If we would apply Elon Musk first principle thinking to the problem of building homes in which we live, how would we build homes? Are there any big companies taken up that challenge?
Michael Vassar makes some observations about this in this chat from about 37:50-40:30. He begins describing something called a “hexayurt tridome”, some kind of portable desert structure, and finishes saying “for the cost of engineering the 2016 Toyota Corolla and with the level of engineering skill required to engineer the 2016 Toyota Corolla it would probably be possible to engineer a house that would cost less than a Toyota Corolla and that could be deployed more easily and be adequate for any climate pretty much anywhere in the world where there’s a reasonable amount of free space”.
And in a lot of places where that space exists it is illegal to live there. You could park a serviceable RV in a lot more places than you are allowed to live, for one example.
To the extend that people want to live where other people live it’s useful to have a high density.
Flat buildings aren’t optimal for cities even when they are cheap to build.
I wasn’t only referring to wanting to live where there are a lot of people. I was also referring to wanting to live near to very similar/nice people and far from very dissimilar/annoying people. I think the latter, together with the expected ability to scale things down, would make people want to live in smaller, more selected, communities. Even if they were in the middle of nowhere.
People basically want to live where they can find a well-paying job.
In the great leap forward Mao thought that the factories being in cities was simple a coordination problem. He then declared to move them outside of the cities where they were grown organically. It was a disaster.
A big company like Google could theoretically move it’s business headquarters to the middle of nowhere. On the other hand that would likely be a very bad business decision. It’s employees wouldn’t simply want to move to the middle of nowhere.
There are also good reasons why “where they can find a well-paying job” usually coincides with “where there are a lot of people.”
Generally speaking, a person’s salary corresponds to a pretty reasonable estimate of how much good they are doing for society. It’s easier to do more good for more people when more people are around, e.g. a restaurant does more benefit to more people by being close to a lot of people, instead of being in the middle of nowhere. So generally people will get paid more if they have jobs closer to a lot of people.
If we would apply Elon Musk first principle thinking to the problem of building homes in which we live, how would we build homes? Are there any big companies taken up that challenge?
Michael Vassar makes some observations about this in this chat from about 37:50-40:30. He begins describing something called a “hexayurt tridome”, some kind of portable desert structure, and finishes saying “for the cost of engineering the 2016 Toyota Corolla and with the level of engineering skill required to engineer the 2016 Toyota Corolla it would probably be possible to engineer a house that would cost less than a Toyota Corolla and that could be deployed more easily and be adequate for any climate pretty much anywhere in the world where there’s a reasonable amount of free space”.
I think most places where people want to live don’t fulfill the criteria of their being “a reasonable amount of free space”.
And in a lot of places where that space exists it is illegal to live there. You could park a serviceable RV in a lot more places than you are allowed to live, for one example.
Where people want to live depends on where other people live. It’s possible to move away from bad Nash equilibria by cooperation.
To the extend that people want to live where other people live it’s useful to have a high density. Flat buildings aren’t optimal for cities even when they are cheap to build.
I wasn’t only referring to wanting to live where there are a lot of people. I was also referring to wanting to live near to very similar/nice people and far from very dissimilar/annoying people. I think the latter, together with the expected ability to scale things down, would make people want to live in smaller, more selected, communities. Even if they were in the middle of nowhere.
People basically want to live where they can find a well-paying job.
In the great leap forward Mao thought that the factories being in cities was simple a coordination problem. He then declared to move them outside of the cities where they were grown organically. It was a disaster.
A big company like Google could theoretically move it’s business headquarters to the middle of nowhere. On the other hand that would likely be a very bad business decision. It’s employees wouldn’t simply want to move to the middle of nowhere.
There are also good reasons why “where they can find a well-paying job” usually coincides with “where there are a lot of people.”
Generally speaking, a person’s salary corresponds to a pretty reasonable estimate of how much good they are doing for society. It’s easier to do more good for more people when more people are around, e.g. a restaurant does more benefit to more people by being close to a lot of people, instead of being in the middle of nowhere. So generally people will get paid more if they have jobs closer to a lot of people.
Consider the IKEA refugee shelter.