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Comment by EliRivers | Hacker News Reader

On that thread, his garage is larger than the entire space I rented for living in when I was his age.

But the point I'm going on to make isn't just about how stupid the cost of housing is; it's that the high cost of housing comes with extra costs that we might not even see.

How many people would be doing all sorts of neat things, some of which would genuinely bloom into real advances and ideas and genuine new wealth (by which I don't just mean an income; I mean the creation of wealth) if only they could afford some goddamn space in which to do it, without having to move so far from the existing life they have that pays the bills and keeps them alive and sane (by which I mean to suggest that not everyone has the luxury of moving to where there is cheaper space, if their job and support networks won't move too).

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You've just put me in mind of an different quote about impoverished geniuses:

"""I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.""" - Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History, 1980

World population has increased 60% since then, while extreme poverty decreased 66% in absolute (not relative) terms.

So, what I think would happen with more space, is that we would find the next limit, while mistaking the growth that improved conditions lead to as the natural state of affairs.

Back in the early 1970's at the university I used to hang out in the rapidly developing IC fab shop with a fellow student who was an EE major. It was a unique time when individual innovation was at its highest point, and crushing financial pressure nationwide was only beginning to force the downward trend since then.

This was pretty interesting to me as a chemist, and there were even more parallels once I went to work for a company specializing in emerging chemicals, where unending experimentation and innovation was essential to bring yields up to tolerable levels from starting points which were barely feasible. Similar to emerging semiconductor processes.

With all the effort Zeloof has put in, apparently single-handedly for the most part, in his garage he does have what looks like a more advanced facility now than they had then. With the ability to make repairs and do maintenance on the comercially available equipment of the time, to a degree and with determination that the leading professors did not even usually possess.

This is the kind of person that needs to be protected from potential disasters that could derail his continuous progress, especially with such an early head-start.

Very much of an outlier, but there are uncountable others who have always had to wait for the least bit of opportunity which never arose in any realistic way.

> if only they could afford some goddamn space in which to do it...

It doesn't even have to be own space... just places like repair shops that let you hang around, maker/hacker spaces would go a long way.

I learned / had so much fun just hanging out at "Radio"(/TV/Tape recorder) Repair shops when I was a kid. Of course most of things i built back there were silly things like lights for my bicycle, longer earphone wires etc... But it is a valuable experience for me.

That used to be in high schools and it was called “shop class”.

> How many people would be doing all sorts of neat things,

Not many, same distribution would apply to that population. Most would scroll tiktok in a larger house.

Most would be, but that 0.01% are the ones pushing humanity forward. Let's figure out how to give them the resources.

And how do you know most/many people aren't spending their times scrolling tiktok because they don't have the resources to do something more worthwhile?

> And how do you know most/many people aren't spending their times scrolling tiktok because they don't have the resources to do something more worthwhile?

Because if that was it, most rich people, rich kids would be all doing crazy science experiments and advancing knowledge. But turns out they don't.

You have a source for that claim? Patents are absolutely dominated by people with PhDs, which is highly correlated with family income.

https://www.hamiltonproject.org/publication/economic-fact/el...

It’s also plausible todays rich kids are descendants of people who have optimized their lives for making money. I doubt such parents make the best role models for aspiring scientists.

It’s possible that a society that has a more prosperous general population will produce more successful scientists.

Yes, but more creative people would be making something new, even if most would use it for nothing. No matter the amount of additional innovators, the total would still be bigger than it is now.

On a more practical note: people lifted out of poverty that become innovators, are (more) likely to do so in a frugal manner. Because make do with limited resources was spoonfed from early age.

Read: they could make for some very cost-effective innovation.

Lifting other people out of poverty that don't become innovators, would be 'bycatch' from that p.o.v. But still a worthwhile goal.

Do you imply creative people are a special breed who are immune to attention engineering?

They are just saying that if you assume this following:

* There is a rough fixed % of people that are capable of doing interesting things and maybe useful things

* There are minimum levels of resources, time, and comfort that enables you to do interesting things

* The current population that enjoys those resources isn't actually that different from the population at large in terms of that %

Assuming all of that, if you increased the welfare of the entire population to that minimum level (would be nice to do this anyway) then the absolute number of people doing interesting and maybe useful things would increase. I would say that most of human history and esp the past few hundred years has probably proven that to be true.

It is pretty clear from the photos that this young man is very fortunate to have well off and supportive parents. Very few working age adults in full time employment could afford the things shown in those photos let alone someone still in education.

You should read this shorty story:

https://www.abelard.org/asimov.php

Excellent choice.

Asimov in the 1950's was quite a visionary. I always liked this.

But I never heard him referred to as "shorty" before ;)

Don't want to be a spoiler but in his visions for an increasingly advanced technological future once the 21st century would arrive, here the dystopian elements that had unfortunately accrued had to be fed to an increasingly conformist society as a utopia instead. No surprise considering the attitude during the Cold War. While the outliers having the true creative potential were subjected to an artificially dystopian environment by comparison, from which only the most-ambitious few would have to break out of on their own accord, against all odds, motivated only by their own committment, to take their rightful place as professionals.

Didn't have to wait until the 65th century to make significant progress in this direction.

>It is pretty clear from the photos that this young man is very fortunate to have well off and supportive parents.

Good observation, and maybe that's about all that's going to be having such an early start for some time to come now. But we don't need photos to be well aware he is vastly outnumbered by tons of more fortunate youngsters who have accomplished absolutely nothing at that age, if not perpetrated destructive efforts instead. Photos of their "accomplishments" outnumber this type of posting a million to one.

Excellent phrase, "attention engineering".

Related, somebody referred recently to the device that plays YouTube as the "depression box", because that's what it creates in short order: "I am incapable of anything but scrolling". Yup: "Depression box."

Most people don't need larger houses, they just need some kind of house.

A tiny house and a small shed/garage would be a huge boon for many aspiring engineers.

If you want to compromise on neither location nor space, your only real option is to build upwards. Tall residential skyscrapers are the only way.

Personally I'm fine with that, but I get why people might have an aesthetic issue with it. They're of course allowed to compromise on one of the other 2 points to get a better looking neighborhood if they want.

I'd love to put a CNC mill there, but my apartment building doesn't let me use my parking space for anything except a car, unfortunately. I think that is quite common. :(

Remote work for the win. The older I get, the less I care about having a large variety of places to eat and places to go (i.e. city living) and the more I wish for some basic space to do the things I want to do. Be it a shop/shed/or generous garage (without a car in it I'm fine with my car suffering from California sunshine).

Going by the photos on that article, the garage is bigger than the 500sqft ex-council flat I rent with my girlfriend, for the equivalent of $2k/month, in London.

some people live a very industrial lifestyle, in a studio garage, with a couch and kitchen in the corner.

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