121–130 of 343 posts
The modular idea is neat, but I'm not sure how practical it is, and there are laws in many states that prevent you from moving homes without a licensed professional.
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There are some (fringe?) groups who'd argue against this, evidenced by variant spellings like "womxn" and "womyn" that are attested since the 70s, in order to remove "man" from the words. Different in that "woman" is etymologically an extension of the word "man", but somewhat absurd because the etymological root was gender neutral, with a separate word attested for "masculine" man. Point being, perception of a word c…
This kind of thinking, linguistic relativity - that the words available to you shape your worldview - is not really held in high regard as I understand it. At least not in the hard sense, where one is completely unable to conceptualise something because they don't have the words to express it. For example, some have claimed that if we had no separate terms for "man and woman", "male and female", etc, we'd be unable t…
(and probably more who use examples of it in bad faith arguments presuming that such groups exist in larger numbers, e.g. "look at those crazy feminists!")
> If we want English to be more gender-neutral, we could revert to werman, wifman and man.
There's a part of me that loves this idea, even if I recognize the absurdity of suggesting it. I guess it's made more sense to me than trying to replace a large portion of English vocab en masse, like all the vocational terms ending in "-man".
A curious example of a Germanic cousin of English that underwent the same "masculinization" of the word man but "came back" is Swedish, where the word "man" means "adult male", but is also used as a neuter pronoun meaning "generic person" (usually translated as "one" in English).
As far as I know the other Nordic languages didn't develop this usage, but I'm less familiar with them.
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“ Who's the target customer for this?” People who otherwise could not afford to buy a house, I assume.
Personally, I don't like having neighbours, I like nature, I don't mind living small. Such a house would allow me to put more of my resources in land. Then if I need more room for stuff I can build that myself (stuff requires less isolation and there are less strict rules for it in my country, etc).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This kind of thinking, linguistic relativity - that the words available to you shape your worldview - is not really held in high regard as I understand it. At least not in the hard sense, where one is completely unable to conceptualise something because they don't have the words to express it. For example, some have claimed that if we had no separate terms for "man and woman", "male and female", etc, we'd be unable t…
Oh, for sure. I didn't mean to suggest it's a common or respected belief, only that there are some who support it. (and probably more who use examples of it in bad faith arguments presuming that such groups exist in larger numbers, e.g. "look at those crazy feminists!") > If we want English to be more gender-neutral, we could revert to werman, wifman and man. There's a part of me that loves this idea, even if I recog…
We sort of have this in English too: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind". Although I can't think of any cases where we use "man" alone to mean "one".
This house is 375 sq ft and uses low end materials, and it doesn't include setup, so it's going to cost ~$100k, or $266 / sq ft. Most new home construction is more like $150 / sq ft. And with this system, you're very limited in what you can build. Who's the target customer for this?
I don't think it compares that well to a static caravan. The price here likely includes VAT (20%) https://www.abiuk.co.uk/our-collection/the-roecliffe/
I'm not sure how much of that requirement comes from weight limits due to road transportation vs cost cutting vs target market, but those things are just horrible to spend time in. Houses need to feel solid.
This company is popular for being the company chosen by Elon Musk[1]. He's supposedly living in one in Starbase, Texas. I guess it's also a study to understand the dynamics of living in a small space as any dream of inhabiting some other planet passes necessarily by the adaptation of a lifetime in a tiny space. [1] https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-50k-house-texas-pictures...
How out of touch must one be to even consider this? News flash: the vast majority of mankind lives in what a North American would consider "small places" [0].
Same goes for population density - North American and Australian urban sprawl is largely unknown in most areas of the world. If you want to "study the dynamics" of living closely together in tightly packed spaces, just move to Hong Kong or Singapore for a year.
[0] https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5e7b2a43103...
And then $80k to install between new electrical box, getting raked over the coals by your local water/sewer district, having to build a foundation, stairs from door, etc., etc. And your property taxes will go up.
This comment deserves to be higher. People just think you can put these anywhere but you need water connection, sewer connection, electrical, telephone line/cable, permits and red tape, by the time you're done it'll be double. And I don't think these solve any of our housing affordability problems, the land in a desirable area will be far more expensive than what's on top.
This is the problem which smart people should be working on, not some prefab home.
Sure, maybe these are good as temporary accommodations ... maybe a garden shed or home office ... but take the new-home glaze off of them, and add the patina of life, and these will eventually be classified as slum housing.
