Month: October 2025
Optimizing Population Density for Scientific Discovery and Technological Advancement
In a previous post, I started playing with thoughts around there being an ideal amount of population density — certainly more than the density of suburban development, but also perhaps less than some of the maximum densities we see in some very isolated pockets in a few North American cities. But there is obviously varying optimal amounts of density based on what we’re trying to optimize for (and another quick thought — perhaps it makes sense to sacrifice extremely high densities in one area to distribute the positive effects of density into other areas, although we’re probably nowhere near the levels of density where that would need to be a leading consideration).
There seems to be some level of “network effect” in place, where higher density areas are just more productive in terms of innovation, scientific discovery, GDP, etc… It would be interesting to see how that lines up with optimizations in terms of citizen health and happiness. It seems like as optimizing for scientific discovery and technological advancement (along with citizen well-being) would be an interesting aspect of urban design to investigate and design for.
The Danger of “All Men Are Created Equal”
I wonder how much of the lack of empathy in the US is a result of the “all men are created equal” line from the Declaration of Independence. When I was younger, I always felt that this was a positive, uplifting message, but as I’ve grown older, I feel that perhaps while the intent was good, I’m no longer sure that it has a positive impact on society.
Disregarding the obvious (most likely incorrect) assumption about being “created”, I don’t like this line because I think buried in the phrasing is a notion that we all have the same capabilities to overcome setbacks, even those that are unfairly placed on some people and not others. And this makes it easier to blame people for their positions in life, regardless of if it’s truly anything that they have any control over. From the position of many, I get the sense that “I had my setbacks, and since we’re all created equally, you should also be able to meet whatever challenges you face.”
This of course ignores the fact that we aren’t really all equal in terms of ability (whether intellectual, athletic, or any of the other million characteristics that make us all unique), or that we all have to deal with the same level of setbacks in life, or even have the same opportunities. And that’s a pretty dangerous thing. If we recognized that we all have different challenges, and that we aren’t all equipped to handle things equally, perhaps we would be better at helping each other out, and do our best to make life fairer, even though it’s inherently unfair.
The Possibilities of Better Cities With AI and Robotics
I’m nervous about the future of AI and robotics, but I’m also excited about the positive impacts of it on society. I like to think about more ideal cities — cities that are beautiful and better to inhabit. It’s usually a money issue as to why some of those thoughts are unrealistic, but perhaps some of those limitations go away when we have cheaper manual labor.
I think of ambitious public projects, like burying freeways, building more parks and micro-parks, maintaining those parks and microparks, constructing pedestrian and bike paths, small-scale farming within cities, and wonder if we’ll be able to make more of those projects feasible with the reduction in construction and labor costs with a vast supply of human-like bots that can do the work that currently requires humans. Of course, this requires us sharing the benefits of these systems that have reduced expenses, instead of it just going into the pockets of those who own the bots. We should probably be working on frameworks now to accommodate that goal, probably at the state and local levels.
Linear Cities
I think about city design frequently when I’m out running. A while ago I wrote some thoughts on the benefits of longer blocks, or the potential of stringing multiple blocks together to reduce the amount of automobile intersections that pedestrians (and runners) have to deal with.
Sometimes I’ll stretch this out further, and think of cities that are just designed with this as a starting point. Transit lines are an obvious reason for following a more linear development pattern — rail of course works well in a line. In my mind, I like to pair this with green/wild space, perhaps where anything three or four blocks away from the transit line is designated wild space, allowing for wildlife corridors, recreation space, and just place for city inhabitants to peer into. But within those few blocks adjacent to the transit line (and of course the necessary streets that accompany them) is high density housing and commercial space. And perhaps wherever there is a transit stop the city buldges out a bit more to fully utilize adjacency to a transit stop since it’s easy to walk a half mile or so to get there.
But imagine a city built in this way — the citizens always having quick access to nature, or all of the amenities of a city. And it would be extremely connected, since everything would lie along the same transit line. It would of course take amounts of forethought, along with the desire to protect large swaths of valuable real estate for nature and greenspace. Forethought that we don’t seem to have as a society, but a fun thought nonetheless.
No Taxation Without Equal Representation
People a long time ago had the right idea with the notion of “no taxation without representation, ” but they didn’t quite get it fully where it needed to be.
We’re currently in the situation where those who provide most of the funding to the US (primarily those terrible liberal cities, and successful blue states) have less and less say in how the country is run, along with how those funds are spent, and where it gets directed (generally red states). And as conservatives continue to gerrymander the nation to hell, the ratio of taxes sent to Washington vs our voice in the direction of the country continues to skew.
Our new rallying cry should be: “no taxation without EQUAL representation”. Until we all have an equal say in how our tax money is spent, we should do whatever we can to correct the imbalance. In reality, the amount I pay in taxes should factor in the amount of representation that I get.
I like the phrase since it has a bit of a conservative ring to it. I would like to think there are a few sane republicans out there who do value fairness, and perhaps it can appeal to them as well to push our cause forward. Yeah, I’m probably not fully living in reality.
Collectively Not Paying Taxes
I see comments online that we should all stop paying federal taxes (in response to the new military presence in our nation’s cities, a masked and un-uniformed police force rounding people up off the streets, withholding funds to blue states for green energy programs, using the powers of government to go after political enemies, etc..). This isn’t really feasible, since we all have to pay taxes individually, and since there are severe penalties involved, the likelihood of us all acting together on this are pretty slim.
Perhaps it was brilliant design, to limit the power of states (or other jurisdictions) in this way, but I wonder if there are some exploits that could be made to make it possible. (And I’ll admit here that there are probably many problems with this next idea, but a central idea of this blog is to push further into these thoughts that are potentially dead-ends).
A Unified Release of Tax Returns
States could potentially create a mechanism for releasing everyone’s individual tax returns at once. For instance, here in California we could enact a “State Office of Federal Tax Fulfillment”. That office’s responsibility is to basically do your federal taxes for you . This could be outsourced to existing tax professionals, or perhaps we would do taxes as we do now, they just get routed through this office for final release to the federal government. The central idea is just that the taxes are still coming from you, they’re just finally “released” by the state organization, but they are released together at the direction of the state government.
This would give states more power to withhold those funds collectively if residents aren’t feeling as though their money is being used well.
Of course, there are plenty of problems with this — the federal government could still go after individual tax payers, so I’m not sure what protections could be put in place (or loopholes to be exploited) to mitigate that danger, other than for a state like California, there would be 39 million of them. And you’re right, this very well could spell the end of America if all states did this (which they would). And for the record, I’m all for paying taxes, and we (those who make more than most), should probably be paying more, but perhaps taxes could be a larger leveraging tool for making the nation better.
Either/Or Thinking
I’ve always fallen into the same trap that most people do — thinking along the lines of either/or statements. In my two most recent posts I’ve been thinking about this concept in terms of democracy and authoritariansm — Are we a democracy or not? In reality, there is a whole range of in-betweens. Previously I’ve also confronted this with regards to belief in God. It’s common to ask; “Do you believe in God or not?”. For me, over the past twenty-or-so years, it’s not an either/or questions — it’s a percentage of likelihood, based on the properties of the god that we’re describing.
I get the sense that any condition where we automatically inclined to assign an either/or, a yes/no, or some notion of black or white is, in reality, better expressed as some position between the two extremes. I’m trying to do better at spotting these thinking traps, but this seems like something I should have been trained to identify early on in my education. In one of the courses that I think should be taught in middle or high school, “How to Think”, this would definitely be one of the topics covered.
Is the US Now Authoritarian?
Before I had to think about such things, I always just assumed that there was a line — you’re either living in Authoritarianism, or you’re not. But there of course a range of conditions that move you either to the left or right along that line, and we have definitely moved towards the authoritarianism end, especially during (but not limited to) Trump’s second term. And we’ve been doing it with remarkable speed. I keep hearing that “we’re on the road to authoritarianism”, which I guess just also assumes that there is a magic line, or perhaps it’s just how we all tend to think — that there is a point where one thing becomes another. And that line exists at a different point for some all of us. For me, I feel as though we’ve definitely ticked enough checkboxes to land us in that authoritarian zone. There may be plenty of more room on the spectrum to lead us more fully into authoritarianism, but we’ve definitely moved quite a bit further away from the “ideal democracy” side of things.
Democracy Or Not?
I had never really thought about democracy as something that exists along a spectrum (but the more I think about various topics in general, it seems that nothing is ever really an either/or as we generally think of them). I had always assumed that here in the US we live in a democracy, but I’m not really sure at one point along that spectrum you go from “no democracy”, where citizens have zero say in how things are run, to an “ideal democracy”, where everyone’s vote counts, and counts equally. We’ve never had an “ideal democracy” in the US — as a Californian, my vote has always counted less than the votes of people in some other states. But as we gerrymander state representatives to favor some groups of people more than others, we’re moving even further away from that “ideal democracy.” How far can you move before it really isn’t democracy any more?
Pride
I keep thinking on pride — it’s interesting that as the nation circles the drain into populism/nationalism/tribalism, and where those on the right are more proud of whatever the hell this country has become, that my pride has started to become more broadly applied. I’m more interested in what scientific advancements and technological breakthroughs are happening here, but also now more from beyond our borders. I’m taking more pride in the best of what humanity provides, no matter where it’s found. I have a feeling that there is much more of it out there than what I have previously assumed.