3 ms·

I'm a bit surprised at this sentiment. I have the "Neighbourhood Makita toolbox" today: Max across the street is into woodworking and lends his tools freely &

I'm a bit surprised at this sentiment. I have the "Neighbourhood Makita toolbox" today: Max across the street is into woodworking and lends his tools freely & happily rents you his time for the price of a beer or two. David will let you pull your car into his garage for an oil change because he has a nice car lift. I'm less useful, but lift my share of heavy things & set my share of fence posts and am always around when their computers act up. When I was younger I grew up in a rural area with decent poverty, and this went even deeper. Farmers knew they could each get a small mower that takes forever to clear their field, or could pool their cash and share one big PTO-driven Bush Hog that did the job better & faster. There wasn't any worry about "who keeps it nice": you washed it and sharpened the blades if needed when you were done because you know your neighbor washed it and sharpened the blades when he was. Is the rub that Cory talks about "the library" being the source, giving a vision of some faceless Other going to a big building downtown and renting the drill in exchange for their library card, nothing else, with no incentive to keep it nice for the next person? Maybe that's it; I'd argue, however, that a 15-minute city implies more libraries serving fewer people, so the Other isn't faceless, it's Max or Dave.

diablerouge 3y ago
Yeah, I'm also surprised that folks here seem so pessimistic about building a community that supports each other. It's not a political stance, to help your neighbor. Maybe "the library" concept reeks too much of socialism for the average individualistic American. But the tool library near me is a group of old guys who volunteer to run it out of a church basement. No faceless Other, just a community of people who want to work with others and put in the work to keep it going.

diablerouge 3y ago

Yeah, I'm also surprised that folks here seem so pessimistic about building a community that supports each other. It's not a political stance, to help your neighbor. Maybe "the library" concept reeks too much of socialism for the average individualistic American. But the tool library near me is a group of old guys who volunteer to run it out of a church basement. No faceless Other, just a community of people who want to work with others and put in the work to keep it going.