Ok, I’ve thought a lot about this but I don’t have a strong pitch to make yet.
Here are my thoughts:
Cost of living seems really important in the long run! High cost of living eats up lifestyle slack really quickly, which constrains the sorts of occupations that one can have while being part of the community.
That said, there is a pretty substantial tradeoff between optimizing a place for the community (essentially relying on your social life being in-community members), and optimizing it for the surroundings. e.g., if you pick a place for low cost-of-living, you might expect nearly all your friends to be people who live in your community. Whereas if you pick a big city, you are probably picking it because you expect a rich social life outside the community.
As Vaniver wrote, it makes sense to pick places which are well suited to create a pocket neighborhood. Living in the same city as your friends is good, but living 2 doors down from them is way more awesome!
I know people talk about the weather as being important, but I am not fully sold on that needing to be a constraint. Humans are adaptable and most people should be able to adjust to bad seasonal weather pretty quickly. Seasonal mood disorders are a real thing though, and if we did go to a place with bad weather, I would definitely want to invest as a community into infrastructure that can help with this. I also am not willing to accept bad air quality in exchange for more temperate weather—e.g., when I lived in Senegal, the weather was gorgeous but the air quality was terrible. (That said, in the US there aren’t many places with really bad air quality.)
One weird idea I am considering is the monastery life: explicitly try excluding the outside world, optimize the space only for the gated community, and see how it works. It’s just an experiment, but if people are interested, let me know. (Inspiration from Neal Stephenson’s Anathem :) )
I think I would be more happy in a gated / monastery community than in one with easy access to a big city. I love museums and historic architecture and whatnot, but on a day-to-day level I’d rather hedgehog than fox at this point in my life. I’d prefer a lifestyle that was designed to encourage frequent interaction with a small set of people, rather than a lifestyle that was designed to encourage frequent new experiences.
I enjoy the “small town” feeling of walking down a street and knowing a bunch of the people you pass. Combining this with rationalist values (as opposed to the religious or conservative values frequent in many small towns) seems ideal.
Oh great! I realize a lot of different people might have different ideas about what the vision is. Could you spend a few sentences distilling what exactly excites you about the idea?
Ok, I’ve thought a lot about this but I don’t have a strong pitch to make yet.
Here are my thoughts:
Cost of living seems really important in the long run! High cost of living eats up lifestyle slack really quickly, which constrains the sorts of occupations that one can have while being part of the community.
That said, there is a pretty substantial tradeoff between optimizing a place for the community (essentially relying on your social life being in-community members), and optimizing it for the surroundings. e.g., if you pick a place for low cost-of-living, you might expect nearly all your friends to be people who live in your community. Whereas if you pick a big city, you are probably picking it because you expect a rich social life outside the community.
As Vaniver wrote, it makes sense to pick places which are well suited to create a pocket neighborhood. Living in the same city as your friends is good, but living 2 doors down from them is way more awesome!
I know people talk about the weather as being important, but I am not fully sold on that needing to be a constraint. Humans are adaptable and most people should be able to adjust to bad seasonal weather pretty quickly. Seasonal mood disorders are a real thing though, and if we did go to a place with bad weather, I would definitely want to invest as a community into infrastructure that can help with this. I also am not willing to accept bad air quality in exchange for more temperate weather—e.g., when I lived in Senegal, the weather was gorgeous but the air quality was terrible. (That said, in the US there aren’t many places with really bad air quality.)
One weird idea I am considering is the monastery life: explicitly try excluding the outside world, optimize the space only for the gated community, and see how it works. It’s just an experiment, but if people are interested, let me know. (Inspiration from Neal Stephenson’s Anathem :) )
I think I would be more happy in a gated / monastery community than in one with easy access to a big city. I love museums and historic architecture and whatnot, but on a day-to-day level I’d rather hedgehog than fox at this point in my life. I’d prefer a lifestyle that was designed to encourage frequent interaction with a small set of people, rather than a lifestyle that was designed to encourage frequent new experiences.
I enjoy the “small town” feeling of walking down a street and knowing a bunch of the people you pass. Combining this with rationalist values (as opposed to the religious or conservative values frequent in many small towns) seems ideal.
I’ve been kicking around the idea of a ‘rationalist cult’, and am interested in the monastery idea.
Oh great! I realize a lot of different people might have different ideas about what the vision is. Could you spend a few sentences distilling what exactly excites you about the idea?
I am excited by the self-governance aspect, and the opportunity to live under a more personalized set of social norms.
The structure of monastery is specifically appealing because it greatly reduces ‘distance’ between individuals. See Going Critical.
I have some more concrete ideas about a shared ranch (with fast internet) out somewhere beautiful.
Effective altruists seem to have something similar here.