P2P Foundation Blog

I think tech firms have an opportunity to do good things when selecting a new office in a new city or state. Let me explain.

200 jobs means roughly 300-350 people (some are singles, some are couples, some have kids) that will be directly affected by Stripe opening these offices in Baltimore.

On average, 100 people with relatively high salaries (as it is the case for Stripe employees) "drive" 30 to 50 other jobs (services, etc). This means that this single move by Stripe has the capacity to influence 500-600 people in total. Not a small number.

In cases like this, I wish they would consider partnering with a local architect firm and/or construction firm, plus an investment firm, to repurpose a neglected area, or even build from scratch, using sound and proven architectural guidelines (a good example: https://nightingalehousing.org/ in Melbourne). This way they could offer both office and housing to their employees, and push for sustainable architecture.

Heck, with a larger workforce, they could even be as bold as designing a new town altogether. Some great architects and designers have already shared what's the best way to do it. TL;DR: it's not about cars, it's about people. [0] [1] etc.

I would love to chat with people interested with this idea, and share the little I've learned in my own free time.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL_RYm8zs28 (Jan Gehl is one of the most amazing architects of our time, please try to find time to watch at least some of it, you…

Related from 2003 by Jim Sanford: "Confessions of a Recovering Economist"
http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue21/Stanford21.htm
"I am an economist. It is seventeen days since I last uttered the phrase "supply and demand." But the demon still lurks untamed, within me. Economics is an addiction. Every other addiction has a Twelve Step program, laced with tough love and blunt self-honesty. Why not a Twelve Step program for economists? God knows, we have done enough damage with our arrogant, drunken prescriptions. Here's how each and every economist can face up to their inner demons, and make their own small contribution to setting things right. ..."

From 2010: "They Did Their Homework (800 Years of It)" https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/economy/04econ.html
"But in the wake of the recent crisis, a few economists — like Professors Reinhart and Rogoff, and other like-minded colleagues like Barry Eichengreen and Alan Taylor — have been encouraging others in their field to look beyond hermetically sealed theoretical models and into the historical record. “There is so much inbredness in this profession,” says Ms. Reinhart. “They all read the same sources. They all use the same data sets. They all talk to the same people. There is endless extrapolation on extrapolation on extrapolation, and for years that is what has been rewarded.”"

Or from 2011: "Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science That Makes Life Dismal" by Moshe…

> This was a chance for you to explain better

I think it is summed up well by this:

"According to Bauwens and Franco Iacomella, late capitalism is beset by the twin structural irrationalities of artificial abundance and artificial scarcity:

1. The current political economy is based on a false idea of material abundance. We call it pseudo-abundance. It is based on a commitment to permanent growth, the infinite accumulation of capital and debt-driven dynamics through compound interest. This is unsustainable, of course, because infinite growth is logically and physically impossible in any physically constrained, finite system.

2. The current political economy is based on a false idea of “immaterial scarcity.” It believes that an exaggerated set of intellectual property monopolies – for copyrights, trademarks and patents – should restrain the sharing of scientific, social and economic innovations. Hence the system discourages human cooperation, excludes many people from benefiting from innovation and slows the collective learning of humanity. In an age of grave global challenges, the political economy keeps many practical alternatives sequestered behind private firewalls or unfunded if they cannot generate adequate profits."

Source: https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/artificial-abundance-and-artificial-scarcity/2016/02/21

Does that help you understand my argument?

> Why should housing not be to governed by market forces?

Housing can and should of course be managed by market forces. Land usage rights distribution is where the problem lies.

For physical reasons there is no supply of new land. We'd have to wait until Mars or Moon colonization, which would pop the ongoing land price inflation.

Until then it's just a market in which the sooner you get in the better off you'll be. Which is why older generations and aristocracy benefit from such arrangement.

Later generations are just told to shut up and accept that you have to slave more and more each decade to be afford living. Until a revolution of some sort.

The funny thing is the misnomer 'to own land'. The only thing you own is a right to use the parcel, which is guaranteed by no one else but the population. And the population is not paid to provide such a service.

Payment for actual usage on ongoing basis is a solution. Such as land tax or government lease.

Worked wonders in countries founded on this principle.

https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/successfull-examples-of-land-value-tax-reforms/2011/02/05

Good questions; those points deserve clarifications.

>What exactly is the connection between Assange and Stallman? Why does Stallman turning out to be "right" have anything to do with Assange's future?

Both are activists, who have warned us (and are still warning us) about the consequences of letting those powerful in the world of atoms exert their power in the world of bits. Their causes are distinct, but are two facets of the same object.
I highly recommend reading this essay by Assange:
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-internet-is-a-threat-to-human-civilization-julian-assanges-a-call-to-cryptographic-arms/2012/12/24

>What does this mean? Hacker News isn't unique in any relevant way.

I'm saying "we" as in "we who work in technology and program for a living", not as in "we on HN". The latter is a subset of the former, and a somewhat representative one in my experience. Hence my phrasing.

Hope that clarifies my original points a bit :)

Agree. Article quotes Apple as having just 20 designers who come up with the cool products. Article also says they don't do market research. This makes sense- 20 people come up with amazing ideas on their own (easy to reach consensus), and then I'm sure test prototypes in front of users. (They must get their products in front of users, even if it's a small set of users).

Contrast to Microsoft, which has competitive designers and programmers working in silos, vying for their little feature to win real estate on one of their programs. No wonder everything is bloated. (Source: I heard this from MS employees when I worked a consulting project for them while at a well known design firm).

Here's an interesting post on how Apple's "benelovent monarchy" stacks against Android's crowdsourced approach. http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/crowdsourced-curation-reputation-systems-and-the-social-graph/2010/08/10
Does Apple's innovation win in this case?