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Global Village Construction Set
- evolve2k 1y agoI’m conflicted. Firstly really like this project and its open source and community empowerment ideals. My concern is around how these tools essentially accelerate planetary resource extraction, with from what I can see no discussion or attempt to addesss this potential impact/dynamic. In addition to bringing about greater freedom and community empowerment the project would benefit from being explicit on how it limits or seeks (even through principals) to limit excessive plantary resource extraction. There’s a plastics project that illustrates what I mean, they help people make machines that recover and recycle plastic. Circular resource use, make that part of your front and center.
- vkou 1y ago> My concern is around how these tools essentially accelerate planetary resource extraction, with from what I can see no discussion or attempt to addesss this potential impact/dynamic. You can't meaningfully address that at a grassroots level because of the tragedy of the commons. You have to engage with that problem at a higher level of organization. (National/Transnational).
- robotbikes 1y agoThe commons were actually fairly well regulated by community norms that were well documented and established. The creation of the notion of the tragedy of the commons was quite possibly propaganda so that large land owners could consolidate and enclosed the commons under the guise that they could manage it better especially after traditions were disrupted.
- vkou 1y ago> The commons were actually fairly well regulated by community norms that were well documented and established. Not really. You are correctly citing the enclosure acts as a historic example, but that was not beginning or the end of history. It was just a recent, location-specific historic moment when big English landlords won in the millenia-old power struggle between peasant and landlord. Control of the commons - land and the resources buried in it - has been a point of contention and bloodshed for as long as recorded human history. It's a pendulum that swung back and forth, but has always had bad actors making personally-profitable, socially-impoverishing decisions. For an alternative example of how things have gone in other places, look at the blood feuds between ranchers and farmers[1] in the American west, concerns over upstream and rainfall water rights in literally any part of the world that relies on irrigation, or, the varied situations where existing landlords politically won the struggle... Or lost it in the 20th century. As for well-established[2]... --- [1] The enclosure acts echo this farmer/rancher dichotomy, actually. Feudal lord/serf relationships have the lords derive wealth from having ever more serfs doing ever more labour-intensive agriculture on their land. The enclosure acts, however, were intended to drive the peasants from their land, because in the case of England, the lords figured out that they can derive way more wealth from turning over their land to low-labour grazelands for sheep. And the way they could do that was to use the law as a cudgel to drive out their tenants at sword and gunpoint. [2] They were only well-established for particular points in history. Prior to William the Conqueror arriving in England, and stealing all the land in it for himself and his mercenaries, there were also 'well-established' land use norms - that greatly limited the power and ownership-of-land granted to lords and petty kings. The Norman conquest turned all that over - into a different 'well-established' equilibrium - that was then, again, turned over into a 'well-established' equilibrium after the passage of the enclosure acts.
- thewanderer1983 1y agoSomeone only has to take part in a makerspace to see tragedy of the commons in action.
- mystraline 1y agoPrecisely. A few decent folks try to start up a great idea. More join. Some dont share the ideals. More join, less ideals shared. More join. Cool, free shit! (Not really, but this is when the commons is shit on and good will starts being lost.) Group starts cracking at the scenes. Factions form. Badness sets in. Thefts spike. Abuse and vandalization of equipment is the norm. I left my local makerspace for these above reasons. And I made my own. Cost more, but my equipment works and is right there.
- foofoo12 1y agoSadly there's a lot of truth there. Generally it's a bad idea to lend tools to people that don't know how to use them. I don't lend my tools to friends, although I make exceptions when I 100% trust the guy. This is based on experience. But I'm happy to help, either by me going there or the friend bringing his stuff to my workshop.
- iamnothere 1y agoThe project seems to be about bootstrapping a civilization after collapse, and you’re worried about... accelerating resource extraction? None of these machines are cost-effective in the current day world. Actual resource extraction operations are going to use massive machines made by big manufacturers. Small scale hobby miners and such will just order equipment from AliExpress or refurbish old equipment. There is literally zero risk of this project accelerating global resource extraction.
- dylan604 1y agoThe project seems to be about bootstrapping a civilization after collapse... leads to: Small scale hobby miners and such will just order equipment from AliExpress good to know that AliExpress will have the staying power to survive the collapse of civilization. we can all sleep easier knowing that while food/water/fuel will be available to those that can take it, your cheap shit from far away lands will still be a web order away. /s
- iamnothere 1y agoNeither hobby miners nor large mining companies would be expected to survive civilizational collapse. Hence the desire for a project like this one. I’m not sure how you could misinterpret my reply so completely.
- oh_my_goodness 1y agoIt's extremely self-limiting compared to the real industrial processes that we're actually using.
- caust1c 1y agoIf you find the OP interesting, you might find Project Kamp more interesting: https://projectkamp.com/mission.html https://projectkamp.com/mission.html The OP seems like the academic approach to what project kamp is learning by doing: They're attempting to build a community that's eventually completely self sufficient on a fairly limited land space, and documenting the whole process.
- drooby 1y agoI like Project Kamp and have been following them for years. However, I feel they’re moving quite slowly and often making mistakes on problems that have already been solved. For example, it took them a while to figure out their composting toilet, and even now it’s not a great solution. They tend to have what are essentially interns do a bit of “research” and then piece together a solution. That said, I do applaud their efforts. It’s very entertaining to watch, and they seem to be hiring people lately who are more knowledgeable in their fields. So, I very much appreciate this open-source-ecology “academic approach.”
- cbdevidal 1y agoI’ve been following Open Source Ecology for years and they too are moving quite slowly. One part of the website points to a 2014 presentation. I’ve seen very little progress in the last ten years. Sad, because it’s a great idea.
- buovjaga 1y agoThat's more or less the critique OSE got back in 2013. Ie. if you're going to raise money, why not hire professional designers?
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoI wonder if they try to reinvent the wheel on purpose (the "first principles" thing people on HN often mention). Using off-the-shelf products can feel like cheating if your objective is to protest society / capitalism.
- vasco 1y ago
- dylan604 1y agoLots of link rot in their list of stuff. Starting at the top of the list for the 3D printer goes to an Amazon 404. The John Deere twine baler redirects to Deere's home page. Is this something that has since been abandoned and being shown here for historical purposes? An example of another panacea idea that just lost internet steam?
- toomuchtodo 1y agoThey're actively pushing it on Instagram interestingly enough.
- greggsy 1y agoI noticed too and gave up trying to find a working link to the retail models. From what I can tell the site was last updated in 2014
- khaki54 1y agoThis is exactly the type of information you want loaded on a HDD tucked away in case of calamity. You won't be able to find all the parts but the ideas would be invaluable.
- userbinator 1y agoMore like etched on a stone tablet.... or disc.
- tbrownaw 1y agoMaybe a metal disc, with a protective plastic coating?
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoI think in case of calamity I'd rather eat / drink than extrude aluminium and build combine harvesters, but ok.
- kragen 1y agoYou can't store food and water on a hard disk, but you can get food from a combine harvester. Agricultural productivity is critically important for food and drink. The Lykov family partly starved to death one winter because their food production was so marginal that a late frost that spring wiped out their millet production for the year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family#History
- jauntywundrkind 1y agothis gave me a lot of faith in humanity. back in ~2014. still cool. still something i want to see in the world. but not super dynamic.
- fnord77 1y agoIt says the design of the 3D printer is done. But on the 3D printer page, there's nothing, no design documents, just a picture.
- ipnon 1y agoIn Dan Wang’s recent “Breakneck” he makes the case that process knowledge is what really drives technological cultures, not the creation of tools or blueprints. He questions whether blueprints of any specificity, sent back to Roman times, would be enough to build something like an automobile or combine.
- WillAdams 1y agoSteam power wasn't feasible until the Bessemer process and rolled sheet steel made the creation of pressure vessels a reliable and repeatable process. An internal combustion engine requires that, plus ceramics and an alloy suited to high temperatures (for the spark plugs) as well as copper or aluminum for wiring. A good book which covers this is: https://goodreads.com/book/show/35068671-the-perfectionists https://goodreads.com/book/show/35068671-the-perfectionists
- noosphr 1y agoSteam power started with atmospheric engines which didn't need steel.
- WillAdams 1y agoNot for anything useful.
- jdietrich 1y agoTo be fair, the atmospheric engine was just barely practical for pumping water out of mines. Newcomen sold over a hundred of them, but they were rapidly replaced by Watt engines or retrofitted with a new cylinder and a separate condenser. The atmospheric engine was however far too inefficient for use as a locomotive engine, or as a replacement for water power in most industrial applications.
- kragen 1y agoWatt engines were also atmospheric engines, but the rest of your comment is correct.
- burnt-resistor 1y agoAs seen in a 2011 TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski_open_sourced_blueprints_for_civilization https://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski_open_sourced_blu... Honestly, I wished this is something like a Colin Furze or Watch Wes Work would take on to bring projects over the finish line.
- norome 1y agoColor me disappointed, I was hoping for a Lego set based on the works of Marshall McLuhan
- eulgro 1y agoWhat exactly was the process to choose the 50 machines? I wonder how "Hay rake" got on the same list as "CNC precision multimachine" for example? If you asked me the former is probably more useful than the latter.
- modo_mario 1y agoI'd say the former won't last if you can't fabricate or fix a simple part for which you might need the later.
- kragen 1y agoI don't know if you've been on a farm, but things like gasoline engines, welders, and tractors are pretty important there. To make them, you need machining, and the idea of GVCS/OSE/FeF is to be able to do everything. The "hay rake" in question is supposed to be something comparable to https://www.greenmarkequipment.com/new-equipment/agriculture/hay-forage/wheel-rakes/wr54-series-wheel-rakes/ https://www.greenmarkequipment.com/new-equipment/agriculture..., which is a large and complex machine that requires a tractor to tow it. It involves parts such as tires, bearings, nuts, bolts, chains, and wiring, and its main structural frame is rectangular structural framing welded together. You aren't going to be able to make anything comparable by lashing together bamboo. You need a machine shop.
- eulgro 1y agoOh right. I was imagining this: https://www.fruithillfarm.com/media/catalog/product/cache/a83d16b6a1b667730ddb42964cf817f5/w/o/wooden_hay_rake2.jpg https://www.fruithillfarm.com/media/catalog/product/cache/a8... Which is the hay rake I used in the past to collect hay...
- kragen 1y agoYeah, I was puzzled about why modo_mario thought you might need a machine shop to make a hay rake — sounds like the kind of thing Primitive Life might make with stone tools. So I checked out the John Deere model number mentioned in the spreadsheet, and it turns out that the hay rake in question can rake hay at utterly inhuman speeds over a wide swath of your field. Handy if your cows are depending on you for winter fodder.
- jojobas 1y agoSo that's what G.E.C.K. would look like!
- buovjaga 1y agoNew Yorker covered the organisational issues in 2013: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/the-civilization-kit https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/the-civilizati... About the churn: "By February, 2013, all the O.S.E. collaborators had left the farm."
- choonway 1y agoI’m from the self-replicating self-reconfigurable systems side. The problem with this is not about making the machines but the human intervention to make use of them effectively. You really need end-to-end automation to solve this. If i don’t remember wrongly all this started due to john deere implementing DRM in their equipment. this is a political problem because the issue can be resolved by just buying chinese equivalents and changing patent/ip law.
- Animats 1y agoThey've been mentioned before. They've been at this since at least 2012, and they've only built a few prototype machines. Productivity seems low. The whole set of machines looks like something China's ministry of agriculture would have come up with around 1980 or so. There are some standard items widely used in rural China and India, manufactured by many manufacturers. Here's a small Diesel engine.[1] This thing is brutally simple - one cylinder, non-recirculating water cooled (you have to add water when you add fuel), hand crank start, no emission controls. Costs about US$300. There's someone who has a YouTube channel of fixing discarded engines of this type. There seem to be a lot of them lying around, all very similar but from different manufacturers. It's the AK-47 of Diesel engines - it's crude, it Just Works, and it can be fixed. It's mass-produced, because making metal parts in quantity is very efficient, while one-offs are too labor intensive. Here's a basic tractor, the Wuzheng TS, costing around $6,000. "Mature technology", the maker says. There are hundreds of thousands of those things in the Third World. That's how this gets done in the real world. Mass produced machines of similar design that's proved itself. That's how the US did it, back when the Fordson tractor [3] was popular. Ford produced low-end tractors until 1964. You can still buy low-end farm equipment cheaply. It's not cost effective for a commercial farm, but it's still available. Sometimes it's all you need. [1] https://toppower.en.made-in-china.com/product/kmtRnxhrTvpB/China-6HP-to-30HP-Single-Cylinder-Diesel-Engine-Water-Cooled-Small-Diesel-Engine-6HP-16HP-18HP-20HP-25HP-27HP-30HP-HP-4-Stroke-Diesel-Engine-Price.html https://toppower.en.made-in-china.com/product/kmtRnxhrTvpB/C... [2] https://chinawuzheng.en.made-in-china.com/product/ovGERBPVaarX/China-WUZHENG-55HP-Ts-Tractor-with-Cab.html https://chinawuzheng.en.made-in-china.com/product/ovGERBPVaa... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordson
- foofoo12 1y agoExactly. Why try to make something open source community stuff when we can just order cheap stuff from China. China is wonderful. China has solved the problem for us. We can rely on China.
- Animats 1y agoThose same Diesel engines are available from India and several other countries. Again, it's like the AK-47. Somebody really good got the design right, and now others can just replicate it. Diesel engine design is non-trivial. It takes a lot of compression to get the heat necessary for ignition. It takes strong structures to handle that pressure. The fuel injector has to be able to overcome the pressure of compression and spray fuel into the cylinder. You need to get more energy out than you spend on compression and injection. The thermodynamics are complicated. That all gets built into the dimensions of the metal parts, and it all looks simple, but it's not. Those little engines doesn't even need a glow plug to get started. Or even much cranking. They just work. Cheaply.
- bparsons 1y agoIt would be cool to see this project re-done with modern tools and a new generation of engineering talent. As others have pointed out, the idea is really cool, but the implementation was never there.
- pigeons 1y agoThis is a somewhat similar project, a very small project in early stages, but interesting. https://github.com/civboot/civboot https://github.com/civboot/civboot https://github.com/civboot/civboot/tree/main/blog https://github.com/civboot/civboot/tree/main/blog
- xg15 1y agoHydraulic motor, but no hoses or compressor? 3D printer, but no filament?
- upghost 1y agoComments here are a bit rough. Marcin does plenty of work for OSE and the community is still active but most of it is in-person/offline -- hard for a lot of us to believe, I know, but there is human activity that takes place outside the internet. Or so I'm told.
- kragen 1y agoFrom the New Yorker article in 02013 at https://archive.fo/l0jfL https://archive.fo/l0jfL: > Like Spock, from “Star Trek,” Jakubowski has deliberate diction, closely shorn dark hair, and hooded eyes. He also has a Vulcan’s unwavering high-mindedness. His paternal grandfather fought in the Polish underground during the Second World War, helping to derail Nazi trains. A grandmother spent time in a concentration camp. Hearing their stories, Jakubowski concluded that the brutality of war was often a result of privation—an inability to secure the means of survival. His family left Poland when he was ten, in order to escape martial law, and moved to Paterson, New Jersey. The contrast between the abundance in American supermarkets and the empty shelves back home shocked him. “I never forgot about material scarcity,” he told me.
- susanweather1 1y ago[dead]