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Comment by endisneigh | Hacker News Reader

This sort of defeatist thinking is a plague in America. Consider local city councils who decide on approving special permits for housing. You might opt out from voting and some nimby joins and whoops there is another huge development that doesn’t happen, meanwhile rent continues to increase.

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Or you can vote, and the people who win are corrupt [1]. I have been voting every year since I got the right to. Things have only gotten worse [2-3].

[1]: https://effectivegov.uchicago.edu/news/power-begets-corrupti... [2]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-health-care-system... [3]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/crea-housing-data-1.6843592

I vote. I participate in local politics. And yet, decade after decade, my voice is overridden by the desires of the ultra-wealthy. Where I live, developers run the city, with many council members literally working for development firms for their day jobs, and yet rent continues to increase. The developers are making a killing out there, they aren't struggling to afford their tenth condo building like the individuals and families struggling to find a rental within their price range.

I’m confused by this comment - are you suggesting rent wouldn’t increase if there were fewer developer associated people around?

>> You might opt out from voting and some nimby joins and whoops there is another huge development that doesn’t happen, meanwhile rent continues to increase.

I was directly replying to this accusation that I'm to blame for idly standing by whilst nimbys oppress the developers. I respond that none of that lines up with my local situation, and yet your boogeyman of rent increase is ever-present.

By your own admission it seems there are few nimbys and plenty of development. Voting alone will not stop rent increasing. My point was there is a very particular class of issue that can be prevented.

The phrase I responded to was

> ... [complaining] instead of just voting, which would solve most of their issues.

You presented "just voting" as a panacaea. You've retreated to the "[single] very particular class of issue" while sounding very triumphant that I'm the fool. Classic motte&bailey.

I don't know about where you live, but I've never had more than one to three opportunities to "just vote" per year. I spend the rest of the time "complaining."

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