Tiny Homes and Micro Apartments can be very comfortable if they are built correctly. A 400s2 box built without thought will NOT be comfortable.
There are so many people all over the world doing this and finding solutions.
If you like this stuff check out this channel, it's not my channel, but she really covers some innovative people. https://www.youtube.com/user/kirstendirksen/videos
Not only that but I highly doubt these homes are built to last. They put them up as fast as they can and trim every corner to make an extra buck.
You could buy a well built century old brick house for what they're charging. Some people have an affinity for shiny new stuff, no matter how shoddy it turns out to be.
I think there are a few communities like this still in Belarus (not joking btw, i remember hearing of one built around a tractor company from the Soviet days)
There were some in New York (Housing Cooperatives) that were built slightly before the great depression so went under pretty quick. They also involved owning your unit after a certain number of years. Wish they’d have had a fighting chance, I truly think people need community to live well and condensing work like childcare, food prep, and laundry (tasks that scale really easily*) make life easier for everyone.
I’ve had a vision for a while of a community of tiny homes that are basically for sleeping and studying/entertaining oneself. There would be a shared cooking/dining area, and a shared shower area similar to Japanese public baths (shower and wash yourself in a stall, soak in a hot tub once you’re clean.)
Sounds like my version of hell. I want to be left alone to do the things I like, my way.
If I had to eat Franks idea of spaghetti every second week, or deal with old Beatrice telling me I missed a spot on the window ledge where a mote of dust had landed, I’d kill myself right there on the spot.
I’m fine with community, but I don’t want it forced into my personal space.
We should build that. Make it not based on biological family so you aren't stuck with whatever assholes you're related to and let people leave at will and join at any time with a two thirds vote of existing members
Sounds similar to a commune; they exist. Typically everyone works in the commune. The living conditions don't look "great," but I've lived in worse conditions. I think the two biggest ones in the U.S. are Twin Oaks and and East Winds. There are many other types of intentional communities, and there are many around the world: https://icmatch.org/community-types-2/ https://www.ic.org/directory/common-place-land-cooperative/
This article is a good (albeit long) explanation of what the MSV system is and why it sucks, but it neglects to mention the important fact that, thankfully, most US states have either already banned it from their public school curriculums or are moving away from it to more evidence-based approches:
Dan McQuillan has been warning about this since forever, to the point where I would've assumed that he'd be referenced if not interviewed int his article, though he wasn't. Here's a pretty short one from him. His basic argument is that AI is best understood as algorithmic Thatcherism, in which they'll silicon-wash the same austerity politics that neoliberalism has been feeding us forever.
AI is being used as a means of diverting blame from humans onto a black box. It's not inherently bad of itself, but the current hype around it is allowing it to be used in ways it shouldn't be.
This is one of the most annoying (dangerous in this case) trends of the AI rush. It has potential for incredible value, but that only depends on the people instituting it and the structures they have in place to ensure it’s successful.
I could see a world where the algorithm could receive input on the patients condition each day and modify its recommendations on that; like a Bayesian inference model. But that requires a statistician with some careful thought to set it all up, and executives wouldn’t be able to reduce headcount by several dozen because some guy sold them a black box that solves all their problems.
Enshitification. Private equity buys up everything, squeezes it for all its worth, forces it to lose all its customers, and then sells off all remaining physical assets (land, buildings).
Look behind the downfall of most big country wide names and you'll see a private equity firm running this same playbook right around the time they started losing quality.
Once, he molded some fibers into cups, thinking that they might make a good bra. They turned out to be miserably uncomfortable, so he and his colleagues placed them over their mouths, giving the company the inspiration for its signature N95 mask.
I like to imagine these people randomly placing these cups on their body to see what would work, after the bra didn’t pan out
My guess is that the migrant workers and child workers know that if they are caught they will lose their job and their source of income.
Given that their families and their livelihoods rely on their ability to scrape in whatever money they can get, it is in the migrant workers best interests to hide their presence from inspectors.
Catching them and punishing the companies for hiring migrant workers is good for the soul of America for the long term but it's bad for the lives of the people that are being exploited in the short term.
Until we can resolve that disparity this is going to continue to be an issue.
My guess is that the migrant workers and child workers know that if they are caught they will lose their job and their source of income.
Yep, the kids definitely don't want to get caught, for obvious reasons. However, it's not even in their best interests. Given the danger, lack of training, oversight, etc, we're coming dangerously close to replicating the factories of the early industrial age. OSHA was established for a reason. Additionally, with how widespread the systemic issue is, it depresses wages both in the US and abroad, causing the cycle to continue
Excellent Reads
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