Hacker News Reader

Comment by Manuel_D | Hacker News Reader

This attitude here is precisely why local zoning is ineffective. The people who are negatively impacted by anti-development policies are the ones that don't get the privilege of living in economically powerful population centers in the first place. Sure, the home-owners might grumble about an apartment blocking their view, more crowded restaurants, or "neighborhood character as a city grows. The people who are negatively impacted by anti-growth policy are people struggling to afford rent in increasingly subdivided units, and the people who can't even afford to move there in the first place.

View on HN

> … and the people who can't even afford to move there in the first place.

There’s no inalienable right to live in a popular place you cannot afford.

Can you articulate an ethical argument for why it’s a problem that not everyone can afford to move to the most desirable cities?

Does this really need an argument? A primary mechanism for segregation and social inequity over the past century has been the exclusion of "undesirables" from spaces and the simultaneous, "coincidental" allocation of resources to those exclusionary spaces.

It's impossible to have an informed discussion on this topic in the US without acknowledging that basic reality.

Do you believe everyone has a right to housing in any place they might desire to live?

No, of course not. The point is that there's a more nuanced discussion to be had here about what these limits and rights ought to be.

Doesn’t that answer my question, then?

There’s nothing inherently wrong if not everyone can afford to live in desirable cities.

I think the one you’re responding to seems to be in favour of a more nuanced view, rather where I read your argument as absolutes (everyone everywhere). So to some extend you both seem in agreement though the difference is the nuance.

    Doesn’t that answer my question, then?
    
    There’s nothing inherently wrong if not everyone can afford to live in desirable cities.

This comes off as a bad faith counter-argument. AlotOfReading has explicitly stated he believes there exist nuances of substance to this discussion. This response completely ignores his statements in favor of what may be a false dichotomy.

teakettle42: How could one address AlotOfReading's concerns about exclusionary policy making and resource allocation?

I'm of the thinking that it is fine to say one subscribes to the belief that one can't simply live where one chooses for a variety of reasons, but it's another thing to condone, implicitly or otherwise, that only certain classes of people may live in desirable areas. I feel doing so is antithetical to a society that values social mobility.

What I _do_ feel is an under discussed thread of this topic are policies and practices that could be put in place to allow for a greater number of people to have an _opportunity_ to live in such areas. Low income housing, zoning changes, and tax incentives geared towards improving the socioeconomic diversity of an area are some approaches.

Unfortunately, none of these things are possible without local political support or overarching legislation/policy requiring it--bringing us full circle to Manuel_D's original comment.

> Low income housing

This is just a subsidy for employers; they can pay a less-than-living wage, keep the profits, and rely on tax-payer-subsidized housing programs to close the gap.

> zoning changes

This is a give-away to developers.

Increases the entry costs for development beyond what anyone but huge real-estate investment firms can afford. They build out rental units, grow the permanent rental class, and extract rent from the population in perpetuity.

> tax incentives geared towards improving the socioeconomic diversity of an area

Why is socioeconomic diversity in coveted cities a desirable outcome, and specifically, why is it something the government should attempt to engineer using our tax dollars?

There's no inalienable right to not be cripplingly impoverished. But any ethical countries would try to ameliorate that condition.

Is it ethical for a select few to grow enormously wealthy by driving up the cost of living for the many by deliberately causing a shortage of a basic need?

People need jobs to live. They also need a roof over their heads. The jobs are becoming increasingly concentrated in a few metro areas, but the home-owning class constrains the supply of housing and drives up the price of their own assets. Disincentivizing this sort of rent seeking behavior is precisely the kind of thing property taxes accomplish.

> deliberately causing a shortage of a basic need

There’s no housing shortage.

There’s a limited supply in highly desirable locations because they’re highly desirable.

People can and do live elsewhere, working local jobs or commuting.

> The jobs are becoming increasingly concentrated in a few metro areas

That’s just one of many problems of scale; the solution is not to keep scaling up.

> … the home-owning class constrains the supply of housing and drives up the price of their own assets.

Nobody is obligated to destroy their own community to accommodate the interests of rent-seeking land developers and people who don’t live there.

Just to address this from a non US standpoint. While I'm sympathetic toward both the desire to preserve the character and community of a neighbourhood and your antipathy towards rentiers - there absolutely is a housing crisis across Europe (and presumably in the US).

Part of the reason is the lack of social housing provision, with most EU governments reducing or all together abandoning their post war commitments to low cost housing.

Another reason is that, even in this era of remote work, the enormous majority of high paying jobs do require living in a large population centre.

Perhaps the largest reason is the financialisation of housing as an asset class by hedge and other vulture funds. Italy alone seems to have kept the housing crisis / shortage localised to wealthy cities - and it is the only wealthy EU country to have done so. Germany, Ireland, France etc, all have rents and housing costs far higher than their median citizens capacity to comfortably pay, even in very remote and economically depressed areas.

Italy by contrast charges high taxes on 2nd and 3rd properties, effectively blocking the aggregation of empty / underused housing stock. Which has resulted in rural areas and less populous cities being reasonably priced to live in. This is not the case anywhere else in Western Europe.

According to this website [0], the US has the 3rd lowest income/house price ratio in the entire world.

Outside the west coast and parts of the northeast which are geographically limited in building new houses, we basically have infinite land to build housing which is why inflation adjusted price per square foot hasn't really changed in decades [1].

[0]: https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings_by_count...

[1]: https://www.supermoney.com/inflation-adjusted-home-prices/

Italy by contrast charges high taxes on 2nd and 3rd properties, effectively blocking the aggregation of empty / underused housing stock.

This is a great policy. Owning land you don't live on is perversity on the scale of deciding a patch of ocean is yours and shooting at any boat that crosses it.

>>Perhaps the largest reason is the financialisation of housing as an asset class by hedge and other vulture funds.

Financialization of housing has had no negative impact on housing affordability in regions of the US, mostly in the South, that allow housing supply to grow, instead of constricting it with zoning restrictions. On the contrary, basic economic theory would dictate that more advanced financial markets that facilitate greater volumes of investment into housing would be good for housing affordability, by expanding housing supply, and by doing so, increase the number of units available for rent relative to people looking to rent.

Consider which city has the highest rental rates in the world: San Francisco. It has the most stringent restrictions on housing development, and housing use by owners, of any city in North America.

Inhibiting the market is what creates shortages, and housing is no exception.

We want housing to be commodified, and mass-produced by collections of profit-motivated individuals. Consider: construction has kept rent in Chongqing, China to $75 a month.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/world/asia/chongqing-chin...

Yes, the solution is to keep scaling up.

_No_ economy can _sustain_ American style suburban growth.

Read about 'the growth ponzi scheme' [1] or watch a video

https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme

https://youtu.be/y_SXXTBypIg

The limited supply is due mostly to regulations and bureaucratic hurdles. Many cities have introduced lengthy approval processes for new developments, laws setting aside large areas for open space, and restrictive zoning policies. All of these kinds of rules prevent and delay new development.

Cities and states have no obligation to set urban policy in a way that is favorable to home owners -- a minority in most urban centers -- while frustrating the major economic benefit of cities. Growth and scale is what makes those places cool and what drives many of the benefits -- variety of restaurants, quality of goods, and so on -- that make them worth visiting and make them attractive to those who live in them. It is what makes them of value to the state and country. The idea that urban homeowners should be able to put brakes on the process is nuts; people who chose to own homes in significant or up-and-coming urban centers knew what they were getting into. It is just people trying to pull the ladder up after themselves, and this is not in the interest of most urban residents, of most people in any state, or of most people in the country. One does not have a "property right" to "the community just as it was when I got here".

> There’s a limited supply in highly desirable locations because they’re highly desirable.

That's literally what a shortage is. This is like saying, "there's no shortage of chips, people just need to buy less electronics."

> Nobody is obligated to destroy their own community to accommodate the interests of rent-seeking land developers and people who don’t live there.

The real rent-seeking behavior is curbing the supply of housing to drive up one's property values. "Rent-seeking behavior" is not very aptly named. A developer that builds a high rise apartment that rents to dozens of households is improving the use of land and expanding housing availability. A homeowner that keeps shooting down development proposals is not improving housing availability. The latter is the real rent-seeking behavior.

> That's literally what a shortage is. This is like saying, "there's no shortage of chips, people just need to buy less electronics."

Not being able to buy a $100k car doesn’t mean there’s a car shortage, and not being able to buy a home in Boulder doesn’t mean there’s a housing shortage.

There’s plenty of housing.

Folks aren’t homeless for lack of affordable housing.

> The latter is the real rent-seeking behavior.

The propaganda coup of real-estate investors is astounding.

They have people like you advocating for their ability to extract rent in perpetuity as if it was a moral imperative.

Meanwhile, you think the individuals that own a home and enjoy being a part of their community are the bad actors.

It’s truly amazing what they’ve managed to convince people like you of.

You can do whatever you want with your own home. But when you start criminalizing the victimless act of building a bigger house, that is where a line is crossed.

> Not being able to buy a $100k car doesn’t mean there’s a car shortage, and not being able to buy a home in Boulder doesn’t mean there’s a housing shortage.

It means there's a housing shortage in Boulder. The car analogy is not effective because a Camry does the exact same thing as a BMW. But a house in Oklahoma doesn't help you if your job is in Boulder.

>There’s no housing shortage. There’s a limited supply in highly desirable locations because they’re highly desirable.

Actually, it is very easy to have enough housing for everyone and yet make it impossible for everyone who could live in that area to actually live there.

https://youtu.be/724ZR1Za9BU

> The jobs are becoming increasingly concentrated in a few metro areas, but the home-owning class constrains the supply of housing and drives up the price of their own assets. Disincentivizing this sort of rent seeking behavior is precisely the kind of thing property taxes accomplish.

There are two solutions to that problem. Governments could either make it easier to rent in the increasingly concentrated metro areas, or reverse the trend of increasingly concentrated metro areas.

During Covid there were quite a few government created incentives for remote work. If government started to use tax law to further incentivize remote home, maybe we can start to cut out all those officer workers from needing to live in metro areas, only keeping people tied to cities who need to physically be in the city.

Concentrated metro areas are better for the environment that sprawl. I'm not even talking about suburbia, but even rural living.

I'm not saying people should stop living there, but stopping densification will not help curb climate change and sustainable environment.

Also, not everyone wants to live in non-dense places.

The difference of domestic emissions caused by city vs non-city residence is quite minor, about 10% per person looking at UK numbers. In comparison, a single flight by plane can double a person emission.

It also not clear if using existing numbers of rural living makes sense since most people do not work from home. If the norm is to travel to work, the further people live away from said employment the bigger the footprint will be. Existing numbers reflect that culture.

Looking at CO2 per capita, does the very high density cities of japan have better numbers than say India? No. Japan has 10 times higher than India. Of course we all likely know that that wealth influence emissions, which mean it not that simple to just say that concentrated metro areas are better for the environment than sprawl. Emission rates depend on multiple factors.

I think we are both saying the same thing. And 10% difference is not negligible. My point is that we should do everything we can to keep densification naturally happening, as it is better. This densification is not a permit to allow ourselves to pollute, consume more.

Concentrated metros are more economically productive, not to mention environmentally friendly and better for quality of life. Government discentivizing them leads to a less efficient economy that provides for less of people's needs.

Reversing the trend of jobs concentrating in metro areas is not exactly feasible. How would this be done?

Prohibiting companies from hiring more than X employees? What keeps them from just setting up another company and hiring them as consultants?

Or is there going to be a fixed cap on the number of people who are permitted to be employed? If someone moves to the city, and it's already at it's max number of workers they're just prohibited from working?

Jobs becoming concentrated in certain hubs is natural emergent phenomenon. You're not going to legislate your way out of it, at least not without resorting to oppressive systems like hokou.

> Reversing the trend of jobs concentrating in metro areas is not exactly feasible. How would this be done?

Strange question to ask, given we've been seein the decentralization of jobs happening pretty strong for two years now. Jobs are remote now, wheneve possible, and people are moving to areas they want to live instead of being chained to the commute to an office.

There are ways this could be done.

One option is building for remote work. Up the definition of "broadband" to include something people can actually use for work, and mandate that employees are allowed to work remotely, with full pay, unless employers can demonstrate the job cannot be done remotely. Workers who have to be local should either get the same tax break, or the company should have to pay those taxes instead. It might also require simplifying (or at least simplifying the administration of) state/local taxes. There are a lot of people, myself included, that live in dense areas for work rather than by choice. My hangup is that I want to live in a nice house, but don't want the risk of buying/building a nice house that I have to sell at a loss because I have to move for work.

Another option is to add population density as a factor on taxes. Raise taxes and then offer a discount for people in low population density areas. Or you could tie the discount to the median income.

Anecdata, but a lot of the people I know don't really want to live in urban areas so much as that they have to because of jobs. We either need to decouple workers from physical proximity, or force companies to disperse. The first option decouples workers, and the second incentivizes companies to disperse.

The first step a government could do is to encourage remote work. Good Internet infrastructure is an essential first building block, one which is slowly start to be a reality even in rural areas.

My government currently have tax reduction programs in place to enable people to commute to work. The same program could be applied to work from home, giving people tax reduction if they do not travel to work and thus lighten wear on the road system and reduces the pressure on mass transport systems.

In the transportation sector there could be government programs to further incentives technologies that enable direct-to-customer delivery. During the pandemic we saw how reducing crowded stores had some very positive effect on reduced transmission rates, how viruses other than covid also saw a strong reduction. It is possible also that by improving direct-to-customer delivery we end up with less waste, fewer middle men, and possible less impulsive purchases.

We don't need to impose quotas. Make it easier, cheaper and convenient to live outside of large cities and a lot of people will jump for the chance to do so.

>There are two solutions to that problem. Governments could either make it easier to rent in the increasingly concentrated metro areas, or reverse the trend of increasingly concentrated metro areas.

That would require both negative interest rates and a land value tax because both are intended to neutralize liquidity preference. Negative interest rates prevent the build up of financial capital by overproducing "elites" which means people in rural areas will have those earning opportunities instead.

Yeah this is exactly right. In my hometown, we have a beautiful view, but people are always pushing for taller more dense housing, because they say it’s unaffordable. However if they win they will destroy what makes this place great in the first place.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to keep a town smaller and more simple. If the residents were there first and exerted their way into the community they have that right.

I don’t really understand any other argument. There are lots of up and coming cities nowadays, you are free to live there, you are also free to be creative and make more money.

The counter argument is simple. The right to property is inalienable and absolute. If your neighbours can dictate what you can and cannot build on your own land can you even say that you really own it? The idea that a small cartel of homeowners can just artificially lower supply is anti freedom and anti free market.

It's not absolute at all, it depends entirely on the consent of your neighbors.

That's true both in a world of laws and in a world of power.

Then such "neighbours" are welcome to vacate their houses and move to a communist country of their liking, which has no respect for private property. I am sure they will find a lot of commonality in values. Let everyone else enjoy freedom

> There’s no inalienable right

There are zero inalienable rights

America’s housing supply will grow. A policy that it grows only by sprawl is a policy of cruelty to everyone today and in the future who thrives best in an urban environment and isn’t super-rich.

Urban environments can’t be stamped onto cornfields; they only occur when sparser environments become expensive. I don’t think there’s a right to live in any arbitrary expensive town. I do think there’s a right to have the expensive-town-to-city pipeline running somewhere at more than a trickle, so that urbanism is not impossible to access.

> so that urbanism is not impossible to access.

Urbanism in a desirable location is expensive, everywhere in the world.

It’s an inescapable problem of scale.

You’re free to live like a sardine in a dense city, but it will be expensive. You cannot avoid that.

Most of the world is not rich enough to live as sparsely as we do. The suburbs are a miracle of prosperity and technology - a car for every adult, the energy to run it, the infrastructure to drive it on. Most human settlements in the world are walkable because they have to be.

Actually it is because car centric design was associated with wealth and status that the “backwards” old ways became prohibited. This inversion now, where walkable environments seem to be luxurious, is a legacy of that prohibition more than anything else.

> There’s no inalienable right to live in a popular place you cannot afford.

There's no right to anything that people don't stand together to say they have a right to.

> Can you articulate an ethical argument for why it’s a problem that not everyone can afford to move to the most desirable cities?

People shouldn't have to commute for hours so other people can live there because that impacts their health and opportunities for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If this is where the jobs are, there should be homes here as well.

> There's no right to anything that people don't stand together to say they have a right to.

This is ignoring the point: positive rights should not exist. They require taking rights from others, through violence, to enforce.

> People shouldn't have to commute for hours so other people can live there because that impacts their health and opportunities for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Ok. Then don't.

Okay then just die?

I mean, it's an option, but a just society could easily do better.

The majority are screwed over by an ultra-rich minority, personally I think that deserves addressing.

Positive rights for all do not require violence provided those who benefit from others not having simple rights will give up their excess for the greater good. The demos may need to use violence, but that's only because those who, by no greater virtue, have acquired wealth refuse to act justly and recognise the equal dignity of man.

> Okay then just die?

Or work near where you can afford to live? If there aren't jobs that support living there, live somewhere else? You're presenting an absurd dichotomy.

> The majority are screwed over by an ultra-rich minority, personally I think that deserves addressing.

No, they aren't. Wealth inequality is not a real problem. It's politicized jealousy. Wealth is not zero-sum, and someone having more than someone else is irrelevant.

> Positive rights for all do not require violence provided those who benefit from others not having simple rights will give up their excess for the greater good.

"Right" means it must be enforced. "provided .. will give up" means taking by that same force if they choose to not turn over what they own.

Taking to support a right absolutely requires violence.

> but that's only because those who, by no greater virtue, have acquired wealth refuse to act justly and recognise the equal dignity of man.

Why should they? What is their obligation? You have undoubtedly acquired more wealth than a subsistence farmer in rural India: why do you refuse to act justly and recognize their equal dignity?

Or work near where you can afford to live?

That assumes that's possible. I think the point being made is that it's often very much not possible.

There are serious problems with our built environment and this is one of them.

It is possible, and people are fine with it. Otherwise, either a) the housing would not exist, or b) there would be more local job opportunities.

If there is demand for jobs locally and an economy to support it, they can start their own company.

If there is no economy to support it, then the community isn’t viable.

This is straightforward to understand, and not a problem to be solved. And certainly not one to be solved through stage violence.

> Or work near where you can afford to live? If there aren't jobs that support living there, live somewhere else? You're presenting an absurd dichotomy.

And what happens when there's no jos where you live, and the only places where jobs exist have extreme housing shortages? You can spend hours commuting each day, but then you're probably burning just as much money through gas - not to mention destroying the environment.

> And what happens when there's no jos where you live

Then you start a small business, employing others and building up your community. How do you think the ‘places where jobs exist’ started?

> the only places where jobs exist have extreme housing shortages?

If it’s intolerable to enough people, they won’t be able to hire. They’ll have to move, or pay more to overcome the housing shortage.

The fact that it isn’t, and they aren’t, shows this isn’t actually a problem.

> Then you start a small business, employing others and building up your community.

The idea that anyone can just start a business is seriously indicative of how our of touch this forum can be.

What if there's no goods or services that are in demand in your immediate community? What if your community is impoverished and dying? What if you have no capital to start a business?

> How do you think the ‘places where jobs exist’ started?

Often it was because of natural resources, or geographic factors that made it conductive to establishing a population center (like river or harbour access).

> If it’s intolerable to enough people, they won’t be able to hire. They’ll have to move, or pay more to overcome the housing shortage.

The latter is what's happening: prices of housing are skyrocketing and locking people into poverty.

> This is ignoring the point: positive rights should not exist

I’m confused by this statement. You don’t have an inalienable right to keep the area around your home exactly how you want it either. That’s a positive right and requires taking the rights of others, for example by enforcement of zoning laws that affect land owned by other people.

Positive right: somebody has to do something for me.

Negative right: nobody must do something to me.

The right of self-governance is a negative right. I can see how it can be confusing since you can re-phrase anything as either positive or a negative action e.g. "you must stop stealing my stuff so property is a positive right" and "you should not deny my need for healthcare ergo it's a negative right" so here is a trick you can use to distinguish one from another: a negative right will remain even in the absence of all other people while a positive right will disappear in such a case.

So, for this case, the right of self-governance will remain if everyone else disappears since you can still make laws, obey them and enforce them on yourself thus it's a negative right.

Calling changing the feeling of your neighbourhood, or indirectly reducing the market value of your land, 'doing something to you' in this context seems kind of stretching it.

"I have the right to build apartments on the land I own."

"I have the right to tell you what you can and can't build in my neighborhood."

Which one is positive and which is negative?

Neither is positive, both are negative. Also the former does not exist in reality, in fact you often don't have a right to build anything in a township thus you have to get a permission from the local government for almost any construction (with some things implicitly permitted).

A "right" to stop other people from freely developing their property is absolutely a "positive right", or the whole dichotomy is incoherent.

I guess I don't understand the distinction or how the second one isn't a positive right. By your own rule of thumb, if you take away other people then the right to tell others what they can/can't build disappears.

> Also the former does not exist in reality

Irrelevant, we're discussing how things should work not how they are.

Who prevents you from telling anything if others don't exist? But I did not think you mean it literally, to be honest, I thought you meant allowing/disallowing construction in one's neighborhood. If other people did not exist you could just as easily allow and disallow construction, could not you?

No? If other people didn't exist then there is nothing to disallow. We are talking about how people will go to meetings to try to veto building proposals.

I am not sure I understand. In your view, if I live in the middle of nowhere, with no people around me, then I don't have the right to disallow people into my home because nobody is coming? How is it different from me living in the center of NYC and not allowing people into my home, the result is the same - people are not coming into my home, are they?

In your middle of nowhere example, you didn't disallow anyone anything.

This is really such a silly and pointless thread.

1) Property is a positive right. It requires that the state enforce your property claim. This does not come free; it requires taxes, a police force, etc.

2) Property is delimited in scope. You own your parcel. You do not own the neighborhood, even partially. If someone else wants to put up dense housing on their parcels, their property, there is no negative-right violation against you. You are, at that point, just a rent-seeking highway robber.

All rights, positive and negative require the state to enforce them so if we were to accept your definition, the negative rights would not exist and the whole positive/negative qualification became moot. You are free to not recognize the existence of negative rights but then how can you argue over the distinction between positive and negative in a good faith?

> If someone else wants to put up dense housing on their parcels, their property, there is no negative-right violation against you.

That's another POV you are entitled to but the courts found otherwise in the Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co.

>You are free to not recognize the existence of negative rights but then how can you argue over the distinction between positive and negative in a good faith?

My "faith" doesn't matter. The logic of the argument matters. And frankly, you don't seem to be putting forward very logical arguments.

>> If someone else wants to put up dense housing on their parcels, their property, there is no negative-right violation against you.

> That's another POV you are entitled to but the courts found otherwise in the Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co.

That's not what the court found in that case. In that case, the court found that zoning was a valid extension of the authority of local governments. Local governments do not create negative-rights claims. Indeed, the zoning ordinance in question didn't even purport to do so.

Now, I've never been arguing that local governments lack the authority to pass zoning restrictions, even if I think some zoning is bad substantively. I've been arguing that you, as a private individual, do not have a negative right to make up your own personal zoning code and enforce it on others, without the democratic authority of the local government.

My argument here is entirely consistent with Euclid vs Amber, and frankly, your reference to the ruling is a non-sequitur.

My logic is quite simple: positive right is a right to compel, negative right is a right to deny. It also makes the naming consistent. A right to compel disappears when there are no people to compel, the right to deny becomes absolute when there are no people to try the denied actions.

What is your logic and do you have an example of a negative right, that doesn't require enforcement?

And I agree that as a private individual I don't have a right to deny construction wholly. Same as I don't have a right to elect anyone. The community has the entire right, I only have a right to vote.

> Property is a positive right. It requires that the state enforce your property claim.

No it isn’t. We allow the state to enforce it on our behalf. In most reasonable states, you can defend against the commission of a felony on your property with deadly force.

Also, owning property is not a right. That’s the entire point.

> You don’t have an inalienable right to keep the area around your home exactly how you want it either.

I agree. I was responding, in context, to the idea that people should be able to live wherever they want affordably.

> positive rights should not exist

That's like, your opinion man, and I don't know if you mean aspirationally, as in, there shouldn't be racist classist assholes out there so we shouldn't need positive rights to protect the dignity we all deserve, or you mean you so libertarian you side with the racist classist assholes like Ayn Rand, but surely if you meant to debate Kant and Shue: I wouldn't be the first to argue that a fundamental right to freedom is worthless if people aren't able to exercise that freedom, and you can just google search "criticisms of the virtue of selfishness" if you want; People write proper papers and thesis on this stuff, not internet comments.

So I still won't comment on whether positive rights should or should not exist, and instead say it is undignified to have to live in fear and that a lack of equity fosters fear, and ideologically I don't care how we do it, so I believe it ethical to support things like traffic laws, minimum-wage laws, health-and-safety laws especially in farms, restaurants and hotels, and maybe even a commuter-premium to prevent companies from exploiting another way humans are willing to degrade themselves.

> That's like, your opinion man

Well, and the opinion of people that don't like slavery and theft.

> I don't know if you mean aspirationally, as in, there shouldn't be racist classist assholes out there so we shouldn't need positive rights to protect the dignity we all deserve

I mean positive rights cannot be established without evil. They should never exist, and any you can think of should be abolished.

> I wouldn't be the first to argue that a fundamental right to freedom is worthless if people aren't able to exercise that freedom

You don't need to take from others to be free. That is, in fact, the opposite of freedom.

> you can just google search "criticisms of the virtue of selfishness" if you want; People write proper papers and thesis on this stuff, not internet comments.

This isn't about selfishness. Well, kind of. Selfishness on the part of people demanding the positive rights, which _forces_ others under threat of violence to make their lives easier, regardless of whatever efforts they make on their own.

> So I still won't comment on whether positive rights should or should not exist

I maintain they should not.

> and instead say it is undignified to have to live in fear

So don't.

> and that a lack of equity fosters fear

Equity is impossible without violence and restrictions on freedom. It's not equitable that one person should be lame and another not: it only becomes equitable when we break the other person's legs.

> and ideologically I don't care how we do it

Neither did Mao, Stalin, or Pol Pot.

> so I believe it ethical to support things like traffic laws, minimum-wage laws, health-and-safety laws especially in farms, restaurants and hotels, and maybe even a commuter-premium

None of those things are rights.

> to prevent companies from exploiting another way humans are willing to degrade themselves.

If someone is willing to 'degrade themselves', why are you preventing them from doing so?

> You don't need to take from others to be free. That is, in fact, the opposite of freedom.

But irrelevant: Things have already taken from others and they want it back.

> Equity is impossible without violence and restrictions on freedom.

Agreed, so because violence was used to obtain an UN-equitable position, they want it back.

(I feel a little bit like I'm repeating myself; what's another way to say this?)

People the color of your skin used violence to take people with different skin-colors freedoms and property, and they used it to finance schools and police forces that resulting in you opportunities or advantages that other people with other skin-colors no longer had the possibility of as a result. You don't deserve that advantage, and so they want it back.

> I mean positive rights cannot be established without evil. They should never exist, and any you can think of should be abolished.

If "positive rights" can also be established in response to evil, then I don't see why they cannot be used to correct for equity. Property-rights are enforced by taxes, so on some level, if these are "positive rights" then they're just like a minimum-wage law designed to correct previous evils. Maybe one day they will not be necessary and can be abolished, but in the meantime, I think we need them and I support them in that aim.

> It's not equitable that one person should be lame and another not: it only becomes equitable when we break the other person's legs.

I think that's fair. Your parents poison them which makes it more likely for them to be born lame, so I think it's perfectly fair to break your legs if you can't find another way to make that right.

I'd like to think I'm just trying to find another way that doesn't involve more violence; surely an expansion of minimum-wage is less violent than breaking your legs?

> If someone is willing to 'degrade themselves', why are you preventing them from doing so?

Why do I tell a slave that they do not need to be a slave? Gosh, again, people write papers on this stuff. We tell people they don't need to be slaves because that's how we stop slavery -- by making it so nobody believes they need to be a slave in order to survive. The only rights we have are the ones we can convince other people we have. I already said this, but you chose to narrowly interpret rights which will make it hard to understand why I can't help myself: I don't want to be a slave, I don't know what kinds of torture I would be able to refuse, but I don't think that would be a life worth living, so I tell anyone who will listing they don't need to be a slave.

> Well, and the opinion of people that don't like slavery and theft.

And yet here is someone who does not like slavery or theft, who does not have that opinion because I'm not a racist asshole.

See how that works? Don't characterize me. I don't deserve to have my supporting of taxation to be equated with supporting theft just because you don't like to pay taxes, any more than you deserve to be equated with other racist assholes just because you're quoting racist assholes. You want me to take you seriously? You have to do the same.

> But irrelevant: Things have already taken from others and they want it back.

Who took what, from who, when?

> Agreed, so because violence was used to obtain an UN-equitable position, they want it back.

Again: what, from who, when? There are two answers to this: something that isn't actually violence (agreeing to employment), or something from hundreds of years ago ('stolen land'). Neither are good arguments, in any way.

> People the color of your skin used violence ...

I'm brown. Want to try again? Maybe without criticizing someone's position based on their race?

> If "positive rights" can also be established in response to evil, then I don't see why they cannot be used to correct for equity.

I don't think you read that sentence correctly. Three things:

1) Positive rights should not exist, because: 2) Positive rights cannot exist without violence and slavery 3) Equity, and demands for it, are inherently evil.

> Property-rights are enforced by taxes

No, they aren't. Property rights are _usually_ enforced by the state, because of their monopoly on violence. There is nothing stopping me from defending my property myself.

> on some level, if these are "positive rights" ...

They aren't. As I explained.

> Your parents poison them which makes it more likely for them to be born lame, so I think it's perfectly fair to break your legs if you can't find another way to make that right.

Sins of the father, huh? Maybe we should punish out to 3 generations? Seems like you'd love the DPRK.

> Why do I tell a slave that they do not need to be a slave?

There are more slaves alive now than there have ever been in history. Someone working a minimum wage job in the US is very much not that, and it's patently absurd. Comparing a retail job to chattel slavery is disgusting.

> who does not have that opinion because I'm not a racist asshole.

Are you sure? You supported breaking my legs when you thought I was white. Now that you know I'm not, what now?

I mean, I know the answer: break them anyway, he's probably a counter-revolutionary.

This is exactly what's wrong with your entire philosophy. It's based on violence to get what you want, because you're incapable of achieving it any other way. Try harder.

> I don't think you read that sentence correctly. Three things:

> 1) Positive rights should not exist, because: 2) Positive rights cannot exist without violence and slavery

Violence exists regardless of whether "positive rights" exist. You are stating this again, but you haven't proven any kind of relationship beyond the tautological one.

I can't move on to the third point until you clear this up. Everything else seems like a distraction:

If we can agree that violence and slavery is bad, why can't we agree that some kind of retribution is required? Maybe this is why:

> something that isn't actually violence (agreeing to employment), or something from hundreds of years ago ('stolen land'). Neither are good arguments, in any way.

They're excellent arguments. Even agreeing to be "employed" for room-and-board in exchange for work could be slavery, especially if the person agreeing doesn't know if they have other choices. "Stolen land" was still stolen. What's the good reason for a statute-of-limitations on this?

I think you are dismissing these out-of-hand, and if you can't address them, maybe this is what is wrong with your entire philosophy?

> There is nothing stopping me from defending my property myself.

Of course there is. What are you going to use to defend your property besides violence?

> There’s no inalienable right to live in a popular place you cannot afford.

I agree, that's why single family households should have a higher property tax and high density a lower one. Currently single family households are subsidized.[1]

[1]: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/4/16/when-apartment...

But property taxes are local. Raising them only supplies more revenue to the local area. For the US, also, one needs to take into account many states have limits on property tax rates and revenue raises in general, such as millage rates have to be fully balanced with spending, which in turn, has limits. Excess rate increases will simply make those areas less valuable, which will push people to even lower taxed areas, which, at least in the US, are even more rural areas, thereby increasing the concern for climate change and a reduction in population density.

From a strictly ethics point of view, government in the general sense exists for its people and their well-being. I think this should be a fairly uncontroversial starting point.

Now the question is whether one can show that the people are in a very general sense better off if a desirable city is affordable accessible compared to the alternative. I say “very general sense” because I want to avoid any argument that involves the minutiae of utilitarianism; it should be overwhelmingly in favor regardless of your exact ethical framework.

With that in mind, my argument would be that [cities should be affordable] is the obvious ethical choice if and only if the city in question is designed / planned in a pro-social manner. Where pro-social is defined such that the addition of new people is positive.

This should sound fairly tautological so let me give a few examples:

Pro-social design:

shops that rely on foot traffic are pro-social because adding more people (housing etc) to the immediate vicinity increases foot traffic

Mass transportation is pro-social because as more people are added to a particular neighborhood, this justifies expansion of train lines, bus routes, etc

Anti-social design:

Shops that rely on car traffic are usually anti-social because (a) adding people to other neighborhoods can still increase traffic to the shop, (b) removing parking space to add housing is a net negative to the shop (as parking capacity dictates shopping throughout)

Road systems are anti-social because adding more people to the system increases traffic at a nonlinear rate (ie: a road system at capacity decreases in throughput as more cars are added)

In other words, cities designed like cities benefit from more people, and thus everyone benefits from lower housing prices.

The kicker is, the United States doesn’t have a single city designed as a city. We have dense pro-social urban cores surrounded by anti-social suburbs and exurbs.

In contrast to a place like Tokyo where literally every resident has a bus or train (or combination thereof) to get downtown, America has split between two designs, and progressing along one design hurts anyone living in the other.

A noteworthy corollary is that if you live in a suburb or exurb (and are a homeowner protected from rent increases), property values going up to the moon are almost always positive, because your environment is anti-social in the first place. While in the city core it’s more complicated, because your property value going up raises your net worth but harms the pro-social environment around you.

Alternatively, people who can't afford to have babies could stop having them and then we could all have a better quality of life.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com