It’s governments that are responsible for a lack of housing: local governments through zoning policy. The homeowners in a given city are politically engaged and they vote to protect their own investment in real estate. Call it NIMBYism if you like but homeowners are never going to voluntarily agree to have their house go down in price. Doing so could put their mortgage underwater and result in losing their home and becoming homeless.

Japan does not have this issue to nearly the same extent because they have structured their governments differently. Zoning laws are set by the national government, not the local one, so problems like this can (and have been) set at the national level.

For other countries to solve their housing problem Japan style would require the national government to take power away from the local governments (and in the case of the US, this would put the federal government in a fight with state governments). It would be an extremely messy fight and probably not work out.

That’s legit though. I’m talking about the people who buy jeans that are pre-worn, with big holes and cuts in them from the store!

I think most of those voters vote based on who they identify with, not based on policy arguments. Trying to sway those voters with better messaging is a lost cause if they see your candidate as a career politician whom they cannot relate to.

Some other thoughts: a lot of people talking about ignorant voters but not much said about the disastrous state of education in the US, the lack of affordability, nor the ill-preparedness for work of degree-holders. Countless people in the US have degrees that don’t fit their job!

Simple solution to that is to shoot your entire wad the day before inauguration!

Yeah I don’t understand shabby fashion at all. I mean if I’m wearing clothing that’s full of holes it’s because I’m too cheap and lazy to buy new clothes.

Having to file income taxes for their children is a burden the poor do not need.

Income taxes in general are regressive, even with all the exemptions and credits. If you want progressive taxation you should be looking at land value taxes and other forms of wealth taxation that rich people can’t avoid.

Yeah so you’re not really serious.

What is a gift though? Is it a gift for your parents to feed you, clothe you, and let you live with them rent free?

The issue with psychopaths is that although they may be rare, they can have an outsized impact. It only takes one of them to victimize hundreds of people and create an atmosphere of terror.

I loved the first one so much. I’ve been hearing the remaster for WC1 won’t have online multiplayer. That’s a huge disappointment for me. Hardly anyone ever got to experience that game multiplayer. I played it with my friend exactly once, when I brought my computer over to his house. It worked over LAN and I think also modem, but not the internet.

That works great for regular guys. Not so great for the evil psychopaths who just don’t care what we try to teach them and will always be looking for people to victimize.

Balkanization isn’t a master plan of any thinker, it’s a natural process as people move to cut themselves off from those they strongly disagree with.

I think there is a strong argument to be made that Balkanization is the ultimate, if unintended, result of the US founding fathers’ plan. From the very beginning it was a deal with the devil: a compromise between factions — who ought to be bitter enemies — under threat from a superior foe (the British Empire).

The collapse really began to build steam after the last great foe, the Soviet Union, was defeated.

The whole idea of a treaty between these two is highly amusing to me. Basically as believable as a treaty between drug cartels.

I would prefer it not be owned by Google as well, though that wouldn’t really change the economics of the situation.

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. So to start you may want to read up on Rawls’ theory of Justice as Fairness and how he uses the original position thought experiment (imagining society from behind the veil of ignorance).

Robert Nozick wrote a critique of Rawls’ theory: that it was a “patterned but not historical” principle (that it gives no moral weight to who produces what) and that “liberty upsets patterns.” That is to say, if you start with an equal society where everyone has the same resources you can’t expect it stay that way if everyone is free to exchange those resources with each other. Just like in the game of Monopoly, you’ll see winners and losers after enough time has passed.

This is all to say that the big problem for Rawls is that his theory is a “time slice theory.” It is very strong at describing how a society can be made to be just at a single moment in time but it fails to account for how that state of affairs can be preserved long-term without restricting people’s liberty. One can argue that the game of Monopoly is just according to Rawls’ theory because everyone starts with identical resources at the beginning!

I mean it is true if you’re doing it as a one-time event. This is one of the main critiques against Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance.

There’s nothing wrong with it. Both are pickled. The pink stuff has a bit of food colouring.

In some cases it might be non-vegan due to cochineal dye but beet-based dyes work just as well. I guess you’d have to ask wherever you go.

No ads so far here but I definitely will cancel Premium if I start seeing ads. That’s literally the only thing I’m paying for.

I don’t even think you can call them leftists at this point. Being a leftist is fundamentally about worker solidarity. This is something else entirely. It’s a purity spiral death cult!

Ahhh okay, but you’re not trying to argue that paramedics should be on bicycles or taking public transit! That was the thing that puzzled me.

I think we could avoid a lot of the issues with pedestrians and cyclists getting hit by motor vehicles by getting rid of stroads and properly designing cities to separate streets and roads.