Close The Pod Bay Doors

A few months back, I wrote about efforts to make new living arrangements that are more communal than the Western World's usual apartments-or-suburbs models. Well now there's a new contender that takes communal living to new levels. It's called PodShare

Everyone lives in one big room, in bunks - oh, I'm sorry: "pods." The bunks are open on the side, so they're even less private than Japan's infamous coffin hotels. In fact, the beds fold up to become desks in the day, meaning that: (a) you don't even have a place to retreat to during the day, and (b) you'll be working together with the same people you're living with.

One tweet described it as being like something out of Douglas Coupland's nightmares. That's a good description, but my first reaction was that it's like something from the grim near-future of cyberpunk, which often features people living in less-than-glamourous surroundings. So it was fiting that I read that Coupland comment when it was forwarded by William Gibson. So basically this place is a general nightmare for all of Canada's postmodern authors. could we work some sexism in too so Margaret Atwood can get involved? Well, they have banned sex in the pods, but the community is expected to police itself, which is a recipe for disaster if you ask me.

So you're living as close to your fellow humans as possible, but without having sex with them. Could it get any worse? Sure: it's in Los Angeles, so it's $900 a month, yet it may still be the only thing some people can afford.

The defenders are calling this an antidote to loneliness. That sounds noble, but it's not a real good solution to that problem. I've done a lot of research into loneliness, and I don't think the polar opposite is the answer. See, we all need a little bit of solitude, and a little bit of connection to others, but we each want different amounts of each. In my experience, people suffering from loneliness are more towards the "solitude" end of the spectrum. But, circumstances have given them more solitude than even they want. A person who's looking for a cure for loneliness would find this hyper-connected situation even worse. At best, this is a solution for people who are really close to the other end of the spectrum, and find that normal Western Society doesn't given them what they want.