A lot of the things we do on a daily or weekly basis have ways of doing them that can either be private or communal, some of these which we do not think to consider as having that characteristic.
For example, bathing in the Roman Empire used to be communal, but then Rome fell and citizens in the splinter countries began taking baths privately.
Receiving mail is another example. There are countries which don’t have mailboxes and everyone gets their mail at the post office in the PO boxes. It was the United States which pioneered the idea of the modern mail system, which is why we associate it as a private act.
There are activities as well which don’t have any history as jumping between one or the other that might benefit from it, for example I think towns might benefit if internet was free and freely accessible but only at the local library.
What’s a non-communal aspect of life you think should be communal?
It was the United States which pioneered the idea of the modern mail system
The UK had a general post office that deliverd to individuals over 100 years before the USA was founded. The US postal system is based on the UK one that delivered their mail before the US’s founding. Why on earth would you think the US pioneered it?
In the US, nudity. People get really weird and obsessive of bodies when nudity isn’t exercised at places like beaches, changing areas, etc.
It’s not healthy to only see bodies as sexual because they are always covered up in public and then 100% sexual either in the bedroom or in porn. There has to be a gradient. Everything in moderation.
Public bathhouses need to make a comeback. I go to the spa few times a year and soaking in a giant hot tub is divine.
Wish there was one within walking distance cause I would go like 3 times a week then.
I feel like it’s a waste of water to take a bath in my house because the water doesn’t stay warm and it goes away after I’m done. Plus the tub doesn’t allow me to stretch out.
What’s annoying is that some cities in America have spas or bathhouses, but are “men only” and really mean a place for gay men to hook up
Community canneries still exist, but they used to be way more popular. In rural communities where people grow a lot of their own food, people can their own food, but pressure canners take a lot of time for a single batch to come up to pressure, cook, and cool.
Community canneries have much bigger pressure canners where you could feasibly can everything in one batch. It’s also really enables people sharing surpluses, trading, etc.
Many hobbies are better shared, too. If you have 20 people sharing a super high quality “item”, they will have a better experience than if each of those people had to buy their own crappy versions.
Basically, a whole lot of things can be “libraried”.
Power plants, power grid, water grid, post, 5G networks, parking lots payment, visa cards should be state based, public health insurance, health system incl dentists, pension system, education, Kindergarden should all be completely public with no intention of profit. All parallel private companies need to be forbidden in this space
Basically reversing the privatization politics of the last 50 years in the EU because politicians are too lazy to organize this
As an American, not much honestly. Community means Christ in these parts.
In Canada the mail delivery has shifted to communal mailboxes in new communities as a cost savings measure. Problem is asshole theives who smash them open and steal everyones mail at once.
We have free wifi at our library, as well as a lot of other things like meeting spaces you can book.
More communal transport seems to be needed. After work from home, and occasional bus to work, the time I had to drive to the office to swap equipment and sit in rushhour traffic for an hour was painful. Like there is no way every single person needs unique travel to work
Property of the means of production
I’d say mail boxes, at least in the area where I live. Around 10 years ago, our neighborhood was mandated to have our own separate boxes for mail/newspaper next to our house, but before then you’d have one group box for the whole neighborhood, with separate sections for each house. It’s much more efficient for delivering that way since you just go to one box rather than door to door, though it can be a bit annoying having to walk to the box every day to get your daily newspaper.
Having lived in a few places like that with group boxes, it contributes to a mild sense of community as well assuming you regularly see the same people. My mother used to go get her mail at the same time as a couple neighbors we had specifically because she’d met them picking up mail the first time.
The US started using mailboxes 14 years after the UK
In 1849, the Royal Mail first encouraged people to install letterboxes to facilitate the delivery of mail. Before then, letterboxes of a similar design had been installed in the doors and walls of post offices for people to drop off outgoing mail.
In 1863, with the creation of Free City Delivery, the US Post Office Department began delivering mail to home addresses.
Laundry. Why do each of us need to have a machine and space to leave clothes to dry when we could have a common space for that?
Counterpoint: laundromats are some of the most boring and depressing places. Harsh fluorescent lighting, always some TV droning away with an annoying channel you’d never choose to watch and don’t want to have to hear, commercial machines that vary from one laundromat to another so as an occasional user, you never know if you need to bring quarters or if it’ll take a card, plus sometimes people feel entitled to take your clothes out of the dryer if they want the specific machine you’re using, etc etc etc. Plus you can’t just run a load at your leisure, you’ve gotta schlep all the way to the laundromat with your clothes and detergent. I get why they’re necessary but I’m glad I’ve got my own washer & dryer.
Laundromats are minimal-involvement small businesses, so not communal in a strict sense of the word.
In a more social-oriented society, I could imagine a communal laundry being part of a social hub, people could meet up and play games, watch movies, etc while waiting for laundry.
In college there was a laundromat with a diner that served decent burgers. Was always a treat.
Hmm… you know what, that actually sounds kinda delightful!
Yeah laundromats are annoying. I was rather thinking to have some space in the apartment building to share with neighbors.
It sucks to have drying racks taking up all my living space.
Don’t you have a dryer?
No
Just curious, why not? It seems like the obvious solution. And if your space is limited, there are machines that do both washing and drying.
The place I use lately has a bookshelf and a machine that serves free coffee. Pretty comfy in there tbh
This is considered standard equipment in all apartments in Sweden, both co-op and rentals.
Communal laundry rooms are quite common on some places.
I’ve had clothes stolen in shared laundry rooms. Not a fan.
When I hear about the washing rooms where women would go to do their laundry, they sound so fun. A lot of work of course, but just a great place to sit back and gossip.
brushing our teeth
we comin for whitey’s toothbrush
simple tools like guns, hammers, screwdrivers etc. I still think you should be able to own them in case you need them more often or don’t have the time to get them due to an immidiate repairing. But I’ve read some lemmy post where some guys public library offered tools and I think that’s a great idea
We had that where I grew up, but mostly heavier machine tools like stuff to cut firewood, trailers to haul stuff etc. Cost just $10 a year and you could borrow it as much as you needed. Banger of an idea to be honest.
Yeah, no one wants to buy a log splitter and store it for 360 days a year, but those few days you can use it, it’s really useful.
Yeah, it really is a perfect item for communal ownership.
Also look for makerspaces, they provide all kinds of tools but it’s expected that you work on projects there and not at home. Not sure if you can borrow stuff.
Child-rearing! Child-rearing! Child-rearing! I hate the nuclear family model!!
I’ve been seeing that shift a lot recently. For instance, a lot of friends will work out a deal where their kids spend the day with their grandparents once or twice a week to save on day care costs.
Nono I mean a full-on third, fourth etc. parent. Someone who takes care of the child basically from birth, who is as trusted as “mom” or “dad”. Maybe even a second person responsible for breastfeeding the child.
I dunno about that one, chief… I don’t trust people to not be weirdos or to be properly housebroken anymore. Certainly not westerners-- I’d have to do a full-on, US Government style background check on a mf before I was comfortable putting my child in another person’s hands.
Haha welcome to modern kindergarden/daycare and the commodification of child rearing.
The only choice if you want your child to start socializing is which place. We visited the kindergarden based on recommendation, met the principal and toured the building. That’s how we made our decision.
My wife met the teachers on the day he started, initially she went with him inside for a couple days but later left him there for a few minutes, then hours and then just brought him there and left.
He did not enjoy that! “Yes my child I know mom and dad were your lifeline in this world that you wouldn’t survive otherwise for your entire life but now this stranger we met a week ago is responsible for that, she seems fun no?”
And these people will be responsible for a huge part of his education. They don’t know about veganism, best compromise was vegetarian (yes fish counts as meat!) and hopefully they aren’t to into cutesy copaganda.
Haha welcome to modern kindergarden/daycare and the commodification of child rearing.
Like that, you just described why I haven’t had kids and frankly don’t plan on 'em, at least in part lmao. Like… If against all odds, we still lived in the same America that we did when my mother was running me through kindergarten? If I lived in a neighborhood where most of the people that lived there looked and lived in the same general rung I do? It’d be less of an issue; but even theoretically knowing where the offenders in my city are, I can’t trust that 1) offenders are actually made to reveal themselves 100% of the time anymore or that 2) that the faculty isn’t that way and just ain’t been caught yet.
Een beyond predation, you bring up ANOTHER salient point as to why I’m not; see, it hit me a few years back before my personally-childfree philosophy really crystallized was that your child is only really yours maybe the first 5 years of their life. After that, your child will spend more time at their school than they do around you. Effectively, at the age of six, your child is a ward of the state and at hazard from whatever fuckery their peers get into-- never mind the Amerikan-exceptionalist brainwashing from the teachers who will end up shaping their lives more than you will. You’d end up spending more time trying to undo the rot they’re learning with no real surety that what you’re trying to teach your seed will stick in the face of teachers and peers. Hell, the only reason it halfway worked on me was because my mother’s boyfriend was an abuser for the first ten years of my going to school; so if you’re actually a well-adjusted parent, you’re only really swimming harder against the current our system orchestrates.
I pray you luck in guarding your own in this day and age, my man.
I mean something every parent needs to learn is that your kid will always be more exposed to danger than you would like.
Like we were very cautious with how he slept the first year since that’s how most infants die because they can’t roll on their backs and have trouble lifting their abnormally sized heads. Then while I had duty one night sleeping next to him I wake up and see him lying on his belly. His face was turned to the side, so he had no trouble breathing but that’s a big yikes so I turn him back around. When I wake up in the morning I see his sleeping bag got bunched up in a weird way and in the dark and sleep haze I misread the situation and turned him from his back on his belly!! I would not have noticed if he had turned his face into the mattress and died until the next morning.
Kids can die so easy. Food that’s slightly off but you don’t notice it, unknown allergy, choking hazards, unsecured furniture, stumbling and falling on their head etc. It’s impossible to think of everything. At some point I just had to face the fact that he could just randomly die unless I lock him in place and feed him mush.
So instead I let him climb the big slide by himself, give him some apple, let him help putting glassware away knowing he could die or severely be injured if he made a slight mistake but having to trust him and support him if he wants to try something new (within reason of course).
And so to me this is a lot like this. He could die, he could get severely injured/traumatized, he could get be irretrievably suckered into the propaganda around us. Those I just don’t have control over and I need to trust him and hope for the best. He is a very bright kid, and I am trying to synthesize what primed me for radicalisation so I hope that I can pass that along. But in the end there I have next to no control of the future.
But I do wonder sometimes how my life would have turned out if I had been radicalised before marrying, or before becoming a dad. Because I am scared of what is to come when the beast dies. This country is such a grateful assistant to the hegemons crimes, if it asks for my son they will grab him and make him march. Ukraine should be a warning to everyone here in europe. If I had no other obligation I would probably be learning chinese right now. That’s the reason why I’m looking to get the hell out of here, the other dangers probably exist everywhere in the world, some more, some less. But I can feel the vibe shifting among “my fellow” working-class whites. Or maybe I have become more alert to it, either way I know the beast is still there and there is so much effort being put into feeding it and hiding it.
I don’t want to be a full time parent, but I’d happily teach an inquisitve kid the few things I know for a few hours a week
Maybe it’s being a product of my environment but there are so few things that are currently private that I would want to have to do publicly. I don’t generally really want to contend with other people not shared facilities more than I have to. I definitely don’t want communal bathing. I can stomach public transport, which is already a thing, but then I tend to spurn it where I live more often than not because of the lack of viability and convenience. I guess I would say I wish that where I was specifically that transport was more communal than it is now. I don’t see how it really could be though because of the nature of where I live and the lack of density and the bad urban planning that led to everything being very spread out, but it’d be nice.
