The two most meaningful, fullfilling things in life....

jasonrohrer · 2019-04-25 16:35:32

From my personal experience, more than halfway through my life:

1. Having children.

2. Private property.

As someone observed in some other thread, "after a few generations of looking after a fenced-in area in the game, it's pretty easy to make it really nice". I don't remember the exact quote. I've seen quite a few well-appointed, well-organized little estates in the game. Everything in its right place. And even a few rose bushes, just for show. Sometimes, this makes the neighbors jealous, as it probably should.

To quote my old friend Tevye the Dairyman:

I'd build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen,
Right in the middle of the town.
A fine tin roof with real wooden floors below.
There would be one long staircase just going up,
And one even longer coming down,
And one more leading nowhere, just for show.
I'd fill my yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks
For the town to see and hear.
With each loud "cheep" "swaqwk" "honk" "quack"
Would land like a trumpet on the ear,
As if to say "Here lives a wealthy man."

Now, I'm not sure about the fulfillment of the "wealthy man" part, but he's expressing the joy of having a place of his own, a place that he can make just so.

And as a real-life property owner (in the past, not now), I can tell you that there is enormous joy and satisfaction in that. Planting a fruit tree, and watching it grow. Your fruit tree. I eagerly await the time when I can own property again. Well, that joy extends beyond land to other things, like my fountain pen, which I've been using and refilling from the same bottle of ink for more than five years. It's my pen. It's very personal to me. It's not your pen.

I also live in a place (Davis, CA) that has many common areas. Roads, parks, libraries, community centers, schools, pools---actually some of the best and most well-appointed common areas of any place I've ever been too. They're nice to have around, but the feeling just isn't the same. There's also a general.... grubbiness and institutional-ness about all these things.... maybe a general hallmark of collective ownership. The reason why there's gum stuck to the bottom of every school desk and crap carved into the top surface, but you'd never see something similar on a desk or table in a private home. The reason why there are no tulips planted in any of the parks (but absolutely jaw-dropping displays in front yards up and down my street). I've seen the same thing in every "collective" space I've ever been in, including the shared kitchens at hostels and housing coops. Even the kitchens of 4-roomate apartments.

There's a place in Davis called "N Street Co-housing," where neighbors in one neighborhood collectively decided to remove all of their backyard fences, and make one big backyard for something like 16 houses to share together. At first glance, it looks like Eden back there, but upon closer inspection, you see that it's full of crap. Junk piled here and there. Materials from half-finished projects, now overgrown with weeds. Essentially, the whole space becomes as messy as the messiest person around....

And, surprise, the same thing happens in collective spaces in OHOL.

Now, this is obviously just my own personal preference and opinion, and there are clearly people here in the community that long for a collectivist utopia (at least in the game, but maybe in real life as well), and people who have decried the urge toward private property as one motivated by greed.

But the joy that I'm describing doesn't come from greed.... it's something way deeper than that.

And now from my old friends Lennie and George:

LENNIE: How long is it goin' be till we git that little place to live on the fat of the land?
GEORGE: I don't know. We gotta get a big stake together. I know a little place we can get cheap, but they ain't givin' it away.
LENNIE: Tell about that place, George.
GEORGE: I jus' tole you. Jus' last night.
LENNIE: Go on, tell again.
GEORGE: Well, it's ten acres. Got a little windmill. Got a little shack on it and a chicken run. Got a kitchen orchard. Cherries, apples, peaches, 'cots and nuts. Got a few berries. There's a place for alfalfa and plenty of water to flood it. There's a pig pen....
LENNIE: And rabbits, George?
GEORGE: I could easy build a few hutches. And you could feed alfalfa to them rabbits.
LENNIE: Damn right I could. You goddamn right I could.
GEORGE: And we could have a few pigs. I'd build a smokehouse. And when we kill a pig we could smoke the hams. When the salmon run up the river we can catch a hundred of 'em. Every Sunday we'd kill a chicken or rabbit. Mebbe we'll have a cow or a goat. And the cream is so goddamn thick you got to cut it off the pan with a knife.
LENNIE: We can live off the fat of the land.
GEORGE: Sure. All kinds of vegetables in the garden and if we want a little whiskey we can sell some eggs or somethin'. And we wouldn't sleep in no bunkhouse. Nobody could can us in the middle of a job.
LENNIE: Tell about the house, George.
GEORGE: Sure. We'd have a little house. And a room to ourselves. And it ain't enough land so we'd have to work too hard. Mebbe six, seven hours a day only. We wouldn't have to buck no barley eleven hours a day. And when we put in a crop, why we'd be there to take that crop up. We'd know what come of our planting.

futurebird · 2019-04-25 16:56:13

Two most meaningful things in life for me:

family
learning and discovery (you can take my property from be by force but you can't steal what I know it's mine forever)

---

I think you are reading a bit too much in to the preference for collective play. Imagine if you had 3 roommates, it's nicer and a sign that you get along better if you don't have a million rules about who can use what and when you just share. If someone is a leach or a problem you have to make rules. Rules are a symptom of bad actors. Likewise in a family no one is counting how much food you ate or how much toilet paper you used. Such accounting is for strangers that you don't fully trust and it isn't fun. It's a drag.

Our towns are much too small to make trading an important tool. I think it will be because all human people trade at some stage in the development of civilization. It's a response to much larger populations and the need to interact with people you don't know.

It's not some hippie ideological choice it's simply *more efficient* and *less stressful* to function without stoping to account how much value you created and is it enough for the resources you use?

You are right that the fences make the public spaces in towns worse. Towns with lots of fences have bad public spaces, but is "public spaces don't work" the right conclusion? Nah. Public spaces need public administration. Many of the spaces I use daily in NYC are public and they range from horrid to palace-like. On the whole they work well and that's the function of government. Nearly every civilization has a combination of centralized authority for the administration of the pubic good and private enterprise for individual innovation and personal gain. Those that have too much of one or the other can be dysfunctional.

But we aren't at the stage population-wise in towns where we can spare the resources for all of that administration of public and private property so people live the way that families or roommates who are well matched live. That's isn't bad and it isn't a political statement about what will or won't work for human societies.

Vexenie · 2019-04-25 17:18:42

Private property in my opinion, is one of the most free place you can have.
You can do whatever on your own property, like grow an apple tree, build a shack, start a little farm and so on.

The problem I sometimes face, is not finding rope nor the materials for it, but I guess it makes you work to claim a property.

Amon · 2019-04-25 17:31:42

I wouldn't really say private property, I would say territory. Humans are animals after all, and most animals have their own spaces. From personal-pubblic spaces to spaces as territories that mark the boundaries between people.
From country borders, to village borcers, to house parcels, to room assigments, to room spots.
(Ergo last example, while you may share a room with your, say brother, your brother has his own mini territory in his room where you must not go and you have your own, and then there is the middle ground...) And yeh country borders are natural divisions -Amon shakes his fist-

Honestly the few times I was able to make a mini home, it was fun. In one home I even added a pet dog... now if only we had a way to leash a dog and return it home jason!!! (And if they grew old after being bred instead of being on a timer) My little house with two rose bushes and kitchen was absolutely lovely. But it was small... but it was my home...and the home of two other men cause i shared it with two unrelated men cause I was a free spirited woman.

Then my son substituted the pet dog with geese, one of which was called Noe.

Whatever · 2019-04-25 17:33:42

0. Health (nothing is fun when you are sick / suffering)

1. Having children / family / friends

2. Being successful in life. Reaching goals you have set

(private property could be a sign of success or a reached goal, but it doesnt need to be)

Last edited by Whatever (2019-04-25 17:44:49)

pein · 2019-04-26 05:11:08

it's not that we don't want private property, but the game mechanics doesn't really allow it

like i go 1000 tiles walk and come back with a horsecart, the guy immediately takes it from me and takes it in his backyard
i stabbed him, nd they don't understand why

now if i do it from scratch, then even more annoying
but how would you determine whose backpack is when someone gathers rabbit and you just use the needle on it?
in real life people are afraid of punishment, if they steal then generally will have a bad outcome
the victim can prove he made/bought something

now lets say if i make a snare and people cant interact with it until im in range or give acces, and they coudlnt interact with the furs i put down, then we could talk about private things, fences are private places but the things inside wont have to be self made, so people hoard stuff they didn't make and even if not, others think they did

i cant really imagine with step by step craft, that we can own things
lot of times people find a knife, or their mother gives them one and they "own" that
they cant use it, they cant take out, pick it up and it's clear they couldn't made it at that age, yet they think it's theirs

not sure, maybe set a few tiles private with a timer, then doing something there the item becomes private?
the other thing: as the latest stat came, how often people die 50 tiles away from their birth at max, i guess they never even go further than that
i don't feel like may people scavenge or gather outside, and we don't have static jobs really

futurebird · 2019-04-26 05:20:08

Pein what if items just looked different? If there were variations in color or ways to customize tool handles and horse carts with paint? I don't remember who mentioned putting ribbons on things, but the issue that you can't really tell if someone stole your horse cart or not since they all look identical is a big problem. I think that having more unique items would make much of the fence mechanics obsolete. I could *know* who took my hoe and yell at them and they would know that I knew what I was talking about. Right now they just say "I don't know where your is I made this one" and you can't prove anything.

And people tend to back down when they know they are in the wrong. And they would think twice about taking things off into their fences that you made for the public areas since it would be clear what they did.

I don't really like magical force fields that lock people from using an object. If feels contrived to me. But I do like the social pressure of an item having an identity. Even if it's just a list of the names of the people who participated in creating it (could be too much text) or it could be ways to mark and decorate objects. Carved handles, paint, etc.

When I work in a big office I put my name on my stuff and that's enough to keep people from taking it and keeping it. (I don't mind if they use it) I don't lock my office door, but if I see my red stapler on your desk we will need to have a little chat.

DestinyCall · 2019-04-26 07:30:54

Yes, I made the suggestion of a "maker's mark" on crafted tools and important items a while back. I think it would be an excellent way to allow people to recognize ownership and individual property rights without forcing compliance. If the person who crafted the shovel is displayed, I can tell at a glance that this shovel was made by Bob. If Bob stops by and asks for his shovel, I would give it to him without complaint. He made it. It's Bob's shovel. He might let others borrow it, but we have that shovel because Bob went to the effort of making it, so he gets first dibs.

It wouldn't prevent someone else from stealing Bob's shovel or taking it and using it until it breaks, but I think it would change how people interact with each other and their creations. It would be cool to know the smith's name, because you see his name on all the tools or to be able to pick out your cart from a line of identical carts. People could choose to defend their claims to the items they make or share with everyone. Either way, they will get credit for their hard work.

Sukallinen · 2019-04-26 08:55:54

Yup, the coloring of items was talked already before cloth update, but I think J tested it and things looked too odd or something (I haven't tested tinting sprites since 80's I admit lol). If the wooden part could be colored (before making item even, better after) it would work easier I imagine w/o need to check every item in the game for what happens when color is added to an item - obviously non-wood containing items wouldn't be owned. Or even saddle would be good.

Edit: why wooden ? Less work, only tint the brown part of every wooden item by painting one. It does leave some items out but it is conceivably easier to install.

Last edited by Sukallinen (2019-04-26 08:58:13)

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-04-25 16:35:32

The two most meaningful, fullfilling things in life....

#2 2019-04-25 16:56:13

Re: The two most meaningful, fullfilling things in life....

#3 2019-04-25 17:18:42

Re: The two most meaningful, fullfilling things in life....

#4 2019-04-25 17:31:42

Re: The two most meaningful, fullfilling things in life....

#5 2019-04-25 17:33:42

Re: The two most meaningful, fullfilling things in life....

#6 2019-04-26 05:11:08

Re: The two most meaningful, fullfilling things in life....

#7 2019-04-26 05:20:08

Re: The two most meaningful, fullfilling things in life....

#8 2019-04-26 07:30:54

Re: The two most meaningful, fullfilling things in life....

#9 2019-04-26 08:55:54

Re: The two most meaningful, fullfilling things in life....

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