I see this sentiment expressed a lot and I think it's understandable, having a community of people that support each other is appealing. But I'm not sure it's possible.

I'm not an expert in collective communities but it seems like they all have strictly defined norms and various mechanism to enforce them.

For example, imagine that you, and I, and a few friends decide to start an intentional community together and shortly afterwards I decide that instead of working I will sit in my basement and argue with people on the internet all day. Are you going to support me in this? Or will you pressure me to get a job or kick me out?

Or what if I decide to spend my resources/money/etc on beer and then beg other members for money when I get hungry? Are you going to put up with that?

My impression is that any working community will have the equivalent of religion to make it work.

There's a long history of attempts to create these kinds of communities if you're interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_community

It’s not possible. For those communities to thrive you need a hierarchy and authority figures that become impossible to justify over time unless you’re living in some kind of religious framework. The community has to collectively enforce against freeloaders, again only possible when you’re living under a framework that cannot be reasoned or argued against. You have to put free will and individualism to the side which I think would take the “fun” out of that experience. There’s a reason a lot of the freewheeling communes from the 60-70s didn’t make it.

Individualist communes, of the type I assume you’re looking for, will only become viable once we have reliable robot labor that have enough articulation to do most labor that humans can.

That's a really interesting concept. When I think about the Amish, I consider how their religion greatly influences their way of life. I wonder if removing the religious aspect and substituting it with a political ideology, or something else could yield similar outcomes.

> I think it would be cool if we had a kind of non religious Amish type communities.

These sorts of things do exist, but they tend not to survive very long.

There are too many varibles, such as how to keep an income stream to support it, as money is still required to keep it going. Some sort of agreement has to be reached between everyone on how much is expected to be contributed every month. This is the same as an Amish community.

These communities are something people seek out and then try to join, not something really something most members would be born into. You end up with having to actually screen applicants, to ensure they can provide and won't be a burden.

Eventually these sort community experiments fail due to the above and more.

There are rare exceptions that have this figured out and have managed to make it work for years and decades, but they managed to solve these types of issues. But those are likely not "come live among us" perfect communities that many were looking for. And they come with fine print about what is realistically to be expected and required, including how much money you can will be payinging every month.

Rare exceptions are out othere that have been around for a long time, but to live there you will have to apply, be screened and meet the requirements, you will be paying a certain amount every month, following all the rules, etc. At which point it begins to blur ... what is making this stand out to the point people are applying to get in?

Hippy communes were this, no?

eastwind or twin oaks intentional communities