The premise behind the Rock City was recapped earlier tonight and it includes a link to a PDF with the articles from the first series which built up the idea of the Rock City and how to construct an enormous underground complex with living space, entertainment, parks, utilities, etc. Ithaka: The History of the Rock City by Request (PDF link)
Note: that's not a link to the PDF but rather the article which describes it and contains a link to it.
There are two fundamentals to the Rock City idea, that there will be far fewer jobs so many do not have work or the expectation of it and there will be a Universal Basic Income.
Note: the UBI was covered in an earlier article. Ithaka: I'm Sorry I Called You a Moronic Slime-Sucking Bitchface
We can pick up whether a UBI is good or bad elsewhere and that's fine but here it's a fundamental because we're interested in what happens if it's true. We can't predict what percentage of people will not be working since that's just fortune telling. We can't predict either what that will do to the overall economy although that was covered to some extent in the previous article by those more qualified than I.
Something we can predict is the social consequence and this involves something else which came up in an earlier article, the tribal nature of people. Ithaka: The Rock City Won't Be Some Sterile Science Project
When we have a group of unemployed people getting together, it may wind up in a revolution but there's little reason for these ones to do it. They have an income which adequately meets their needs and they don't feel like they're getting handouts from a parental state. They can get jobs if they want to train up for this or that but only if they need more stuff because some of us do like getting more stuff. There's no reason to fight for a right to work when it's already there.
There's usually not going to be social resentment unless any one group feels it's being treated unfairly relative to another. People on a UBI probably won't expect a budget which supports cocaine and caviar but they will want to eat nicely and go to movies, ball games, ... the things people do.
Note: no desire to pursue it deeply here but there is expectation drug use will decline substantially in the absence of resentment, hopelessness, etc. However, on balance there's the destructive force of too much idle time.
Visualize hellacious art colonies. Artists don't have to suffer anymore and that's good because they know they sure as hell won't ever get rich because there's too fucking much art already. Art was great when you're Caveman Joe who does cave paintings but your only competition is two hundred miles away and his work isn't portable anyway. Even now (cough) art comes from every iPhone at the rate of a herd of stampeding bison; in the Future it will inevitably come even faster with more ways to do it.
The same thing will happen with music and writing since there's so damn much of it there's no possible way to read a tiny fraction of it or hear more than a smattering of all the music. That won't kill either pursuit but it will change some fundamental reasons for doing either one when fame and fortune are even less likely than now.
Likely artists will congregate and they often do it now ostensibly for financial means but many stay even when they can afford to leave because they like the jam with people who think way out on an edge, even when that edge may seem completely insane to others.
This is the nucleus of the kind of tribalism we want. For one example, Germany takes pride in krautrock and they sure did invent it. We want that kind of cultural pride in our Rock City and this art colony is one way it would be likely to manifest itself.
What effect the lack of suffering will have on artists is yours to project but we don't want to get too Psychology Today with this. Or perhaps we can go with basic artist's ennui: oh dear, do we really need to revisit whether suffering is necessary for art? (sniff)
In general, there's the potential for that kind of tribalism for any group of like-minded people and the relative ease of getting one place to another in the Rock City should enhance immeasurably the ability of people to engage in multiple forms of tribalism. Maybe there's one for the Preservation of O-Gauge Model Train Sets and why not. You will need to get a job if you will hang out with that crowd since that's some extremely expensive kit but you can do that if you want.
We can reasonably predict a large class of people will not be working and we know idle hands are the Devil's workshop ... blah de blah.
Here's an excerpt from the UBI article mentioned previously:
Another example is the UBI pilot project in Namibia. When the country began distributing a basic income to its citizens, there was a drastic change in the behavior of the population. The UBI led to greater employment rates as people created jobs for themselves, the general poverty levels dropped 18 percent, and the crime rate plummeted 36.5 percent. There was also a 29 percent increase in general income levels (this increment was exclusive of the basic income distributed). Just like Alaska, Namibia reported an improvement in general wellbeing of the society with the implementation of the basic income grants.
- VB: Universal basic income: If a robot takes your job, it could actually be good for you
Note: internal links are to Der Spiegel and Huffington Post, respectively. Both are in English.
It doesn't appear the Devil got too busy with them but that point still stands since the Rock City will remove a whole lot of hassles. Getting from place to place eats a whole lot of our time and that will be largely eliminated in the Rock City. Even after they have created jobs there will still be time because of that hassle elimination.
There will also be less reason to go anywhere since a whole lot of your work, regardless of whether it's paid, will be in your home pad. How much longer can it be before telephones throw holograms in front of you so even customer-facing jobs could be done from home, not that so many will exist with robos front-ending most types of customer-facing jobs.
The fascinating part to me is I don't see any particular clairvoyance in this when there are multiple efforts toward projecting holograms right now. It's a big step to get telephones to do that but the demand would be huge.
All of these things come so soon it's not even sci fi anymore.
Ed: what happens after that?
Exactly. We won't have it with the doom and gloom, everyone's going to die thinking. We do want to know what happens after these things come so ...
Ed: the Rock City theme won't stop any time soon?
Not likely.
Note: that's not a link to the PDF but rather the article which describes it and contains a link to it.
There are two fundamentals to the Rock City idea, that there will be far fewer jobs so many do not have work or the expectation of it and there will be a Universal Basic Income.
Note: the UBI was covered in an earlier article. Ithaka: I'm Sorry I Called You a Moronic Slime-Sucking Bitchface
We can pick up whether a UBI is good or bad elsewhere and that's fine but here it's a fundamental because we're interested in what happens if it's true. We can't predict what percentage of people will not be working since that's just fortune telling. We can't predict either what that will do to the overall economy although that was covered to some extent in the previous article by those more qualified than I.
Something we can predict is the social consequence and this involves something else which came up in an earlier article, the tribal nature of people. Ithaka: The Rock City Won't Be Some Sterile Science Project
When we have a group of unemployed people getting together, it may wind up in a revolution but there's little reason for these ones to do it. They have an income which adequately meets their needs and they don't feel like they're getting handouts from a parental state. They can get jobs if they want to train up for this or that but only if they need more stuff because some of us do like getting more stuff. There's no reason to fight for a right to work when it's already there.
There's usually not going to be social resentment unless any one group feels it's being treated unfairly relative to another. People on a UBI probably won't expect a budget which supports cocaine and caviar but they will want to eat nicely and go to movies, ball games, ... the things people do.
Note: no desire to pursue it deeply here but there is expectation drug use will decline substantially in the absence of resentment, hopelessness, etc. However, on balance there's the destructive force of too much idle time.
Visualize hellacious art colonies. Artists don't have to suffer anymore and that's good because they know they sure as hell won't ever get rich because there's too fucking much art already. Art was great when you're Caveman Joe who does cave paintings but your only competition is two hundred miles away and his work isn't portable anyway. Even now (cough) art comes from every iPhone at the rate of a herd of stampeding bison; in the Future it will inevitably come even faster with more ways to do it.
The same thing will happen with music and writing since there's so damn much of it there's no possible way to read a tiny fraction of it or hear more than a smattering of all the music. That won't kill either pursuit but it will change some fundamental reasons for doing either one when fame and fortune are even less likely than now.
Likely artists will congregate and they often do it now ostensibly for financial means but many stay even when they can afford to leave because they like the jam with people who think way out on an edge, even when that edge may seem completely insane to others.
This is the nucleus of the kind of tribalism we want. For one example, Germany takes pride in krautrock and they sure did invent it. We want that kind of cultural pride in our Rock City and this art colony is one way it would be likely to manifest itself.
What effect the lack of suffering will have on artists is yours to project but we don't want to get too Psychology Today with this. Or perhaps we can go with basic artist's ennui: oh dear, do we really need to revisit whether suffering is necessary for art? (sniff)
In general, there's the potential for that kind of tribalism for any group of like-minded people and the relative ease of getting one place to another in the Rock City should enhance immeasurably the ability of people to engage in multiple forms of tribalism. Maybe there's one for the Preservation of O-Gauge Model Train Sets and why not. You will need to get a job if you will hang out with that crowd since that's some extremely expensive kit but you can do that if you want.
We can reasonably predict a large class of people will not be working and we know idle hands are the Devil's workshop ... blah de blah.
Here's an excerpt from the UBI article mentioned previously:
Another example is the UBI pilot project in Namibia. When the country began distributing a basic income to its citizens, there was a drastic change in the behavior of the population. The UBI led to greater employment rates as people created jobs for themselves, the general poverty levels dropped 18 percent, and the crime rate plummeted 36.5 percent. There was also a 29 percent increase in general income levels (this increment was exclusive of the basic income distributed). Just like Alaska, Namibia reported an improvement in general wellbeing of the society with the implementation of the basic income grants.
- VB: Universal basic income: If a robot takes your job, it could actually be good for you
Note: internal links are to Der Spiegel and Huffington Post, respectively. Both are in English.
It doesn't appear the Devil got too busy with them but that point still stands since the Rock City will remove a whole lot of hassles. Getting from place to place eats a whole lot of our time and that will be largely eliminated in the Rock City. Even after they have created jobs there will still be time because of that hassle elimination.
There will also be less reason to go anywhere since a whole lot of your work, regardless of whether it's paid, will be in your home pad. How much longer can it be before telephones throw holograms in front of you so even customer-facing jobs could be done from home, not that so many will exist with robos front-ending most types of customer-facing jobs.
The fascinating part to me is I don't see any particular clairvoyance in this when there are multiple efforts toward projecting holograms right now. It's a big step to get telephones to do that but the demand would be huge.
All of these things come so soon it's not even sci fi anymore.
Ed: what happens after that?
Exactly. We won't have it with the doom and gloom, everyone's going to die thinking. We do want to know what happens after these things come so ...
Ed: the Rock City theme won't stop any time soon?
Not likely.
23 comments:
UBI is called welfare today. Why would they workers not be resentful of the UBI
And even the Chinese whi built an island in the middle if tbe bay to build an airport on could build Rock City in 20 years.
That would absolutely create a two tier class system.
I still dont understand why all jobs would disappear.
I suppose all the manufacturing jobs would be inside rock city also.
Or would they be above ground If they are down below that brings an entirely new level of pollution to deal with.
WOW an entire life where I never leave by 20 by 30 foot cubicle. Sounds a lot like the Perdue chicken factories but with cable TV
I just dont see your vision
The workers won't be resentful because they have no reason and understand they need for it.
There has been one article after the other here about replacing workers with computers. It started at least thirty years ago with automation of the auto-making process and it's come far beyond that since. The most obvious job losses are the ones which came after automated phone answering and routing systems but the robots are vastly more capable and those back office jobs have almost no future.
Nothing is inside the Rock City unless it's appropriate for it to be there. America has quite a bit of either / or thinking happening but this is more than that and either / or thinking is something we have to fix but it shouldn't be hard when people know life hardly ever comes down to simple choices like that.
As to living in a 20x30 cubicle, that's deliberately painting it in the shittiest way when in fact the only difference between doing that underground or in a house is the windows. Life created that circumstance of working from home and all that. I don't see it changing all that much so my thinking is toward making it as comfortable and practical as possible.
It's not a jail and people will go in or out of the Rock City as they feel like it.
People resent welfare today. Why would they not resent it tomorrow.
How long will it be before the workers start having a major economic advantage and the entrepreneurs start having a major wealth gap. Does Rock City start taking away what they work for to increase the UBI so they dont feel slighted. And if so why do I bother working
First post should say could not build Rock City in 20 years.
Also if as you have said that people move to the city for the jobs. And in tne future robots take all the jobs why would urbanization continue.
And would not I be allowed UBI living in rural areas also or would that only apply to Rock City dwellers
Because the workers are getting the same UBI but they chose to work because they want more. Some will, some won't.
There won't be an economic bubble because this government is a hypothetical one which is more than just a clown show fronting the corporate state. This one actually does what they're supposed to do (i.e. ensures the safety of the citizens, etc).
You work for the same reason anyone does: you want something other people don't have.
And how am I transported to the manufacturing district if it is not in Rock City. Or do robots take all those jobs also.
HyperLoop and robo cabs. You can easily see both of those coming.
The urbanization continues because the city is more than just the jobs in it.
A friend has a rural background and more than just living outside the city because of high involvement with farm animals. A son works in the city and he's married but no immediate plans of kids even though early thirties. He doesn't want rural because there's much more artistic engagement in the city which is important because that's the profession for he and his wife although in different mediums.
There are more good reasons to be in a city than simply because that's where the jobs are.
Hyper loop and robo cabs. You are right back to today with clogged highways. And over crowded subways not to mention the 10s of thousands of tunnels and underground sub stations to be built.
The biggest piece you lack is the feasibilty study to decide wether or not the is enough inhabitants to make it realistic.
I thought no sci fi. A new government a new style economy and no one has to work unless they want to but everyone gets paid.
And the whole venture is financed by this new economy that doesnt use money.
And is built with equipment that has been invented yet.
You have designed a rather different society but I dont believe any of it is viable
But keep designing
I visit cities. I stopped in Dallas San Diego Atlanta and Las Vegas in the last two weeks. Luckily I was just visiting.
The number one reason listed for urbanization is employment. The rest occurs because of the population density that supports economic development. If city kiving is the desired choice why are the suburbs so popular. Why does Connecticut exist because people would rather travel two hours and live in the country and work in New York
I'm not convinced that would come back to gridlocked traffic because of the anticipated great reduction in the number of jobs, the change in the nature of jobs due to reduced manufacturing by humans, etc.
There's still a need for nitrate fertilizers and they will still explode in the future so there's one known kind of factory you would never want inside the Rock City. I need to do more research on just what kind of manufacturing takes place now to go much beyond that.
For me, anything plays if it can logically extend from where we are now. The problem isn't so much whether the idea is crap since my presentation of it is still crap or it would be more convincing. More accurately, the facts would be more convincing so I need more of them.
I think you have kind of a one-size-fits-all view of people, that everyone wants to get into some pastoral situation and many do since it can be an idyllic life. Maybe it's only the young who want the excitement of the city and the work is only part of it. I'm not so convinced of that but it's tough to tell when my own taste was to pull back from cities. It's tough to tell how many stay in the cities because it's just more exciting in one.
No I am not saying everyone wants to live in the country but I dont know why they wouldnt.
Many love surburbia with its manicured lawns and plastic people And many prefer condos as it eliminates those same lawns.
And there are plenty that put up with yhe city for the non stop availability of contrived action.
I just dont see that there are enough to fill RC
If you have the same number of people you will still have gridlock. Thet will still be going somewhere
That's the point as I don't believe there will be the same number of people doing it due to robots
You hit it with 'contrived action in the city' and that's where you will get huge differences between people with some responses coming immediately to mind: is Broadway contrived ... is the National Gallery contrived??
Yes, they are but they're damn good at it and it's the intention of the RC to do it better in large part by making it easier. I'm much of the opinion people would do more things if it were not so much of a hassle to get across town or whatever.
Tje same of people will be monving those for work and those for leisure.
A small portion will will just stay in thier living space
I wouldn't want to envision people spending all their time in their living space because that's The Matrix, no matter how comfortable it may be. It's already happened that people need more computer time whether at a desktop or on the run with mobiles. Using the mobile takes a home thing and makes it a somewhere else thing but you're still not really engaged with anything while you do it so I see it as still hermitic. Even if it's just golf, do anything other than tap that damn mobile. That applies regardless of where you live.
Then traffic will be the same as everyone is still going somewhere
It's not at all the same due to reduction in jobs from robos.
Just because robos reduce jobs doesnt take those bodies off the road. They just drive at different hours so it is perceived as less volume
When they're not going to work, where are they going. Roads aren't usually hopeless except for worker rush hours.
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