FC: Dispatches from Tomorrow, by Lizard

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

**********

> Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2000 12:01:36 -0800
> From: Lizard <lizard () dnai com>
> To: declan () well com, politech () vorlon mit edu
> Subject: Re: FC: KQED in SF -- and We're Not Dead Yet!
> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i
>
> Several new essays o nthe issue are at www.mrlizard.com




[Including this one. --DBM]


http://www.mrlizard.com/dispatches.html

May 7, 2000
New York Times Magazine

Jim Robbins is sitting alone in an auditorium built for 100. 

Six months ago, this hall was filled with families eager to begin their new
lives at "Pine Woods
Millennium Retreat"...a planned community for those who wanted to ride out
the coming apocalypse.
A large diesel generator promised to provide power, with fresh water coming
from the nearby lake
and ample hunting, fishing, and farming space. At its peak, the community
housed nearly 115
people;now, only Jim is left. 

"We started out nervous and a lot of folks thought we were nuts. But we
wanted to live, and, more,
most of the people here wanted to get away from the cities, from the modern
world. Go back to the
idea of a real community, where you knew your neighbors and could count on
them." 

After the deadline came and went without much effect, a town meeting was
held. 

"It was a long one. We all talked, and argued, and debated. We reached the
conclusion that we liked
it here. People said it was such a change from the suburbs, that this was
how they wanted to raise
their kids, and we would make this a real community." 

He sighs, and looks away for an instant. 

"Three days later, people started leaving." 

"The first one to go....he was almost in tears when he told me, he said he
had to think of his
daughter...she missed her friends, her school, and she wanted to study
ballet, and she couldn't do
that here....two days later, someone else came by, said he had a job offer
he 'couldn't refuse'...it just
kept happening. And the more people left, the less it felt like a
community...it was depressing, sitting
in the empty dining hall, coming to the empty recreation center. We figured
there'd be no TV, so we
had room for square dances, or storytelling, or things like that, but there
*was* TV, and, you know,
it just couldn't compete." 

"When the generator blew in Feburary, I think that was it. It was only out
for a few hours, and, you
know, if things had happened like we thought they would, we'd all have been
grateful for any
electricity. But as it was, I think a lot of people decided that a real
neighborhood, a real sense of
place, wasn't worth as much as a McDonalds on the corner and a satellite
dish on the roof." 

"By the end of March, I was alone. I'm just the caretaker now. I don't
know, I sank a lot of money
into this place, figuring it wouldn't matter in the long run -- it was all
paper money, federal scrip, it
would be worthless as soon as the system collapsed. And I wanted to make a
place where a real
community could live, someplace where we could give life to old values,
serve as, I don't know, the
center for a new, better, civilization after the old one died." 

"Maybe I'll see if I can rent it out for corporate training retreats or
something." 

When asked if he would be joining the DCH class-action suit against 'false
prophets', he replied,
"Hell yeah! Those bastards raised a lot of hope in people. They ought to be
made to pay." 

[...]



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