PhaseSpace

A new type of Coworking Space

When I heard that Schelling Residency, a small residency project adjacent to FABRIC and funded by an Open Philanthropy grant is winding down soon, because Open Phil changing its timelines more towards AI safety, I felt sad. 

The concept of Schelling Residency was simple. They provided a house to interesting young people (many of them Alumni of ESPR) for short- and longer-term stays. That house would move every couple of years and has been in places like Central London or Lisbon. Lodging and even food were free and the furniture was very rat-community, playground-ish. Carpets, floor tables and chairs, carefully stocked bookshelves and pianos made clear that this was a space for interaction, not just the average condo. Weekly dinners united even more people of the spirit. 

For young people with huge amounts of potential and time and no money, a place like this in a Hotspot like Central London is like a dream. The potential of places like the Bay or London in terms of personal and economic growth are looked up to by practically anyone interested in transformative projects and start-uppy things and the very fact that I am not beaten out of the city after two months by the rent prices changes the game. It means staying is not a game of mere survival anymore and there is time and space. Time to suddenly let you tinker on any kind of project that is not financially self-sustaining for a long time but is highly interesting. And Space to interact with other interesting people, perhaps the most important thing that will take you to things you wouldn't come up with by yourself. 

The message is: Owning property is OP in life. It is an investment that holds its value (in most good places like London or SF) and lets you use it for free because you can sell it anytime. So while you enjoy your free residency you can watch how rent prices are eating away your competitor's income. That's not a level playing field for people that are otherwise comparable, is it?

The obvious conclusion is: Philanthropists with loads of money should purchase spaces in high-quality neighborhoods and grant their use to promising young people. That way the benefit of the property is shared among people with potential and possibly even multiplied by the effects of their interaction. 

How can we optimize this? My main inspirations for this were ESPR and the Schelling Residency, so I aim to combine the benefits of both and improve on their shortcomings. The ten days of ESPR plant crazy ideas into the minds of smart young people and encourage them to be more agentic. And while their thinking might be changed for a lifetime during those 10 days, there is no actual time and space to do tangible things that actually matter. On the other hand, the Schelling Residency had the needed time and space and a slower pace, yet I think it is still too exclusive with a too small sample size of an order of magnitude 10. 

The thing that I have in mind is a place where high-schoolers can wrap their heads around olympiad problems while being nerd-sniped by a PhD student who quit academia and is now running a meditation start-up. In some sense a better version of a library that has books, but also places to talk and a low bar of admission. 

For healthy growth, I suggest that the space which I will now call PhaseSpace should not be openly advertised but referred to within communities and people should be encouraged to bring friends and people they will think will enjoy and benefit.