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Strike the earth!

Good idea, don't count me in, though.

Meh, I just like to vote. Don't care.

You'll probably have a lot of "Fun*", that's for sure.

GET A JOB, YOU HIPPIES.

[smigenboger]

This has already been done, it's called MIT

Every geek is different. Personally, I don't like techno-babble and people raving about halo or really specific interests, so I'd love to be in the section of the 'geeks with dignity'

[alway]

As for me, I would prefer a somewhat rural, seclusive place on a big plot of land, with good internet service. The large area with relatively little local government intervention means all sorts of geeky projects can be embarked upon. Things like blacksmithing, robot building, a trebuchet, ect... all without bothersome neighbors pestering me about trivialities such as bowling balls flying through the air or coal smoke flooding their house.

[Cheddarius]

I don't think this would work. Technology leaps forward so quickly that you'll commission this commune, get your nuclear reactors and T1 lines and such, and a few years later people will have what you have on their cell phones.

[smigenboger]

Rural would be nice, also a place private enough to practice alternate states of mind.

[PTTG??]

Alway and Smigenboger: exactly. We may go up into Canada, as I understand they allow these indipendent local area groups or something like that. You essentially get to declare yourself indipendent from the rest of the nation for relatively low cost. And since there's tons of rural land even close to relatively large civilization, locating a good place won't be outlandishly tough.
 
Cheddarius: It won't take 20 years to find a place and move in. And we'll be advancing ahead at about the same rate as anybody else, just more efficiently due to the communal nature.

[smigenboger]

Whoo, it's cold up there. That would take some adjustment. I still say MIT already beat you to this

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Now, I think it's a silly idea to begin with, but wouldn't declaring yourself an independent nation, in a rural area no less kind of defeat the whole purpose of pooling resources for utilities (space would be cheaper, but the whole point is there's too much space to begin with)?

[PTTG??]

No, not a separate nation. I have to look it up before I say more, but basically more of a town with some extra freedoms. Not a likely course of action for a geekly commune, no, but more traditional communes have gone that route.
 
That's only really relevant if you're going out in the middle of nowhere so you can build trebuchets.
 
A more reasonable thing is to find something like an old hotel or something and convert it. Still, a major bit of manual labor.
 
'Course, on the other hand, a semi-rural area like the edge of a modest town, set up a well, some solar panels, use wood stoves, get us some aluminumunum foil for some gov'ment ray helmets...
 
Anyway, the point of this would not be to make a communal farm or some weird religious thing like some communes are, but more of a group of people that, for convinience's sake, live on the same property, and occasionally share resources.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Again, wasn't this a solution to there being too much space in a house for one misanthrope with an internet connection? So why would you go out where the internet is shittier and more expensive (the more expensive part also goes for electricity), but space, a semi-undesirable trait, is cheaper?

[PTTG??]

[The rural advantages are] only really relevant if you're going out in the middle of nowhere so you can build trebuchets.
 
A more reasonable thing is to find something like an old hotel or something [such as you might find in an urban area] and convert it. Still, a major bit of manual labor.

[Cthulhu]

Or you could just live in a house like a normal human being.

[Rakonas]

I believe that it may be possible to declare your group of people to be an indigenous tribe in Canada and claim land in the wilderness independent from property taxes. As a result, you could create a commune that lives off the land, with the only modern necessities being electricity and a really good internet connection. It would be like a Dwarf Fortress in the taiga, with each geek going about doing whatever he's best at and spending half his day on the internet. Migrants would be scarce, but contribute significantly to the development. I suppose doing this in a country that has normal communes would work, too. Actually, thinking about this, it sounds a lot like how monasteries used to form around hermits in the past, is it still possible to found monasteries and declare a nerd religion?

[sonerohi]

Just make sure you have enough farmers and brewers.

[Grakelin]

Guys, Cojawfee Condo will never happen, it's best to focus on better projects. It's sad, I know, we all wanted it to happen, but we'd never support ourselves.

[PTTG??]

That's why I think an urban demi-commune is the best route. The idea is that you'd still have a regular job, or at least, a non-farming job. It would be more like a very large group of roommates, perhaps.