Who gets to own the West? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#41

Post by track_me_now » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

oogali wrote: post #36

badfrog wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like it better if they were required to allow public access. The public is paying for this land in lost taxes, we should be able to use it.

I agree, however I think a balance needs to be struck between liability and groundskeeping, as those are currently the costs that all municipalities cover for their public parks. Something along the lines of retaining some or most of the tax benefits for the private owner, in exchange for the municipality covering grounds maintenance, and a split between both parties for the liability insurance. I think that’d be the…

where do you live in the world? I ask because for the American/Canadian west the idea of "grounds maintenance" sounds pretty funny. These areas aren't uninhabited, but can be quite remote and raw.We're talking dirt track into the wilderness

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#42

Post by zw123456 » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

Woody Guthrie is rolling over in his grave.

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#43

Post by catacombs » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

nsnick wrote: post #33

arkades wrote: post #30

I didn’t see this addressed in the article: How much of this is snapping up land that will be a key value once rising water levels displace coastals? This strikes me as a much stronger play than just buying up some land.

We are expecting 3-9 inches of sea level rise over the next century. Boise is at 2730 feet. The mountains where they are buying this land is even higher. What they are hedging is population growth and the continued migration west. Also people leaving California as it becomes too expensive. Buying land in the far north could be a global warming play as that area will be more temperate in future.

> Buying land in the far north could be a global warming play as that area will be more temperate in future.

Agreed. And it's a smart move. Buy up the land for pennies (on a billionaire scale) and sell the land back to developers for a huge profit when more and more people look for new homes in the area.

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#44

Post by coldsnap427 » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

jshaqaw wrote: post #32

I am amused by the comment that owning a private landholding will protect them should we hit a time of political and climate driven unrest. Yeah - a paper land deed will definitely stave off the masses hordes in the event of a desperate apocalypse. This is the right wing paranoid delusional equivalent of the Silicon Valley billionaires who dream of never dying by uploading their brains into computers circling Mars.

> This is the right wing paranoid delusional equivalent of the Silicon Valley billionaires who dream of never dying by uploading their brains into computers circling Mars.

I hope this isn't a real thing.

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#45

Post by bradleyjg » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

deogeo wrote: post #4

> Among the nation’s top landowners are Mr. Malone, with 2.2 million acres in New Mexico, Colorado and other states; To give a sense of perspective, 2.2 million acres is a 94 km by 94 km square (or 59 by 59 miles). Approximately equivalent to a single person owning all of Cyprus or Puerto Rico. Add two more people from that paragraph, and between the three of them, they own more land than all of Israel.

As a point of comparison in the other direction, the federal government owns 34.5 million acres in Idaho alone.

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#46

Post by catacombs » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

ericd wrote: post #19

nsnick wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Martin's Beach, closed by Vinod Khosla. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/technology/california-bea...

One datapoint doesn't make a trend, though.

Three occurrences make a trend. And rich people buying up land near beaches and closing to the public has been happening more frequently that past few years.

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#47

Post by arethuza » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

ovi256 wrote: post #37

jshaqaw wrote: post #32

I am amused by the comment that owning a private landholding will protect them should we hit a time of political and climate driven unrest. Yeah - a paper land deed will definitely stave off the masses hordes in the event of a desperate apocalypse. This is the right wing paranoid delusional equivalent of the Silicon Valley billionaires who dream of never dying by uploading their brains into computers circling Mars.

You just grant right of abode to a number of young men that know how to handle weapons. They'll be very motivated to defend it - and you! - from the hordes, especially given their families are residing there too. There, you just reinstated feudalism, with barely any extra steps.

Why would the people you hire care what you think once society has collapsed to the point where money and contracts are worthless?

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#48

Post by MaconBacon » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

I'm from Texas originally and in Texas, well, you just don't go on other peoples land. But I grew up sharing a fence line with national grasslands and I naturally developed an affinity for public land.

A few years ago I learned about Hawaiis public ownership of the beaches when a friend took me to a locals secret spot in Kauai that we had to trespass to get to. The trail to get there represented a battle between landowner (a golf resort) and the trespassers, with big soil dumps to create steep descents and thorny bushes vines planted to make it difficult (or at least painful) to get to the cove. But on the other hand it was clear people had come through there with shovels and machetes to clear the way so people could access that beautiful beach. I imagine that battle is still being waged today.

Recently I moved to a state (Maine) with a more nuanced set of norms about private land use (for recreation and hunting/fishing both), Before I didn't realize there are places in the US where it's normal to access peoples private land without permission. I took a hunters safety course here and one of the things they reinforce over and over again is to get permission to hunt land. They even gave us booklet containing templates for getting signed permission to hunt land. It was unfathomable to me that you would hunt on someones land without permission. They also taught us that times are changing here and in a couple of generations this whole culture of public use of private lands will probably go away, so it’s important to be respectful so as not to hasten its demise.

I’ve come around to believing that nature ought to be seen and land should be used (in a respectful way). Just to be able to go on a hike and be in nature is a special kind of liberty.

Those Wilks brothers in the article represent a culture of fear and paranoia that is born of certain ideologies (religion, neoconservatism, etc). I imagine they can’t see the world in any other way. That Justin Wilks thinks recreating on his 300,000 acres is somehow equivalent to him camping on your front yard shows you how petty and slighted even billionaires can be.

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#49

Post by codyb » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #45

deogeo wrote: post #4

> Among the nation’s top landowners are Mr. Malone, with 2.2 million acres in New Mexico, Colorado and other states; To give a sense of perspective, 2.2 million acres is a 94 km by 94 km square (or 59 by 59 miles). Approximately equivalent to a single person owning all of Cyprus or Puerto Rico. Add two more people from that paragraph, and between the three of them, they own more land than all of Israel.

As a point of comparison in the other direction, the federal government owns 34.5 million acres in Idaho alone.

Isn’t the federal government at the very least supposed to embody the will of it’s people?

I’ve no problem with my nation owning a lot of the land within its borders.

You certainly didn’t make any particular point on the subject but I’d rather we own than one person owns.

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#50

Post by jshaqaw » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #47

ovi256 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just grant right of abode to a number of young men that know how to handle weapons. They'll be very motivated to defend it - and you! - from the hordes, especially given their families are residing there too. There, you just reinstated feudalism, with barely any extra steps.

Why would the people you hire care what you think once society has collapsed to the point where money and contracts are worthless?

Exactly. The praetorian guard become the real emperor of Rome or the Shogun exiles the emperor to play ceremonial roles in Kyoto. Except in this case without the need to maintain a popular figure of divine mandate for public purposes, the guards just shoot the former billionaires. In the end there is no hedge against death or total societal breakdown no matter how rich you are.