[FRIAM] Augmented Reality

[glen]

There's a great little missive in The Quarry: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10151054/, delivered by the Shannon character about how small towns (particularly in sparse places like West TX) used to have participative main streets. Then the highways rerouted all the traffic and the "quiet people" left. If not "government funded", then what? Towns are governments. Cities are governments. Etc. This is yet another problem I have with some of the more right leaning (or perhaps merely "rural living") people I end up in conversations with. One guy who's considering moving here from Montana because his girlfriend lives here (they're ~70 years old) kept saying, at the pub, "I don't trust the government". I kept trying to break through whatever delusional conception of "the government" he had that might make him say such a thing. He doesn't trust members of his neighborhood association? local school board? He doesn't trust his mayor? his sheriff? the members of the water board? Does he even know those people? Go to meetings? Etc? [sigh]

Our neighborhood association (SWONA) gets together to talk about things like crosswalks, murals, gardening, events at the tiny little "West Central Park" nearby, etc. If anyone should create "public spaces" it is just such a government. Back in Oregon, our community garden was funded by our neighborhood association, permitted by the city, and executed by a couple of hard working citizens. This is the government. And it's how we create public spaces.

As for rent-seeking, it seems the opposite is "owner occupied" or "owner operated" or somesuch. The main point being the same as the software meme of "eat your own dog food". Renting out something *local* so that, by sheer proximity, you're going to be invested in it, psychologically, emotionally, etc. seems fine. If you're the owner of an apartment complex and you live in one of the units, fine! But if you're so distanced from the context in which your money-sucking machine exists, then you are not *producing* anything. You're a leech, a freeloader. Most small landlords are invested in those contexts, at least a little bit. But the more places you lease, the farther away they are, etc., the less you'll produce ... the more sucky you'll be.

On 8/23/22 09:04, Steve Smith wrote:
>> Does the rise of the Metaverse mean the decline of cities?
>> https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/agora/2022/08/rise-metaverse-mark-zuckerberg-decline-cities
>>
>> Do we want our "public spaces" (e.g. cities) to be owned by singular corporations? 
> I certainly think that "the commons" are an important feature to treasure/maintain as private property of any style rises up.   In my fascination with tiny home communities and no-drive neighborhoods, I heard someone make the point that before the automobile, that roadways were *much* more public spaces.   I didn't grow up in a neighborhood, but peers from my own generation down (at least) through GenX seems to remember when the neighborhood streets (esp. cul-de-sacs) were a playground for kids anytime between go-to/come-from work by their parents.     Open air markets are one of the more familiar examples outside of the first world, and Malls (until a decade or less ago in the first world*).   The Enclosure Movement <https://celdf.org/the-enclosure-movement/#:~:text=The%20Enclosure%20Movement%20was%20a,fences%20or%20hedges%20around%20it.> is probably a useful study.
>> Olympia (where I live) is already bad enough, mostly renters, most of the downtown rental properties owned by a single family. We're inching ever so slowly to Plato's Philosopher King, except any benevolence of the King is a mere (and sporadic) side-effect of the primary motive: profit. This seems, to me, strongly analogous to the grifters who call pretending to be "Agent Bob Jones" or whatever from the IRS trying to steal money from me in the form of Walmart gift cards. I know several of my similarly aged peers who talk loudly and often about their rental houses, usually, since I'm surrounded by liberals now, bragging about how they keep the rent low and try to provide a good place for the renters to live. This altruism-washing of their rent-seeking behavior is way too similar to disguising an East Indian voice to sound more white. Is it really any less dystopian if you're the one on top?
> 
> I'm not sure I disagree with the tone of your regular revisiting of the phrase "rent seeking" in a perjorative tone, but I have to admit that I don't understand what the alternatives are in our culture.  My parents were very adamant about not "borrowing money" and chose to "rent" our homes until I was in middle-school when they had finally saved enough $$ to buy a lot on the edge of the small city we had moved to and then bought a modest mobile home (12'x65' single) to live in.   !0 years later after my sister and I were long gone, and they themselves had moved on to my father's final posting, they had to sell the mobile home to a used dealer and the lot to someone who aspired to put up a stick-built in it's place.  There was no significant market for "the only thing they could afford" at the time.   I haven't done the arithmetic but I'm guessing their "investment" in the property and ultimate loss of "value" roughly equalled what they might have spent on rent during that 
> time.   They invested a lot of their own blood, sweat, and tears in that time and that was a *good thing*, but it felt a shame that they felt unable to avoid the rock (debt) on one hand and being a renter (the hard place) on the other.   I know a lot of people who do *not* want the responsibility of home-ownership yet feel burdened by not being able to ride the expansion of various real-estate bubbles.   This is probably it's own thread to study/investigate the multi-variate landscape of "home making" and "home ownership" with the vagaries of "private property" and "capital accumulation", etc.
> 
> I have been both a "renter" and a "landlord" and have no significant interest in being the latter.   I was thankful when I was the former for "righteous" landlords.  They seemed to fall into two categories:  1) private owners who were trying to augment their income through A) e.g.  the other half of a duplex/Casita, etc or B) a "starter home" which they moved up/out of as their family grew; 2) Large private or public organization whose goal was to provide housing as a service (for non/profit purposes) mainly because they were more professional and consistent/clear about their expectations/intentions/outcomes.  The problem I found with being a Landlord is captured in the phrase "my house, your home, your home, my house".   I had a guest-house on a property that I rented to two different long-term renters before dropping into a short-term/furnished rental arrangement and I rented my home (furnished) for one year to a young family while I spent a year in Berkeley.   Both of 
> those experiences were fraught with the fine line between being an abuser and being abused.   I considered the latter context as hiring the family as house-sitters with their pay being a significant discount on the rent they would have had to pay otherwise.   Had I considered it a straight rental relationship, I might have found myself resentful of some things and greedy about others.
> 
>> It's interesting that I don't mind the loss of possible contact/engagement with some people because they rely solely on Facebook (Instagram, Zoom, or whatever) for their networking. Most breweries and music venues up here use Instagram as their primary announcement forum. The result? I don't know about them. So I'm much less likely to engage. That's fine. More time to think <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35901414/>. I'm "this close" to quitting LinkedIn, too:
> I agree with you on this... I have a few friends/colleagues who regularly chide me (trivially) for not knowing about something that happened in their life or some important event because I wasn't "following" them on their social media of choice.   I recently saw a video clip about "endorphin fasting" which was a better take (IMO) on how to think about one's relationship with "screens".   This person suggested taking 1 day per quarter (or as needed) with absolutely no endorphin-stimulating experiences... in particular, consuming only water, meditating, writing, walking.   Notably no food, no socializing, no media including reading, no hard exercise, etc.   This person claimed that in his own life (been doing it for roughly 10 years?) that virtually every time he does this he has at least a mild "epiphany" sometime soon after the fast.   The point of the endorphin fast is simply to reset one's sensitivity to the myriad endorphin stimulating experiences/behaviours modern life 
> offers consistently.   It is likely that this is what "the Sabbath" provided those so inclined in another time/place...
>> People Are Flooding LinkedIn With Strange Stories. We’re Calling Them Broetry.
>> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/why-are-these-posts-taking-over-your-linkedin-feed-because
> I have found LinkedIn problematic from the start.   I have a few situations where it seems to be "the only game in town" but many which are just awkward and irritating.   Whatever "good intentions" were planned never worked out well for me.
>> We really do need honest *public* spaces, even if you hate "socialism". The internet is a public utility and should be treated that way. And governments should devote some of our tax monies to corporation-independent social network platforms. Mastodon would be perfect for that.
> I don't know that I can agree with you on the assertion (about gov't funded), but I can't honestly disagree either.   Perhaps PBS/NPR are the closest things I can think to of a "public funded/managed" public space... but of course, it is very much "push" media, so it may well not be a good point of departure for such a consideration. The distributed nature of UseNet fora and the BBS Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL) are maybe better digital proto-communities to study/consider for templates/examples?
>

-- 
ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ