Interview with Apple at Twin Oaks Community

[atfatw]

nice you bothered to wash your hair bigfeet!

[BenjaminLaird]

fell in love with you

[diddymuck]

whole report = she wants to eat organic food and do farm-y jobs.  HEH HEH HEH HEH (cue the crickets).

[liagarden]

please disable comments. Who wants to look at what these morons have to say??

[molewizard]

@liagarden Fuck free speech. Don't let them have it, they're morons.

-_-

[atfatw]

@liagarden like you?

[rdvdgcsd]

Fuck that.Who wants to live on a farm and work all the time?

[smithierevolution]

i concur!

[BEN1969350]

Why do hippies talk like they are so much smarter than others. eating organic food not buying stuff I don't get it . the only exploited labor is slave labor if you shut down a sweat shop you cut off workers from their means of income and probably survival.communism only works in small communities that are supported by capitalist neighbors. they have capitalist cars tools building supplies without capitalism they would not have their quality of life.

[tumeg8282]

@BEN1969350

Keep thinking the way that your owners want you to, that's right.

[BEN1969350]

@tumeg8282 Intelligent people back up comments with evidence dumbass

[tumeg8282]

@BEN1969350

You made the ignorant claim before I even saw this video, therefore the burden of proof is on you. I'm sorry, no proof? Just a moronic claim? Just as I thought. Also, intelligent people can punctuate their fucking sentences, dumbass.

[BEN1969350]

@tumeg8282 The proof is the country they live in capitalist freedom off the people to buy sell and trade try living in any Communist nation the way you prefer they make all the rules and own all the property . without capitalist America communes could not exist. and i dont punctuate because i type what i think i dont care if i dont write perfect English on a web post douche

[tumeg8282]

@BEN1969350

Thats what I fucking thought.

[BEN1969350]

@tumeg8282 I did not know idiot douches could think ill have to write this down thank you

[tumeg8282]

@BEN1969350

You're a fucking moron, any more "proof" to show me, or are you just going to continue being ignorant?

[17seventySIX]

I have 125 acres in the hills of Santa Barbara California surrounded by BLM land....Would anybody be willing to help create a safe place to live, grow food, shelter, I have much knowledge but can't do it alone....Any suggestions from people out there? Any body in LA or San Fransisco with no where to go if the SHTF? We could even go underground.

[fishontuesday]

Another Republican disliked

[quidproquo2004]

I don't mind working hard as long as I get to smoke pot and have sex.

[tryanjohnson]

Perhaps another mistaken idea is that all commune people are against any form of capitalism. I don't think this is true since most communes and or Kibbutz export to the wider world and well as utilize the corporate infrastructure.

[splemexa]

The Twin Oaks mode of public enquiry was the most pointlessly rude waste of time, effort, resources, courtesy, and good faith that I've ever had the misfortune to encounter. Fair warning.

[CarlosMerighe]

0:47: "you have to work for it."

No, the Obama generation thinks they are entitled to it, and working for it is out of question.

[neenerhead]

Apple!

[ika8931]

I've been curious about Twin Oaks for a while now and really want to move there. I wrote a letter of my interests and so on for the three week stay, but no one ever replied. I'm living in hell here in Baltimore.

[blizteria]

Try again, Ika. Twin Oaks is glad to have people! The next visitor session will be in 2 months

[MantraD313]

@ika8931 my girlfriend and i did the three weeks visit and it was one of the best experiences of my life. send another email! it's worth the effort! and when you get there say hi to coyote, luke, ezra and trout for me :)

[AutonomousAutomaton]

@MantraD313 What did you like about it?

[MantraD313]

oh where to begin haha! i could name a lot of things. i guess the main one would be that seeing a community of so many people who exist on the same level and require only each other to survive, not some boss or check, is inspiring and hopeful, especially with how long they've been around. not everyone there gets along completely and there are issues just like every community in the world has, but it's based on a common and beautiful vision, and the lifestyle is wonderful. it's so full of life!

[AutonomousAutomaton]

@MantraD313 What was the work like? Was it physically challenging? Was it varied, or a lot of the same stuff?

[jun7per]

she seems very angry and bitter. So many people escape in communes to hide from their deep issues.

[cycomerlin14]

I assure you she's simply well-grounded and awesome. And I have found that personal issues become more pronounced in intentional villages, therefore one must work towards resolution.

[Belfadin]

No, she knows what it takes to supply our first world existence.

[komponki]

So many people escape in today's society and materialism to hide from their deep issues. You got sth wrong honey

[jmpetvideo]

Valerie is hot

[BenjaminLaird]

she's pretty cute

[emmetgirl]

apple! i have happy memories of doing some kind of vegetable garden work (weeding strawberries? mayhaps) with her when i visited twin oaks a few years ago. i was seventeen and going by the name of elf. i've been thinking of coming back for another visit.

[jkaplan82]

apple intimidates/attracts me. but i wanna visit!

[skyybutter1]

I LOVE these ideas..... Im looking to move to an intentional community...

[Gentlerain73]

we NEED more communites like this...Thank you :)

[stretchingwitheva]

her words are right-on! there is full spectrum of what "intentional community" can mean.

[arkitektontube]

Thanks for replying, Sven. That you don't want to call it privilege unfortunately doesn't mean that we are not a privilege-based system--we are indeed. The better rooms, the better jobs, the ability to spend community resources, the better residences, medical care, dental care, work hours,

[JNdigital]

so u live or have lived at Twin Oaks community? if so, how long?

[arkitektontube]

ALL have a pronounced seniority component. Rather than dismiss my argument with a couple of contradictions, why not admit the problem (and indeed it is a problem for any community that calls itself egalitarian, as we do--it's right there on the web site!! ;)) exists, and then solve that problem, in a genuinely egalitarian manner?

[svenoaks]

there was a lot of opportunity to have one or more very important positions in the community.

[svenoaks]

Oh please, I lived there for six years and I had a bedroom in the newest house within six months. There were always decent rooms available and there were efforts to improve the old ones. Positions of 'privilege' (though I don't feel thats at all the right word for it) were always coming open and were often difficult to fill, including the community planner position. While there were certain positions that one couldn't obtain until the previous person quit,

[arkitektontube]

Eurekamike makes attractive suggestions, but I have to add few provisos: Simply keep in mind that Twin Oakers really do, with their public face, paint far too rosy picture of their community. Like any other human community , a great deal of energy at Twin Oaks is spent by members squabbling over very

[arkitektontube]

finite resources, pissing each other off, stabbing each other in the back, accusing each other of this and that, gossiping, and so on. People also, as anywhere else, very, very jealously guard their privileges. Opportunities on the commune are typically given out on a first-come first-served basis,

[arkitektontube]

meaning that oldtimers routinely have the best of things--the largest rooms, the healthiest rooms, in the more attractive residences; the most interesting jobs, and the jobs that are responsible for and use larger slices of scarce resources have gone to or are held by folks who have lived on the commune for a lot of years, You can wait, literally, years for a decent sized bedroom

[arkitektontube]

that doesn't smell of mold. If you'd like to manage a garden it won't happen until the current garden manager decides to step down, and for the more interesting managerial positions that can take over a decade. Visitors and new members get the scut work--as one Planner at Twin Oaks said, "Visitors are the niggers of Twin Oaks." (I'm only quoting here, I don't approve of the

[arkitektontube]

language.) As I said, people are extremely reluctant to surrender their privileges. Because of this there is very little about Twin Oaks that is genuinely egalitarian--in many areas that matter, it is a seniority-based system, and that, to me, is one of its great disappointments.

[arkitektontube]

Finally, regarding Mike's mention that if you want to you can go bake bread for two weeks--well, no, you can't. If you wanted to bake bread and get credit for it, you would need to be on the bread-making schedule, and that

[arkitektontube]

means waiting for a slot to open up--which often takes months. Even then, you'll only get a couple hours of credit for it. Further, if you wanted to bake bread on your own for two weeks, you'd need the permission of the food manager (really), and you wouldn't get it, since that much bread would obviously go to waste.

[arkitektontube]

What saddens me is that Twin Oaks isn't nearly what it could be. That Mike asserts, 'consider it an internship' speaks loudly about how differently the accumulation of privileges over the last twenty years by older members has caused new members to treated, truly, as second class citizens.

[arkitektontube]

Also, you do live in very close proximity to a very high percentage of people whose social skills didn't allow them to prosper socially on the outside...

On the other hand, casual, safe, good-natured sex is fairly easy to come by, if you're gay or bi- or trans- it's a pretty safe place to be, and if you're a feminist you'll get a lot of support. And, as Apple notes, it has a lot of the farm about it, should that be your preference.

[eurekamikefilm]

organic cheese and butter, or how to milk a cow. If you want, the flexible work system can let you create your own schedule, spending, say, two weeks just baking bread, if that is what you want. After a year, you may find you have made great friends and want to stay. if not, you have made good karma, helped with the community, and gone away with new knowledge and an unforgettable experience that will last a lifetime.

[eurekamikefilm]

My advice to people interested in Twin Oaks and other FIC communities is to approach it as an internship. Commit to a year and go to learn. Learn how to make

[arkitektontube]

Living at Twin Oaks myself, I've found it to be startlingly mainstream: much of the work is stunningly dull, most of the decisions about where to spend money are made by entrenched, middle-aged, white, so-called managers, there is a strict, political orthodoxy that regularly drives away folks who don't precisely buy into it, and since no one bathes community dances smell almost as good as slaughterhouses.

[earthena]

wow yes do keep adding more!!! I wouldd so love to visit a place like this to see if it is something that works for me. So many things u said apple are things I myself have said.

[Bildbank]

Hi apple, I like your way of putting things straight out forward .... lots of power for your work .... !! We try to establish a commune in Germany as well .... Regards H.

[LordRaineus]

Guess I'll have to stick to furries and secret shopping.

[LordRaineus]

You guys don't sit around doing nothing and having sex? Dammit, there goes my commune plan.

[JNdigital]

and growing organic hemp ; )

[ephraimoakes]

woah, it's apple...on youtube!  rock on with your documenting!

[sk8bum321]

2nd!!!!!

[Hanuman9876]

This was great! I can't wait to see more, keep filming and I will keep watching. :)