Benjamin J. Davis, born on this day in 1903, was American lawyer and communist who was elected in 1943 to the New York City Council, representing Harlem. Davis was persecuted by the state via the anti-communist Smith and McCarran Acts.
Davis became radicalized through his role as defense attorney in the 1933 trial of Angelo Herndon, a 19-year-old black communist who had been charged "attempting to incite insurrection" because he tried to organize a farm workers' union.
In 1949, Davis was among a number of communist leaders prosecuted for violating the Smith Act. He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. In 1962 Davis was charged with violating the Internal Security Act (also known as the McCarran Act), but died before the case could come to trial.
"Whether one agrees with the Communist Party or not, one must at least know the truth about it. One must not permit his ideas to be shaped by the hysteria which now passes as a 'crusade against Communism'... For example, the canard that every Communist has his pockets lined with 'Moscow gold.' If that were true, one could be sure that there would scarcely be any room in our party for workers. The capitalists, to whom gold is god of the universe, would crowd them out."
- Benjamin J. Davis
Ben Davis: The Communist Councilman from Harlem
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have all of you a good day/night 
Maybe I should give it another shot. I think I got annoyed at how much I had to expand primary industry every time I wanted something new. Don't think I made it off my first island (I think it was 1800)
1800 is really good. The game only gets really satisfying for me when you start to open up new maps and make your first cross-continent trade routes, mind you.
I suggest trying again, yeah; initially it is indeed pretty frustrating - never enough workforce and you suddenly need 150 of them for the next tier, etc. - but there is a balance, and once you get it it's extremely satisfying. Restarting any time you feel like you messed up initially is also probably a good idea.
Also I don't think I've ever played this game with agressive or even competent AI; they exist and are quite good IIRC, but I always select a single AI opponent, the one that never ever attacks you and is always nice and wholesome and even gives you gifts when you struggle (in 1800 it's Bente Jorgensen, she's incredibly nice and even ask for permission to settle new islands). The pirates are enough of a headache honestly, and once the game gets going you've got so many fucking things at the same time on your plate an actual competing AI opponent on top of it (never mind three, which is the default) would be too much IMO.
I'm having a largely chill time in Farthest Frontier. Workers and Resources feels like homework sometimes
I tried that one because it looked so close to Banished (which was awesome) but I left it after about 20 minutes, it felt lackluster; I may have to try it again
Its main appeal to me is that it has mechanics that are fairly real world applicable to encourage crop rotation (soil nitrite levels, crop diseases etc). Given how much my friends are getting into gardening and stuff, thought it was a passable way to learn.
What I want is somewhere between FF and Rimworld that's set in a slowly dying urban world. The game starts with you picking up supplies from a hardware store in your Toyota Hilux and some of your commune members having real jobs that they go off site for. But as society suffers disasters (inflation, plague, fuel shocks etc etc) that becomes less and less viable so your early game systems you built have to have some degree of self sufficiency. Might look into modding or building it on godot or something.
Yeah, the crop rotation thing I found very good.
As for your suggestion, that sounds like an awesome concept. Lots of interesting aspects to think of, too - initially gathering fossil fuel from cars and the like works, but then it starts to go bad with a roll chance it destroys engines; botulism % chance increase for tin cans as a food source as time goes by; add a nuke, viral or ecological apocalypse for a background and you can add a shitton of interesting features, too. A well-made game like this would work even with stardew-valley-like level of graphics IMO.
Or rimworld. I'm just throwing together things I want in game. Actual code planning and stuff will come later, which I'm sure I'll hate.
I think the initial events will be things like Covid, which could enter your commune from outside sources and also cause all your service worker members to lose their jobs for a while, or fuel shocks which cause all fuel to rise in price and then later on all imported goods. More fantastical events can be left to modders or future demand.
Presumably, such shocks would also change the dynamics of the local community immediately outside the commune (small rural towns).
I also had an idea of downloading weather records from an area and using that as the basis for what weather is like for your commune, and generating future weather based on that and global warming, which would allow you to simulate your local environment. Some things will carry over e.g. transition areas will still have more rainfall and flooding. Just weather will become more extreme.
I think the end game is your commune has little to no imports for a couple of years, and no substantial population loss. Immigrants still allowed though.
My hope would be a playable teaching tool that would allow people to think about sustainability in their local area. Possibly forms of direct action.