I'll take a stab at this "homework" as it applies to the US. I doubt my proposed methods are directly applicable on the West Bank: "One method, as seen in this article, is to deny connections to national infrastructure (particularly energy) and then prevent (using zoning/etc. regulations and legal maneuvers) the use of resilient technology. This tactic is also central to efforts to eliminate Occupy camps. We, in the US/EU, are going to see this lawfare on a grand scale in the future as IN/OUT groups (if you think you will be on the IN group, you are probably wrong) develop due to prolonged economic failure. Homework for global guerrillas: think of the ways to defeat this method of attack (is there any method besides counter-lawfare?). I'll post the best answers." 1. Try to build viral, positive attention from a mass audience before problems start -- but operate stealthily until there's a chance to do that: For example, if a group of neighbors collude to break landscaping regulations to convert ornamental plantings and vacant lots to productive use: Don't make big noise about it when breaking ground, when it is easy for the authorities to crack down. Do as harvests start to come in, promote the project as a good example of what other people can do. Tell the stories about how it is vital for the people doing it in these difficult times. Get this story to as wide an audience as possible both outside and inside the jurisdiction of the relevant authorities. The idea is that a "late in the game" crackdown can be mediated in the court of public opinion by pointing to actual, tangible solving of real, human needs problems. 2) Pick your neighbors, when you can. Urban homesteading in Oakland was illegal when it started happening. One of the main instigators (author Novella Carpenter) was in a good situation in at least one way -- when pigs escaped their pen they'd go over to a Bhuddist monastary across the street and the monks would helpfully return them. By the time the whole affair rose to the agenda of city council, the palpable successes and momentum turned what could have been a shut down into a mostly friendly negotiation. Here's a quote from Sarah Henry's blog: "The ‘hood is also dotted with long-shuttered businesses, drug dealers, prostitutes, multiethnic neighbors, and what Carpenter affectionately refers to as “fellow freaks.” She feels right at home there. “The neighborhood had a whiff of anarchy,” she notes in her memoir. “Spanish-speaking soccer players hosted ad hoc tournaments in the abandoned playfield. Teenagers sold bags of marijuana on the corners. The Buddhist monks made enormous vats of rice on the city sidewalk…And I started squat gardening on land I didn’t own.”" 3. Make it a fashion for rich people, especially home-owners. John Robb recently mentioned (in some forum or other) that productive land is becoming a better support for property value than ornamentally landscaped land. One way to raise funds for resilient infrastructure projects might be to organize parts of them as products that can be sold to homeowners who are willing to test and press against a potentially hostile regulatory environment. An example from Berkeley that hasn't quite yet worked but may yet -- a wealthy homeowner who hired an urban homesteader to convert her yard to poductive use. So far that's legal in Berkeley. And who planned to have her hired landscaper help harvest, and then sell some of the produce -- not currently legal in Berkeley. Fortunately, that homeowner in a wealthy section of town is (or at least was, last I heard), interested in working within the city government process to begin to reform the relevant zoning code. Even if such reform efforts don't make "fast enough" progress -- if enough of the well healed are interested in seeing them happen, then crackdowns in the poorer sections of town are harder. 4. Don't be half-assed and avoid illegal hook-ups. Just because you are doing something not strictly allowed by (e.g.) land-use regulations isn't a good reason to build shoddy, life-threatening structures, power transmission systems, etc. Try to make friends with people qualified as engineers or inspectors. If necessary (since they may otherwise have to put their licenses at risk), try to devise systems that allow them to document their inspections and recommendations and the steps taken in response -- well enough to preserve some of their technical qualifications but carefully enough to protect them from legal retribution.

John, when did you lose it? How exactly do propose to host and manage a MMO infrastructure that is itself resilient? Aside from the very difficult mathematics of designing the game play (if a solution is even possible) - well, first, the resilient community needs computers and a network....

(Reports back from the potluck indicate that, indeed, it came out not bad (and chef's sampling agrees). In fact, the URL for this post was requested!)

Funny coincidence. The bulk isle in my grocery carries forbidden rice and I keep meaning to find an excuse to try it. And, tomorrow I have to make a room temp salad-ish dish for a potluck at my wife's workplace - ideally a vegetarian, vegan dish (although word has it that I shouldn't worry about allergies to nuts). I can tell by reading and looking at the pictures that a close variation on this recipe is going to be delicious, so, thank you!