Would building a decentralized autonomous arcology network be a long term solution to reduce poverty, reduce the cost of living, and house the homeless?
One of the problems mentioned in several posts on basic income is that you can't pay enough of an income to beat the rising cost of living. If the cost of living is reduced too much then you have an additional problem of the housing and other bubbles collapsing which might happen anyway but would be certain to happen if the cost of living reduces in the wrong way. I see basic income as a temporary cash based solution to a primarily design and architecture problem. What if our living spaces actually supported our ability to sustain our lives by helping us produce sustained value by design of the architecture?
We can build a global network of arcologies as a long term sustainable solution
So one answer would be to build a network of arcologies. These would be self contained fully self sufficient buildings. An arcology for example could have a vertical farm built in, including all the facilities necessary to house people, produce electricity, provide jobs for people who maintain the arcology until it can be automated to the point where it maintains itself.
An arcology so far has only been discussed in sci fi circles but recent breakthroughs are making this sci fi curiosity into a practical possibility. The cost of solar power, wind, and other forms will be reducing at a rate similar to or faster than the rate that automation is coming online. In addition the new knowledge and breakthroughs now allow for the creation of synthetic biology, organic molecular computers, CRISPR gene editing, and more.
Brief discussion of the latest breakthroughs
It's not just automation which is changing society but it's also the breakthroughs in the life sciences. Recently scientists have discovered how to take algae and genetically engineer in to produce electricity. Theoretically algae could be grown in a vertical farm of an arcology and this could be harnessed to help produce electricity and or biofuel in addition to solar, wind, and other methods assuming we don't have a breakthrough in cold fusion.
There are of course additional breakthroughs in robotics, in AI, in blockchain technology, smart contracts, in automated algorithm generation and automated theory proving, and even smart homes. A satellite or a blockchain can track a component through a supply chain all around the world and drone technology also is becoming advanced. The majority of these breakthroughs might be known to many of us but how can we redesign our living spaces to be better suited for current and upcoming technological breakthroughs?
The ET3 global alliance is a good example of a design pattern for producing beneficial intellectual property and by connecting all contributors legally through a shared stake. This legal structure is an innovation designed to help build critical mass by rational means toward solving a social problem in a way in which it will be in the economic best interest of all involved. The DAC/DAO is a similar innovation in that it allows people to pool resources toward solving a particular problem but it does it in a way where intellectual property is not even necessary. Either approach or a hybrid approach could be taken where for some people and circumstances a DAC/DAO works but in others maybe owning intellectual property works.
How homelessness can be resolved by an arcology
If homelessness is seen as a global problem then the most humane and effective way of solving it is to give people a home. In the case where 3d printers reduce the cost of housing then this would allow for the government or charity to print a house for any individual who requests a house and can show they don't already have one. By simply giving everyone a free house who asks you would eventually have no more homelessness.
But this is only temporary because houses do not reduce the cost of living necessarily. On the other hand an arcology would eventually become so efficient that everyone living within it would produce more value in the form of energy, food, knowledge, or subjective value, than they'd cost. So even better than giving houses would be to create a new framework for arcologies where people can produce their own life essentials such as food, water, electricity, clean air, in the most self sufficient and sustainable way technology allows.
The problem of merely providing a basic income
Basic income is nice in some ways but it's only a transient solution. It does not solve any long term problem and can even create an indefinite dependency on the government or entity providing basic income. In addition the basic income would never completely remove poverty because information asymmetry would still exist which means the people who might not have access to the latest or highest quality informaton could simply not make the best use of their money. Disinformation, scams, and other tricks to make people behave irrationally will eventually create a new informaton rich elite and that information rich elite will eventually have advantages in the market which is all about information signaling.
Basic income is not enough for a long term solution. A long term solution requires designers, engineers, scientists, and creatives, to all work together to create a holistic solution, a cradle to grave design based solution where the human being exists within an arcology which sustains them. In this situation if the arcology profits then it expands like a franchise allowing more humans to live within the network of franchise arcologies.
In esscence the arcology could also have a DAC or DAO to guide it. Instead of building DAOs which focus on selling products to the richest 0.01% of society as is happening now the arcology would appeal the people who are struggling the most in society and offer a Noah's arch. Anyone who buys a token would own a share in the arcology which would guarantee a reserved place in it.
Project Noah's Arc
This project to create a DAC/DAO for arcologies could be called Project Noah's Arc. It could be started today with the interested people who can simply pledge to use the technology as it becomes available toward the goal of producing a sustainable, self sufficient, holistic solution to raise the quality of life and lower costs of living. It is really the only way because as we know basic income recently failed to gain traction in Switzerland and basic income alone is not a sustainable solution and is not the best we could do.
Fortunately we have some of the brightest people on the planet involved in the crypto space. It's just a matter of presenting this challenge to the right people and creating the incentives. It be that the share owners of the arcology not only can reserve a space in it for themselves and their families, but also make a profit from whatever is produced by the arcology. Intellectual property may even be useful in this context based around ET3's use of it.
If you think this is a good idea or you support the ideals behind this idea then please vote it up. Your support for this ideal will be remembered permanently by the blockchain.
References
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology
- http://www.wired.co.uk/article/paolo-soleri-arcologies
- https://arcosanti.org/Arcology
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley_Research_Station
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_architecture
- http://inhabitat.com/self-sustaining-arcology-tower-would-bring-urban-agriculture-to-the-heart-of-hong-kong/
- http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/arts-arcology-arcosanti-desert-experiment-conversation
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ET3_Global_Alliance
