I spend almost all of my waking hours that aren't in my apartment (and some weeks flat out almost all of my waking hours) in my local third space. I've been very lucky that I have been able to...
I spend almost all of my waking hours that aren't in my apartment (and some weeks flat out almost all of my waking hours) in my local third space. I've been very lucky that I have been able to take a couple years off of work so really it's more of a second space.
The big difference with my space is that it's entirely funded by donations. All of our equipment, all of our rent. We get the occasional grant to upgrade infrastructure, but otherwise it's a healthy mix of one-off donations and recurring membership fees. We do not require money for anything. You can just show up off of the street and hang out. You could do that for years. But if you have the means to afford a monthly donation you're expected to give one. The organization is anarchist which gives it a high bus factor and has allowed it to last almost 20 years.
I think our system should work pretty much anywhere with:
a high-enough trust level between strangers (America being a "medium"-trust society?)
a dense enough urban environment (San Francisco in my case)
some proportion of the population with disposable income that can cover for those that can't pay
We have a chunk of our regulars come in from nearby homeless shelters. Others are retired/current Google engineers. It's a tiny parallel society that has so far proven self-sufficient.
I have thought about how this is an economic aberration. As a business (we're a 501(c)(3)) we are making $0. As an element within society we are providing a huge value. Given the scope of prices in this city we're extremely cheap to run ($150,000 per year). San Francisco famously almost built a public toilet for $1,700,000 (later scaled back to just $200,000). You could run 5 (quite large!) third spaces for two years with that budget assuming you can find more volunteers like myself and my friends.
Something that really struck me years ago when I moved to a better flat in a nicer part of London was that my council tax* went down by a quite meaningful amount, even though in theory it’s tied...
Something that really struck me years ago when I moved to a better flat in a nicer part of London was that my council tax* went down by a quite meaningful amount, even though in theory it’s tied to property value. Turns out the new area has more people actually paying (fewer low income exemptions, etc) and far fewer using certain services (everyone needs waste collection and street maintenance, sure, but there’s a lot less need to spend on social care, which ends up being the bulk of the budget), so the payment levels just don’t need to be set as high to balance the costs even for more expensive properties.
I guess what I’m saying is I love the kind of space you describe, and I strongly agree on the three requirements you mentioned - the tricky part with physical spaces is often balancing the high disposable income with the local accessibility to others who don’t have that income. It does happen and does work, I’ve seen it here in London, in San Francisco as you mention, and in New York too; I have no doubt people are managing it in a whole lot of cities where there’s money to do it and a reasonable overlap of people without money living side by side [edit: perhaps a function of an area having at least a subsistence-level safety net that allows them to? With that then setting the stage for volunteers like yourselves to build the next layers of Maslow’s hierarchy on top?]. But yeah, I’ve also seen a lot of Vimes Boots Theory writ large where the areas that need these services most can’t afford to run them, and the areas that could afford to don’t feel the need because they already have a private membership to a third space that almost feels like a parody of the name.
*Property tax that pays for local services. Kinda. But also not. It’s a whole can of worms in itself, but broadly speaking “local government tax covering the important physical and social infrastructure that keeps society ticking along on a mundane scale” is enough to get the point!
Gross. It's not a parody it's a cruel mockery. I think two things are necessary : for the poor to be visible, and then what you said, for there to be a subsistence level safety net. For the rich...
I have no doubt people are managing it in a whole lot of cities where there’s money to do it and a reasonable overlap of people without money living side by side [edit: perhaps a function of an area having at least a subsistence-level safety net that allows them to?
I think two things are necessary : for the poor to be visible, and then what you said, for there to be a subsistence level safety net. For the rich to ask, Who is my neighbour, the poor have to exist in their neighbourhood as neighbours, not just servants, or invisible huddled masses outside of their gated community or on the other side of tinted windows or only on the news as aggregates. And then to your point, there's a difference between the poor, and the desperately poor.
And by rich/poor/subsistence here I also mean richness in terms of mental health.
I just sat through that whole article for it to end up being another basic income post god dammit It’s never gonna happen. Wed sooner cure aids in Africa. There is no will by anyone in power to...
I just sat through that whole article for it to end up being another basic income post god dammit
It’s never gonna happen. Wed sooner cure aids in Africa. There is no will by anyone in power to give us the power to choose what to do with our time.
It's been a thing in Alaska for half a century. No, the Permanent Fund dividend is not enough to live on, but it creates a floor that gives people the kind of flexibility this article is...
It's been a thing in Alaska for half a century. No, the Permanent Fund dividend is not enough to live on, but it creates a floor that gives people the kind of flexibility this article is advocating for.
Some advocates for basic income are "full living income or bust" types, but I see that as the perfect being the enemy of the good. We can get something started, start getting the benefits to people and communities in the near-term, and then see if it can be built on from there. I have hope.
Isn't it only like $1k/person/year? I generally agree with what you're saying, but I'm curious about this.
No, the Permanent Fund dividend is not enough to live on, but it creates a floor that gives people the kind of flexibility this article is advocating for.
Isn't it only like $1k/person/year? I generally agree with what you're saying, but I'm curious about this.
Wikipedia page on it has a list of annual payment amounts going back to 1982: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Annual_individual_payout
Wikipedia page on it has a list of annual payment amounts going back to 1982:
Right like, you want to up the quality of life? Everyone with the power to do just that is working in the total opposite direction, wage stagnation and inflation for the past, my whole entire...
Right like, you want to up the quality of life? Everyone with the power to do just that is working in the total opposite direction, wage stagnation and inflation for the past, my whole entire life. Like how about just convince those in charge to actually pay us what our labor is worth and then we wouldn't need basic income
I spend almost all of my waking hours that aren't in my apartment (and some weeks flat out almost all of my waking hours) in my local third space. I've been very lucky that I have been able to take a couple years off of work so really it's more of a second space.
The big difference with my space is that it's entirely funded by donations. All of our equipment, all of our rent. We get the occasional grant to upgrade infrastructure, but otherwise it's a healthy mix of one-off donations and recurring membership fees. We do not require money for anything. You can just show up off of the street and hang out. You could do that for years. But if you have the means to afford a monthly donation you're expected to give one. The organization is anarchist which gives it a high bus factor and has allowed it to last almost 20 years.
I think our system should work pretty much anywhere with:
We have a chunk of our regulars come in from nearby homeless shelters. Others are retired/current Google engineers. It's a tiny parallel society that has so far proven self-sufficient.
I have thought about how this is an economic aberration. As a business (we're a 501(c)(3)) we are making $0. As an element within society we are providing a huge value. Given the scope of prices in this city we're extremely cheap to run ($150,000 per year). San Francisco famously almost built a public toilet for $1,700,000 (later scaled back to just $200,000). You could run 5 (quite large!) third spaces for two years with that budget assuming you can find more volunteers like myself and my friends.
Something that really struck me years ago when I moved to a better flat in a nicer part of London was that my council tax* went down by a quite meaningful amount, even though in theory it’s tied to property value. Turns out the new area has more people actually paying (fewer low income exemptions, etc) and far fewer using certain services (everyone needs waste collection and street maintenance, sure, but there’s a lot less need to spend on social care, which ends up being the bulk of the budget), so the payment levels just don’t need to be set as high to balance the costs even for more expensive properties.
I guess what I’m saying is I love the kind of space you describe, and I strongly agree on the three requirements you mentioned - the tricky part with physical spaces is often balancing the high disposable income with the local accessibility to others who don’t have that income. It does happen and does work, I’ve seen it here in London, in San Francisco as you mention, and in New York too; I have no doubt people are managing it in a whole lot of cities where there’s money to do it and a reasonable overlap of people without money living side by side [edit: perhaps a function of an area having at least a subsistence-level safety net that allows them to? With that then setting the stage for volunteers like yourselves to build the next layers of Maslow’s hierarchy on top?]. But yeah, I’ve also seen a lot of Vimes Boots Theory writ large where the areas that need these services most can’t afford to run them, and the areas that could afford to don’t feel the need because they already have a private membership to a third space that almost feels like a parody of the name.
*Property tax that pays for local services. Kinda. But also not. It’s a whole can of worms in itself, but broadly speaking “local government tax covering the important physical and social infrastructure that keeps society ticking along on a mundane scale” is enough to get the point!
Gross. It's not a parody it's a cruel mockery.
I think two things are necessary : for the poor to be visible, and then what you said, for there to be a subsistence level safety net. For the rich to ask, Who is my neighbour, the poor have to exist in their neighbourhood as neighbours, not just servants, or invisible huddled masses outside of their gated community or on the other side of tinted windows or only on the news as aggregates. And then to your point, there's a difference between the poor, and the desperately poor.
And by rich/poor/subsistence here I also mean richness in terms of mental health.
I just sat through that whole article for it to end up being another basic income post god dammit
It’s never gonna happen. Wed sooner cure aids in Africa. There is no will by anyone in power to give us the power to choose what to do with our time.
PEPFAR is the largest disease prevention program in history and has saved tens of millions of lives in Africa.
:D
Trump administration to phase out HIV funding for South Africa
It's been a thing in Alaska for half a century. No, the Permanent Fund dividend is not enough to live on, but it creates a floor that gives people the kind of flexibility this article is advocating for.
Some advocates for basic income are "full living income or bust" types, but I see that as the perfect being the enemy of the good. We can get something started, start getting the benefits to people and communities in the near-term, and then see if it can be built on from there. I have hope.
Isn't it only like $1k/person/year? I generally agree with what you're saying, but I'm curious about this.
Wikipedia page on it has a list of annual payment amounts going back to 1982:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Annual_individual_payout
It's been more but it's never been more than 4k adjusted for inflation or an actual amount of 3.3k in 2022 which is an outlier.
Had the same thought. Not the aids part, but it being a long buildup just to arrive at a pretty standard UBI pitch.
Right like, you want to up the quality of life? Everyone with the power to do just that is working in the total opposite direction, wage stagnation and inflation for the past, my whole entire life. Like how about just convince those in charge to actually pay us what our labor is worth and then we wouldn't need basic income
Ugh.