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Comment by bama-med | Hacker News Reader

I might get down-voted for this, but this is exactly what my wife and I have been discussing over the weekend. We're looking for good deals on property in Lahaina as a result of this.

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Forgive me for breaking HN etiquette but you're a complete asshole.

On one hand yes, on the other you can't buy without someone trying to sell. If someone is trying to sell after a disaster they presumably need the money more than they need title to destroyed land.

So you help them to hang on to it if that is what they want. To sell your ancestral land under duress on account of a natural disaster to a bunch of wealthy outsiders is horrible. It is remarkable that this even needs to be explained, especially in the context of TFA. If people were going to move out of their own accord already or if this natural disaster has soured them on living there then that's one thing. But to aim to profit of this before the bodies are in the ground and the ashes have cooled is sick to a degree that I don't have any polite terms to describe it. Show some humanity.

I don't understand why buyers are getting flak in this case. Are they coercing existing owners into selling? The recent fires probably were the reason why many are selling, but they're not exactly started by the buyers[1]. Presumably the reason why existing owners are selling is that they can't afford the repair costs, or figure that they won't be able to afford future repair costs if there was another fire. If that's the case, isn't the existance of buyers a strictly good thing? If they want to continue living in Maui, they can continue to do so. If they don't want to, there's at least someone willing to pay for it. Obviously it'd be better if they weren't in a circumstance where they had to sell, or if OP decided to give money to them no strings attached rather than having to hand over the house, but neither of those are realistic options.

[1] Except in a vague sense of "the forest fires were caused by climate change, and they contributed 0.00001% to climate change like every other american", but it's unclear why they should attract more blame than you or me.

No, they're attempting to profit from others misery by thinking of buying up the land they have title to during a time when those people there are probably not in a position to refuse even an unfair offer.

>No, they're attempting to profit from others misery

Do you also get upset that construction workers profit after a disaster, because all the demand that it creates?

>when those people there are probably not in a position to refuse even an unfair offer.

You know what's worse than having your house burnt down, not having enough money to fix it, so you have to accept an "unfair offer" and move to Oklahoma or whatever? Having your house burnt down, not having enough money to fix it, and going homeless because you can neither fix your house nor sell it to buy one somewhere else.

The problem seems to be that you think the two options are:

1) Rich people are offering to buy the house, and the homeowner is forced to sell and move out :(

2) The homeowner isn't forced to sell and lives happily ever after :D

When in reality the second option doesn't exist and is a fabricated option[1]. The homeowner's house is burnt down. He doesn't have the money to fix it. He's already homeless. Not having the "unfair offer" isn't going to magically fix his house or give him money. The only way for him to live happily ever after is if he gets an infusion of cash somehow (eg. government aid or private donations), which has nothing to do with the "unfair offer". As long as the people making offers to buy the house also aren't simultaneously lobbying against government aid or whatever, they're not making the situation any worse. On the contrary, they're making the situation better by giving the homeowner more options.

[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gNodQGNoPDjztasbh/lies-damn-...

When you start quoting 'lesswrong' links to support idiotic libertarian positions that somehow magically make the cynical attempt to try to profit from others misery look like charity you can count me out.

This is not how you deal with a natural disaster. But to get that you'd first have to understand the principle of solidarity. Hint: you can't buy it on the free market.

It's ironic you accuse me of having "idiotic libertarian positions" when all you've done is repeat your point and not addressing any of my points.

>This is not how you deal with a natural disaster. But to get that you'd first have to understand the principle of solidarity.

Going back to the original question, how should we deal with it? It'll be great if the government or some private benefactor decided to make those people whole. I'm not against that. However, if that's not an option, rich people putting in "unfair offer" is less bad than the alternative.

https://www.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Appeal%20to%20Utilit...

So you admit that rich people putting in offers to buy the houses puts the homeowners in a better situation economically, but that doesn't matter because... feelings? I don't know about you, but personally I'd rather be in a warm house in Oklahoma, than homeless but with better feelings. If anything, if I was thinking clearly (ie. I didn't think the false options existed), I'd be furious if people like you prevented those offers from coming in (from lobbying governments to enact laws, for instance) because they thought they knew better than me.

And yet, he's helping more than you are. This is a perfect example of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics: https://web.archive.org/web/20220705105128/https://blog.jaib...

I'm sorry but I don't subscribe to vulture capitalism.

You could donate to help build it all up, that would be helping, this is just profiting from others' misery.

Can't downvote you but impressed at your tolerance for that scummy feeling

Sociopaths don't get that feeling

Buy some property next to or on the great lakes, like in Michigan's upper peninsula. Hawaii and many, many coastal areas of the US will be underwater in the coming decades as oceans rise. A lot of climate crisis aware folks in the know are saying the great lakes will geographically be one of the best places to ride out the oncoming catastrophe--it's well enough inland yet also near a huge source of fresh water. It's also a gorgeous place that isn't a total tourist trap.

The Great Lakes are utterly miserable for half the year. And that's for people who are USED to living near the Great Lakes. Nobody is going to be "underwater" during their own lifetimes for living in Hawaii.

Wrong, by 2030 there will be a lot less coastal area habitable in Hawaii: https://climate.hawaii.gov/hi-facts/sea-level-rise/

If you think the great lake region is too cold or wintery, well I got some bad and/or good news about what global warming is doing... it's not going to be frigid winters there for much longer.

There's this atmospheric event. It's called a hurricane. They hit Hawaii all the time. If these homes are not getting inundated with some of the storms that have hit the islands, they aren't going to get inundated any time soon by mere sea level rise. And you can always raise homes.

Maybe let the land stop burning before you think about that.

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