Agreed. The US is a massive country, and we barely use any of the space we have.
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I like the idea, and the spirit of trying new ideas and forms of government.
That being said, Wikipedia isn’t without its own issues. The editorial hierarchy, like every bureaucracy, becomes rigid, brittle, and ossified over time. The predominant viewpoint becomes entrenched. And so on.
I very much believe that our representative democracy has grave flaws, and that a wiki-based form of direct democracy answers some of them. But how would you keep the system from being games? At some point, someone has to have the power to approve the edits, and the politicking to be that person becomes fiercer the higher the stakes involved.
It’s an interesting idea.
I generally disagree with some of the premise, but I do think it’s interesting. Taking advantage of one’s health and youth while one has it seems tempting.
On the other hand, worker productivity presumably goes down pretty fast once the worker in question is in their 60s-70s, just because they’re getting older, so there may not be anyone who wants to employ them.
You’ve also got the issue that social security benefits do somewhat depend on how much someone earned in their life (I believe, I’m no expert) - so what would be the benefit someone takes in their 30th year?
Yep. I wanted to lay out a somewhat more detailed accounting of it, as a basis for future work on how institutions are designed—and how they should be designed, if we want them to be more effective.
I look forward to reading it.
Unfortunately, I’m not optimistic about any of these changes actually happening; from what little I know a constitutional convention seems necessary, and that seems well outside the realm of the possible.
I like the idea, especially for the experimentation in governance it would foster.
One possible issue is that the democrat/republican divide often tends to be urban/rural, rather than by state.
Ideally, this sort of change would be accompanied by a redrawing of state lines, enabling both a) more than 50 states and b) better alignments of geography/population to statehood.
I think that this is broadly correct. One of the biggest problems of health care in America is that the feedback mechanisms that control cost (such as honest and public prices) are completely broken, and fixing them would likely go a large way towards solving the problem.
Thanks!
I have no idea how these would be implemented—I’m not well enough versed in the practical realities of politics and legislation. What are House Rules?
For some of them, I agree—a constitutional amendment would be ideal.
Can we enhance medical devices to the point where an MRI is as easy and cheap to use and own as a thermometer?
What US state are you most optimistic about, with regards to progress, development, YIMBYism, investment, higher education, and so on?
What about pessimistic?
In e.g. 50 years, what states do you think will have trended upwards vs. downwards from now?
I’ve followed your work on Construction Physics, Brian, and I’ve enjoyed it immensely and learned a ton!
Some thoughts:
One of the recurring points you bring up is that construction is limited in cost savings due to the transportation costs—building materials are generally heavy and have low value-to-weight ratios, so centralized manufacturing doesn’t help nearly as much as it does in other industries. That being said, do you see a solution space where the brick-making machine (including kiln if necessary) can itself be brought to the jobsite, with the material being sourced from super-local dirt/clay? I’m picturing almost a portable manufacturing pipeline, where a digging machine feeds dirt into a mixer, which deposits material into a brick mold which is then fired. The resulting bricks are assembled via robots.
Do you think an alternative to mortar could be found? Perhaps a solid resin of some sort that is laid between bricks during placement, and then heated into a liquid and cooled back solid to bond with the bricks?
Do you think the market for automated bricklaying is going to disappear as 3D printing buildings becomes more common/economical?
Looking forward to your continued work!
Great post. It’s nice to hear good news, and more evidence that humanity doesn’t actually run out of resources.