are from an approved supplier? Because it seems we're getting ahead of ourselves discussing the bean proposal if they haven't completed vendor onboarding.
In particular, we now have strict sustainability requirements for suppliers, and very few bean vendors have put in the effort to get certification.
@coolandnormal @Dangerous_beans @warkolm
YES. I keep running into that, too, just hadn't been consciously aware until you said it explicity.
Very frustrating!
A Bug Squashing Party is organized in Montréal, Canada, by Debian Québec on 28-29 March, to facilitate the release of the next stable version of Debian (Debian 13 - Trixie), fixing as many Release Critical bugs as possible https://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2025/03/ca/Montreal #debian #trixie
@coolandnormal @warkolm I'm going to organise a bug finding party, in the bushes down near the river
not a euphemism, we're looking under rocks for cool insects. might find some snakes too!
@Dangerous_beans @warkolm @coolandnormal
higher education: we’ve submitted our research on beans using extensive community consultation, it’ll be published in two years, and behind a paywall.
@Dangerous_beans @kate @warkolm
TV
Beans! miracle wellness secret or harbour of terrifying toxins? Find out after the break.
[after the break] No. The answer was no, beans are not those things, thanks for sticking around.
I see the very valid argument that without administion and formal structure, continuity remains only when as the community has capacity to do it.
My argument is that's how things work anyway. You can have all the committee structure in the world, but the actual work is an emergent property of the community's capacity. If you burn out your people, you lose your collective service either way.
Edit: if anyone screenshots this one toot out of context and makes it about dismantling government, I will punch you right in the bicycle horn. This whole thread is specifically about small community groups.
There's a less valid argument here that this will all fall apart when people lose interest/capacity and therefore is it not sustainable.
On the first point, good. People should stop doing voluntary stuff they no longer have the resources or motivation to do, boundaries, rest and self care are good actually.
Secondly: the idea that since it could spontaneously stop any time, and probably will, that is inherently by definition unsustainable.
On the same token one might argue singing a song in a group is an unsustainable thing to do. Because you cannot sing the same song together forever without stopping.
You must rest when you're tired, then perhaps sing a different song, maybe with different people. This doesn't make singing songs an unsustainable practice. Most people in sustainability would agree singing songs in groups has a lot of offer sustainability from many angles.
You could also argue that at some point it becomes sustainable. Once it has helped a amount of people and has become normalised in the community, others will pick it up and continue.
The kid who got her first bike that way and had upgrades, starts doing it for her younger brother, then the brothers friends.
The retired guy who suddenly has lots of free time and starts of doing it for the grandkids, because thats that the old guy next door did. Etc.
@marshant
I volunteer with a group that was absolutely crippled when many key volunteers did not return after the Covid hiatus. It appears that many, typically retired, volunteers realized how much time volunteering with this organization required.
We've crashed headlong into this with my HOA. (Unlike nanny Karen HOAs, ours is less concerned about making sure you have the right color curtains in your windows & directly tasked with thinks like making sure the elevators work—which they often don't.) Nobody has the bandwidth to put in the time to develop a comprehensive understanding of the needs of the community and the skills necessary to support those. & the few that do quickly burn out.
It's so...something, the idea that a process "doesn't qualify" if there's not some formal hierarchical (patriarchal?) structure imposed & certified from the outside. Like, dude, have you never heard of "friends" & "hobbies" & "communities"?
@coolandnormal This is true for so many things. In my hood, we leave stuff on the sidewalk with a "Free" sign on it. Much better than a thrift store, or chucking things in the trash. I guess people could decide to, you know, not do that.
I love the bike repair teaching co-op plan. Would participate. A+ ⭐
@coolandnormal Can I just say I love this idea.
This is what I want for the future for humanity in general.
I also think this is a great example of the sort of work that isn't valued.
Collective, cultural work.
It doesn't need an NGO, because people are the community, and that's not really an "organization", it doesn't have "leadership" or "goals". It's just a bunch of people associated by where they live.
And they don't ALL have to do any of this, all they need to be part of it is that they are aware of the tradition (when they need a bike).
Because that's what it is, a tradition.
Some traditions get promoted (and taken over) by admins looking for busywork and relevance. But others are just maintained through ... osmosis? Something like that, contact transmission.
Like, eating certain things for certain festivities. Nobody owns or manages that. Nobody "admins" it. It's just a cultural phenomenon, carried along because it serves a need in the population.
It's a stunning example of a sharing economy, something Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about a lot in her works, especially Braiding Sweetgrass.
I gather it's a fairly common organizational principle in Indigenous communities.
@coolandnormal Not trying to be difficult, but if you try to do the same thing with say, housing, wouldn't you find very fast that it kind of is about dismantling government?
Or at least gradually replacing it, making spaces where it can't enforce the capitalist model?
@xenogon actually yes, I don't think you're being difficult and I fully support this.
If the community is able to slowly replace and fulfil services that would normally be covered by governments, they do and it's great.
In my experience this doesn't dismantle government services, it takes pressure off them.
For example in this town we have one ambulance. We there is no chance we will be dismantling this service, we value it a lot. But one is not enough, so if you call it for someone and it's too busy, you are the ambulance now. That's basically the system here.
Some people are so indoctrinated to think they must have a state apparatus, they can't believe it's possible without.
See your sustainability tutor as someone who needs to learn, and present the examples to refute their world views. Then you'll find out if you've got a good tutor.
If your tutor can't believe in change, they really shouldn't be teaching on sustainability, there is no way forward with our current systems.
In case you haven't come across this awesome, highly talented Aussie agricultural scientist, politician and communicator, I definitely recommend Natalie Bennett's book Change Everything for you and your tutor!
@StingrayBadger @coolandnormal
Oo! My library has it! Checked out!
@StingrayBadger @coolandnormal
Boo! Turns out it was a different book by the same title, but different author. 😢
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