this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
169 points (100.0% liked)
the_dunk_tank
15908 readers
700 users here now
It's the dunk tank.
This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.
Rule 1: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.
Rule 2: If your source is a reactionary website, please use archive.is instead of linking directly.
Rule 3: No sectarianism.
Rule 4: TERF/SWERFs Not Welcome
Rule 5: No ableism of any kind (that includes stuff like libt*rd)
Rule 6: Do not post fellow hexbears.
Rule 7: Do not individually target other instances' admins or moderators.
Rule 8: The subject of a post cannot be low hanging fruit, that is comments/posts made by a private person that have low amount of upvotes/likes/views. Comments/Posts made on other instances that are accessible from hexbear are an exception to this.
Posts that do not meet this requirement can be posted to !shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml
Rule 9: if you post ironic rage bait im going to make a personal visit to your house to make sure you never make this mistake again
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
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.
Bulldoze the suburbs, absolutely.
What NIMBYs are opposed to is their property values going down. They don't care that the value of a walkable urban forest is vastly higher than their 3bed 2bath 2car suburban box, because they won't be the owners of that urban property. They'll be re-proletarianized like the rest of us and rendered without property or investments - a fate worse than death!
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 units^1^. Enough to solve Homelessness in the US multiple times over^2^.
It simply is not evenly distributed yet
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
We're also already destroying our biosphere and the tank of natural resources is running dry. This abundance is artificial, created by stealing from the future. It can not be sustained. We can't just seize the already existing infrastructure, a lot of this shit has to be torn down. Especially the 🤢 suburbs 🤮
A good compromise. I still favor actual hives, but yes, public hotel rooms would be a good halfway point between full apartments and bug pods.
It looks like you're talking past one another here. OF COURSE suburbs, golf courses, yachts, and other rich people bullshit needs to be bulldozed. Fuck that shit.
In a GOOD world—where everybody gets a nice apartment, all their basic needs met, and we've transitioned entirely to renewable energy—we'll be living lives of abundance, rather than scarcity.
Maybe I'm talking out my ass here, but in a world where the profit motive is gone, I cannot imagine we'd run into any hard limits on Earth for a long, long time.