The problem is you’re thinking of a house as a place where people live and build families.

This is wrong. A house is simply an investment vehicle to be flipped frequently in search of ever inflating gains, so that you can build enough equity to retire with some degree of dignity. If you’re lucky you die before exhausting all of that stored value.

You’re thinking of a community as a place where individuals and families grow together over time, and because they all have a long term stake in that place, they pull together to advocate for their best interests, like a healthy local ecosystem for example.

This is wrong. Communities are simply containers for investments, temporary stops on a never ending road to continuous gains. Social bonds are unnecessary since you will have shiny new neighbours within 4-6 years anyhow. And everyone has their own snowblower, so what’s the point in talking to people.

You’re thinking of commuting as way to get to work. This is wrong. Commuting is the key to making this charade work by slowly acclimatizing workers to longer and longer commutes because no one lives where they work anymore, and furthermore it’s ridiculous for anyone to expect to be able to. This applies only to people who have to be physically present in their workplace of course, which includes everyone in service, retail, construction, supply chain and transportation. Most of these jobs will disappear to some degree over time due to lots of factors, but as a result mostly of technology pushed by companies staffed largely by people working from home.

You’re thinking of climate change as a systemic problem exacerbated by, among other things vehicle emissions, gridlock, and the disconnect of people from their particular time and place (see: community). You may think that since workers have so little time (see: commuting) and are too terrified by the prospect of getting frozen out of the economy (see: house) to really challenge the nature of that economy, and climate change itself. You may also think that housing value should at least in some way be tied to whether the house itself does anything to address climate change, for example if a house inflates by 200k, did anyone at least beef up the insulation and install solar panels or a high efficiency furnace?

These notions are all wrong. As soon as everyone has an all electric, self-driving pod that they’re financing against their mortgage, so they can video chat with their kids over breakfast, all the above concerns will collapse. In addition, if you find yourself on the wrong end of the housing market at something point, you can live in the pod.

Rent out the trunk for a little bit extra every month.

Comment from discussion relaxyourshoulders’s comment from discussion “Housing is off the rails”. The problem is you’re thinking of a house as a place where people live and build families. This is wrong. A house is simply an investment vehicle to be flipped frequently in search of ever inflating gains, so that you can build enough … Continue reading “These notions are all wrong.”
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