atcorebcor

@atcorebcor@sh.itjust.works

• If forcing social media to break their walked gardens doesn't work, maybe these two ideas couldsh.itjust.works ↗
  Submitted ⁨⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩ | ⁨0⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rent is theft⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  How do you collectively make political decisions about what gets built where?

  It sounds like the planning system. The planning system is a big part of why house prices are so high. The suburbs are not allowed to have anything but single family zoning. Commercial areas are not allowed to be built in residential areas. Why? Because people keep making rules to protect their land values. NIMBYism is a huge constraint to the supply of housing whether present at local hearings for a specific building or when making land use plans. One problem is that landowners (which most homeowners are), are severely overrepresented in a system where plans are decided collectively. Even if all the renters in the city also showed up, these collective plans will never include potential people wanting to move to the city cause they will not be part of this. This creates a bias towards plans that don’t allow for new housing because the residents are more likely to already have their living situation covered. This hurts: people seeking to move, renters, anyone wanting to move to the city, newer generations who don’t own property.

  There are a number of other problems with this:

  It’s impossible to plan for the future. People’s needs, wants and desires change constantly and you can’t plan for that. Even collectively. Cause what is planned collectively now, will not be the same decision if the plan was made a year later cause wants and desires have changed.

  It also inhibits the optimal functioning of development. A plan may have height restrictions to prevent views from being interrupted or from shadows being cast, but this plan assumes that the value of these views and sunlight will in perpetuity be worth more than the supply of housing being prevented. Let’s say a plan includes the appearance of buildings in building codes. This missed all the individual creativity present in local communities. The people who know best what their community needs are the individuals living there. A lot of creativity is lost when one plan takes over the plans of many individuals. The historic centers that we love so much everywhere that we make them indestructible legally are all designed by individuals with unique ideas in ways that couldn’t be planned.

  It also goes against the rule of law. Laws should be predictable, simple, and general. Planning laws are neither of those. Their lacking predictability increases the risk of every building project. Their lacking simplicity increases the legal costs for any developer making it hard for smaller players to compete with the big ones. Their lack of generality makes it possible for officials to give preferential treatment to certain owners. Do you know how much a plot of land increases in value if a planner decides that it’s suddenly allowed to have more stories built there? Let’s say these plans are created with a 51% majority vote. What about the 49%? None of this would have been necessary if people had more freedom.

  This is not advocating for neoliberal society. You can make the rules more general. You can say buildings are not allowed to be 50% taller than its neighbors. Simple, general, predictable. You can say industrial areas are not allowed less than 400 meters from residential areas. Etc. You can have local land trusts.

  Cities are so complex, that it cannot be planned top down. And bottom up approaches that attempt to democratize top down planning, is still top down. It’s authoritative and prone to corruption. Jane Jacobs argued that what makes the city are the millions of interactions and actions of its citizens, not a planning board.

  Of course you need coordination. You can plan infrastructure, and the rules that filter out what are undesirable outcomes, but don’t plan the life.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rent is theft⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  A land value tax is exactly that. If someone wants to buy the rights to a plot and build something or if someone wants to buy the rights to live in a house, that price will already include the land no matter if it’s technically publicly owned or privately owned. Henry George agreed with you, he said that land should be public property, and that the best way to do that is to tax it according to its value.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rent is theft⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Most countries used to tax land. The taxing of wages and capital is a fairly new concept. And many countries have currently adopted land value taxes in a smaller scale. Pennsylvania has experience with it. Denmark adopted it because of Henry George. Many countries have public land leasing like China and Singapore and the Netherlands.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rent is theft⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I think people don’t really realize that land makes up more than 50% of wealth. Unlike wealth taxes, it doesn’t produce inefficiency. However, you’re right that monopoly power in business is also a problem to solve. We need the return of antitrust, public ownership of natural monopolies, standards where needed, unions, and public R&D funding with public patents. But there is nothing that can effectively stop landlords from taking all the gains made by increasing wages and causing a divergence between renters and owners that will only get worse as long as demand in cities increases. Unless you tax land. Much of the stock market is also attached to land appreciation in the assets of stock traded companies.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rent is theft⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t know, I’m in Europe, and my country introduced it because of Henry George. And it’s gaining traction in economics and urban planning.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rent is theft⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I get the problematic dualism in that statement. But what I mean is that it’s one of the only taxes that both increases equality and efficiency.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rent is theft⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Guys, y’all should read up on Henry George. It’s so logical that it is accepted by both sides in politics.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Student Parking⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I recommend “the high cost of free parking” by Donald Shoup.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Change my Mind⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Because debates in the US are often set up to be a fight with a winner and loser. Real debates are about learning and instigating truth. Those debates are effective.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Half of the US Now Requires You to Upload Your ID or Scan Your Face to Watch Porn⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What is a VM?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Half of the US Now Requires You to Upload Your ID or Scan Your Face to Watch Porn⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Does DNS and having a privacy focused browser work?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If we want that, we’d want to pay for it right?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We shouldn't have to go to college in order to afford a house by 30.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah that doesn’t take away from how they shouldn’t be. The only reason they are expensive is because we are not responding to the rising demand because regulation prevents it causing speculation exacerbated by mortgage subsidies.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We shouldn't have to go to college in order to afford a house by 30.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I live in a European capital, and house prices have outpaced wages a long time ago.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We shouldn't have to go to college in order to afford a house by 30.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What makes you think people with degrees can afford a house by 30?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nearly 90% of Windows Games now run on Linux, latest data shows — as Windows 10 dies, gaming on Linux is more viable than ever⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Can you prevent cheating without it?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nearly 90% of Windows Games now run on Linux, latest data shows — as Windows 10 dies, gaming on Linux is more viable than ever⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Who would be against that? And why?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nearly 90% of Windows Games now run on Linux, latest data shows — as Windows 10 dies, gaming on Linux is more viable than ever⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah thanks!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nearly 90% of Windows Games now run on Linux, latest data shows — as Windows 10 dies, gaming on Linux is more viable than ever⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m confused, first you say that Linux doesn’t have anti-cheat, and then you say you should stay away from Linux if you want anti cheat.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Great to see some actual progress over there⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Why would anyone believe that to be true?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Who the fuck needs an x axis anyway⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean there is scientifically a rise in autism diagnoses, but it’s like explained by awareness and decreased criteria to qualify as being on the spectrum - not by an increase in actual autism.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Who the fuck needs an x axis anyway⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it’s birth cohorts