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Funnily enough, my own (long term) project is aimed at addressing the problem you're pointing out. Given the possibility of remote work, there's no insurmountab

Funnily enough, my own (long term) project is aimed at addressing the problem you're pointing out. Given the possibility of remote work, there's no insurmountable reason why the only land worth living in should be concentrated in a few urban centers. https://sites.google.com/s/0BzzRwqIB2K0dSWhkTXBSTTltTDg/p/0B9EHSqWgFV7LNUxEVXk0S0ZiMlk/preview https://sites.google.com/s/0BzzRwqIB2K0dSWhkTXBSTTltTDg/p/0B...

trs80 9y ago
403 forbidden.
- Chris_Jay 9y ago
  My bad. https://sites.google.com/view/virtuouscycleinvestment/projects/the-rural-incubator https://sites.google.com/view/virtuouscycleinvestment/projec...
stronglikedan 9y ago
> there's no insurmountable reason why the only land worth living in should be concentrated in a few urban centers. IMHO, one very insurmountable reason is that you could never convince everyone that an urban center is worth living in. Quite a few people just don't enjoy that lifestyle.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  I think you read that wrong. Paraphrasing what you said: Some people not liking to live in cities is an insurmountable reason that land in city centers is the only land worth living in. First, your response doesn't make sense (and I think it's just because it's a misreading of the comment you replied to). Second, I agree, there are people (myself included) that wouldn't enjoy living in an urban center. But that doesn't address what I think the comment was getting at, which is that land in urban centers is more desirable to a greater number of people than land outside of them.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> there's no insurmountable reason why the only land worth living in should be concentrated in a few urban centers. There's actually a very fundamental reason why land perceived as being worth living in becomes an urban center, and remote work doesn't change most of the climate, water, resource distribution, etc., reasons why particular sites are much more attractive for human habitation.
mncharity 9y ago
> Given the possibility of remote work, [...] urban centers. Even HN doesn't yet seem to be discussing the impact of coming VR/AR on people's geographic distribution. Perhaps it's still too low profile? Eye tracking; facial expression tracking (researchy); foveated rendering reducing GPU requirements; inexpensive laptops with discrete GPUs; HMDs with monitor-like angular resolution; inexpensive finger tracking (hopefully)... perhaps it's easy to not notice these if you're not tracking the tech? Easy to think "remote work, so video conferencing, so limited impact - far better to do open plan offices"? Instead of "the practice and spatial constraints of software development will change dramatically over the next half decade".
- memebox3v 9y ago
  Or for that matter self driving cars. You could commute for 5 hours a day, spend 2 hours in the office and go home again. All while being productive. That greatly increases the commutable range. Then you have the prospect of self driving Motor homes, moving with the work becomes that much easier.
  - kaybe 9y ago
    How will we be able to do this without fossil fuels?
  - mncharity 9y ago
    People take commuter buses with wifi, from Pennsylvania to NYC, with a 2 to 4 hour round trip. A few commute Boston to NYC on Amtrak Acela, with a 7-ish hour round trip (you can stand up and walk around, get coffee, etc).
- dwighttk 9y ago
  I don't understand what problem VR/AR is solving in your hypothetical.
  - falcor84 9y ago
    Not the OP, but I've been thinking about this a lot recently. The problem is that telecommuting is currently very limited by technology. You can currently only transport your voice and a single video view, while collaborating over a single view from a monitor. You end up missing on very many of the modalities available in the real world. But my vision of what work and study could be like with good VR is The Magic School Bus. Assume that every time you an your colleagues wanted to do work on any domain, you would be transported into a hi-fi all-senses-included representation of that domain, which provides a perfect sense of presence. That technology is still quite far away, but once we're there, it would be significantly better than just being in a room with them. And the world would be forever changed.
neural_thing 9y ago
Can you provide a working link please? This is something I've been thinking about a lot, would like to learn more about what you are thinking.
- Chris_Jay 9y ago
  oops, thanks for the heads up. https://sites.google.com/view/virtuouscycleinvestment/projects/the-rural-incubator https://sites.google.com/view/virtuouscycleinvestment/projec...

trs80 9y ago

403 forbidden.

Chris_Jay 9y ago
My bad. https://sites.google.com/view/virtuouscycleinvestment/projects/the-rural-incubator https://sites.google.com/view/virtuouscycleinvestment/projec...

stronglikedan 9y ago

> there's no insurmountable reason why the only land worth living in should be concentrated in a few urban centers. IMHO, one very insurmountable reason is that you could never convince everyone that an urban center is worth living in. Quite a few people just don't enjoy that lifestyle.

khedoros1 9y ago
I think you read that wrong. Paraphrasing what you said: Some people not liking to live in cities is an insurmountable reason that land in city centers is the only land worth living in. First, your response doesn't make sense (and I think it's just because it's a misreading of the comment you replied to). Second, I agree, there are people (myself included) that wouldn't enjoy living in an urban center. But that doesn't address what I think the comment was getting at, which is that land in urban centers is more desirable to a greater number of people than land outside of them.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> there's no insurmountable reason why the only land worth living in should be concentrated in a few urban centers. There's actually a very fundamental reason why land perceived as being worth living in becomes an urban center, and remote work doesn't change most of the climate, water, resource distribution, etc., reasons why particular sites are much more attractive for human habitation.

mncharity 9y ago

> Given the possibility of remote work, [...] urban centers. Even HN doesn't yet seem to be discussing the impact of coming VR/AR on people's geographic distribution. Perhaps it's still too low profile? Eye tracking; facial expression tracking (researchy); foveated rendering reducing GPU requirements; inexpensive laptops with discrete GPUs; HMDs with monitor-like angular resolution; inexpensive finger tracking (hopefully)... perhaps it's easy to not notice these if you're not tracking the tech? Easy to think "remote work, so video conferencing, so limited impact - far better to do open plan offices"? Instead of "the practice and spatial constraints of software development will change dramatically over the next half decade".

memebox3v 9y ago
Or for that matter self driving cars. You could commute for 5 hours a day, spend 2 hours in the office and go home again. All while being productive. That greatly increases the commutable range. Then you have the prospect of self driving Motor homes, moving with the work becomes that much easier.
- kaybe 9y ago
  How will we be able to do this without fossil fuels?
- mncharity 9y ago
  People take commuter buses with wifi, from Pennsylvania to NYC, with a 2 to 4 hour round trip. A few commute Boston to NYC on Amtrak Acela, with a 7-ish hour round trip (you can stand up and walk around, get coffee, etc).
dwighttk 9y ago
I don't understand what problem VR/AR is solving in your hypothetical.
- falcor84 9y ago
  Not the OP, but I've been thinking about this a lot recently. The problem is that telecommuting is currently very limited by technology. You can currently only transport your voice and a single video view, while collaborating over a single view from a monitor. You end up missing on very many of the modalities available in the real world. But my vision of what work and study could be like with good VR is The Magic School Bus. Assume that every time you an your colleagues wanted to do work on any domain, you would be transported into a hi-fi all-senses-included representation of that domain, which provides a perfect sense of presence. That technology is still quite far away, but once we're there, it would be significantly better than just being in a room with them. And the world would be forever changed.

neural_thing 9y ago

Can you provide a working link please? This is something I've been thinking about a lot, would like to learn more about what you are thinking.

Chris_Jay 9y ago
oops, thanks for the heads up. https://sites.google.com/view/virtuouscycleinvestment/projects/the-rural-incubator https://sites.google.com/view/virtuouscycleinvestment/projec...