Closed communities, funny orkut behavior

Let me guess, there is a good chance you were expecting to see something about 'social websites' (Facebook. Orkut etc.) here once you saw 'Orkut' and 'communities' together. If so, it amuses me; funny how we humans get programmed like buggy AI to jump to incorrect conclusions.

Let me turn to my recent experience with Orkut recently. Many times over many weeks [maybe months] past, I had huge delays or 'infinite' waits while loading some pages/features in Orkut and I don't even use the advanced features![Call me old school , but I am not one who tries out all features available in a system just because they exist- we should dictate what tools must use, not the other way round-- see the theme of becoming machine-like again]. Turns out when I checked my community page [after letting it gather dust for God knows how many months]- surprise, surprise- we have about a dozen communities which I didn't recognize, let alone join! Looked like someone had cracked my password? Anyway, changed it and for the moment, things seem to be OK.

So, let's return to the other 'protagonist word' of this post: Communities. What I have in mind is closed communities. Examples would be the ghettos made by Muslims in corners of a city-complete with walls and fort-style gate. I became aware of one old Hollywood silent movie which was like a pioneer horror movie ['Gollum' is the tile I think]where a Jewish community life is portrayed. Didn't know how the Jews lived in the past, but the movie was a revelation. When I come to think of it, 'agraharam' of south India, which is a close knit [I think this involves walls too] community of priest class Hindus which forms a more or less independent social unit providing for itself, resembles such set-ups. What could be the origin, development method and motivation for such closed communities? If they are all due to some common fears or attitudes, then what is the primary mechanism for development of such groups so as to totally physically exclude members not belonging to the set? Is it fear of violence[most mid-east/Indian cities in mythological and historical Islam,TV or movie depictons tend to make the cities targets of armies], necessity of compensating for being a 'social minority', or the desire to maintain inbreeding? Any interesting thoughts or presentation of details I don't know are welcome. I know in the past especially, megapolis cites were impossible and smaller communities were the norm given that there was no automated mass production fo goods, but building walls- that seems like an extreme step. It is eerie to note similarities between such diverse cultures.

Maybe you are a history student at some college, looking for a doctoral/thesis topic who happened to randomly read this! You lucky @#$@#$!!!!!@#.....