Story Telling Time

We didn’t know know to care. In spite of all the virtuous messaging around us, the most important thing for us was winning the race. It took precedence over everything else: our life support environment, our health, happiness, and other people; it took precedence over everything!

People died of never heard of sicknesses. We had vaccines, but enough of them shunned them to keep these pandemics ongoing. At one point, it was too late to get back to ‘normal.’ We were over the cliff, without solid ground. Yalitza had to pause at this point. The memories had gotten to her.

Most of the very wealthy hid as well as they could, but eventually they were overwhelmed. You see, staying alive was the ‘better life’ because it was the ‘only life’ for the people on the outside and they were very, very good at pursing it and getting it. So, if they had to overwhelm the defenses that the wealthiest had put up, that is what they would do and that is what they did.

Not all the wealthy acted that way, many of them opened their doors and shared all they had and they ended up safer with a community around them.

communities with bosses ranging from paternalistic to brutal. But just as many were co-managed by the community without permanent leaders. <I grew up in one of those communities, said Yalitza, …, but later I joined a nomadic one. And, oh, the wonders I got to see.

One the kids in Yalitza’s audience elbowed her sister. They looked at each other briefly and then he said, Is this accurate? Or are you just making it all up?

An older one, Bal, responded, You have to figure it out. That’s the point.

The facts are accurate. But, yes, you have to figure out if this story about them is true to the facts, or exaggerated, or otherwise twisted or corrupted. </p>

You have to think. You have to figure it out. Bal repeated.

Yalitza smiled at the reaction to Bal’s refrain. She made an exaggerated yawn and then she said, And now I am going to sleep.

Several people in the audience yelled, We know how it ends!

Good, you can continue it then, Yalitza said without looking back. Next time I’ll tell a story with all the details I left out today. Good night.

The Voice Network

Little by little, one community at a time, a voice network was taking shape, all over the world.

As Yalitza would often say in her stories, We kept our heads, so, use them.

We knew about short-wave radio and there was plenty of old equipment around, in trucks and elsewhere. People wanted to connect and invested their time getting the radios going. Eventually, these people, broadcasters, started to find each other.

One of the things that became popular in the network was to ask how-to question. In response, people shared instructions on how to fix some things or how to build others. Younger people were more interested in how to make hair eco-color. I love your brown tips, how do you make it? one would ask. Most responded with the specific process on how to make eco-color, but there always was a smart ass who’d say, Get yourself a brown chest to lean on!

People even learned to patch transmissions from one broadcaster to another and, slowly, the connection grew the world over.

Spring Blossoms

As it it turned out, a few communities were doing original research. A community in what used to be Laos recovered digital repositories and they spent months broadcasting the content of the material over the voice network. In parallel, and with help from the Laos folks, other repositories were recovered in Iceland and Papua and other places.

Yalitza remembered this time, clearly, Sure did, I was one of the people dictating the stuff we got. It was very exciting.

Lurkers

During that time we also figured out how to recognize communities.

Communities

In spite of being the cause of pushing us over the cliff, the hierarchy that had brought us to this point; mostly they could even see it as the engine messing us up.

The good news is that the enclaves and it seemed serious about actually attacking their neighbors.^∇

Community Ensembles

The bad news is that the co-managed, co-owned communities had no defense. Well, the only “defense” they had, kind of, was that a lot of communities had pooled their RAD systems and collaborated like a jazz ensemble.^∇

Who knows, but maybe the deep understanding of what these communities were like would help defend the Radical communities in the future.

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