Politics and the past are important because they explain the present. This is not an issue of needing to learn survival skills or become a more competent rather, this is an issue of a culture change, creating a culture that is okay with the fact that we are not all the same calling for equity instead of equality. Equality calls for us to be all the same, equity says that we are all coming in at different places so some people will need more and some people will need less to get to the same spot. Some people use 1.5 gallons of water to shower because their hair gets greasy or their bodies are larger, some people’s hair can be washed rarely and it actually looks better, some people are okay with being dirtier. Trying to get us all to use the same amount of water so that we can share equally is not a solution because it erases the very real differences between us, instead we need to become okay with sharing knowing that it is a different cost for us all, this is why a culture change is needed because in the West this type of behavior is foreign and often rejected ( Example: Welfare, being okay that you have a job and pay into a pot so that others who can’t work can still eat and live).

Cooperation is so much easier when everyone is buying into the process. Is there shared wisdom on cleanliness and sanitation? Is the writer of this article a competent bather? I’m sorry, but such questions must be asked if you intend to survive your environment collectively or individually.

Seems to me there are way too many discussions about politics, and the past, and very few about learning and sharing necessary survival strategies in the world you now inhabit. A world which is unlikely to change by all your accounts.

While your group seems to have some access to available information on survival strategies, there seems to have been very little practical effort made to prepare yourselves as individuals or to share any practical skills you have with the group.

Until then, Ostrom’s plan will elude you.

Forget all of the old worlds you came from and put your effort into the new one you now inhabit.

Don’t waste time talking about things that will not keep you alive in the world you now live in.