#the answer of course is that the way my mind attempts to quantify social relationships is deeply unhelpful to me whatever form

[skeppsbrott]

but like being normal about it didn't work either so if I'm gonna sit by my phone waiting like a sad dog either way I might as well try something different

[tellcardtowrite]

ALTERNATE SASSVERSE - the getting-together-moment of that malik/altair/sofia triad thats so wonderfully amusing and so terribly horrible for leo

Sass AU | Malik/Altair/Sofia | Nc-17 for sex things

It started with an armchair.  Malik was not the gargantuan monster that his brother was, he wasn’t excessively tall or plump.  He wasn’t thin enough to be considered skinny, he wasn’t short enough to qualify as small.  He was perfectly in the middle and it allowed him the versatility of being tall around shorter friends, and tall enough around taller friends (except Kadar who was endlessly amused that he’d outgrown his brother).  And it allowed him, when the occasion called for it, to share spaces not meant to fit two.  

The arm chair had been the unfortunate side of a good compromise.  Altair had argued a new mattress in exchange for thrift-shop chairs.  Malik had fallen in love with the overstuffed leather arm chair.  (It had been a recliner during it’s better years, but it could not be quantified as one now.)  It sat in the corner of their living room, away from the painter’s plastic that seemed to move from one spot to another without ever once making it entirely out of the house.  (The projects were endless, and the plastic necessary, and so Altair tolerated it.)  Sometimes the chair faced the TV, and sometimes it faced a wall but it was never very far at all from the little bookshelf in the corner that held all of Malik’s favorite books.  It was always reliably near a bottle of water and a warm blanket.  There was a folded-over pillow, long past it’s prime, that sat in the ratty corner of the chair waiting to be shuffled into exactly the right space to optimize comfort.

Altair hated the chair on principle.

But Malik loved it.

Everything that happened after started with the chair, in the corner of their living room, in the first house they ever truly lived in together.  It started with a chance observation, when Altair was feeling pitiful and trapped, and Malik was ignoring him over it. 

Sofia was curled into the chair like cat, her body gracefully, and carelessly, laying against Malik’s as if there was no reason at all she should feel the need to leave space between them.  As if she weren’t being observed at all.  Her hair was tangled up in Malik’s where their heads were touching, her hand was holding up half the book they were reading.  Her arm, caught between them, always seemed to find itself winding around Malik’s shoulders. 

Malik never refused Sofia’s request to crawl into that narrow space at his side.

But he never allowed anyone else to sit in his chair.  There had been plenty of people, classmates, and family and friends (if one called Leonardo a friend).  Malik never failed to refuse them.  Leonardo tried (of course he did) and every time Malik said, “get out of my chair.”

–

It never quite came to a head, it never fully became a fight, but once, before a social gathering, Altair found Kadar and Malik standing in front of the chair, regarding how inviting it looked (to them).  

“It’s a really nice chair,” Kadar said to his brother.  “It’s not like you have a lot of other seats.”  He motioned at the perfectly good couch and the brand new arm chair across the room as if they were subpar.

“It’s my chair,” Malik said.

“Well.  You either have to put your name on it, piss on it, or move it to another room because I’m telling you right now, if this chair is in this room, someone is going to sit in it.”

Malik sneered at that, like a bad taste on his tongue, and then, “help me move it.”

–

After, when there was nothing but red cups and crumbs on the party trays, Altair was shoving plastic silverware into the overstuffed trash bag, caught up in thinking through the ridiculousness of having to explain why one of their chairs had gone missing.  “Am I allowed to sit in the chair?”

Malik was across the room, rolling his eyes at leftover drinks.  “That’s what they’re for I think.”

“No.  Your chair.  Am I allowed to sit in your chair?”

Bless his boyfriend for a brain that never stopped working through things, and never quite arrived at easy conclusions, Malik just stared at him as if he hadn’t developed a whole complicated system of judgment regarding who could and couldn’t sit in his chair.  As if Malik’s bias wasn’t so obvious that he’d allow Kadar to not only sit in the stupid chair but fall asleep in and spill soda all over it but Leonardo’s perfectly awake, perfectly courteous ass couldn’t so much as hover a single butt cheek over it without getting screamed at.  Malik looked at him as if he had never heard such a ridiculous fucking question in his entire fucking life.  “But you don’t want to,” wasn’t an answer or a question.  It was simply announcing how Altair had been excluded from thought.

“If I did,” Altair said.

“Sure.”

–

Any good theory had to be tested.  Altair laid a blanket over the ratty old leather and invited himself to sit in the chair when he knew that Malik would be home soon.  He lingered, leaning back, trying to figure out exactly what made the stupid chair as inviting and comforting as Malik claimed it was.  It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it wasn’t special either.  It was just a chair, in a corner, next to a stack of books.  

Malik came home with a pinch in his face that followed unannounced quizzes and overdue homework.  He rounded the corner to the living room, still shrugging off his book bag.  There was no mistaking the instant, confused, annoyed surprise on his face when he found Altair where an empty chair should have been.  He dropped his bag on the floor and stood there, just looking at him (attempting to act innocent), assessing how he felt about it.  The wheels inside Malik’s mind were churning so fast there should have been smoking leaking out his eyeballs, but in the end he just invited himself to sit right in Altair’s lap.  “Yeah,” he said, like a real answer to a long ago question, “you’re good.”

Altair kissed him.

–

All evidence and observation in place, there was no mistaking the obvious conclusion.  Regardless of sexual preference, Malik loved Sofia.  He didn’t love her how he loved his brother–who was only allowed use of the chair unless Malik wanted it.  He loved her in the same set of brackets that he loved Altair, where the chair that was meant for one became big enough for two, and bodies that were meant to be separate slid together so closely they got tangled up and confused.  

–

“Yeah,” Desmond said over breakfast in New York, looking wide-awake and reasonable because he hadn’t just gotten off a plane.  Because he hadn’t just realized his boyfriend, his troublesome, irritating, perfectionist, judgmental and completely gay asshole of a boyfriend was in love with a woman.  “But it’s not what you’re making it seem like.  They’re just friends.”

“Leonardo is Malik’s friend.”

Desmond just stared at him.  He stared, and waited, and stared, and–

“Look,” Altair said before Desmond could figure out how to address the obvious trap, “I know that they used to have sex.  And I know that Leonardo loves him and I know it wasn’t the sort of relationship you usually have with your friends but Malik doesn’t have friends.  He has people he tolerates, he has family, he has people he sort of likes and then he has Leonardo, his friend, and Sofia his other friend and me his boyfriend.”

“And because he lets you sit in the chair, and you have sex with him and he loves you, that means he loves Sofia and would have sex with her?”

“No,” Altair said.  “He’s very gay.”

“I–” Desmond looked helpless.  He looked desperately toward the hall, as if he could summon his wife through sheer power of will.  “I don’t understand what you’re upset about?  He’s gay so he won’t cheat on you with the woman he loves?  What are you worried about?  He doesn’t want to be with her.  He wants to be with you.”

“Sofia loves him,” Altair said (again, slowly).  “Sofia definitely loves him the way I love him.  The rip his clothes off and fuck him because you can’t stand it sort of love.  And the sit quietly together kind of love.  Malik isn’t saying no to her.”

“But he’s gay,” Desmond repeated.

–

Kadar listened, across a platter of tacos, nodding with every single word until Altair was finished.  In the quiet, he stared at the bits of taco debris on his plate, picking which words he wanted to use, arriving at, “Malik doesn’t know that he loves her, Altair.  The only person he’s ever been able to admit to loving is you.  That puts you in a position with a lot of power.  Sofia isn’t going to try anything, she knows he loves you and she respects it.  Malik isn’t going to try anything because he can’t imagine gray areas.  Whatever you have to do, consider it carefully.  Really consider it.”

–

Altair considered a lot of things about the chair, and how Sofia fit perfect next to Malik.  He considered it for weeks, that became months.  He considered it in the middle of the night, and the bright lights of day.  He thought about when he finally managed to get Malik to leave the fucking country and take a look at the rest of the world.

He was thinking about it soaking in a hot tub.

He thought about it when the sweat was still cooling on his back and Malik was sated and snuggling, taking his time about worrying about clean up.  

Altair thought about it until it stopped making sense.

And he thought about it after that too.

–

But Altair wasn’t thinking about anything, working on impulse, suddenly left alone with Sofia in the kitchen of his New York home, watching how she smiled to herself about nothing at all.  She was beautiful in a way that required no effort to see.  (Although enough people had seen, if stuttering second glances were any indication.)  He was supposed to be cutting vegetables but there was his fat mouth spilling out words like, “so what are we going to do about it?”

“Dinner?”

“Malik,” Altair corrected.

Sofia didn’t blanch white, she didn’t turn red.  Her voice didn’t strangle or pitch.  She set down the knife she’d been using and pressed her hands flat against the cutting board in front of her.  When she looked at him, it was gracious, to match the way she said, “if I’ve overstayed my welcome I would understand that you wanted me to go.”

“He loves you,” Altair said.  (And why was it his heart thudding right out of his chest, why was it his heart climbing up his throat.  Why was there any question as to how things would progress.  If Malik could throw tantrums over chairs, Altair was perfectly reasonable to ask for space here.)

“Not the way I want him to,” she said, “and I don’t want to cause problems.  I can refuse his invitations, tell him I have commitments.  I don’t have to be here if you’d rather I wasn’t.”

“I was considering addition, not subtraction.”  (He’d been considering both.  He just couldn’t bring himself to mention how he’d much rather Sofia find another man to fall in love with.  And how selfish, and stupid, and mean to force Malik to give up a person who gave him such comfort.  How intolerant to pretend he couldn’t understand why she would love Malik, when he loved him just the same?)  

Sofia did blush then, a sudden pink rush of blood to her cheeks, “oh,” hadn’t ever considered this outcome.  “I–  That,  I don’t know that.  That is, I don’t know how that might work.”  She looked at him how she hadn’t before, the long stare that belonged in bars with loud music and dim lights, that seemed lewd and almost inappropriate in his kitchen.  “I assume addition involves sex.”

“I would prefer if it did.”

“And I didn’t agree?  Should I expect to be uninvited to Malik’s life?”

(God bless his boyfriend for falling for a woman exactly like him.  A fatalist with a pretty face and a reasonable tone of voice.)  “No,” Altair said, “but we’ll have to find a way to live with one another.”

Sofia sighed, “you’re not unattractive.  I won’t make an commitments or choices without him.”

–

What Altair had said was, maybe we could invite Sofia to be our threesome friend, because they’d been working out how to try out a threesome for a few months.  What Malik heard (or seemed to hear) was: I, Altair, the whore, want to fuck the woman you’re in love with and possibly marry her and move to a foreign country where you’ll never see either of us again.  Our children will be beautiful and you will die alone and be eaten by rats.

“I am not being unreasonable!” Malik shouted at him.

“Yes you are!”

“You want to fuck my friend!  Why I don’t just fuck–” Malik stuttered there, hand out to the side, fingers spread out, grasping for any single man that might have been considered Altair’s friend and arriving at the quick realization that there was nobody that compared that Malik would actually consider having sex with.  “Desmond,” was the finish that admitted it’s own failure before Altair had to point it out.  

“She’s an obvious choice, Malik,” Altair said.

“She’s my friend.”

“Which is why she’s the obvious choice!”

“You want to put your dick in her!” Malik shouted at him.  As if he’d never heard a worse crime in all his life.  As if the idea itself were blasphemous.  As if Altair were deviant for developing any desire for it.  As if asking Sofia to submit to the torment was unthinkable.  

“She likes dick!” Altair shouted back, “just like you!  I’ll put my dick in both of you.”

Malik was stunned stupid, left standing there without a single word to say.  He just stared, standing halfway across the room, completely without a comeback.  All those gears in his brain were chugging away but there was no conclusion to arrive at.  

“Look,” Altair said softly, gently, slowly, “you can’t tell me that you don’t love her.  You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed she loves you too.  All I’m saying is, why don’t we don’t something about it?  Why don’t we try and see if we can make it work?”

“I don’t love her like that,” Malik said.  He stood still, he watched Altair get close, he didn’t move at all.  He was caught up in a confused sensation, trying to reason out this terrible new world he was living in.  “She doesn’t–”

“I’m pretty sure she does.”

–

Sofia’s anger wasn’t a surprise, Altair had been working through anger like white fire for months.  He’d been smothering it so long it felt like second nature, but Sofia’s anger was it’s own special sort.  Her anger was reserved for him and for the chance at getting almost exactly what she wanted.

“What if this ruins it?” she asked him when Malik wasn’t there.  With her hands in fists, “what if it doesn’t work?  What if I lose him?  What then?”

“I don’t know,” was the only answer he had.

–

Altair kissed her first, standing by the end of the bed he shared with his boyfriend, he cupped her beautiful face in his hands and he kissed her before she could talk them all right out of the idea.  Sofia didn’t hesitate with her mouth against his, she didn’t shy away.  Her hands were claws, scratching down his chest from collarbone to waist band.  Her fingers were bold, and hurried, slipping underneath his shirt.  There was no pretense, no shyness, no need to be coy or pretend.

Altair kissed her throat and she tipped her head back, he worked open the buttons on her dress, and she pulled open the button of his jeans.  She pulled at his ass as he cupped her breasts.  She hummed a nice sound and pulled his shirt right over his head.  

Malik invited himself in when Sofia’s dress was a puddle on the floor, when her bra was hanging off one elbow, when Altair was kissing her in time with how warm and sure her hand was sliding down into his pants to assess his dick for suitability.  Malik was offended, left out, reaching his hand in to pull both their attention back to him.  “Tell me how this is fun for me,” he said.

“My God,” Sofia breathed when her mouth was free and she’d worked his dick free from his pants.  There was the three of them staring at it.  “How the fuck do you fit all that in your ass?” she asked like a marvel.

“Slowly,” Malik assured her, he pulled her face to kiss her, trying it out for kicks.  Altair pushed his pants off and followed them down so he was kneeling on the floor listening to the uncertain sounds of Malik kissing a beautiful woman.  Despite the protests and his pouting face, Malik was hard enough to consider the experiment a success (for now).  He groaned when his pants were pulled down, his hand dropped from Sofia’s face to push through Altair’s hair.  

“Oh,” Sofia whispered.  Altair felt her hand on his shoulder, looked sideways as his mouth slid down Malik’s dick.  There she was, dropping to her knees as her tongue ran across her lips.  “Share,” she said.  

“Do you like giving head?” Malik asked.  He was looking down at them, pink and confused and perfectly okay with having his dick shared between them.  

–

Sofia kissed him when he was flat on his back, getting fucked by Malik.  Her quick, soft hands were jerking his dick without urgency, getting used to the idea of it.  Her palm was damp with sweat, and spit and pre-cum, sliding up and down with a slushy, slick sound entirely separate to the sound of Malik’s thrusts.  And she kissed him with consideration, moaning pleased sounds when he touched her how she wanted.  

“Can you come like this?” she asked him.

“Not with how you’re doing it,” he answered.

“Can you?”  She propped herself up on an elbow, looked down his body to where Malik was sitting back on his knees, one hand gripping at Altair’s thigh, holding him in place as he thrust forward so he was as deep as he could get, and just stopped.  His hair was soaked in sweat, his cheeks red with effort, his voice heavy and so close to orgasm it was hard to understand.  “Fucking him?”

“When he does it to you,” Sofia said.

Malik’s blush was embarrassed, and adorable, and–  “Yeah.  Most of the time.  He can too, you just have to jerk him off faster.”

Sofia’s smile offered no mercy, “I want a turn when you’re done.”

“Oh,” Malik said.  He started again, faster.  Sofia let go of Altair’s dick so she could lean back into the pillows and watch.  (Oh-god-and wasn’t there an sort of special thrill to just being watched?)  

“Don’t rush on my account,” she said. 

–

“You look good on your back,” she whispered into his ear when Malik was stripping the condom off.  Her voice was full of promises, her hand was sneaking across his chest to pull at his ribs, to invite him off his back and right up between her thighs.  There was the brief matter of a fresh condom, and Malik crawling up to lay at her side, and Sofia’s hand on his dick pulling him right into place.  

“Oh god,” she gasped with one arm around Malik and her legs clenched around Altair’s hips half-way-in.  Malik looked at her with a sloppy sort of smile, like he knew exactly what she meant, like he was proud of her for making it so far, like he’d never seen anything more beautiful in all his life.  He kissed her like that, falling in and out of it, whispering sweet-and-encouraging and filthy things about how it was worth it, how good it felt when you got used to it.  

Altair fucked her to the tune of Malik’s encouraging sweet-nothings.

–

Whatever doubts Altair woke up with were quickly put aside when he found Sofia-and-Malik at the breakfast table, reading the newspaper opposite one another.  

“Oh good,” she said.

“Did you eat breakfast?” Altair asked.  There were coffee mugs but no breakfast plates.  (That didn’t mean anything, but there was always a chance.)  

“No,” Malik said.  “I thought we should have sex again.”

“Otherwise it would be awkward,” Sofia said.  “It’s a little awkward anyway, but we can either talk about it and why it feels awkward or we can have sex again.”

“And you didn’t get the chance to give Sofia head,” Malik pointed out.

“Assuming you wanted to,” Sofia added.

“He does,” Malik assured her.  “Trust me.”

“What are your thoughts, should we try to discuss our feelings about how it went or should we have sex, breakfast and then try to discuss it?”

Altair had gotten fuzzy about listening about the time he’d been offered the chance to give Sofia head.  (Not that he’d been listening all that hard after it had been announced there was no breakfast yet.)  “Sex is fine.”

–

Sofia didn’t move in, but she visited.  

She stayed for weekends, and vacations, and special occasions.

She lived out of a suitcase and she brought her own toothbrush.  

And things worked out, for a while.

–

“I’m going to ask him to marry me.”  

Sofia was fixing her hair in the mirror, Altair was rinsing out his toothbrush.  His bathroom counter was littered with all the belongings she shoved into her travel bag.  “I’m sure he’ll say yes.  Are you nervous?”

“No.  I think you should consider not leaving this time.”

Sofia snorted, she gave up on arranging her bangs in any specific order, she looked at him fully.  “I do enjoy our flings.  I appreciate that you’ve let me share your relationship but this is an unsustainable model.  This works because I’m not here every day.  I’m not a challenge or a burden when I’m not always around.  I can tolerate the end of this for the sake of the start of a lasting relationship but I couldn’t stand to watch him grow tired of me.”

Altair snorted.  “You’re just like him, you know.  You’re both idiots.  You’re both very intelligent idiots.  Maybe I don’t love you the way I love him.  Maybe he won’t ever want to fuck you the way he wants to fuck me.  But between all three of us we have everything we need to make this work.  Ask him, if you don’t believe me.  He’ll tell you the same thing.  He wants you to stay.”  

–

They were three weeks into a social experiment, sharing seven bedrooms with three people, pretending to share one relationship.  Sofia was sitting cross legged on the couch, rolling her eyes at her phone.  Malik was reading at the opposite end and Altair was trying (and failing) to beat Desmond at the stupid racing game (again).  

“Oh,” Sofia snapped at the phone, like she hated it.  “If you don’t tell this stubborn fucking asshole I’m going to do it.”  She slapped the phone face down on the table.

“Fine,” Malik said.

“Fine?” Sofia snapped back.  “What happened to sparing his feelings?”

Malik shrugged.  “I was just going to wait until he figured it out.”

“Tell who?” Desmond asked.

Altair gave up the attempt, looked over his shoulder at Sofia’s perfectly delighted face, and how she was only waiting for him to look at her.  She didn’t invite him on a road trip (out loud) but everything from the way her eyebrows lifted to the quirk of her smile was asking him if he wanted to hop on a plane right this moment.  “Leonardo.”

[lamgrace1993]

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[hopefulfestivaltastemaker]

May 17, 2020

Here is my second blog post, which I think is enough to call it “weekly”. Here I touch briefly on several interesting things I saw, read, or thought about over the course of the week.

The Limits of Decentralized Decisionmaking

Justin Amash, who briefly flirted with a Libertarian Presidential run these last few weeks, made the following claim.

To maximize happiness and well-being, we must embrace localism and decentralization. Individuals, families, and communities make far better decisions than technocrats and bureaucrats in a distant capital.

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 10, 2020

This is an attitude that I think is shared by a majority of libertarians, but it has limits, in particular with zoning. A basic political economy problem with zoning is that the perceived benefits (less local traffic, preference for fewer people nearby) are more local than the costs (higher housing prices, depressed economic activity). Therefore, there is a strong rationale for coordination between neighborhoods and cities to reduce zoning restrictions. The logical unit for such coordination is a state or the federal government. The U.S. Constitution does implement open borders and free trade between the states; while the freedom of movement principle has not, to my knowledge, been invoked against zoning, at least the principle has been established that the federal government has a broad interest in the question.

Amash himself has stated that is favorite Amendment is the 14th, which, among other things, extends the protections of the Bill of Rights to the states and cities. It seems logical to me at least that the principle would apply to property rights as well.

Finally, there is a certain romanticization of local government that I think one should question. Due to their lower profiles, local governments are often less representative and responsive to the public need than state or the federal governments, and I simply see no basis for the claim that they, in general, know what is better for their citizens or are willing to act appropriately upon such knowledge.

Zoning as a Virtual Budget Item

While on the subject of zoning, I’ve been thinking about how to communicate the costs and benefits of land use policies. All governments have to make budgets, and costs that are off-budget are more easily put out of mind. And so I’ve wondered about treating zoning as a virtual budget item.

The benefits of land use restrictions are mainly in the form and aesthetic preferences and relief from congestion and other negative externalities of density. The costs are in the form of higher housing costs, depressed economic activity, and higher infrastructure costs (lower in absolute terms, but generally higher on a per capita basis). Several economists have estimated that the United States loses out on hundreds of billions, or even trillions, of dollars of economic activity per year due to zoning restrictions, so these are not insubstantial costs. For a local government budget, we could treat the economic costs of zoning as a kind of tax on the citizens, including a share that is externalized to other jurisdictions, and compare it to formal budget items such as roads, police, fire, schools, etc. It wouldn’t surprise me if this exercise shows that, for most cities, zoning is the most expensive thing that they do. Making the costs explicit would force a more careful reckoning of whether the benefits are really worth the costs. Since housing costs are regional, it would help if one city was more aware of the costs imposed on it by its neighbor’s land use policies.

It would be a challenge to tally up costs of land use policy in this way, and the result would no doubt be contentious. But I don’t think it would be too terribly hard to make a first pass. There are some decent estimates of the price elasticity of housing supply, and we could probably come up with a guesstimate of how much housing a city could support under an unregulated market.

Cities and Disease Risk

Joel Kotkin has a very interesting piece this week, putting the risk of infectious disease in cities in context. I think the evidence is pretty clear that, all else being equal, larger cities impose more risk of infectious disease. That’s what one would expect. The whole point of a city is that it fosters high levels of interaction both with other residents of the city and people from other cities. As Luis Bettencort points out, cities are social reactors, accelerating transactions such as commerce and the spread of ideas. But the same nature accelerates undesirable transactions, such as crime and infectious disease.

Kotkin goes on to point out that not all else is equal. Among the world’s megacities, Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul, and New York City have all had very different outcomes during the ongoing pandemic. He points to the history of achievements in public health that have enabled dramatic city growth since the 19th century while simultaneously improving safety. There is much the world’s cities can continue to do for further improvement. This is a much more sensible approach than trying to respond to pandemic risk by undoing urbanization.

How far will the virtualization of travel go?

I joined in a conversation this week with Mark Frohnmayer of Arcimoto and several other business ventures. He made a prediction, which I have seen in quite a few other forms recently, that the world is undergoing a permanent shift toward remote work and the replacement of business travel with videoconferencing. To paraphrase his comment as best I can, people now realize that there is no need to fly across the country for a half hour business meeting that could have just as well been done over Zoom.

I hope he’s right, but it should be noted that this is only the latest iteration in a debate that has been going on for decades. The historical evidence is quite mixed. Before the pandemic, the rate of remote work had been creeping up but was still under 5%. We were also in the midst of a long term increase in the volume of air traffic, and at least some evidence suggests that there is a complementary relationship between air travel and telecommunications.

Once the pandemic subsides, what will be radically different? I think it was just as obvious last year or in the 1980s as it is now that there is no need to fly across the country for a half hour business meeting. There must be reasons (not necessarily good reasons) for doing it, and I would not place any confidence in predictions about future travel patterns that do not show understanding of those reasons.

Overall, I see an abundance of sociological questions around virtual travel that are not adequately answered. I think there is an enormous need for more research on the topic, as smart use of telecommunications could be the most important solution we have for chronic urban challenges such as traffic congestion and housing costs.

The “Growth at all Costs” Strawman

There is a pervasive notion in academic and activist environmentalism that the world is currently structured on a “growth at all costs” paradigm which needs to be changed. This paper, by Robert Costanza and colleagues on ecosystem services, is the example that triggers this comment but is only one of many.

Now, I won’t comment right now on how economic policy should be structured, but as a descriptive matter, this trope is absurd. There exist numerous laws in every country in the world that restrict growth, at least in the short term, and protect the environment, restrict migration, enact trade barriers, limit urban development, protect labor, and so forth. In well over a decade of political activities, “growth at all costs” is not even remotely close to how policymaking is done at any level of government I have ever observed.

I think there is some importance to ecosystem services as a research topic, and it is one I am actively working to understand better. Unfortunately, the presence of such patently absurd statements about economic policy calls into question the credibility of the broader work.

Oregon Metro on Affordable Housing

This week the Oregon Metro Council held a work session to review last year’s affordable housing bond. The work packet is here if you care to see the details.

Overall the bond is for $620 million to build 3900 housing units, or about $160K per unit. This is already about twice what the private sector builds apartments for, but these figures are only Metro’s contributions, which leverage money from nonprofits or other governmental entities. In four projects profiled in the work packet, construction costs are $130K/unit of Metro money, $364K/unit total, and $261K per bedroom.

During the work session, several councilors asked questions about the cost and expressed hope that the bond could be extended beyond the 3900 planned units. But most of the discussion was on matters such as the COBID program, which steers contracts to small and minority-owned businesses, prevailing wage and construction labor diversity requirements, and insuring that protected minority groups are fairly represented among residents of the new units. Whatever the merits of these policies may be on their own, I saw no questions about or any attempt to quantify their costs.

There is another big question on the efficacy of the bond that I saw no attempt to address. Since Metro cities restrict zoning capacity through density rules and the Urban Growth Boundary, to what extent will these 3900 new units compete with the private sector for scarce zoned capacity? If there is competition, then the gain of affordable units could be offset by a number of people being priced out of the private market.

The main problem with policies that are designed to accomplish many goals is that they don’t accomplish any goals very well. If the goal is to provide affordable housing to the maximum number of people who need it, then the most efficient solution is to increase zoned capacity and provide vouchers for people who can’t otherwise compete on the private market.

[eyelog]

are we close enough

“Any brand on social media is a global brand,” said by a global marketing lead of one of the biggest jeans companies today. Likewise, any person on social media is a global person and a celebrity-to-be.

When discussing the benefits of the Internet, the first thing comes to mind is connecting people tightly regardless physical distance. It seems like we know more details than the people intended to tell us. We know people from their clothes, friends, photos, captions and etc., but not from talking or going out with them. We feel lonely easily because only a few people press that thumb button on our posts. We know everything a little bit without recheck and experience it. Are we really closer? Overcoming the addiction of using social media is on the to-do list.

Any kind of addiction relates more or less to the lack of social connection, so does the using of social media. In a Psychology Today article, Susan Biali, M.D. makes the point that "web use is linked to... the loss of real-life friends.” Dr. Kate Roberts, who’s a Boston-based psychologist, is quoted in the same article, as saying that spending a lot of time online “is not developing our verbal skills or our emotional intelligence.” Even today, when people go to a group gathering or dating, the person sitting in front of you may check their phones constantly. Sometimes it doesn’t mean that what you are talking about is not interesting. It’s their usual habits that make them have difficulties focusing on only one thing. Dr. Roberts goes on to say that, "Right now, at Boston College, there's a course on how to ask a person out on a date. It's like we've lost the skill of courtship and the ability to make that connection.” Building real human connection is important and helpful than seeing and interacting with others in a virtual space.

Overcoming the addiction will also be beneficial for reducing social anxiety. In one study, Larry Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, monitored anxiety levels of smartphone users when he wouldn’t let them use their phones, and found that the heavy smartphone users showed increased anxiety after only 10 minutes.

There are lots of ways to deal with social anxiety and loneliness, not just with heavily caring about feeds and updates. A great advantage of social media is that scrolling and following save us lots of time. However, that amount of time supposed to be the treasure of our life. In the pre-social media age, facing loneliness, people spend their spare time to develop hobbies, read news websites, go to a cafe and chat with best friends. The joy and satisfaction are not equivalent to seeing a friend doing something funny or knowing a news from a flat photo. There are emotional depth and solid bridges built among the thing, the person we love and ourselves. Now, “You can compare your own popularity with that of your peers, and manage that adolescent ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO) by continually monitoring what’s going on socially. ” Genuinely, “quantifying relationship” adds a new layer of social anxiety to today’s human life. When you stop caring about what everyone else is doing, you’ll conquer your FOMO.

Although people could get a diverse range of information from the social sites, views are still limited. The information provided on our social sites is only one slice of the pie. In the 2016 presidential election, Russian hackers manipulated opinions on social media by buying massive ads and fake accounts on sites like Google and Facebook. Similar things happened again during the investigation of Las Vegas’ massacre in last month. People started to talk about how police lied to them about the amount of killers, which was because that the sheriff attempted to protect the business of the casino. The truth is, there was only one killer and the police were honest. “My experience is that once this stuff gets going, people just pass these stories on without even necessarily stopping to read them,” Travis McKinney said, who is a Facebook user and interviewee. “They’re just participating in the conversation without stopping to look hard” at the source. While social media transmitted a wide range of information, people need to do further confirmation and deep reading to verify the correction of messages they received.

Sometimes, like running any kind of successful relationship, in order to be aware of something without misunderstanding or error, people should devote a solid quantity of time with a little seriousness. Social media provides possibility and generosity towards an issue or community, but it’s not the correct answer or ultimate problem-solver.

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FYI: some articles I mentioned that you may like to read

“How Fiction Becomes Facts on Social Media”  Benedict Carey

“Social Media, Loneliness, and Anxiety in Young People”  Graham C.L Davey

“Is Technology Make People Less Sociable” Larry Rosen

Sheila | San Francisco, CA

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