Ep. 62.1: The Past, Present & Future of Living (1/2) - "Mobility is Threatening to State Authority”: Thibault Serlet on Historical Patterns of Labor Mobility and the Genesis of Passports

This is a double-feature episode about the past, present and future of living.

In the first episode, Thibault Serlet gives a historical view of migration patterns and labor mobility. In the second episode, Jackson Stegers gives an overview of modern-day co-living business models and practical learnings - we use both to think about a future where people have more choices, a more mobile and unbundled territory.

Thibault Serlet is the Director of Research at the Adrianopole Group, a special economic zone intelligence firm.

In this episode, Thibault starts with a surprising insight: many people probably traveled more in the past than now. That is, if you compare traveling as a share of time and not miles traveled (this is higher today with airplanes).

Traveling for work and leisure was common for commercial, religious, and military reasons. Borders were much more open because it was much harder to enforce them, and it was in some ways easier to move to another place for opportunity.

After World War I, nation-states have become more powerful. They increasingly kept stricter border controls and required passports for passage. Passports have a long history, but the way we know them now is mostly a result of the past 100 years.

While Thibault can foresee a dystopian future where governments use technology to enforce even stricter within-country border controls, he reminds us of the struggle of many people against massive oppression such as the Sephardic Jews.

There is always hope.

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