5 ms·

"If you have personal preferences about whom you let live in your home that don't align with mine, you shouldn't be allowed to have anyone in your home at all!"

by wyager 10y ago

tptacek 10y ago
Yes, that is generally the principle involved with business transactions like these. We tried it the other way, and all the black people ended up cordoned into North Lawndale. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case... As a society, we decided to amend the social contract to remedy this. You can choose who to have in your house based on any criteria you like. You cannot choose who to rent to on the same terms.
- wyager 10y ago
  >we decided to amend the social contract to remedy this Where in the social contract is this clause? I can't find it. "It's in the social contract" is the ultimate weasel appeal. You're citing the authority of an imaginary document that, miraculously, contains whatever arbitrary moral edicts the person who invokes it happens to agree with. Transactions should be voluntary. People should not be forced to do business against their will. Whoever "we" is in your post, I'm not part of it, because I have a moral objection to slavery (I.e. Involuntary labor). Not that what AirBNB is doing constitutes involuntary labor; they're a private business and can set whatever terms they want for using their platform, in accordance with the principles I've outlined. I'm just saying that forcing homeowners to take in people they don't want to is sub-optimal and alienating for homeowners.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    There's nothing imaginary about it. Discrimination in housing has been illegal since the 1970s. Airbnb has found (accidentally) an unforeseen loophole in the law, where a practice that had only a marginal impact on the distribution of housing is on track to make a more significant impact. They know as well as anyone else that the law is going to catch up, unless they keep human nature from using Airbnb as a vector to re-segregate a big chunk of the housing market.
    - sokoloff 10y ago
      > Discrimination in housing has been illegal since the 1970s. Certain types of discrimination are illegal since then. Others are not. That's the point being debated here.
  - thescribe 10y ago
    This is one of my meany reasons for rejecting the concept of a social contract.
- smsm42 10y ago
  "The other way" described in the article looks like this: government insured private mortgages depending on racial build of the neighborhood, with the best insurance available only to white-only ones, and none available to ones when black people lived, so the government artificially lowered costs for white people buying in white neighborhoods and created a huge cost (and disincentive) to allow any non-white people to enter those neighborhoods, however rich and financially stable by themselves they might be. How exactly this is an example that proves necessity of government regulating private rentals?
eropple 10y ago
If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with, you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone. This isn't about your home; this is about your use of your home as a capital asset. You can allow into your home anyone you choose to and bar anyone you choose to. But as a society we have agreed that we--through our government--most certainly have a stake in making sure that you treat others equitably in your business transactions, and that that use of your home as a capital asset in a business transaction means you forego other rights in the process.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- wyager 10y ago
  >If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with, you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone. Let's go for the obvious example; Jewish business owners should be forced to do business with neo-nazis?
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Nazism isn't a protected class. But Jewish business owners routinely do business with them anyways.
    - Unklejoe 10y ago
      What determines if something is a protected class?
      - tptacek 10y ago
        Federal law.
      - eropple 10y ago
        Being denoted as such in federal law. The original Civil Rights Act, in 1964, specified race, color, sex, religion, and national origin; since then a few classes (pregnancy/marital status, age, citizenship, etc.) have been added over time.
Zigurd 10y ago
You should not be able to sell that space through what users expect to work like a public accommodation. The same goes for your car. That's what it costs to be a racist. Boo friken hoo.

"If you have personal preferences about whom you let live in your home that don't align with mine, you shouldn't be allowed to have anyone in your home at all!"

by wyager 10y ago

"If you have personal preferences about whom you let live in your home that don't align with mine, you shouldn't be allowed to have anyone in your home at all!"

tptacek 10y ago

Yes, that is generally the principle involved with business transactions like these. We tried it the other way, and all the black people ended up cordoned into North Lawndale. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case... As a society, we decided to amend the social contract to remedy this. You can choose who to have in your house based on any criteria you like. You cannot choose who to rent to on the same terms.

wyager 10y ago
>we decided to amend the social contract to remedy this Where in the social contract is this clause? I can't find it. "It's in the social contract" is the ultimate weasel appeal. You're citing the authority of an imaginary document that, miraculously, contains whatever arbitrary moral edicts the person who invokes it happens to agree with. Transactions should be voluntary. People should not be forced to do business against their will. Whoever "we" is in your post, I'm not part of it, because I have a moral objection to slavery (I.e. Involuntary labor). Not that what AirBNB is doing constitutes involuntary labor; they're a private business and can set whatever terms they want for using their platform, in accordance with the principles I've outlined. I'm just saying that forcing homeowners to take in people they don't want to is sub-optimal and alienating for homeowners.
- tptacek 10y ago
  There's nothing imaginary about it. Discrimination in housing has been illegal since the 1970s. Airbnb has found (accidentally) an unforeseen loophole in the law, where a practice that had only a marginal impact on the distribution of housing is on track to make a more significant impact. They know as well as anyone else that the law is going to catch up, unless they keep human nature from using Airbnb as a vector to re-segregate a big chunk of the housing market.
  - sokoloff 10y ago
    > Discrimination in housing has been illegal since the 1970s. Certain types of discrimination are illegal since then. Others are not. That's the point being debated here.
- thescribe 10y ago
  This is one of my meany reasons for rejecting the concept of a social contract.
smsm42 10y ago
"The other way" described in the article looks like this: government insured private mortgages depending on racial build of the neighborhood, with the best insurance available only to white-only ones, and none available to ones when black people lived, so the government artificially lowered costs for white people buying in white neighborhoods and created a huge cost (and disincentive) to allow any non-white people to enter those neighborhoods, however rich and financially stable by themselves they might be. How exactly this is an example that proves necessity of government regulating private rentals?

eropple 10y ago

If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with, you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone. This isn't about your home; this is about your use of your home as a capital asset. You can allow into your home anyone you choose to and bar anyone you choose to. But as a society we have agreed that we--through our government--most certainly have a stake in making sure that you treat others equitably in your business transactions, and that that use of your home as a capital asset in a business transaction means you forego other rights in the process.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
wyager 10y ago
>If you have personal preferences about whom you conduct business with, you shouldn't be allowed to conduct business with anyone. Let's go for the obvious example; Jewish business owners should be forced to do business with neo-nazis?
- tptacek 10y ago
  Nazism isn't a protected class. But Jewish business owners routinely do business with them anyways.
  - Unklejoe 10y ago
    What determines if something is a protected class?
    - tptacek 10y ago
      Federal law.
    - eropple 10y ago
      Being denoted as such in federal law. The original Civil Rights Act, in 1964, specified race, color, sex, religion, and national origin; since then a few classes (pregnancy/marital status, age, citizenship, etc.) have been added over time.

Zigurd 10y ago

You should not be able to sell that space through what users expect to work like a public accommodation. The same goes for your car. That's what it costs to be a racist. Boo friken hoo.