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My dad (born 1957) grew up in a tiny farmhouse, 6th of 8 kids, and had an outhouse until I believe 8th grade. Meaning my oldest couple aunts and uncles moved ou

My dad (born 1957) grew up in a tiny farmhouse, 6th of 8 kids, and had an outhouse until I believe 8th grade. Meaning my oldest couple aunts and uncles moved out before they had indoor plumbing. Admittedly, they were pretty poor, but most people couldn't even imagine living in those conditions anymore. At the time it wasn't unusual.

DoctorOetker 8y ago
If knowledge and intelligence keep progressing while nothing is done about housing, I can imagine the educated poor resorting to ever more extreme "out of the box" solutions: Why do we live in houses? Partially to meet certain basic necessities: - shelter from adverse temperature (too hot or too cold outside), adverse weather (rain, snow, wind): outside walls and roof - a place to wash, a mirror to inspect yourself, a toilet: bathroom - a place to sleep: bedroom - a place to eat: a table and chairs - a place for work: a desk and a chair - privacy: a lock on the door to prevent theft, or violence - a place for leisure or inviting guests: living room Out of poverty leisure is likely to be sacrificed, but it may be possible to live a much cheaper life if these functionalities can be compactly (and probably inadequately) substituted. What features can be portably arranged into a suit? Imagine a kind of space suit -not intended for actual space- with smart temperature control say inspired on a rete mirabile [0] to exchange mass (say import oxygen and export carbon dioxide, while conserving heat), humidity etc, depending on outside and inside measurements. This would probably necessitate a cheap helmet to keep the conditioned air inside (during adverse outside conditionns). It should be weather proof too. It should require little clean-up, or alternatively the suit should be lightweight enough so an it can be carried or washed while the extra is worn. A big problem for homeless people is theft and violence. So the suit should have intelligent motion detectors, and possibly communicate to other high-tech low-lifes to share news of danger, in order to allow sleep. Sanitation will probably be commercialized cubicles of bathrooms. Similarily workspace will probably be measured in desks (with a selectable height limit for your stuff) and archives, and these will be stored as trays by an automated system, such that you can enter one of the vacant rooms, login, select one of your desks or boxes, after which your tray/desk is loaded in front of you, exactly as you left the contents on the desk the previous time. You rent the room at some price per hour, but also each desk or volume of boxes at their respective rates for storage. [0] Rete mirabile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rete_mirabile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rete_mirabile But I believe we will fix the housing issue in a more fundamentalist way.

DoctorOetker 8y ago

If knowledge and intelligence keep progressing while nothing is done about housing, I can imagine the educated poor resorting to ever more extreme "out of the box" solutions: Why do we live in houses? Partially to meet certain basic necessities: - shelter from adverse temperature (too hot or too cold outside), adverse weather (rain, snow, wind): outside walls and roof - a place to wash, a mirror to inspect yourself, a toilet: bathroom - a place to sleep: bedroom - a place to eat: a table and chairs - a place for work: a desk and a chair - privacy: a lock on the door to prevent theft, or violence - a place for leisure or inviting guests: living room Out of poverty leisure is likely to be sacrificed, but it may be possible to live a much cheaper life if these functionalities can be compactly (and probably inadequately) substituted. What features can be portably arranged into a suit? Imagine a kind of space suit -not intended for actual space- with smart temperature control say inspired on a rete mirabile [0] to exchange mass (say import oxygen and export carbon dioxide, while conserving heat), humidity etc, depending on outside and inside measurements. This would probably necessitate a cheap helmet to keep the conditioned air inside (during adverse outside conditionns). It should be weather proof too. It should require little clean-up, or alternatively the suit should be lightweight enough so an it can be carried or washed while the extra is worn. A big problem for homeless people is theft and violence. So the suit should have intelligent motion detectors, and possibly communicate to other high-tech low-lifes to share news of danger, in order to allow sleep. Sanitation will probably be commercialized cubicles of bathrooms. Similarily workspace will probably be measured in desks (with a selectable height limit for your stuff) and archives, and these will be stored as trays by an automated system, such that you can enter one of the vacant rooms, login, select one of your desks or boxes, after which your tray/desk is loaded in front of you, exactly as you left the contents on the desk the previous time. You rent the room at some price per hour, but also each desk or volume of boxes at their respective rates for storage. [0] Rete mirabile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rete_mirabile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rete_mirabile But I believe we will fix the housing issue in a more fundamentalist way.