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sneak 3 days ago

Some people’s idea of wealth is to live in high density with others.

You bump up against the limits of physics, not economics.

If every place has the population density of Wyoming, real wealth will be the ability to live in real cities. That’s much like what we have now.

ben_w 2 days ago | parent [-]

> Some people’s idea of wealth is to live in high density with others.

Very true. But I'd say this is more of a politics problem than a physics one: any given person doesn't necessarily want to be around the people that want to be around them.

> If every place has the population density of Wyoming, real wealth will be the ability to live in real cities. That’s much like what we have now.

Cities* are where the jobs are, where the big money currently gets made, I'm not sure how much of what we have today with high density living is to show your wealth or to get your wealth — consider the density and average wealth of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atherton,_California, a place I'd never want to live in for a variety of reasons, which is (1) legally a city, (2) low density, (3) high income, (4) based on what I can see from the maps, a dorm town with no industrial or commercial capacity, the only things I can see which aren't homes (or infrastructure) are municipal and schools.

* in the "dense urban areas" sense, not the USA "incorporated settlements" sense, not the UK's "letters patent" sense

Real wealth is the ability to be special, to stand out from the crowd in a good way.

In a world of fully automated luxury for all, I do not know what this will look like.

Peacock tails of some kind to show off how much we can afford to waste? The rich already do so with watches that cost more than my first apartment, perhaps they'll start doing so with performative disfiguring infections to show off their ability to afford healthcare.