Can you not accomplish the same thing using a traditional organization and a meeting place? Why does it have to be a house?
A couple of reasons occur to me. First, everyone’s real goddamn busy. If you already live in a rationalist house and also have a job there’s not gonna be a ton of time or attention left in your life for other stuff as big as what Duncan wants Dragon Army to be. Second, Duncan wants people to do things like exercise with each other first thing in the morning before heading off to work, and it seems really annoyingly difficult to coordinate something like this with anyone other than the people you live with.
In general it’s just way, way easier to coordinate all sorts of activities with the people you live with than with anybody else. My most direct experience with this was living in a fraternity and seeing the difference between the brothers who did and didn’t live in the house; there was a big difference in terms of social accessibility and bonding, and accordingly we strongly encouraged people to live in the house when at all possible.
A couple of reasons occur to me. First, everyone’s real goddamn busy. If you already live in a rationalist house and also have a job there’s not gonna be a ton of time or attention left in your life for other stuff as big as what Duncan wants Dragon Army to be. Second, Duncan wants people to do things like exercise with each other first thing in the morning before heading off to work, and it seems really annoyingly difficult to coordinate something like this with anyone other than the people you live with.
In general it’s just way, way easier to coordinate all sorts of activities with the people you live with than with anybody else. My most direct experience with this was living in a fraternity and seeing the difference between the brothers who did and didn’t live in the house; there was a big difference in terms of social accessibility and bonding, and accordingly we strongly encouraged people to live in the house when at all possible.