Community is crucial and that has never been clearer to me than this last month, when wildfires claimed 10,000 hectares of the area around my home, leaving many people with nothing but the clothes they were wearing when they escaped.
At its peak, our fire was fought by firefighters from all over Portugal. More than a thousand men, some 400 fire trucks, and 14 planes ultimately prevailed. We watched the huge column of smoke and none of us slept much during the four nights it burned, watching as an approaching orange glow lit up the sky. In the wake of this, now that the firefighters have completed the heroic task of slaying the fire dragon, it is the strength of the community that is coming to the fore.
Among the small local businesses there is an almost festive atmosphere. Those affected share stories of last-minute leaks and the damage is compared. Together, we reckon with what has been lost and celebrate the small victories over the fire. A home saved here, a family reunited with their livestock and pets there, a house that was untouched by the flames even though everything around it has burned.
People have come from all over to volunteer. Donations of food, clothing and household items are piled up against the back wall of a local restaurant and distributed to those in need. Gender roles seem to be falling naturally among the volunteers: men mostly take on the heavy tasks of clearing scorched earth and charred trees to clear the way for people to start rebuilding, and women cook for the men’s teams. and families who have lost their homes. Now, a month after the fire, progress is very visible. Sagging roofs have been shoveled and cleaned, structures checked and cleaned in preparation for the placement of new beams and reconstruction. Melted pipes from irrigation systems have been ripped out of the ground and removed. Personal possessions have been examined and what can be saved has been secured. We have received excellent briefings on how to manage burnt land, what to clear, what to leave, how to prevent soil erosion, and when and how to start replanting. With the first rains of autumn arriving in force, the first signs of green are already reappearing throughout the blackened landscape.
A dear friend of mine, a dedicated bitcoiner, put it beautifully to me in a message when I told her how overwhelming it is to see people coming together like this. “This is what people do when they govern themselves,” she wrote, “it’s beautiful.”
Truer words were never spoken. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a community get going so smoothly before. In countries – like most European countries – where governments still function at least to some extent (one could argue that they function excessively), many people seem to have lost contact with the community. While churches would once have provided the cornerstones of this connection, most people are no longer affiliated with any religious association and if you ask them about their community or “tribe,” most fumble for an answer. They speak of a group loosely composed of co-workers, sports partners, friends who are not necessarily close, and neighbors with whom they share a mostly coincidental bond of proximity. The fabric of our societies is now an open weave and many individuals simply slip through it into isolation, clinging to only a few threads here and there.
From a historical and sociological perspective, the loss of community is deeply troubling. Humans do not form communities for fun. We didn’t group up because it was more fun to hunt or guard the castle walls with a friend (although it probably was that too). Throughout human history, regardless of time or geographical environment, humans have banded together because together we are and have always been safer, more effective and more capable of influencing our context for our benefit, whether fighting a fire, an enemy attack. or political overreach. At the risk of sounding like a political slogan, we really are stronger together.
Women traditionally play a crucial role in creating and uniting communities, largely because they are socially and biologically highly incentivized to do so – a woman’s first protector for herself and her children is, of course, her man – but more beyond him or in his absence, it is she. community, which is her second line of protection and which she depends on for her safety and help in times of need. It could be convincingly argued that it is the breakdown of community that is, at least in part, responsible for the skyrocketing statistics of depression and anxiety among women of all ages, but especially among the younger generations of the North from Europe and the United States. Social media seems to replicate a community into hordes of followers, but as a replacement it is simply not enough, providing only dopamine addiction rather than genuine connection. From a mental health perspective, the loss of community is just as disastrous as it is when viewed through a historical and sociological lens.
Obviously, it is not just women who are vulnerable to this catastrophic crisis. Across genres, statistics on poor mental health, including isolation, depression, suicide and addiction, make reading depressing and increasingly prevalent, despite the increasing ease of life for most. of people in the developed world, even more so. It is the lack of community that is leaving such a void in people’s lives, especially the lack of a sense that they are contributing to a cause greater than their own personal well-being. Maybe I’m naïve, but I can’t help but feel that founding and actively stimulating the growth of local communities could have incredibly restorative potential for our collective well-being.
This is just one of the reasons why it is incredibly encouraging to see a community here in full force, coming together to support and help each other, each member contributing what they have to offer. For some it is money, which is channeled directly to provide emergency aid or donated to people whose livelihood depended on their home. For others, it is the strength of muscles and machines, in chainsaws, clearing and cleaning. Some people have dedicated their time to coordinating the influx of volunteers. For those of us who have no idea how to operate a chainsaw and whose lack of muscle strength threatens to make us more of a hindrance than a help on the front lines of cleanup, it’s a kitchen chore, providing food to those working and those in need. That community is vital at all levels of Maslow’s pyramid of human needs is clearly exemplified after our fire.
But how do we reintroduce the seeds and roots of community to other places, where with the loss of shared faith and competitive social relations in all aspects of life, it has been lost for so long? Can we, as individuals and families, foster this growth?
As a fellow bitcoiner, I think you know what I would propose. In addition to its countless other aspects, bitcoin provides a unique foundation for the community. We have all experienced it if we have attended bitcoin events; I’d bet my bottom dollar (if you or I still believed in the value of the dollar) that you had more in common with the person you chatted with for five minutes in the bathroom line at the bitcoin conference than you do. do with your co-workers, who you have known and worked with for years.
bitcoin is about shared values and a shared knowledge that the system we live in simply doesn’t work. His ability to lay the foundation for the community (not to mention the rest of his cornucopia of economic, technical, social, and philosophical gifts) is second to none. A bitcoin-based community is a completely new and unique model that has the potential to fill the void left by other failed (fiat) community models.
Those of us who choose to already experience some of this bitcoin community through Telegram, Twitter and Nostr. Among other Bitcoiners, we can, in a nutshell, go ahead and skip the small talk. In general, we are all aware of the role played by governments, big pharma, mainstream media and food giants. Once these topics are out of the conversation, it’s beautiful to watch what emerges: We’re all pretty much in agreement about what generally went wrong in the past, so we tend to focus on the future. These conversations are incredibly valuable. I, for one, love the thought-provoking contact and sense of community online, but there is a danger that those online communities and the people I socialize with and the companies where I buy the products I need In daily life they may seem like two. separate worlds. It takes a few steps to bring those two worlds together, but I think they’re worth taking. Shared values create strong bonds and as you build a bitcoin community around you, you will be able to experience the luxury of this.
Delivering regular bitcoin education sessions and watching businesses around me begin to accept bitcoin is, for me, planting the seeds of an additional layer of community. You could say that we have an obligation, not only to ourselves and our families, but also to our communities, to seed and encourage the growth of new bitcoin-based communities. Doing so will bring us enormous benefits. Not only will we be able to transact and save real money with each other, building parallel economies that are unobjectionable and tailored to meet our own needs (because we are incentivized by the orange pill businesses we most want to buy from), but we will also We will have access to the social, philosophical and even moral benefits that come with being part of a true community and that most of us have never fully experienced.
Can bitcoin take us back to a golden age of community, where we can all experience these benefits? I think the answer is probably yes. Some of its green shoots can already be seen growing from the ashes left by the collapse of trust models of community. So if I can be so bold as to offer you some advice, go to that store, restaurant or bar you go to frequently and say those magic words: “Do you already accept bitcoin?”
This is a guest post by Holly Young.. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of btc Inc or bitcoin Magazine.
