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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: November 11th, 2023

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  • Well, if Nex’s sexual identity indeed was the reason they are dead, and all this had taken place, say, 20 years ago, nobody would’ve died because nobody would’ve asserted their sexual identity in public.

    Not only is that not true, people have been coming out since humans existed, it’s also wrong. You’re confusing sexual identity with gender identity.

    Regardless, all you are doing is victim blaming. Nobody should get beaten to death for how they express themselves. This is supposed to be the land of the free, not the land of the beatings for people society deems weird.

    You may very well argue that something is wrong that when it has consequences, but that argument doesn’t yet remove the consequences.

    The consequences for self expression should not be death, much less vigilante beatings that result in death. And your appathy is frankly disgusting, and a part of the problem.


  • A few weeks ago, on 7 February, the bullying allegedly erupted in violence when Nex suffered severe head injuries during a “physical altercation” at Owasso High School, according to the Owasso Police Department.

    Sue Benedict told The Independent she was called to the school that day to find Nex badly beaten with bruises over their face and eyes, and with scratches on the back of their head.

    Nex told her that they and another transgender student at Owasso High School had been in a fight with three older girls in a girls bathroom. Nex was knocked to the ground during the fight and hit their head on the floor, according to their mother.

    Ms Benedict said she was furious that the school had failed to call an ambulance or the police. She said the school then informed her Nex was being suspended for two weeks.

    She took Nex to the Bailey Medical Center in Owasso for treatment. They spoke to a police school resource officer at the medical facility and were discharged.

    That night, Nex went to bed with a sore head and eventually fell asleep while listening to music, Ms Benedict said.

    On the afternoon of 8 February, Nex was getting ready to go to Tulsa with Ms Benedict for an appointment when they collapsed in the family living room.

    Ms Benedict called an ambulance, and Owasso Fire Department medics arrived to find Nex had stopped breathing. Nex was taken to the St. Francis Pediatric Emergency Room where they were later declared dead.

    This child’s blood is on their hands. Not just the kids who did the physical beating, but also the conservatives who set up a culture where this is acceptable.

    Try to join the rest of us in reality when you can.






  • think part of the problem is that what we refer to as landlording includes two separate roles: landlording and property management.

    Agreed, 100%

    That understanding and change of language will have to be a part of the cultural shift needed to fix it.

    I think we would likely see landlords converge towards being mere property managers.

    It would certainly help a lot. But after a certain point it would just be diminishing returns due to the aforementioned switching cost.

    That said, you are fully correct that the non-zero costs of moving would still give landlords a little leeway to rent-seek, and I’m curious what solutions may exist to remedy that.

    I think the remedy for that has to be a little more intentional than leaving it to the effects of a LVT. Corporations should not be permitted to own any form of housing. Multi unit residences should be co-ops/non market housing. If there isn’t enough, then the government needs to make more.

    So individuals can still own houses, and medium/high density housing is still affordable/plentiful enough.

    There seems to be growing sentiment (at least on the internet) to get corporations banned from owning housing, and that’s good. But it still needs to pass the hurdle of legalized bribery and our congress failing to represent us. A given policy has 30% chance to pass regardless of public support or disapproval. And policy that benefits the rich obviously has much better chances of passing. This problem within congress is a huge blocking point.

    Regardless of whether it 100% solves landlording, I do think LVT and YIMBYism do largely solve real estate “investment” as the meme talks about. Since LVT and abundant housing stop the “line goes up” phenomenon, and LVT in particular punishes real estate speculation, I think they would largely, if not entirely, eliminate the phenomenon of people buying up land/property just to resell later after appreciation. Because, well, housing wouldn’t appreciate under a sufficiently heavy LVT and a strong YIMBY regulatory environment.

    100% agreed.


  • A land value tax is an absolute must, same goes for the rest of what you’ll said.

    But it isn’t a magic wand. The culture still needs to catch up, as many unfortunately still see being a landlord as an actual valid job. And even under a land value tax system landlords could still exist. Nowhere near as exploitative, but they’d still exist.

    The concept of a free market relies on a hidden assumption that the choice between products is a free and easy one with a low switching cost. Housing is none of those things. It takes time, money, energy, you need to be able bodied or able to afford movers. If you have a job you might be stuck in a given area. People are heavily de-incentivized from moving, and that’s always going to be the case no matter how housing is made and distributed.

    As a result, landlords will always have enough room to exist in a housing market, even if it is a land value tax system. So if by “LVT would fix this” you mean stop landlords from existing, LVT is only a stepping stone.

    A VERY good stepping stone, but only a stepping stone.