pochekailov

Funny thing, I just posted a tweet about my recent research on where are the good biotech hubs with low cost of living: https://twitter.com/pochekailov/status/1598088198995218437

I was hypothesizing similar conclusion as in the article.

I agree, I have the same observation. I am also working solo and I am struggling to find new meaningful connections.

Would you go to a pub with me?

Would you listen to me ranting about evil nimbyists preventing any form of urban development and thus blocking economic growth?

Would you call me asking me to help you with an unexpected problem?

Can I stop by your place just to hang out a bit, without any particular reason?

Would you pick me up from an airport tomorrow if I ask you to?

Will I come to you if I have a wild business idea? Or will you come to me to brag about your recent promotion?

No, we are not friends. We don't even know each other. You need to spend some time with a person for at least couple of hours a day for about half a year to become friends.

I am commenting in support of optimism and to counterweight pessimistic outlook.

Humanity indeed faces a lot of problems. Each of them have many possible solutions (The only one unsolvable is a heat death of the universe).

Thing is, the solutions usually may be divided into two categories: technical and societal.

For example, for the horse manure problem in big cities there were two possible solutions: invent a car, or limit the number of horses in the city.

The thing is: technical solutions are always cool. They open up new possibilities, the one which could not be foreseen. Technical solution also creates new problems, that require solutions of their own. Societal solutions always suck. Societal solution is to make people do less of the thing that causes trouble. The problem therefore kind of resolves, but the life become more boring and less free. Such solution does not bring new possibilities, does not advance life, but there is no risks of unforeseen new problems.

Examples of the problems and possible solutions:

Global worming: limit consumption and consumerism - or - perform climate engineering (spray high albedo particles in stratosphere, send controllable aluminum foil mirrors to the orbit, install more solar cells and wind turbines

Cancer, Alzheimers, heart diseases, obesity, etc.: live "healthy life", eat boring non-tasty grass, die 5 times a week at the gym, don't eat most awesome sugar, don't dring amazing coke, don't smoke, don't enjoy, don't ... - OR - Concentrate on solving the cause of those illnesses, that is the ageing. Treat ageing as a disease and fund anti-ageing research.

"Overpopulation": Make people believe that earth is dying and they shouldn't have children - OR - Build habitat (O'Neil cylinders) on the orbit thus opening virtually endless living space

Nuclear war: Pacify a horrible dictator, leave him "ways to retreat" - OR - build habitats on the orbit; atomic explosions in space won't do much damage at all (there is a constant atomic explosion already there, called Sun).

Hunger: Not a problem, earth agriculture is overproducing; the real problem is horrible dictators and the lack of new land that people can escape to from that dictator.

I am proud to be an infantile person, I want a lot of convenience and efficiency, and I want a lot of big, shiny toys.

I think the modern doom and gloom era is very depressing. I am a technocrat and a futuristic optimist.

For me, the modern popular vision of future is not worth living for.

Yes, in my experience, the naïve interpretation is right 80% of time and it is always best to start from a naïve explanation of a process.

US politicians serve the rich only because they think that donations will help them win. Make the donations irrelevant - "rich" will loose the political power. How to make the donations irrelevant - go to vote, especially if you are poor and powerless. Convince your friends to vote. And not for a president, but for a local mayor, city council, judge etc.

We probably need some service (an app or a site) that gives clear instructions on how, where and when to register.

Yes, it is harder for renters, but it is designed to be harder. This is to prevent renters from having political power and making homeowner's houses more expensive. One more reason to fight, from my point of view.

I totally agree with you. I only think that you should be the one to decide how many is too many opportunities for you, not a bunch of NIMBYists.

Only one question: why are they unwilling? Is it that hard? They won't be killed or tortured, like in Belarus or Russia, then why not?

The longer I live the more I am finding the universe is working on extremely simple few principles; their relations create complexity.

Aspiring homeowners will never become homeowners if the price is exclusionary.

Take SF: with average salary of 75-79K, the apartment cost starts from 1.1M. Only 8% has salary > than 100K, that makes the remaining 92% the "aspiring" homeowners.

They will stay "aspiring" for the rest of their life. The only think they (or rather, "we") can do - make sure that post-zoomer generation don't have to be "aspiring" for their entire lives.

I find it easier in the bigger city; but I might be biased as I lived in a big city most of my life.

What I meant is an ability to be within the reach of any other person within an hour.

Using zoom for 3 years now (for obvious reasons) - I find it inferior to the private in-person communication. Problem that you need to schedule a meeting, which adds some formality and is usually harder, while you can have a pleasant chat with even a rich and powerful person while accidentally meeting them in a hall. For scheduling a zoom call, you need to find an excuse. To chat in a hall with someone - you don't need and excuse.

Rejuvenation and life-extending technologies to keep labor energetic forever.

Industrial and maintenance automation for needing less labor.

Relying on next generation to fund your retirement is ok if you live modestly; but not ok if you live luxuriously.

Working person should not be doing worse than a non-working person; otherwise you have an extractive economy and social instability.

I'm an immigrant :).

Banking on your family dying - this is like saying "I am a worthless loser". I want old generation to live eternally, and still afford housing.

Q1: Yes, there is. Once a professional politician sees more activity from renters, they will include the renter's interests into their agenda

Q2: Yes, obviously there is a positive correlation. This is exactly why renters need to fight: stakes are against them. Current status quo is in favor of homeowners; it will not be possible to change it while being passive. Renters and homeowners have conflict of interests, there is inevitable fight.

Q3: I think blaming is the call for fight. If renters want better deal, they need to fight. Is it most constructive? I don't know, this is the best I can come up with. Does it reinforces the status quo? No, I think inactivity reinforces it.

Have more futuristic optimism. We are doing quite well on the climate. We will prevent it once we get fully to solar and then build CO2 scrubbers using solar energy. Energy percentage that come from renewables is more than 10x higher than anticipated 10 years ago.

And don't call it a "collapse": a change is not necessary to the worse, sometimes it is to the better.

Haha I am still not a citizen, so can't vote myself. I was trying to encourage my friends, but they were often too busy. They would vote for Hillary (or even for Trump), but never for a local mayor.

Sometimes I am considering running myself for a local government after getting my citizenship, with the only goal: drop housing price at my city for at least 70%. Once achieved - retire from politics :).

Nothing will change while the homeowners have more political power than the renters.

Even in the cities where the renter population is bigger than the homeowners, such as in Seattle, half of the votes come from people of > 65 years old (all of whom are homeowners, likely more than one home). Young people simply won't vote at all.

There is very little incentives for the young people to vote. Even if you cancel all the regulations right now and allow for unlimited constructions in the cities like Seattle, SF of NY, one will need about 10 years or longer to build enough apartments for the price to go back to affordable (which is 2-3 years salary of an average worker in the area). So the after-next generation will profit from the effort of the current renter generation.

Nevertheless, I think young generation needs to engage in the politics with the uncompromised goal to crush the housing price, to prevent the economic collapse of the "rich" world and prevent entire Earth from sliding into the dictatorship. Such is life.

It is very good for productivity when many jobs are concentrated in one location.

This unlocks the possibility for serendipitous connections. It is awesome when you can meet a founder, a leading engineer, an investor, a designer and a PR person in a coffee line, forming a new company before finishing your morning coffee.

Talents concentrated in one place gives significant boost to their productivity. This is called a "proximity bonus" in video games; building dependent factories in the nearby slots gives them the productivity boost. This is what US is missing by being nimbyistic.

I think we should return to the 1950s ideas of a futuristic cities and invest in building giant arcologies, where entire Earth population can move if they want to, and where the least paid McFastFood worker would afford to buy a minimum apartment.

People often ask me: why am I always preaching life extension and immortality research?

Here is why: so you can be 41, 441, 1041 and still have millions years ahead.

Once 41 years old no longer means you wasted your youth away, you will be able to concentrate on one thing per day and don't feel tragic if this thing fails.

I fully agree, the housing is scarce seemingly because many want it to be scarce.

I do think it is a political issue. Thus my support for full regulation removal: if ones press for it, the actual consensus may be closer to liberalization.

Thanks also for sending the links. I have not read those, and so I don't feel I can keep a productive discussion before I read the books.

This is very encouraging to hear, thank you for sharing this!

I am considering building my house (being my own general contractor and doing as much work myself as possible), but I was discouraged by the extreme number of regulations that seem to forbid anything, with just obtaining permits taking years and costing ~25K. Perhaps I was looking at the wrong state.

The 250K range that you cite is about 5 years of my current income. I honestly think I can build the house myself faster than saving those money and paying a professional.

I have to insist the formula is still correct in principle. Yes, there are many causes for homelessness. However, shall you magically fix all the problems you named, some people will have to remain on the streets if N_people > N_homes. Once N_people < N_homes, only then it is possible to fix the rest of the problems efficiently.

Regarding substance abuse for example: Shall I happen to lose my home, I would have to use the named substances to soothe a terrible shame and misery associated with my new status. I could only think of fighting my harmful addictions if I can see the way out. Currently though, with number of houses almost constant, if you manage to pull a homeless person out of the streets, there will be another person priced out of their home.

Despite I am extremely fiscally conservative, I don't think that "all" the regulations are bad. Neither I think that the market left to itself is always efficient.

The point I am trying to make through the thread, is there is a homeless catastrophy. When I am showing my family or friends in Ukraine some photos taken in Seattle, LA or san francisco, they don't believe me this is US.

In a time of an acute crisis, as now with housing, the radical measures must be taken. The problem must be attached from as many directions as possible. The simplest step is to eliminate the regulations. Sure some of the regulations are useful, sure some housing may end up of low quality, use too much resources, and even harm environment. However, in the situation when 100K people or more have no housing, the priority must be to supply enough houses over everything else.

I was trying to argue that building from wood framing is a terrible idea to start with. Wood easily degenerates with time, and without proper maintenance, won't survive even 200 years. Besides, even a car can get through the wall if it runs into the building.

The city I grew up in (Kiev) builds only from reinforced concrete, bricks and stone. Somehow, the 2-bedroom apartment can cost 50-100K and such building can still be profitable.

Another data point: the commercial building are build with the concrete.

Therefore, I think that the materials price is not a significant cost in the house; neither is the labor. Current average US home price is $400K; or 5-10 average yearly salary in the area. Other countries build houses as cheap as 30-40K from high-quality materials. This brings me to the conclusion, that the difference must be the regulations, either zoning or construction.

BTW, in many countries, if a person can't afford to buy a house, they buy a land and build themselves. My current understanding that in US you need licenses to perform almost any construction work.

I want to remove any regulation that prevents anybody to build anything they want on the land they own.

Unfortunately, I do not see how.

As we all know, N_homeless = N_people - N_homes.

Current regulations effectively forbid to build horrible ugly high-rises that can house 50,000 people in each. Currently, it is only profitable to build luxury houses that nobody can afford.

However, the horrible ugly high-rise has the only one advantage: it is cheap, and everyone can afford it. Even a homeless guy that manage to found a crappy -paying job through his heroic effort.

I only see one way to end homelessness: make housing 20x cheaper than it is now. And that would not be possible without cancelling all housing regulations.

I really like your sarcasm.

The houses in USA are already made almost from the cardboard. You can not call a bunch of "two by four" wooden planks nailed together a modern home.

If we do really care about people not being homeless as we claim we do, I suggest as a first step we cancel all the construction regulations. Temporarily. For the next 20 years. Then, extend the cancellation indefinitely.

As an immigrant who switched between several countries, I must tell that this is an amazing project.

The simplest and "obvious" guides are often the most helpful, and hard to find.

I wish every city has a similar website with the most basic instructions.

There are some ideas, in fact. They are not very well developed, though, because such research is very expensive, and even the very educated people on this side fiercely fighting the idea that extending people's life is a good thing.

Until the general public accepts the necessity of the age-related research, there won't be any effective mechanism for age reversion.

NIH yearly budget is 35B dollars. Half of that they spend on cancer research, the other half divides between the other diseases. Age research is a tiny fraction of this budget.

Until NIH spends at least 1/3 of their annual budget on fighting aging, there won't be any significant progress.