| RavenBlog |
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| Comments on Thursday 2 September 2004: |
| Listen up, World. I want some stuff, and you, the world, are just the entity that should be providing it for me, as soon as possible. I want a community living-space which is sensible. I want either a small locale like The Village or a large apartment building with each living-space properly soundproofed. I want this community to have its own large lump of bandwidth, which is near-free for the use of the residents via wireless, and 'shaped' such that the bandwidth may always be used to capacity, and if there is a conflict such that the required bandwidth exceeds capacity then whoever has used less bandwidth recently takes priority over whoever has used more, on a ratio-based scale such that if someone has used 100GB they get half as much of the available bandwidth as someone who has used 50GB, a quarter as much as someone who has used 25GB, and so on. Most of the time this limitation would not come into effect at all. Otherwise-unused bandwidth could be used for mirroring of common downloads. I want the living space to have at least one dedicated chef, possibly more depending on the size of the community. The dedicated chef should make any recipe on request, at a reasonable price for his work, with the requester supplying ingredients. A couple could get a nice curry for two made for about $20 (a curry is about half an hour's work), or community members could group their orders, such that if twenty people want curry the same night it should be less than $5 per person, as making a large amount of curry doesn't take much more effort than making a small amount. The dedicated chef is paid only for their time, not per-portion. They are also given free lodging and use of facilities in the community. People are still welcome to cook their own food if they prefer, of course. But World, cooking is time-consuming for me, and I know that while it takes me five minutes to chop up a few habaneros, a proper chef can do it in seconds. Why do you make me do things that others can do better? I want this fixed. I want the living space to, similarly, have a dedicated staff of cleaners, who will wash dishes, take out rubbish, vacuum and so forth on a similar paid-per-time basis. I know a competent cleaner can clean things more effectively than I can, in half the time, so it would be a bargain for me; a real-world cleaner would not, because they have to charge enough to cover getting to a house and such. If they're part of this small community, World, they'd always be nearby, wouldn't they? So the costs would be less. You see? Why don't things already work like this, World? What's wrong with you? I want a community gymnasium, a community assault-course, a community games room and several community ridiculously large television and sound system rooms. I want trampolines. I want a swimming pool. I want tennis courts even though I hate tennis. Few of these things require much maintenance, and if the maintenance costs are split between a community of a hundred or more people they're a pittance. Lots of people buy ridiculously large televisions and sound systems for watching movies, even though there'd be next to no disadvantage to sharing three such devices between about twenty people. I want cost-effective entertainment, World. What cleaner can afford these sorts of silly luxuries? I'll tell you, World, the answer is the cleaner who works for The Community. Yes, World, this does sound like a hotel, and I realise that. But what's different is that hotels charge extortionate prices. A community doing the same thing but each owning their room (or renting if they choose, but not at a stupid daily rate) would, yes, be similar to a hotel. But you'd own your space. You'd have a kitchen. People wouldn't come in and decide to make your bed unless you asked them to. You'd be the only one with a key unless you wanted it otherwise. So no, World, it's not really similar to a hotel at all, is it? Why don't you give me this? Why? [11:06] |
| Vee |
| theres one problem here if you pay someone by the time it takes to do a job they will take longer to get paid more.. it should be a reverse system ie the quicker they do a job the better they get paid... obviously youd have to work out guidelines to make it fairer but im sure you could cope with that. |
| Nightshade |
| How would this community work out with your inherent dislike of people in general? Or would only select people get to live in your community? |
| RavenBlack |
| When I do contract programming I get paid by how long I take, and I don't deliberately take longer. Not many contract programmers do. It balances out easily by having two or more people who can do the same job - if one is always more efficient than the other, nobody will want to hire the useless one. My dislike of people isn't very relevant - most of what I don't like about people is that they make noises all the time. Soundproofed rooms are good. |
| James |
| As part of the world, I'd like to take this opportunity to say "Yeah, we'll get right on that." |
| Anet |
| Perhaps you should create this... It all sounds very much like a commune.... or an '(un)reality' show. |
| AttackOfTheSpam |
| The Ideal World: try and find the drama if you can in this land of harmony, perfection, and low-cost bandwidth! |
| Anet |
| Um... Only 3 TV's, with 20+ people... If I am forced to watch a 'reality' show, I could guarantee a mass murder ;) |
| RavenBlack |
| No, that was an example number, not an actual one. It gets better as the real numbers scale up without the ratio increasing. If you get to the point of 50 TVs with 335 people, for example, then there would be enough TVs that there'd be one for each channel that anyone ever watches. And I wasn't really suggesting that 3:20 was the ideal ratio, just that it is a usually-inoffensive ratio. 1:5 can work, and 3:20 is less likely to result in conflicts than that. |
| Anet |
| Agreed, but only because 3:20 would result in a 2 to 1 vote ... Democracy in action... Still, you have convinced me. If you build it, I will apply for entry. |
| RavenBlack |
| I think to be feasible it really needs to not be "someone builds it" but rather "a whole bunch of people get together and have it built". 300 people contributing to getting a bunch of things build would be a lot cheaper per person than one or two people buying one thing, but it would take more riches than I have for one person to build for 300. |
| Digi |
| But you command fairly good people skills, and you've got internet stuff. That's all you really need. Make clever websites, and get the 299 people required. Then get *them* to build it. |
| James |
| I think that's what he's trying to do. |
| Soli |
| Sounds like a Socialist commune, which I like. If I ever become very wealthy and we can agree on a location, we'll have to implement this. I'll be buying my own big-screen TV, however; I need my gaming setup. An alternate method for entertainment is to require as part of the cost of residence that each individual or family provide something useful and/or entertaining; the cooks, cleaners, and other servicepeople have their portion of the cost covered, plus a salary for the purchasing of goods; those who work outside the community and do not therefore offer their labour must instead have a community game room, for example. For more expensive projects, multiple people could work together on maintaining a room or service of some sort, and the community could agree on each person's contribution's worth in order to calculate their rent (using this term loosely to include cost of maintenance and whatnot; some people might choose to own their flat). Probably not too different in practice from your system, now that I think about it. Ah well. |
| Yndaia |
| I like it. Great idea. e-mail me when you get the kinks worked out; I'll help. |
| Santoken |
| Perhaps an old, abandoned apartment building in a remote urban location? These types of building can be had quite cheaply. Perhaps the 'Society' could work together to be self funding, and each of the Society would have given jobs. Some would be 'Supporters' and others would be 'Producers' The Supporters would provide skills that are used within the Society, while the Producers provide goods/services that would generate capital to sustain the Society's existance. Years ago, I came up with an idea to create a school based on a similiar concept. Obtain a structure, lobby for the brightest of the bright, they join the school for free. However, tuition will be repaid by a commitment of wages much less than prevailing wages in the same field. You provide 4 years of the absolute finest education than can be found anywhere, in return they commit another 5-10 years of service for a modest wage. Soon, you have the most intelligent attending the school, while the grads are working on all the sciences in research. Obviously, there is much more to this topic, but a similiar concept could be applied to this project. Count me in. |
| RavenBlack |
| Soli - I don't like the idea of everyone having to contribute within the group, because of the aforementioned "some people are better at things, and it's silly to have the less good people doing the same work". There's not much point in me looking after any plants, animals, or cleanliness-things since any such would take me several times as long as it would take someone else whose field it is. Same goes for cooking. While I can do a decent job of any of these, it takes me ages. Santoken's producers and supporters is a better system for that reason. I like the school idea provided I don't have to be near it personally. Children are noise-monsters. It's funny, in retrospect, how much the whole thing (including the school idea) resembles university. Cheap-access sports equipment, communal theatre-rooms, money paid back out of your future work... So essentially what I'm thinking of is a deluxe university at which you don't have to pretend to learn anything. |