Communities working together

My mind seems to never have stopped working on your comment, Paul, concerning how there is least conflict within a community where everyone has the same base knowledge and so here I am at 2 am writing a post on my dream of how a community would work.

There is probably a lot of truth that a community where everyone has the same base knowledge has the least conflict over how to address problems within the community, however then you are also left in the situation faced where Santa's reindeer are stumped by a bunch of fog until Rudolph (someone with a different base of knowledge) comes along. Which is my way of saying that the uniform community is also has fewer resources from which to draw to solve problems from.

A contrasting community to Santa's reindeer is found in classic Trek. How many more problems are they able to solve because they have a diverse group of people where everyone uses their acknowledged strengths to contribute to the effort! Yes, they have a few squabbles, but one suspects that even Spock and McCoy would agree that the other has valuable strengths to give towards the group effort.

In my experience as a math tutor where I routinely as my first step in tutoring them spend a bit of time especially in the beginning to intuitively evaluate each person's strengths and weaknesses, I think that a community where everyone got to play to their strengths most of the time would be a very happy community. I also think that in that community having someone to turn to when one is faced with a problem that lands within one's weakness -- someone who is a lot stronger than you in those things would be a welcome support for most people.

In my daydreams about community (and I acknowledge that they are little more than thought experiments), it would be an important process especially early on in the formation of that community to have a general coming to terms with who has what strengths and who has what weaknesses and then match people up with the jobs that suit that. (That kind of function is something that I personally would be particularly suited for.) It would also seem to be a good thing if people in general were to know their own and each other's strengths so that then their differences would not be a source of dischord, but a source of greater strength and resilience for the community.

What do you think?

I see your point about rudolph.

At the same time, why is rudolph's knowledge set not added to the collective?

I think there is a lot to be said for 20 artists each making 20 different pieces of art vs. 20 artists being required to collaborate to make one piece of art. And then there are times when 20 different artists need to figure out how there is transportation on and off the property, will there be cattle on the property and what kind of food is served three meals a day seven days a week to the 20 artists.

I agree that there would need to be 20 different people: some keen on horticulture, some keen on animal husbandry, some keen on cooking, some keen on building, etc. And these compliment each other. And I think that frequent knowledge share will greatly reduce conflict. In time Spock and McCoy came to conclusions more often than when they first met.

paul wheaton wrote:

I think there is a lot to be said for 20 artists each making 20 different pieces of art vs. 20 artists being required to collaborate to make one piece of art.

As an artist, I like collaborative AND individual efforts. It doesn't have to be one thing or the other, it can be a bunch of things.

Tyler Ludens wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:

I think there is a lot to be said for 20 artists each making 20 different pieces of art vs. 20 artists being required to collaborate to make one piece of art.

As an artist, I like collaborative AND individual efforts. It doesn't have to be one thing or the other, it can be a bunch of things.

Excellent point!