This is a good post, but I think the guy you’re replying to is trying to bait a ton of belief statements out of you so that he can then piss you off by contradicting each and use that as a justification to defederate Hexbear. That, or he’s just going to dig his heels in and you’ll have wasted your time.
Comment on Hexbear federation megathread
alcoholicorn@hexbear.net 1 year agowhere are you expecting people to live?
In houses. There’s dozens of vacant homes for every homeless person. Just as capitalism requires some people be hungry to maximize profit of food, it requires some people be homeless to maximize profit of landlords.
These homes are owned by someone- they worked/paid/built them themselves.
The people who build houses deserve to be compensated for their labor. Owning a house on the other hand, is not labor.
Why do you think these people who have toiled for 40+years should just give you there invested money/work for free?
Rent isn’t compensation for the construction of a home, otherwise the renter would own the home after 20 years of renting paid off the mortgage.
Why are they evil for using something they have worked for to help themselves?
I’d categorize the parasitic relationship as evil, but as for judging individual people for the poverty and homelessness caused by that relationship, it’s more complicated as we live under capitalism.
Inevitably someone like you comes along and just shitposts this same rhetoric you just did with no logical backing behind it other than “evil landlords must die and be redistributed”
Are you talking about the description of the cultural revolution in that one province in China people post? In the context of generations of peasants seeing their children die of starvation-related disease or conscripted never to return, the people were more merciful and practical than just. It’s easy to criticize any change if you ignore the violence of the status quo. To quote Mark Twain:
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
How is a house different from a farm? Or a rail system? Or a insert anything created by someone and used for personal gain?
It’s not.
ennemi@hexbear.net 1 year ago
Firemyth@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Buddy I’m replying to the things he’s saying. If it hurts your brain that I’m detailing why the things he say make no sense that’s on you. If hexbear is all people like you- that’s on them.
I am new to lemmy and would prefer actual discussion- if certain groups brigade and shitpost in lieu of discussing- that’s on them.
ChestRockwell@hexbear.net 1 year ago
Friendly note that you should respect hexbear users’s pronouns and not misgender. I’ll assume this wasn’t malicious, but just a friendly reminder.
Firemyth@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Him/her/whatever.
Misgender me all you want- I know who I am and don’t require you to know innate things or particular responses.
But if you really need it: I didn’t mean to misunderstanding anyone.
wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 1 year ago
[deleted]GreenTeaRedFlag@hexbear.net 1 year ago
why not just stay mute all year?
SeborrheicDermatitis@hexbear.net 1 year ago
At the end of the day ‘evil’ is not a particularly valuable analytical framing if we are being proper social scientists (since, of course, “the capitalist becomes capital personified”, e.g., their actual personality traits don’t matter and they needn’t be sociopathic to do horrible things. Though a disproportionate of landlords are horrible people ofc). On a social media site, however, there’s nothing wrong with using emotive language like ‘evil’ and using venting memes like the guillotine pictures and I guess there is a disconnect in how it’s perceived to the ‘materialist’ mode of analysis that does not focus on individual personality traits + does not see the individual as the supreme and singular unit of analysis.
Firemyth@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I’m not leaving for an echo chamber. I’m just leaving. It’s your echo chambers I’m exiting.
All these empty houses aren’t producing rent are they? You can go buy one and give it away if you want. Oh what’s that? You don’t want to do that?
What’s the difference if I hammered the nail myself to build the house or if I buy it from the guy who did the hammering. This is the insanity that permeates your argument. I’ve done both by the way- either way that home is owned by someone and rented to someone else.
When did I say rent was compensation for building a home? You say that- and you are wrong for bringing it up. I built a thing- someone wants to use said thing- we make an agreement that we both agree to.
I characterize this insane rationality as evil. You want a thing to be given away for free without compensation. It’s crazy to think this investment I’ve made is somehow going to magically fix something if I just transform it into some other thing you aren’t all brigading over. If it wasn’t a house- it’d be a restaurant, or a clothing business, or whatever. And you’d eventually get up in arms about that too. What you really want is others to give you an equal share even though you haven’t done anything to earn it and I fucking have.
GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 1 year ago
All these empty houses aren’t producing rent are they? You can go buy one and give it away if you want. Oh what’s that? You don’t want to do that?
Personal charity is not a solution to a systemic problem! This will not actually get rid of the problem, it will palliate it! Also, I literally can’t because I personally don’t have the money that would be needed to buy a rental property off of someone who can afford to leave such properties empty, since if we assume they are willing to sell, it’s a high price, but more likely they just won’t because owning an apartment on the fourth floor of an eight-floor complex being someone else’s property seems like a litigation nightmare if there’s literally any type of water damage or anything of the sort that occurs after the sale.
Firemyth@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Right. So because you can’t afford it- it should be given to you for free? What have you bought recently? Am I entitled to that? How about you loan it to me for a set fee over time? Which makes more sense?
GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 1 year ago
If I was monopolizing a resource people need to live, sure, repatriate it! I, uh, have a lot of books and I actually do like lending those to people – even ones I hardly know or somewhat dislike – so long as I think that I will get them back in good condition.
Part of the problem with your need to individualize everything is that we encounter class antagonism, i.e. people in different classes have different incentives. I am totally fine with the idea of virtually everything I own being held communally and living in a monastery – so long as there was enforcement against just trashing things. What matters to me is use, not profit, because I am not in a class that profits but one that subsists on labor and therefore am mainly seeking to ensure the easiest subsistence possible by the means I know. I also see that many people are in my same position and we can’t all subsist by lying at the top being fed grapes while being paid to own things, the viability of selling a commodity comes from people not having it. On that basis, since I don’t want to make enemies out of my fellows (enemies are dangerous) and I don’t want to be stuck under someone else’s corporate boot heel if I fail, it is more appealing to me that we collaborate rather than compete, so that our best interests lie in mutual benefit rather than scalping scarce resources.
macabrett@hexbear.net 1 year ago
What you really want is others to give you an equal share even though you haven’t done anything to earn it and I fucking have.
A core belief most of us have is that workers are very literally not being given what they’ve earned. But we also believe that all humans deserve food, shelter, and care. If you think that’s evil, there’s not much more of a discussion to have.
alcoholicorn@hexbear.net 1 year ago
You want a thing to be given away for free without compensation.
Except I do want you to be compensated, for the labor of building the home. Everything beyond that is theft.
What you really want is others to give you an equal share even though you haven’t done anything to earn it and I fucking have.
You are the one expecting others to work for free. You are demanding a greater amount of wealth from the renter than you’ve produced.
ChestRockwell@hexbear.net 1 year ago
My partner and I should have a 50 percent equity in the apartment she rented for 10 years. Instead we were unceremoniously kicked out last year because the landlord’s son wanted to make more money.
Firemyth@lemm.ee 1 year ago
What in the world makes you think you deserve 50% equity? Did you pay half the down payment? Did you pay half the mortgage and interest to the bank? Did you pay half the property taxes? Did you pay half the maintenance? Did you make any agreement woth the owner up front that this is what you would get? No? Did someone mention communism to you and you haven’t thought twice since?