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Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction

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Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction

#91
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/medieval-peasant-only-work...

It is really great that Snopes was around in medieval times and can confirm or deny! /S The thing is, no one knows what medieval peasants were doing, cos we weren't there. We have this or that piece of evidence, but evidence can be misinterpreted.

We know enough facts to get a good picture even if we don't know exactly what they were doing\

Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction

#92
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is following people's will, not "making things equal". In a democracy, the people have the power to decide and anyone has the power to elect, be elected and to voice his opinion freely.

> Democracy is following people's will, not "making things equal". His point is that democratic systems are subverted if absolute equality is not enforced. It’s a crude argument but basically correct. The only way you prevent usurpation is by making sure one individual doesn’t have any obvious means of scaling his influence to the point that he can challenge the democratic militia.

What you call influence is simply trust that others impart to an individual. There is very little a single individual can physically do by themselves. So if there is someone with the influence to challenge a militia then it's better to say a proportionate number of people are also challenging the militia with the person as their proxy.

Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction

#93
post #79
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

File this under Lies Engineers Believe About Political Science.

Not 100% what OP proposed, but in my country political funding is extremely capped. Compared to US, campaigns here are tame to say the least. But overall it’s for the better IMO.

Yes, severely capping funding, or even banning all private funding and giving all campaigns a fixed stipend off public money, is probably one of the most important things you can do for the health of a democracy.

It has nothing to do with what GP was suggesting of "banning campaigns" lol

Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction

#94
post #6

This series will really make you examine social hierarchies, including the ones that exist today. They are no accident.

Today's social structures exist because they evolved through history and shifting incentives. I sometimes wonder if we could design a better system today taking today's knowledge of psychology (and psychopathology) into account and optimizing for values we have today like freedom, balance of power and equality of opportunity.

Japan seems to get at least the real estate stuff right.

No nationalization needed when houses aren't worth investing in.

Also, give people something else worth investing into. Make laws that move all the incentive out of the housing market and into something that helps in the long run. Energy, research, etc.

Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction

#95
post #6

This series will really make you examine social hierarchies, including the ones that exist today. They are no accident.

Today's social structures exist because they evolved through history and shifting incentives. I sometimes wonder if we could design a better system today taking today's knowledge of psychology (and psychopathology) into account and optimizing for values we have today like freedom, balance of power and equality of opportunity.

I think if freedom is a desired trait then your system cannot (will not) be entirely dictated by any design.

Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction

#96
post #94
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today's social structures exist because they evolved through history and shifting incentives. I sometimes wonder if we could design a better system today taking today's knowledge of psychology (and psychopathology) into account and optimizing for values we have today like freedom, balance of power and equality of opportunity.

Japan seems to get at least the real estate stuff right. No nationalization needed when houses aren't worth investing in. Also, give people something else worth investing into. Make laws that move all the incentive out of the housing market and into something that helps in the long run. Energy, research, etc.

Japan has relatively cheaper real estate because of their lax zoning laws and frequent earthquakes drive the long term value of construction down. Everywhere else in Asia with similar laws people do pour their savings into real estate.

It dosen't really have anything to do with what you are saying because the Nikkei underperformed relative to FTSE or S&P 500.

Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction

#97
post #83
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that over a long enough period of time it's unavoidable that a selfish person will use the power to gain more. Selfish people are more likely to seek positions of power, so even if most people are altruistic, the people that seek power are more likely to be selfish.

In other words, cancer always spreads. Not necessarily the first cancer, but eventually one will. Cancer is when a component of a system acts to replicate or enrich itself instead of acting to perpetuate the system.

Cancer can be also said to be fault of a system living longer than it needs to. In the end, what matters less is the specific instance of the system than ensuring the continuity of development is passed on.

But for states, they still feverishly cling to the idea of unity even as it brings increasing fragility and stagnation.

Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction

#98
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan seems to get at least the real estate stuff right. No nationalization needed when houses aren't worth investing in. Also, give people something else worth investing into. Make laws that move all the incentive out of the housing market and into something that helps in the long run. Energy, research, etc.

Japan has relatively cheaper real estate because of their lax zoning laws and frequent earthquakes drive the long term value of construction down. Everywhere else in Asia with similar laws people do pour their savings into real estate. It dosen't really have anything to do with what you are saying because the Nikkei underperformed relative to FTSE or S&P 500.

>Everywhere else in Asia with similar laws people do pour their savings into real estate.

Isn't this because most of Asia has just copied the western capitalist housing asset monetisation scheme with Japan being the only exception?

Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning campaigning would go a long way. The state already mails out voter information containing a little stump speech of each registered candidate at least for Californian elections. Further advertisement is purely propaganda and leads to establishment victories over merit and a genuinely attractive platform.

Being able to give a good speech is merit when the goal is to select a leader.

Strongly disagree, in the age of teleprompters and speech writers this is a major part of campaigns (because of TV) but hardly matters at all for actual governing. Our excessive focus on it is not helping us select better leaders.

Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction

#100
post #6

This series will really make you examine social hierarchies, including the ones that exist today. They are no accident.

Today's social structures exist because they evolved through history and shifting incentives. I sometimes wonder if we could design a better system today taking today's knowledge of psychology (and psychopathology) into account and optimizing for values we have today like freedom, balance of power and equality of opportunity.

> optimizing for values we have today like freedom, balance of power and equality of opportunity.

You are confusing narrative, a positive spin with actual rules of the system. In political system they are never the same.

Freedom, equal opportunity etc are not objectives of our political system, they are just the narrative.

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