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Why Britain doesn’t build

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Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#451

Post by teddyh »

danaris wrote: post #238
teddyh wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire world was (and still is, to some extent) horribly racist. Every nation, institution and venerable principle you hold sacred has horrible racism lurking in its very bones, if you dig deep enough. You can’t, therefore, dismiss anything on that basis alone. Argue with an issue on its merits alone ; to attack the supposed secret origin of an issue is equivalent to an ad hominem argument. Also, alternative expl…

Ah, yes; the good old "everything is impure, which means that everything is equally bad, so it doesn't matter if I do/support bad things, because I have no choice!" Yeah, no. That doesn't fly. There's a massive difference between, say, "the fact that I am a person of European descent living in upstate NY is only possible because of the genocide of and racism against generations of Native Americans; therefore, my enti…

You are willfully mischaracterizing my statement. Of course everything has different degrees of badness. But everything has enough badness for it to be dismissed just as easily as you dismissed the lizard people theory as a secret racist conspiracy.

I’m curious how far this stretches. Do you claim that “They Live” is antisemitic?

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#452

Post by imtringued »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #403
com2kid wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes absolutely no sense to put any kind of money into something that one day will be worthless Cars, TVs, bicycles, the vast majority of furniture. > like I read that it happens in Japan that on average a house is worthless after about 40 years. And if you rent a place you "lose" all your money the moment you move out of it. If my mortgage payment was cut in half but in return my house didn't appreciate in val…

> Cars, TVs, bicycles, the vast majority of furniture. These are consumables. Except maybe for the car if its something that one day can be worth a lot of money because it is nice. Like a '67 Mustang :) > If houses in nice cities didn't cost over a million, people could move away from bad lawmakers! I don't understand what you are trying to say. I see a benefit having a nice city and somehow a high house price is wha…

>These are consumables

What do you think housing is? Some perpetual motion machine? Of course a house is a consumable.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#453

Post by com2kid »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #403
com2kid wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes absolutely no sense to put any kind of money into something that one day will be worthless Cars, TVs, bicycles, the vast majority of furniture. > like I read that it happens in Japan that on average a house is worthless after about 40 years. And if you rent a place you "lose" all your money the moment you move out of it. If my mortgage payment was cut in half but in return my house didn't appreciate in val…

> Cars, TVs, bicycles, the vast majority of furniture. These are consumables. Except maybe for the car if its something that one day can be worth a lot of money because it is nice. Like a '67 Mustang :) > If houses in nice cities didn't cost over a million, people could move away from bad lawmakers! I don't understand what you are trying to say. I see a benefit having a nice city and somehow a high house price is wha…

> I don't understand what you are trying to say.

I own a house, because houses cost so damn much, and are so hard to find, and mortgage rates have increased, realistically I cannot change a house for a long time.

This means my job mobility is limited, I am stuck finding work in my local area.

It also means if I disagree with local politics, well too bad, I can't vote with my feet.

Many people are in this same situation.

People who are poor and stuck in cities with few prospects, cannot realistically move to coastal cities with higher paying jobs because of how high housing prices are.

Traditionally if people wanted to have better opportunities, escape corrupt small town politics, or just get away from abusive situations, they moved to a big city.

Housing is so absurdly expensive, none of that can happen anymore.

> I see a benefit having a nice city and somehow a high house price is what you pay to live in a nice city.

That is a new thing. For ages NYC had cheap dives artists could rent out, Seattle had basements musicians could rent out.

Heck for over a century NYC was a beacon around the world for people who wanted a better life, better opportunities. Now you'd better be in finance, tech, or already have a rent controlled unit.

People traveled across the country for the opportunities that San Francisco offered, a fresh start in a beautiful state.

That hope, that potential for a brighter future, is gone, largely because housing is so damn expensive.

Historically good cities have been affordable in America, but the problem with housing policies it is benefits current homeowners (such as myself!) to have housing stock stay small and limited.

But those policies hold back the entire country.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#454

Post by anigbrowl »

DeathArrow wrote: post #375
mmarq wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Theresa May tried to sell this as part of her election campaign. It was a disaster. No one wants to be forced to give up some of their personal wealth to pay more for an NHS they've already paid into. It's not as simple as "give up some of their personal wealth to pay more for an NHS they've already paid into". If you have 20K in your bank account and no property, you have to pay for your care. If you own 2 flats w…

They already paid for NHS during their active period. Why should people have to pay again, once retired? If you request them to pay for healthcare, after they are retired, then you shouldn't ask them for money during their active period.

This is obtuse; you're ignoring the observation that people with sufficient cash have to pay now, and the contrast with property owners. Sure, you may think it's unfair that anyone has to pay after having paid taxes, that's a legitimate opinion I happen to share. But just stating that and ignoring the rest of the GP post isn't helpful.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#455

Post by anigbrowl »

ericd wrote: post #428
ilyt wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like maybe they didn’t pay in enough - baby boom demographics meant there were relatively more productive workers paying for relatively few old people, so each worker was paying a fraction of what it would cost to carry themselves through old age. Right but manufacturing technology better and more efficient, we produce far more "per worker" now

Yeah, but I don’t think we’ve seen commensurate gains with healthcare workers, except by perhaps reducing visit time per patient.

Perhaps the inference is that the owners of industrial technology should be paying more taxes on their profits, since the proportion of labor as an input is shrinking.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#456

Post by lotsoweiners »

alistairSH wrote: post #254
prottog wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real estate isn't immune to the law of supply and demand, which mandate that you can only pick at most two out of size (or quality) of the housing unit, location (and the quality thereof), and price. Most places in the US are either affordable and boring or the other way around. > soulless suburbs where there's literally nothing This is a bit of a reductionist take on those younger people's part. You can have just as…

… You can have just as much fun at the TGI Friday's at your local strip mall as you can at the hippest restaurant… Have you actually eaten at a TGIFridays? The food is awful. I suppose if the actual meal is completely secondary to your enjoyment of the experience, you might be right, but for me, eating out is as much for the food as the company.

In my early 20s I used to sit at the bar at TGIFridays 3-4 nights a week and play trivia with my girlfriend (now wife) and other friends. It was less than a 10 minute walk from our suburban condo and across the street from our work so we would have lots of coworkers stop in and hang out. I’d usually eat some of their shitty wings and fries but the experience was definitely hanging out, drinking, and playing trivia. I’d imagine this type of experience is common whether you live in suburbia or NYC.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#457

Post by huuhee3 »

parthdesai wrote: post #159
Chyzwar wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Migration to bigger tier one cities is partly to blame. Many young people want to live in NY and rent a shoebox flat for life. They think that they can become Friends protagonists when in fact they become broke and blame government.

Or at least in North America, younger people don't want to live in soulless suburbs where there's literally nothing to do apart from visiting the same big box stores, chain restaurants and bars in exactly same looking plaza.

There's lots to do outside big city centres if your life doesn't evolve around consumiption of services provided by others. Big cities suck for most physical and creative outdoor activities.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#458

Post by lotsoweiners »

anthonypasq wrote: post #431
Auracle wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often do people actually go to concerts or events? Why do I need specialized stores if I have the internet? Eating out is expensive and generally not good for you, calorie-wise. Cities are fun, but people fail to realize that rural places are also pretty great. You just need to make your own fun, but you actually have the room (and money) to do so. I can go out in my yard and do archery, target shooting, etc. I l…

classic hackernews shut-in that doesnt understand that people enjoy culture, i go to a concert/show at least once a month and they are the best things i spend my money on.

How does suburbia stop anyone from going to concerts? I live in a very suburban area and go to shows about once a month too. Sometimes those shows are downtown and sometimes they are in the burbs (sometimes the even further burbs).

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#459

Post by lotsoweiners »

DeathArrow wrote: post #383
nervousvarun wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until they get married/have kids and do the same thing their parents and their parent's parents did...move to the suburbs. One difference with "younger" kids now is they're getting married later...but once you have kids the suburbs look completely different and it's been that way for as long as there have been suburbs.

But how much time you have to spend in traffic each day?

Possibly none because WFH is a thing.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#460

Post by peterfirefly »

edent wrote: post #201
_dain_ wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Young people might get their first chance to vote at age 23 - assuming they paid for the right kind of ID, or navigated an impenetrable web of underpaid bureaucrats to get the mythical free ID. uhh what? we're talking about britain here. I don't know what kind of yank(?) political dysfunction you're alluding to, but nobody has any trouble voting because of a lack of ID here. you don't need one to vote. you notify th…

That is not correct. During the recent elections in England about 14,000 people were denied a vote due to lack of ID. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-65988959

This article says that 70% of them just didn't bring any ID with them. That's on them.

It also says nothing about the remaining 30% except that they "brough a type that was not accepted". We don't actually know if they even had the right to vote.

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/about-14000-people-england-...

Those who did have the right to vote could have gotten a free Voter Authority Certificate before the election:

https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-photo-id-voter-authority-certif...

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