One Hour One Life Forums

futurebird

Member

Registered: 2019-02-20

Posts: 1,553

A town with 12 people.

I've lived for a summer in a "town" with just 12 people. There was a gas station and it served outsiders but that was it. The people in this town were in about 3 different families and 5 houses and farms. We didn't have any trade. I didn't pay for things when I went to the shop. People from the highway did but the guy running the station would just say "Hi Jane" (not my real name) and I'd make a sandwich or whatever. It helped that I was bringing him his mail and running errands for him but I didn't get paid for that.

Is this some communist utopia? Not really, we just all knew each other and so it was like a large extended family. And there were limits. There was one guy who drank a lot and he would not have been welcome to just walk in and grab a beer. Everyone wanted him to stop drinking so I think he snuck out of town to get his booze.

I find that nicer towns in OHOL very similar to this. Is this ...communism? I really don't think so the people in this town would have balked at that suggestion and said something about "taking care of your own" or whatever.

Now those are memories from when I was a child. I've been back since and the town has changed. It's much bigger. Population of maybe 1000 or so, I don't know exactly. Now the doors are locked and no one walks out of the store without paying.

The key feature here POPULATION.

If we want more complexity we need larger towns. If we want larger towns we need to either change how spawning works or get a whole lot more people playing the game. I think with a large enough population all kinds of neat new dynamics could evolve. Trade, wars, governments, hospitals, there would be so much more room to specialize.

Right now if you decide to be a medic you make pads and needle and thread, if you are good you make your own knife and anti-venom... then you wait ... for the one or two times you are needed. We should have towns large enough that medic is a full time job, so people could get good at it and those sweet economies of scale could come in to play.

When Mao was trying to industrialize China one of his worst ideas was small scale distributed production of steel. He had farmers build kilns and had this vision of all these little mini- industries running all over the country. But the steel they made varied in quality too much, and many people could not learn the long complex process. That is kind of what some of our towns have if they have multiple bakeries and smitheries. Less efficiency, lower skill distributed production.

Now THAT is the real "communism*"

*it isn't really, but that seemed like a snappy ending.

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omnem cibum costis
tantum baca, non facies opus

BladeWoods

Member

Registered: 2018-08-11

Posts: 476

Re: A town with 12 people.

Very interesting story, I agree, we need more population for more structures and specialization to form.

Ilka

Member

Registered: 2018-07-25

Posts: 212

Re: A town with 12 people.

I've lived for a summer in a "town" with just 12 people. There was a gas station and it served outsiders but that was it. The people in this town were in about 3 different families and 5 houses and farms. We didn't have any trade. I didn't pay for things when I went to the shop. People from the highway did but the guy running the station would just say "Hi Jane" (not my real name) and I'd make a sandwich or whatever. It helped that I was bringing him his mail and running errands for him but I didn't get paid for that.

Is this some communist utopia? Not really, we just all knew each other and so it was like a large extended family. And there were limits. There was one guy who drank a lot and he would not have been welcome to just walk in and grab a beer. Everyone wanted him to stop drinking so I think he snuck out of town to get his booze.

I find that nicer towns in OHOL very similar to this. Is this ...communism? I really don't think so the people in this town would have balked at that suggestion and said something about "taking care of your own" or whatever.

Now those are memories from when I was a child. I've been back since and the town has changed. It's much bigger. Population of maybe 1000 or so, I don't know exactly. Now the doors are locked and no one walks out of the store without paying.

The key feature here POPULATION.

If we want more complexity we need larger towns. If we want larger towns we need to either change how spawning works or get a whole lot more people playing the game. I think with a large enough population all kinds of neat new dynamics could evolve. Trade, wars, governments, hospitals, there would be so much more room to specialize.

Right now if you decide to be a medic you make pads and needle and thread, if you are good you make your own knife and anti-venom... then you wait ... for the one or two times you are needed. We should have towns large enough that medic is a full time job, so people could get good at it and those sweet economies of scale could come in to play.

When Mao was trying to industrialize China one of his worst ideas was small scale distributed production of steel. He had farmers build kilns and had this vision of all these little mini- industries running all over the country. But the steel they made varied in quality too much, and many people could not learn the long complex process. That is kind of what some of our towns have if they have multiple bakeries and smitheries. Less efficiency, lower skill distributed production.

Now THAT is the real "communism*"

*it isn't really, but that seemed like a snappy ending.

This is not communism, it is a tribal community. The most perfect system that humanity invented. Then it was worse and worse. In the game we had just such a system - we fight all the way with nature and we either win or lose. It causes a feeling of community. And yes, the nicest memories of the game are those when I did something important for my family. Only so much and so much.

And interesting story.

I think that in small villages around the world, people still live like that.