jkf
2hr ago
Nah, you can totally buy a single lot and contract the building (on spec) with reasonable margins -- my wife did it for quite a few years. You just need enough seed for the bank to write you the construction loan, and a real estate market that isn't actively dropping. (I think Florida is mostly OK ATM?)
In your case I would definitely include an architect in the budget (or just buy some blueprints from Jenish or something) -- it's not so much that your designs are terrible, it's just that they are pretty specific to your tastes. This will make your house hard to sell, but I'm pretty sure you could build one that isn't.
jkf
14hr ago
If I had known about these properties prior to buying land in Pennsylvania, I might have considered purchasing one (though I'm not a big fan of living in Hurricane Land). But I definitely am not rich enough to own two houses.
"Florida real-estate developer" seems like a great intersection with your retirement hobby tho?
jkf
1d ago
As for the 100 million people thing...yes, that was a thing people used to bandy about, the northern version of Yglesian thinking. Trudeau killed it.
Carney just appointed the guy who invented it to CEO of our business development Crown corp -- the other co-founder is sitting on the advisory comittee for US relations!
Carney is deeply embedded in this world and I'd be very surprised if he is not personally supportive of the idea -- he can't say so because the actual consequences of mass immigration have become obvious over the Trudeau years, and voters don't like it at all. I wouldn't really say that Trudeau killed it, it was always sort of a shadow policy. Very beneficial for rich globalists, which is kind of Carney's whole deal...
jkf
1d ago
You know what's really big? The ocean -- not super interesting on a map though!
Make Pangea great again!
jkf
2d ago
https://what-if.xkcd.com/imgs/a/72/lonely_finally.png
@erwgv3g34 If I can only hold out for a few days, it's not much of a bunker, now is it -- crappy bunkers are for losers.
jkf
2d ago
A hidden bunker will just mean you die last.
Surely that's the very best one can do, if "everyone dies" is what's happening?
(even leaving aside the possibility that it's actually almost everyone dies, ofc)
jkf
4d ago
usually not their Chinese animal
Do chinese restaurants not have placemats with their zodiac on them in your locale? Every one-horse town in Canada has had such a place for a hundred years; sometimes the only decent restaurant around. It's something to talk about while waiting for your food, reading practice for kids, etc -- so I'd say most people here would know their Chinese animal. (which is bits I'm not going to release about myself)
jkf
4d ago
The US (also Canada) has really large tariffs on Chinese panels -- I haven't looked lately, but I think they would cost quite a bit more than 5500 EU here.
jkf
9d ago
No, that sounds like Deadwood lol -- if it makes you like it better, as I recall it was a considered artistic decision in that the characters are basically the underbelly of society and would in fact have been swearing all the time as a class signifier if nothing else. Period-correct swears were considered but came off as sounding quaint and silly, so they went with all-cocksucker-all-the-time.
jkf
10d ago
Who? Who the fuck are these other better mouse trap makers that they're afraid of?
China I would think? OFC they are more like "similar but slightly worse mousetrap, but without the 'we need a trillion dollars'" thing, but still...
jkf
19d ago
"fiction of my imagination", "state of nature"; potato, potahto.
We are only a hundred years out from the state of nature in the west; swathes of the world are more or less still there -- I don't think we can take for granted that backsliding is impossible. Especially if we are postulating something as bizarre as non-human superintelligence.
jkf
19d ago
Well his actual prediction (with the 50% caveat) would have been for 2019 -- so yeah, it's not really quibbling to say that he's wrong on the timeline. How wrong exactly is an open question, but that kind of the problem with timelines, yeah?
Timelines of exponential progress are very sensitive to the exact exponent.
Indeed, but the existence of an exponential term is very debatable in this case.
jkf
20d ago
We evolved from creatures that hunted in bands and were probably murdered by our kin shortly after we could not longer provide for ourselves.
vs
I'm confident in a post work society we can conjure up meaningful games to substitute for the drudgery of what is currently required to upkeep society.
Hmmm...
jkf
20d ago
Or something like this.
Sure, but does that thing talk? It's somewhat reasonable to argue that we have those things individually, but your guy seems to be expecting all of them as a unit?
Also 2011 + (8*1.5) would be 2023, at which point it would have been a much less reasonable argument...
jkf
20d ago
he was the sort of person to wander into a random shady New Age magic shop and pick up some tacky shit with purported magic powers.
Wait, the guy literally finds the wish-granting thingee in a creepy shop? That seems like a pretty strong monkey's paw callout in and of itself...
jkf
20d ago
By this I mean a system with basic vision, basic sound processing, basic movement control, and basic language abilities, with all of these things being essentially learnt rather than preprogrammed.
Seems like we are still missing a few of these bullets, even if we add his 50%?
jkf
20d ago
Fibre is cheap compared to nuke plants (or even transmission lines) -- failing that, I know a guy with a pretty nice fleet of satellites...
jkf
21d ago
If your bringing your own power, the US does have huge tracts of land in various places with little to no residents to speak of -- granted the stereotype of this being sun-blasted desert is not altogether wrong, but there are plenty of places with normal climates where you can literally just buy a bunch of land and start doing stuff. I guess some proximity to users is desirable, but I regularly use 'datacentres' (AKA AWS servers) that are physically pretty far from me, and the latency doesn't seem like it would be a big deal from (say) Montana to SFBA?
Coming soon on Yellowstone -- Sam & Dario move to Bozeman and compete to lease the ranch from Chief Rainwater; Cowboys & Indians with Rationalists!
(BRB, calling my agent...)
jkf
21d ago
But who's planting those arguments in their heads?
Datacentres have existed for an awfully long time without anyone caring, now even obscure fora have posters showing up and raising the issue.
I'm not sold, but it kind of makes one think -- I'm increasingly close to being sold on covert China media ops driving the entire political conversation here in Canada, so it's not a crazy idea.
jkf
21d ago
Hollywood didn't invent changing stories.
Surely not -- but at some point it feels like they started doing it themselves -- "The Maltese Falcon" is pretty interchangeable with the book; Cecil B. Demille mostly played it straight in his Biblical epics.
Not sure when this changed -- various mass-market James Clavell/Tom Clancy adaptations into the 90s seemed pretty true to the books, although I'm sure there are counter-examples from this period?
Most people are afraid of it, and/or aren't competent to get it done themselves -- seems to me that you kind of like it (in a pig-wrestling way) and are certainly competent.
As you say it's not that much work; seems like a feasible hobby is all I'm saying.
General contractor margins tend to be in the 30%+ range for custom work (custom work is a PITA; I personally would want more!) -- if you come off as a pro doing a spec house and say "just get these plans done" they will build it for a lot less; the difference is your margin.
Check out Zillow on existing houses and go get a quote I guess?
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