4 ms·

If you invent a time machine, go back to places like Taos in the 1960s, lots hippy communes that are now weird architecture AirBNBs. History repeats itself, rea

If you invent a time machine, go back to places like Taos in the 1960s, lots hippy communes that are now weird architecture AirBNBs. History repeats itself, reality always wins.

carapace 7y ago
Sorry, I have no idea how your comment connects with what I wrote.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  It’s been tried before. Lots of times. The reality of “let’s form our own utopia town/city/commune” always loses out to reality of primal human interests.
  - carapace 7y ago
    Ah, no, that's exactly what I don't want to do, more-or-less for just that reason. Just riffing... It would be a kind of vertically-integrated real estate development company, along with some manufacturing and tech/software company-ish. Essentially, it's a terraforming company and the eco-cities it makes are the product. We have the technology: Christopher Alexander's "Pattern Language" et. al.; Permaculture (applied ecology if you prefer), including carbon-neutral integrated alcohol fuel production (also, tug on this thread: "New Alchemy Institute" "living machines" [1] ); Bucky Fuller's "Design Science Revolution" for inspiration and large-scale efficiency[0]; etc... (Those are just my own "favorite hits".) The idea is both 1) sell/lease cheaply ("affordable housing") to alleviate economic pressure, and 2) provide a steady income to members to offset economic obsolescence. (I maintain that UBI makes sense only in the context of wide-spread inability for the "average person" to compete in the job market. And I think that's already happening. I mean, if I wasn't good at computers I don't know wtf I could do to make a living. I'd probably be homeless!) I don't want this hypothetical company to be political or ideological (not even Hippie ideology) just economic (to the extent that that's realistic, eh?) We can work out the politics of everything once people have a place to live and a steady "three square meals a day", and it's ecologically harmonious, which is another way to say cheap and bountiful. Frankly, I'm not qualified to run this sort of thing. I'm a recluse, with ways different than your own. But it seems to me that it would be sooooo easy, and that there are enough people and enough "free-floating" capital to make it happen. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_River%27s_City_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_River%27s_City_project > It is moon-crater-shaped: the crater's truncated cone top opening is a half-mile in diameter, rim-to-rim, while the truncated mountain itself is a mile in diameter at its base ring. The city has a one-mile (1.6 km)-diameter geodesic, quarter-sphere transparent umbrella mounted high above it to permit full, all-around viewing below the umbrella's bottom perimeter. The top of the dome roof is 1,000 feet (300 m) high. The bottom rim of the umbrella dome is 500 feet (150 m) above the surrounding terrain Some more information and a couple of pictures of the model at: https://solutions.synearth.net/a-community-dwelling-machine/ https://solutions.synearth.net/a-community-dwelling-machine/ [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22New+Alchemy+Institute%22++%22living+machines%22&atb=v60-1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22New+Alchemy+Institute%22++%22li...

If you invent a time machine, go back to places like Taos in the 1960s, lots hippy communes that are now weird architecture AirBNBs. History repeats itself, reality always wins.

carapace 7y ago

Sorry, I have no idea how your comment connects with what I wrote.

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
It’s been tried before. Lots of times. The reality of “let’s form our own utopia town/city/commune” always loses out to reality of primal human interests.
- carapace 7y ago
  Ah, no, that's exactly what I don't want to do, more-or-less for just that reason. Just riffing... It would be a kind of vertically-integrated real estate development company, along with some manufacturing and tech/software company-ish. Essentially, it's a terraforming company and the eco-cities it makes are the product. We have the technology: Christopher Alexander's "Pattern Language" et. al.; Permaculture (applied ecology if you prefer), including carbon-neutral integrated alcohol fuel production (also, tug on this thread: "New Alchemy Institute" "living machines" [1] ); Bucky Fuller's "Design Science Revolution" for inspiration and large-scale efficiency[0]; etc... (Those are just my own "favorite hits".) The idea is both 1) sell/lease cheaply ("affordable housing") to alleviate economic pressure, and 2) provide a steady income to members to offset economic obsolescence. (I maintain that UBI makes sense only in the context of wide-spread inability for the "average person" to compete in the job market. And I think that's already happening. I mean, if I wasn't good at computers I don't know wtf I could do to make a living. I'd probably be homeless!) I don't want this hypothetical company to be political or ideological (not even Hippie ideology) just economic (to the extent that that's realistic, eh?) We can work out the politics of everything once people have a place to live and a steady "three square meals a day", and it's ecologically harmonious, which is another way to say cheap and bountiful. Frankly, I'm not qualified to run this sort of thing. I'm a recluse, with ways different than your own. But it seems to me that it would be sooooo easy, and that there are enough people and enough "free-floating" capital to make it happen. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_River%27s_City_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_River%27s_City_project > It is moon-crater-shaped: the crater's truncated cone top opening is a half-mile in diameter, rim-to-rim, while the truncated mountain itself is a mile in diameter at its base ring. The city has a one-mile (1.6 km)-diameter geodesic, quarter-sphere transparent umbrella mounted high above it to permit full, all-around viewing below the umbrella's bottom perimeter. The top of the dome roof is 1,000 feet (300 m) high. The bottom rim of the umbrella dome is 500 feet (150 m) above the surrounding terrain Some more information and a couple of pictures of the model at: https://solutions.synearth.net/a-community-dwelling-machine/ https://solutions.synearth.net/a-community-dwelling-machine/ [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22New+Alchemy+Institute%22++%22living+machines%22&atb=v60-1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22New+Alchemy+Institute%22++%22li...