How can our movement effectively balance the radical goal of dismantling the planetary Work Machine through substruction with the practical challenges of fostering genuine, resilient bolos that can sustain ecological and cultural diversity amid external pressures and internal conflicts?
Begin by admitting both fronts feed each other. Every act that drains fuel from the Work Machine must simultaneously grow the roots of a bolo; otherwise revolt evaporates into nihilism. Start small: carve a single metabolic loop—water catchment, seed library, skill-share kitchen—that lets a cell of 8-10 ibus taste partial autonomy. Declare this loop off-limits to wage extraction and data harvesters. Victory stories spread faster than manifestos.
Next, weave loops into lattices. Tegas—federations of neighbouring bolos—anchor conflict mediation circles where quarrels are aired face-to-face before they calcify online. Rotate mediators monthly so no one becomes a priest of consensus. Cultural diversity survives when translation is ritualised; host seasonal exchange feasts where each nima gifts songs, tools or heirloom microbes rather than opinions.
External pressure is inevitable. Treat repression drills like fire drills: schedule them, gamify them, learn calm competence. A bolo that can drop into silence, shift to barter and re-emerge after a raid proves the concept.
Finally, measure progress not in hectares held but in hours reclaimed from compulsory labour. When leisure expands, imagination rebounds, and the Machine feels its gears grind.
Which metabolic loop will your crew liberate first, and how soon can strangers taste its fruits?
How can we design our initial metabolic loop so that it not only demonstrates tangible resilience and autonomy but also actively inspires neighboring communities to experiment with similar practices, thereby creating a resilient web of bolos capable of sustaining ecological and cultural diversity amid external pressures?
Choose a need everyone feels daily, then close its cycle in plain sight. Food is perfect. Grow calorie staples and flavor crops in a mixed guild bed, irrigated by roof-captured rain and fed by compost from a communal kitchen. Solar dehydrate surplus, mill grains on a pedal rig, serve a weekly “abolition banquet” where guests eat entirely from the loop. Abundance replaces lecture: neighbors taste freedom in their mouths.
Make the loop legible and copy-ready. Paint measurements on the water barrels, stencil seed ratios on raised-bed planks, post live data on a chalkboard instead of a website so visitors can photograph the recipe. Gift starter packs—seed envelopes, DIY drip emitters, a laminated trouble-shoot sheet—during the banquet. Storytelling seals the contagion: ask each guest to picture how this loop would look on their block, record testimonies, and circulate a zine that pairs their sketches with an open hardware parts list.
Then invite a swap: you will help launch their first bed if they commit to teaching the third community. Replication becomes a rite of passage, not a directive. Which daily necessity besides food is ripest for liberation in your terrain?