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Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

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Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#371

Post by close04 »

foldr wrote: post #345
close04 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if "empty living space", space that's reserved but unused, is immoral would you extend it to any such reserved but unused living space? Is an empty room in your house immoral? Or massively oversized rooms even if you live in them? In the end you're still blocking a lot of "empty space" that someone else could use if only there were smaller but more living units. Same applies when you live in a detached house and…

It’s not clear exactly where to draw the line, but that’s true of all kinds of moral distinctions. So I don’t think that kind of slippery slope argument is very persuasive.

I didn't mean it as a slippery slope argument, rather an explanation of why calling "this in particular" immoral is probably just one person drawing the line in such a way that what they need/want is perfectly covered. It's more likely that their changing needs/wants move that bar, than that the moving bar changes their needs/wants.

So "buying a house and purposefully leaving it empty is immoral" is bound to change the moment they purchase a second, empty house.

Years ago I hosted some African refugees in my home for a short time while more appropriate accommodation was in the works. I cannot describe the feeling I had seeing one of the children understand how a modern toilet works: we do our business in a bunch of clean water, and then dump a bunch more clean water to take it away. Given their circumstances this was probably the most immoral thing we could have done in the modern world.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#372

Post by chous »

pas wrote: post #238
matt-p wrote: post #221

Can we establish that the squatters are doing this out of economic necessity and not to "profit" (e.g can't afford to rent or own someplace else)? I imagine so as living with no security in an abandoned building with no utilities seems pretty desperate, sub-optimal and sad. If we can then realistically the root cause to this is lack of housing supply. "Just build more f**ing houses" would fix this no?

Yes, building more housing would fix it. Speeding up evictions would be important to unlock old buildings (people have quite some money sitting in them) and to improve them.

I'm so fed up with building more houses, when most of them are empty. Every time I take a plane, the landscape speaks for itself.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#373

Post by Enginerrrd »

mannycalavera42 wrote: post #323
next_xibalba wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s not. Living where you want, for free, is not a right.

Why it's not immoral? can you elaborate?

So if you buy a fixer upper, one that would be unfit for renting to people. You can't spend your weekends and holidays working on it for a few months to get it into better condition without being called immoral? Sorry that my lack of funds and desire to better myself offends you, but that's a crazy take.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#374

Post by peter335 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #365
peter335 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly. This is what I was getting at!

You think a lot of Spaniards want higher rental prices? Edit: ah, sorry I had mixed you up with the previous commenter.

Of course not, I think misguided policies like the one we’re talking about lead to higher rental prices

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#375

Post by foldr »

close04 wrote: post #371
foldr wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not clear exactly where to draw the line, but that’s true of all kinds of moral distinctions. So I don’t think that kind of slippery slope argument is very persuasive.

I didn't mean it as a slippery slope argument, rather an explanation of why calling "this in particular" immoral is probably just one person drawing the line in such a way that what they need/want is perfectly covered. It's more likely that their changing needs/wants move that bar, than that the moving bar changes their needs/wants. So "buying a house and purposefully leaving it empty is immoral" is bound to change t…

>It's more likely that their changing needs/wants move that bar, than that the moving bar changes their needs/wants.

This seems to be an unsupported speculation. And indeed it cuts both ways. Maybe you only think the second house is ok because that covers your needs and wants (either present or future anticipated). If you leave out the psychologizing, there's nothing to your argument beyond the slippery slope. Even if the exact location where individual people draw the line is psychologically explicable based on self-interest and their particular life circumstances, it still doesn't follow that a moral distinction cannot possibly be made.

More generally, it's fairly obvious that people who believe in strong property rights will tend to be people who have lots of property and people who don't will tend to be people who don't. That doesn't invalidate the arguments of either side; these have to be evaluated on their merits. You can say "I bet you'll believe in strong property rights once you own a house!", while a homeless person might equally say "I bet you'll have more sympathy for squatters once you've lived on the streets for a year!" Those sorts of examples tell us that people aren't perfectly disinterested when forming their moral outlook, but it doesn't tell us much about where moral distinctions can or can't be drawn.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#376

Post by no_exit »

dr__mario wrote: post #144

"The rise of okupation"... but they make no references to data. Here is the data (in Spanish) [1]. The difference between trespassing (that somebody enters in the house you live) and usurpation (the house is yours but is not where you live) is very important. Both problems are way less prevalent than what appears on the media (see [1]), but trespassing is waaay lower (and as the owner you have better mechanisms to re…

> However, there is a huge propaganda campaign here in Spain, where TV shows talk constantly about trespassing, and one can only imagine what they get from that (swaying votes to conservative political groups, selling alarms, less rights to people that live on rented apartments...)

Same in the US, it's all fascist discourse shaping in preparation for things getting much worse.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#377

Post by kelseyfrog »

singleshot_ wrote: post #354
madeofpalk wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying a house and purposefully leaving it empty is immoral, sqatting or not.

This is not correct; purchasing real estate is obviously morally neutral.

It is correct. Moral neutrality is a mental defense mechanism to avoid bad feelings. The vast majority of folks find it easier to rewrite their interpretation of events than tell themselves no.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#378

Post by mistermann »

solids wrote: post #307
lazyasciiart wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, I knew someone who owned a second house in the same city that they had never lived in and planned to rent out in the future. When someone broke in and squatted there early in covid, they reacted as though the squatters were in the house they actually currently lived in - describing their fear and trauma in a way such that people who didn't know the story sometimes literally thought someone had broken into…

Squatting is a problem, period. Doesn’t matter if the house is empty or not.

Unoccupied (for x or more months) second homes should be rented out, otherwise squatted in or burned to the ground, period. It doesn't matter if you disagree, Might Makes Right.

Be careful: Meme Magic works in both directions, and it is often difficult to detect its presence.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#379

Post by bpodgursky »

madeofpalk wrote: post #325
next_xibalba wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s not. Living where you want, for free, is not a right.

Squatters doesn't make purposefully leaving houses vavent any less immoral.

Get rid of the pathetic scarcity mindset.

Just build more houses and then nobody will care.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#380

Post by pas »

chous wrote: post #372
pas wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, building more housing would fix it. Speeding up evictions would be important to unlock old buildings (people have quite some money sitting in them) and to improve them.

I'm so fed up with building more houses, when most of them are empty. Every time I take a plane, the landscape speaks for itself.

are you familiar with the concept of location location location? :)

vacancy rates are historically low in cities where people want to live

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