It feels performative. Not even necessarily just the video but living in that world it seems like you’d need to basically play along with how great and perfect everything is.

I’m with you where this is my impression from the video while I have nothing theoretically against the idea itself.

I skimmed through the video and did not pay attention to what they were talking about at all. The thing feels strange to me is that there was almost nobody else appeared in the video. Nobody was doing anything in the garden or just walking in the fields to enjoy the nature. The images taken from the sky also showed no sign of human activity. Again, I just skimmed through the video and I may have missed them.

It's a very common pattern when videotaping communities. Not everyone is happy to have a camera around, and there's usually agreements that the camera will stay in a certain corner and that only people who consent to be filmed will be on tape.

That's actually an amazing point. I didn't pick up on it at first but now that you mention it clearly was part of the uncanny feel of the whole thing.

I don't know what time of day it was filmed. Maybe most people were working? There definitely were people around, at various points in the video.

If I look outside my home at any random time of the day, you typically don't see many people either. Perhaps a few children if its the right time of day and weather, but on most days there really aren't that many people around. The video had more people.

Looked fairly normal to me. This isn't a Holywood movie where they have to show you the life in 30 seconds or so.

I have a theory on what your reaction could be, and that's because I've expected your kind of reaction in the past and don't do much anymore.

When I watched the video I didn't really perceive the people to be "fake" or "ungenuine". I think what's happening is that the vibes these people are giving off are just so radically different to what we're used to in society and our upbringing. For better or for worse, we've grown up to be mistrustful of others as a means of self-protection e.g. to prevent ourselves from being conned, scammed, or taken advantage of. This constant mistrust causes physiological effects on us over time, you could definitely intrepret it as causing elevated levels of cortisol, but I simply interpret it as causing uncomfortable feelings and physical tension.

So what I think is happening is that the nature of these people as very open and trusting and relaxed is conflicting with and almost triggering the latent mistrust that lies within us. Our mind does its best to interpret the situation and lands on the hypothesis that these people are the causes of the physiological and psychological reactions we're having. You know, because maybe they're scammers, con-artists or just putting on a facade. They can't possibly actually be like that, can they?

But I don't think they are mistrustworthy at all in fact I feel it's actually the opposite. Just my 2 cents :)

I’m going to hang on to this idea, i really like it. thank you.

It feels a bit Black Mirror like to be honest. It kind of reminds me of the episode where people are dating each other. And in the end the dating turned out to be a simulation of many simulations so that a score could be determined between the real people. That episode (forgot the title) has a neighborhood that feels a bit like this (though more high tech).

I wonder if our popular culture has basically conditioned us to distrust community in general, and so we automatically have a visceral reaction whenever it’s portrayed in a highly positive light. Or really, portraying almost anything in a highly positive light is viewed with distrust. We’re a culture of jaded cynics now. An attitude probably incompatible with community.

> "popular culture has basically conditioned us to distrust community in general"

Or maybe people reach those conclusions on their own! Does it have to be that they were "conditioned" to them, or can they have agency?

Well, what other people alluded to was the performant part. That's also salient in some Black Mirror episodes now that I think about it.

While it is a first impression, it's just a first impression.

I would hope that one of the benefits of an eco village is less people would be comparing things to tv shows all the time.

They aren't Amish, I'm sure they still have TVs.

Yeah, but many of these types of people (like Waldorf schools) try not to see the world through the lens of media you consume.

“Hang the DJ” - named after the song played in the bar scene. Great episode.