With the exception of streamers with a substantial regular audience, people taking active part in social justice events, and devs lucky enough to work on lively community projects, average people in my peer group have not started organically bonding into bands of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers of the information superhighway.
For example, I've watched a lot of roommate groups in shared houses fall apart as housemates pack up and go home to live with their parents.
This essay honestly feels like the author has transferred the style and cliches of mid-90s techno-utopianism into an essay promoting the benefits of neoprimitivist permaculture, buzzwords and all.
I'm starting to see something like this happen with devs that pursue many contract work (non community projects) and pool effort/work and split the spoils (its a group of two, one usually does db stufff, one usually does application stuff, but both can write/ship code. I might work with them in the future, working with one them now).
But overall, I'd agree, something like this is a non starter if each individual in a "squad" cant some how contribute meaningfully in part to its wealth.
Analogy might be to a specops squad to killing: might have a sniper, a couple of riflemen, a grenadier/demo, someone who can handle heavy weapons, and maybe a tactical communications/CAS person; all them can kill you in their own way and in a variety of environments, missing one reduces their ability in said environments.
With the amount of memes used throughout and constant informal langauge i'm not sure if this is a serious post or if i'm missing out on a joke. Not really sure if it was trying to put specific point across either
It's serious, though I agree it's a bit muddled in all the memes and references.
The core point as I understood it: the internet is quickly blurring the line between a company and a group of friends working together. Two of the limiting factors are our communication tools and financial/corporate structures.
My take: as this model become more prevalent, more alternatives to traditional employment and education routes open up allowing creators, researchers, and engineers to work on interesting problems without having to find one another through educational institutions and corporations.
Is there even a legal distinction in the US? Germany has a somewhat complicated and sometimes surprising law around all of that, but essentially you can form a "company" without any official acts. It's not necessarily a company to earn money, it's mostly about liability, e.g. who pays when it falls apart.
I couldn't quite make it through all the memes, because I found them too annoying, but I believe that, at least over here, the Squad would likely form a GbR ("Gesellschaft bürgerlichen Rechts"), which includes individual liability for everything done within that company. It's somewhat fuzzy what's part of the Squad's work, but essentially you could be on the hook for something your buddy does with your personal savings, without limit. It's probably better to formalize it and choose a limited liability company.
It seemed like they were making a somewhat good point and then it just degraded into inside-memes at the end. Someone heard "squad goals" and ran with it.
If so, I think they're using it in a more standard way than you. A squad is a small group of people you collaborate with, a tribe is a potentially large group of people you identify with.
I can't tell either, but I feel like I constantly see this type of message. Which is basically anti-capitalist, while using the economic freedom capitalism provides to create a "new" economic system.
At least in this case, they still provide for a voluntary collective of shared capital. If only our current system had a way to do that, hmmm...
Anecdotal observation but from living in a kind of squad in my early 20s, two main problems ripped ours apart: 1) wealth distribution among unequal contribution and 2) romantic relationships and the changing dynamic they introduce.
When I think about groups that survive they seem to either have strong top-down power hierarchies (as in the cult or the corporation), or otherwise de-emphasize money and sex (as in the monastery).
> When I think about groups that survive they seem to either have strong top-down power hierarchies (as in the cult or the corporation), or otherwise de-emphasize money and sex (as in the monastery).
There's also the 'clan', essentially an extended family with strong financial and social ties, often treating wealth quasi-collectively. Varies by culture and era, but my clan (in the Mediterranean region) has been around in current form for about 100 years and is fairly resilient. Varying incomes and romantic relationships (among other things) cause problems here too, but the social structure has developed ways to manage them. There's a fairly elaborate culturally rooted system of gifts, obligations, unofficial hierarchies, etc. that keeps some of it working.
That's super interesting, can you expand? How is wealth treated quasi-collectively despite varying incomes? Is it shared between members? Or do members help with certain expenses like education, health, housing?
I'm rather curious about this
I have to hold myself back from "Oh brother"ing and scoffing myself to death with this, because I respect the fact that they're paying attention and their ideas aren't so mired in the past the way mine, basically, are.
There's a 600 acre plot of relatively cheap land near me that I 2/3rds joking suggest me and friends should go in on together and start a hi tech commune. So far plenty of interest but no commitments. :(
The property is adjacent to a residential area, so sort of to all of them, but not plug and go. Even if it was on the property, 600 acres is big enough that it might not be in the right place.
I think it's just shy of 1.5hrs from a major airport.
What are you going to do with this much land? A single person doesn't need more than a few acres of land even if they are growing all their own food and have other stuff on the side. How many friends do you have?
I get the vibe. Squad, maybe not. But collective? Gang? Tribe? Yeah, that's been a thing for a while, but it really accelerated lately. It's easy to stumble upon the "permeable boundaries" Heather Marsh writes of online and create an organism that isn't a legal entity and isn't for life. And there's more of them all the time.
I heard Michael Munfer on a podcast recently taking about higher education - that it is being dis-intermediated or broken down (cannot remember the right term)
And he suggested a new university that is likely to arise - where there is no campus but you are housed with (your squad) you get weekly tickets to the Proms or a new theatre etc etc. A whole rounded but decentralised education
I think not that squads are our future but the active conscious creation of them are
Seconded. I notice a lot of comments scoffing at this and talking about group disintegration - have now been part of the same “group chat” / squad for 6-7 years and it was inchoate but there even before then. We do everything described in the essay. Reading it was eerie.
It appeals way beyond that. Marginalized groups have known that concept since... well, forever. It's "chosen family" or "framily" (friend family) in the circles I'm familiar with.
The more technical term is "intentional communities". If you search for it, you'll find an extremely wide range of them. This particular "squad" thing has more of a tech bent, but it still falls within that concept.
The page also highlights one of the problems that squads face - it's a highly cohesive group with very closely aligned interests. That often makes their communication less interesting/understandable/relatable to outsiders.
(Which poses an interesting problem - the more uniform the group becomes, the more efficient in-group communication is. To the point where you cannot attract new members to the group, and it slowly withers away)
For example, I've watched a lot of roommate groups in shared houses fall apart as housemates pack up and go home to live with their parents.
This essay honestly feels like the author has transferred the style and cliches of mid-90s techno-utopianism into an essay promoting the benefits of neoprimitivist permaculture, buzzwords and all.