For the love of God, please craft hobbies and an appreciation for life beyond abstract “utility” maximization. These freaks are so hyperalienated from their own existence that they can’t conceive of themselves as anything other than an input. Sorry nerds, you won’t find self-actualization by designing a marginally more addictive ad-software or another tulip bubble. Please stop eating the bugs and look at some art for a fucking change.
Sleeping in a $700/month coffin so I can invent technology that makes the world more callous and unlivable. Love me I’m a techbro!
Could give these to unhoused people for free but noooo let techbro douchebags rent them out.
I’m not fundamentally opposed to sleeping pods, but they have to be combined with maximum communitization.
Public kitchens, public baths, public crafting spaces, public theaters, public arcades, public gardens, public libraries, public toilets, public lounges, public dining, literally every thing that you could have privately in a home should be shared with everyone else in the pod-hive. Rather than a utilitarian nightmare, it’s a collectivist hive for bug people like me! And if you really need some time alone, there’s your bunk-box.
A large surplus of housing, so one could change their surroundings on a whim, would be an ideal socialist future. Hostels are a type of communal pod system you are talking about.
I’m skeptical of abundance on a finite world nearing the limits of growth and being destroyed by climate change.
That said, pod hives could be easily established in any location. Want to live near a beach? Near a skiing slope? Near dense forest? Near downtown? There’s pods for that!
Endlessly modular, extremely efficient, and using far fewer resources than fully private housing in all of these disparate locations.
Join us. Become a bug. Never be alone again!
A shitton of land is suburban wasteland and all the infrastructure to support it. Turf grass alone takes up 2% of all land in the US (from a quick search) and I imagine the stroads, strip malls, and single family homes with 3+ car garages take up another 3-5%. The problem has always been wasteful and destructive land use rather than scarcity. Imagine all the current suburbs as parks, farmland, or rewilded areas instead of ugly tract homes. I don’t think infinite growth is possible or anything but cities should be looking to Shanghai and Tokyo as a blueprint.
It’s also hilarious to me that NIMBYs are so opposed to any form of urbanization because “muh property value” when the highest property values are in the most urbanized, walkable places.
I’m skeptical of abundance on a finite world nearing the limits of growth and being destroyed by climate change.
What if I told you that we already have abundant housing, right now, as I type this out. And I’m not talking about our hotels, prisons, or “camp grounds”, but actual livable units1. Enough to solve Homelessness in the US multiple times over2.
It simply is not evenly distributed yet
That said, pod hives could be easily established in any location. Want to live near a beach? Near a skiing slope? Near dense forest? Near downtown? There’s pods for that!
Oh I believe in seizing hotels for exactly this purpose.
1 Census on housing, table 3, Vacant Year Round - Held off Market: 6,812,000 units. This is nearly 5% of the entire US housing stock, and almost half of the Vacant year-round units.
2 Department of Housing and Urban Development homeless count in 2022: 582,462 people
If you set these pods on fire, you could probably prevent the creation of some kind of driverless car software that will run over millions of children.
This looks like a job for Utilitarianism Man! (cw: gore and death references)
$700/mo for a cot in a plywood box.
What a scam. energies in me are rising.
SROs for the poor are more expensive even and the conditions are usually much worse. esp in this part of the city I bet the target market for pods is pretty much only people who already have a nice office they can shower and exercise and hang out in and only need a space to lie down, so really they’re probably doing fine.
sorry I’m a little skittish around this discourse bc a lot of the time it’s cast as “gross why would you live this way instead of like a human being” which can really catch housing-precarious ppl in the blast radius
It’s weird because the vast majority of these people aren’t actually doing algorithmic work. They’re using libraries where the algorithms are already written and optimized and the “problems” they’re “solving” are problems of funding, organization, logistics, and novelty. Venture capital is the epitome of financialization as a hammer in search of a nail.
When pressed for “innovation,” 9 times out of 10 what’s pushed out of the financial Rube Goldberg machine is “what if thing that already exists, but with more surveillance” “what if thing that already exists, but on the blockchain” or “what if thing that already exists, but with a subscription.”
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
Honestly, “what if [thing that already exists], but incorporating [new technology or concept]” is the essence of the vast majority of creativity. Imo the problem lies one step up with the fact that the new things capitalism incentivizes are almost always some dystopian bullshit like you mentioned.
