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?
Cooking. 5 people working together can cook for 100 people easier, cheaper, and less wastefully than 100 people can cook for themselves/their families.
Unfortunately the current restaurant system in the US is incredibly wasteful, expensive, and pays fuckall.
Verified: group cooking is the way.
I have friends and family who live in a cohousing building. About 50 people in 30 units. Each apartment is complete but the kitchens are slightly smaller than typical.
Cohousing is mutual ownership of the building. About 20% of the building is common areas, like widened hallways with couches and bookshelves, or a games nook, music room, workshop, laundry, etc. It’s basically a tall village, and they are like roommates with privacy.
The giant kitchen and dining room is used six nights a week. One person is chef with a small crew, and dinner is for around 30 people. It costs $5 CDN per meal, though if you raid the leftovers later it’s pay what you want, usually $2. The cooking volunteer roster is optional and organized by a Slack channel. Food is usually awesome and everyone wins.
If you want you hardly ever have to cook dinner for yourself.
Amazing. May I ask what region of the world you’re describing?
Vancouver BC
$5 a meal and $5000 a month for rent.
Other savings built into collective infrastructure:
You are familiar with the concept of #cohousing, right? I don’t think anyone is renting there, all owners. Land values have been fucked in Vancouver since capitalism arrived, and in fact when the group bought the three house lots they needed, they had to deal with one of them being shadow-flipped during the purchase.
Still, pooling resources did make it very possible for the group. The hard-to-swallow expensive part was actually building to passivhaus standards and dealing with bureaucracy, if I understand correctly.
You know this is a joke on how expensive rent is in Vancouver, right?
Yes and it would have been funny if any rent was involved.
Edit, oh wait you mean they are SAving 5k a month, whoosh missed that
I like to light-heartedly make fun about life’s absurdities but I see that’s completely lost here.
Have a nice day.
I am from India and currently work in IT. Due to a lot of reasons I did not pursue cooking but my main motivation to pursue cooking was this aspect, and if you are interested check out community kitchens in India (Mega Kitchens docu series is a good place to start)
This sounds amazing tbh, I’m pretty jealous
Me too, most of us would be happier and richer living like that.
This makes me think of the Sikh community’s charity/giving (can’t remember the term) food giving that happens in most towns globally where there a Gurdwara.
There has to be a better way than waves hands everything, really.
They call it a langar
I sometimes think about automats, and what a modernized version, designed to both be healthy enough to eat as one’s primary meal source without ill effect and efficient enough to compete in price with home cooking, might be like. I suspect it would probably involve a lot of soup and chili and the like, just because that stuff is relatively simple to produce in large quantities, and uses cheap yet generally healthy ingredients
Taste differences make cooking specially messy to communalise. Not impossible though.