[sudo-discuss] Dystopia News: No-Sex Apartments.

Tue May 21 06:31:35 PDT 2013

*Worst. Oligarchy. Ever.*

On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 5:47 AM, GtwoG PublicOhOne <g2g-public01 at att.net>wrote:

>
> Re. Romy:
>
> From what I've observed, from 1/3 to almost half of the folks at SR are in
> seriously difficult economics, a few are borderline homeless, and one or
> two are actually homeless.
>
> So while it's true that most everyone here is smarter than most of the
> MBAs we know, the fact that so many smart people are scraping it for rent
> every month, and in some cases scraping it for food, means something.
>
> This is what chronic underemployment looks like, and it's maddening.  And
> it's directly related to corporate lobbying for unlimited H1B visas.  When
> they say "they can't hire enough workers," what they mean is, "...at decent
> wage levels."  What they want are non-citizens with no rights, who they can
> exploit ruthlessly.  And along the way, folks we know can't find work in
> their fields.
>
> It would be interesting to take an anonymous survey (using paper forms
> with check-boxes, put into a cardboard box) to find out more about our own
> circumstances as a community.
>
> ---
>
> A lot more poor people used to go to Burning Man, before it started going
> corporate.  I can't recall any protests at WalMart in the Bay Area, but the
> Situationist "improper shopper" tactic of a group of protesters peacefully
> but humorously pushing empty shopping carts around the store for an hour,
> could be interesting.
>
> Some years ago I visited a small town in Northern CA where a new WalMart
> had just opened, and almost every store along the main strip was
> boarded-up.  That stuff really does happen.  It was as if some kind of
> plague had wiped the place out.  Hell, not "as if," it _was_ a plague, a
> virus that sucks money and jobs out of local economies to fatten up the
> fat-cats far away.
>
> What the world can't afford, is the Oligarchy.
>
> -G.
>
>
> =====
>
>
>
> On 13-05-21-Tue 5:10 AM, Romy Ilano wrote:
>
> Well Matt one thing that everyone here has to consider is : are you the
> oligarchy?
>
>  SudoRoom isn't made up of the downtrodden of society. Everyone here is
> probably smarter than most any MBA I've met
>
>  Poor people don't go to burning man, poor people don't protest Walmart.
>
>  (Devils advocate)
>
>
>
> ---
>
>  Romy Ilano
> Founder of Snowyla
> http://www.snowyla.com
> romy at snowyla.com
>
> On May 21, 2013, at 1:02, Matthew Harbowy <hbergeronx at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  G.,
>
>  Your personal biases and hang ups are more of a prison than anyone in
> the so called oligarchy could construct. I'm tired of these troll posts.
>
>  At Rutgers, every undergrad on campus had a twin bed. Almost anyone who
> wanted a sexually active relationship, who was capable of social graces,
> had one. For two people who want to fuck, you'll fuck anywhere. Don't like
> a twin bed? Sleep on a futon or blanket on the floor. I've personally
> witnessed five person orgies on a twin bed and on a dorm floor. Expand your
> mind. For me, this model you invoke of monogamous sleeping arrangements is
> far from my personal nirvana. Being able to sleep two to a bed and having a
> good sex life have never been correlated for me.
>
>  Furthermore, look how my grandparents immigrant generation lived. They'd
> squeeze families with children into rooms not much bigger, and yet had no
> problems making more kids.
>
>  There's so many fucked up ways that our society and government puts us
> at a disadvantage: sexism, classism, racism, and the ugly specter of
> lowered expectations. Moral mores and prudery. On and on. But making up new
> ways the "oligarchy" are "fucking us" isn't helpful. If you don't want to
> live in 200 sq ft, fine, but I would think its a hell of a lot better than
> living on 8 sq ft of wet cardboard. If you don't want to eat bugs, fine,
> but don't ignore thousands of years of grasshopper consumption by Jews
> (locusts and grasshoppers are specifically enumerated as Kosher!) and
> Mesoamericans.
>
>  If you don't like the oligarchy, fine, but this made up world with your
> rules is just your own oligarchy or dictatorship, and I don't want to live
> in that world either. These modest proposals are not helping me find how to
> better participate at sudoroom.
>
>  Matt (the other one, hbergeronx)
>
> On Monday, May 20, 2013, GtwoG PublicOhOne wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> No-Sex Apartments.
>>
>> (Creative commons, with attribution to "G.")
>>
>> In cities across the USA, a new "solution" to affordable housing is
>> being promoted: micro-apartments of less than 200 square feet.  New
>> York's conrol-freak in chief, Mayor Bloomberg, is promoting them (New
>> Yorkers call them "Bloom Boxes").  A developer in San Francisco is
>> promoting them.  And developers in Seattle WA are building them by the
>> hundreds.
>>
>> The Seattle apartments were recently covered in a CBS News article, here:
>>
>> http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57582327/tiny-apartments-are-creating-a-big-backlash-in-seattle/
>>
>> If you look at the picture, something immediately stands out: a TWIN BED.
>>
>> As the article says, "...(the) apartment comes with a small private
>> bathroom, a microwave and a mini-refrigerator. There's just enough room
>> for a twin bed, a neatly hung rack of clothes and shelves."  (There's
>> not even room for a desk, so forget about working from home: it's back
>> to the plantation for you, worker-bee.)
>>
>> And therein lies the catch, or more accurately the "nudge," to use the
>> Newspeak word for "manipulation."
>>
>> A twin bed is sufficient for sleeping, but not sufficient for a regular
>> sex life with others, much less a stable relationship.
>>
>> Sure, you can manage it occasionally, but for the long term it's right
>> out.  Squeezing two people into a bed meant for one is miserable,
>> particularly in the hot summer.
>>
>> This is one form of "birth control" that won't be controversial with the
>> Vatican or other right-wing religious denominations.  I suppose that
>> also qualifies as a "feature."  (We won't mention the fact that you can
>> carry on a satisfactory solo sex life in a twin bed, lest the twin beds
>> be replaced with "stand-up beds" consisting of straps on the wall.)
>>
>> There's no need for the Oligarchy to make an explicit No Sex rule.  They
>> don't have to, when they can just "nudge" the architecture to enforce
>> that outcome by "nudging" people who might think to disobey.
>>
>> Best of all (from the Oligarchy's perspective), there's nothing to
>> revolt against.  A revolt against a type of architecture is like a
>> revolt against traffic jams or weather: there's no obvious evil-doer to
>> hurl ballots and tomatoes at.
>>
>> The Oligarchy likes micro-apartments because they are more profitable
>> per square foot of building, compared to apartments that let you have a
>> bed big enough for two people, and a fridge big enough to let you keep
>> enough food that you don't have to go shopping every day.
>>
>> The working masses (that would be us) who are being lined up to live in
>> these boxes would do well to recognize that they are also about the same
>> size as prison cells.
>>
>> The only difference is that you have the key to your cell, just like
>> inmates in "honor system prisons" for white collar criminals.  That, and
>> there isn't a guard staring at you whilst you poop, though I'd be
>> careful about the tiny apartments that come with internet and TV service
>> included (no choice of carriers either), as the "smart sensors" won't be
>> far behind.
>>
>> Smaller houses and apartments are of course part of a viable approach to
>> sustainability: primarily through lower energy consumption and proximity
>> to public transport.  Some years ago, a close friend and I came up with
>> various designs for micro-houses, from about 160 square feet, up to
>> about 400 - 500 square feet.  A building with a 500 square foot
>> "building footprint" was sufficient for a family of four.  We were
>> designing for the sake of sustainability, and for the ability of
>> individuals and communities to build these houses for themselves at low
>> cost.
>>
>> But as with eating bugs, it's one thing to do it by the choice of your
>> own free will, quite another to do it by way of getting mercilessly
>> milked by the Oligarchy.  Especially when the Oligarchs continue to live
>> in 12,000 square foot (and larger) mansions with sprawling lawns on all
>> sides.
>>
>> What the world can't afford, is the Oligarchy.  Darwin, take note!
>>
>> -G.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
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