Albert Wenger recently published a post on his blog about architecture and basic income. Albert is a venture capitalist and is currently working on a book called World After Capital, which I have mentioned before on this blog. He is also an advocate of basic income as a solution to the growing inequality that the modern economy seems to be producing.
In this latest post he wades into the world of architecture with two assertions that I would like to respond to today. The first is that with basic income the current trend of everyone piling up in large cities will end. We will decentralize in search of cheaper land on the outskirts of cities. And the second is that affordable housing could perhaps be produced with a more open source approach to architectural drawings and new construction.
In terms of his first point, I’m not entirely clear why someone earning a basic income would suddenly decentralize. In the comments there is some discussion about how retirees, on a fixed income, often move outward in search of more affordable housing. I understand that phenomenon, but I am not convinced in this scenario.
There has been lots of talk about the demise of cities because of new technologies and other factors. But agglomeration economies have proved, again and again, to be a powerful centralizing force. Let’s also not forget about the environmental impacts of large scale decentralization, which would only be partially mitigated by the widespread adoption of electric vehicles.
Secondly, you can build a house without an architect. The issue isn’t that good bathroom details are hard to come by. Some of the bigger issues are likely the availability of land (decentralization, I guess, is supposed to solve this); construction costs (it’s a highly inefficient process that generates copious amounts of waste); and the immense regulatory burdens imposed on new construction (process, time, and costs).
All of this stemmed from a visit that Albert did with a group of architecture students who are researching the relationship between architecture and basic income. I would be very curious to see what they produce.
What are your thoughts?
Photo by Mathyas Kurmann on Unsplash
One of the things that I have been wondering lately with all of the devastation caused by hurricanes Harvey and Irma is if we need to be viewing these catastrophic incidents as the result of climate change or if we’re being too quick to apply the availability heuristic.
The latter being: “Look at all of these horrible hurricanes. Climate change must really be here and happening right now.”
Albert Wenger is covering this topic on his blog right now through his “Uncertainty Wednesday” series and has also written similar posts in the past. The current series is still ongoing, but a few things stood out to me as I was going through the archives. I’ll mention 3 of them today.
Firstly, it’s important to understand the difference between weather and climate. Weather is what’s happening at any given moment. Climate, on the other hand, is the statistics of weather. Albert proposes the following definition for climate, which I like:
“Climate is the probability distribution of possible weather events.”
Secondly, the data is clear: We have gotten far better at forecasting weather over the years. Accuracy has greatly improved.
But we’re still pretty bad at it, particularly over longer periods of time. According this graph, we’re about 97.5% accurate for 3 day forecasts, but only about 40% accurate for 10 day forecasts. So by “longer periods of time”, I’m really talking about forecasts that go out beyond one week. That’s not very far into the future.
Thirdly, Albert has this post from last year where he talks about the flooding we saw on the U.S. east coast and also the slowing down of the Gulf Stream.
This is fascinating, and also frightening, because the Gulf Stream is a vital ocean current. Among other things, it warms western and northern Europe – likely making it warmer than it otherwise would be – and, according to some models, it lowers the sea level along the U.S. east coast by as much as 3 feet.
The frightening part is that as the Gulf Stream slows it also stops pulling away the same amount of water from the coast, which is arguably why mean sea level is increasing.
I say “arguably”, but the data clearly suggests an acceleration in the rate of rise. Here are two charts that Albert prepared. And there’s more: The U.S. east coast may also have it worse in terms of sea level rise precisely because of this phenomenon.
This is an interesting and, of course, important topic. This post obviously doesn’t do it justice, but I am trying to learn as much as I can. Writing always helps with that.
Photo by Joseph Barrientos on Unsplash
Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures recently gave a talk at the 2017 Blockstack Summit about “Decentralization and the Knowledge Age.”
He starts by talking about motivation and coordination.
The state, he argues, is good at coordination, but not so good at motivation. The market, on the other hand, is good at motivation, but not so good at coordination. Money and self-interest are powerful incentives.
He then talks about how networks have improved the market, the firm, and the state. When the cost of sharing information drops, everything gets better.
But there are downsides to networks. For one, they form monopolies. Consider Facebook in social. Google in search. Amazon in ecommerce.
They also create environments ripe for censorship and “algorithmic abuse.” Everything you see in your feeds is optimized to make you respond and/or feel a certain way. The line between delivering you relevant content and deliberate manipulation is perhaps a fine one.
So what’s the solution? Decentralized blockchain networks are one exciting possibility. But they also have their own limits and drawbacks. Albert touches on those in his talk.
The video is about 24 minutes. If you can’t see it below, click here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgQT874KHuw?rel=0&w=560&h=315]