Conversation

Wolf Tivy
@wolftivy
Now we have elevators, so rich people live on top with roof access and a view. Fair enough. I personally dislike elevators, but they just make it possible to build even taller, if we want to.
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Wolf Tivy
@wolftivy
Cities need to scale, but why not scale by making multiple well developed livable cities with high quality transit between? This avoids many pathologies, allows standardization of design, and still allows specialization, commuting, etc.
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Wolf Tivy
@wolftivy
There are basically two modes of transit: end-to-end private car, or walk-on public transit. Walk-on enables mixed modes (bus, train, airplane, boat), and adapts well with foot-powered vehicles like bikes and skateboards. Cars work better for hauling loads point-to-point.
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Wolf Tivy
@wolftivy
But when the loads get big enough, we do containerized logistics. A car is just a self-propelled shipping container. In this view, you could imagine containerized shipping and public transit eating most transit/logistics needs, leaving the car to what it's truly good at.
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Wolf Tivy
@wolftivy
This suggests there are great companies to be built in rapid point-to-point containerized shipping. Uber for crates. I recently moved via shipping container, and it was great except for border hassle and some immaturity in the process.
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Wolf Tivy
@wolftivy
With transit mostly rationalized via containerization and walk-on dedicated people-movers, cities could be way more livable. The automobile as central transit form in cities is a disaster.
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Wolf Tivy
@wolftivy
This is now a microcontainerization thread. Shipping containers, like everything, we're first standardized by the military. What will be the killer application and initial market for point-to-point standard crates?
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Wolf Tivy
@wolftivy
Plenty of pallet/crate moving companies theoretically exist, but I actually found it really hard to get good consumer prices for boxed shipping, which is why we went all the way to (small) shipping container. If a market exists, you would compete on price, convenience, rapidity.
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Wolf Tivy
@wolftivy
Consumers don't move a ton of stuff except when moving house. We often have to buy and sell furniture, though. Maybe initial market for Uber-for-crates is an inconveniently-large-object local marketplace based on rapid small-scale containerization. Buy, sell, and ship.
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