141–150 of 710 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's reasonable. I was pretty upset when I started writing the piece, and feel more rational now. However, by "aspie" I specifically mean someone detached from emotion and any sense of duty towards other people. Is there a better word you would suggest I could use?
Well, "detached from emotion and any sense of duty towards other people" would directly be an improvement if that is what you specifically mean.
I think "old cities" are pretty good too: the kind where they were built for people, rather than cars, and where you could build things without a dense thicket of regulations almost entirely unrelated to safety. Another thing that seems to work well is limiting the amount of up-front large scale projects and growing incrementally. No one can plan for everything ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_pro…
Cars have a place in cities but maybe they should be in tunnels underground or something. I view money locked up in real estate as money in a very suboptimal place. We pay too much 'rent' in general; it'd be far better to try to make housing/office space cheap and have people invest the extra money in productive assets.
Ultimately, you have to realize that not everyone in the world has the appetite for the kind of high-risk, high-return sort of lifestyle and pursuits that YC founders and partners do/did. A large swath of the population is content to earn their 2-3%/year on real estate, which when levered 3:1 or 4:1, gets up to 10-12%/year, which is a pretty good return in the world of non-VC/non-SV investing.
Source: Piketty's Capital in the 21st century
"How can we make rules and regulations that are comprehensive while also being easily understandable? Can we fit all rules for the city in 100 pages of text?" If you give arbitrary power to those who enforce the rules, sure, they can fit in 100 pages. If you don't value predictability and consistency of enforcement, sure, they can fit in 100 pages. In fact, the rules can fit onto one page. The Ten Commandments are pr…
I am of the opposite view; if the people do not know and understand the rules, then then they cannot be expected to abide by them. There are so many criminal, civil, and regulatory laws that the people could not possibly be expected to know, that the system is unfair. Lawyers will often say that ignorance of the law is no excuse, but that is a manifestly unreasonable doctrine when even the regulators, legislators, an…
I think "old cities" are pretty good too: the kind where they were built for people, rather than cars, and where you could build things without a dense thicket of regulations almost entirely unrelated to safety. Another thing that seems to work well is limiting the amount of up-front large scale projects and growing incrementally. No one can plan for everything ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_pro…
> built for people, rather than cars I wish people would stop with this drivel. There are PEOPLE in the cars. The cities are built for people. A car is a human amplifier - it takes human transportation and carrying ability and amplifies it. A lot of people find this amplification very very useful (parents with children, elderly, people who buy in bulk, etc, etc). Taking it away would be like removing computers becaus…
How much money is YC committing to this project?
If we built one it would require $tens of billions of capital, but we have some interesting ideas about how you might finance it.
This has been tried before. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City,_California
Also here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_city_movement
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> built for people, rather than cars I wish people would stop with this drivel. There are PEOPLE in the cars. The cities are built for people. A car is a human amplifier - it takes human transportation and carrying ability and amplifies it. A lot of people find this amplification very very useful (parents with children, elderly, people who buy in bulk, etc, etc). Taking it away would be like removing computers becaus…
I think another way to phrase things would be to segregate types of traffic more. Through-traffic should be invisible (underground). Local traffic should be mostly segregated from foot traffic. If there's a block, the "front" of things should be entirely pedestrian / bike with vehicle access in the rear (the alley - but likely larger in this case).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am of the opposite view; if the people do not know and understand the rules, then then they cannot be expected to abide by them. There are so many criminal, civil, and regulatory laws that the people could not possibly be expected to know, that the system is unfair. Lawyers will often say that ignorance of the law is no excuse, but that is a manifestly unreasonable doctrine when even the regulators, legislators, an…
So pointing a loaded pistol at a clerk while robbing a store is then not using the firearm?
note: I do not own a firearm
For me cities with great public transportation are key. New York still has a lot of cars, but the subway system is quite extensive. Portland, OR has one of the best bus systems I have seen. I wish they had more light rails than they do. When I was last there they were just completing the second one. Paris has a great subway system that is very clean, and their roads are very walk able. Montreal and Toronto have great…