5 ms·

It is clear that almost no one commenting here has actually read past the first few paragraphs of the article (if that). It is very well written and explain tha

by abtinf 10y ago

It is clear that almost no one commenting here has actually read past the first few paragraphs of the article (if that). It is very well written and explain that this is an extremely complex issue. Property rights are the foundation of civil society. Due to variety of factors, Hawaii has destroyed property rights on some parcels due to degenerate laws and legal customs. Just consider one point raised by the article: one small parcel has over 300 informal owners who are descended from a Portuguese immigrant who bought the land over 110 years ago and that "individual ownership fractions range from about 1/7 (about 14 percent) to 17/333,396 (less than a one-hundredth of 1 percent)."; when everyone owns something, no one owns it. This is an enormously complicated legal problem and there are no simple answers for how to resolve it.

hueving 10y ago
Why would anyone read the article when they can take the opportunity to bash the rich?
- meanduck 10y ago
  The GP is good comment lets not init a flame war here.
- debt 10y ago
  because the top 8 billionaires own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the global population? the rich have really been sucking it up lately. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/18/richest-62-billionaires-wealthy-half-world-population-combined https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/20...
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    Which is itself a rigged stat.
  - laingc 10y ago
    Good grief. Any child with $2 in pocket money has more wealth than 2bn people. If you are a doctor with a massive student loan, you're probably in the bottom 10% of humanity in terms of wealth.
  - hueving 10y ago
    Yet killing these 8 billionaires and taking their wealth would do almost nothing when spread across the bottom 50% you are comparing them to. You don't raise civilization by chopping off the top.
nym 10y ago
You could err on the side of the living ancestor(s). In absence of saying "that fraction is approaching zero", you could assume the intent of the original buyer that they wanted anyone from their family living there.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  And how could you enforce that -- sue the owners to force them to live on the land? At least this way, all the owners are finally identified (at considerable cost to the plaintiff, I might add), and they are properly monetarily compensated for the land. If the current owners really did want to live on the land, they are more than free to band together and bid on the parcel themselves in the auction -- especially the ones who didn't know about the land before.
iaw 10y ago
It didn't sound like any of the parcels had occupants nor were the ownership rights concentrated in a single individual. I'm not sure how I feel about this but it isn't a cut and dry issue.
debt 10y ago
It's complex. Only a very rich aristocrat gives a shit about it though. Obviously why it's stood for 110 years.
rtpg 10y ago
the part I don't get here: What's the legal framework for allowing Zuckerberg to force a sale? Let's say 20 people own parts of the house in front of yours. It's confusing, so you whine a lot, and suddenly a public auction is triggered? At the very least, he must understand that he is _not_ the owner, so everything else is kinda moot right? EDIT: seems like he bought out certain percentages of ownership on these parcels, and there's a law that can help to force a sale when the ownership gets too confusing. Seems like the sort of law for billionaires wanting to have their own private beach.
- an_account 10y ago
  I believe that he found people with a partial ownership in the land and bought that partial ownership. Now, as a partial owner, he can force the sale. Having this law makes sense, because as ownership gets more diluted you would never be able to get everyone to agree on anything.
- debt 10y ago
  Billions bro the guy has unlimited money what does no one get about mark zuck? He has literally unlimited wealth and power HELLO why is everyone in denial about it
- rusanu 10y ago
  Being Hawaii though, I don't think he will get a private beach, though :) http://seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu/coastal-access-hawaii http://seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu/coastal-access-hawaii http://dlnr.hawaii.gov/occl/beach-access/ http://dlnr.hawaii.gov/occl/beach-access/
  - mjlee 10y ago
    He'll get pretty close. The terrain along the shoreline makes the beach in question pretty much inaccessible. It's not unusual in Hawaii to flaunt the law by making public access as inconvenient as possible by buying the surrounding land and removing roads/paths so people who do want access have to trek miles to the beach.
  - chris_wot 10y ago
jeswin 10y ago
I am surprised by the number of people who claim this is rich bashing. Indigenous people around the world have lived for centuries with widely different concepts of property ownership. In many cultures, once you reach a working age you build your house where land is available and do your bit (say farming, or crafts) towards a functioning society. There is no land ownership record, but rather it's based on trust. Once these lands become part of countries without adequete protection for indegenous cultures, they become susceptible to exploitation. Interpreting their culture through our legal system is one way to do this. The indigenous people of Hawaii (and elsewhere in the world) are the true owners of that land. Even if you get legal rights from each one of the current owners, it still deprives the unborn children of their rights. It's unfair at best. At best.
- 0bfus 10y ago
  I agree with you that the social structures we've set up have largely forced the hands of the indigenous people who want to keep their lands in their families in perpetuity to sell. How can we actually make sure these lands stay within families forever possible though? To do something like disallowing the sale of these lands outside of their communities doesn't seem particularly ethical either. In this case, that could mean that some of the landowners who might be hard pressed for money might have a pressing need to sell, so how could we forbid that? Just like preserving our diverse cultures, I totally understand the value proposition, but how can you ethically force cultural preservation? Not a perfect analog, but I'm curious how you think a more equitable system might work here.
  - pyrale 10y ago
    Just accept that the property which you buy is provided with agreements granted to neighbours, and that by buying the property, you inherit the duty to said neighbours. And then, don't fill a lawsuit to put people out of their homes in order to void these duties.
  - matt4077 10y ago
    Isn't that the exact problems that Indian reservations were set up to solve? A kind of community-administered perpetual land grant, basically. It seems that – some problems within the tribal administrations non-withstanding – the external legal relationships are solved pretty well within that framework.
noobermin 10y ago
IANAL and IANA business/stocks person, so allow me to vomit nonsense, but how is this not unlike equity in a start-up? Or stocks in a public company? Especially in the latter case, one can have theoretically a 17/333,396 stake in a company. I'd imagine it might be different though because companies are regulated and there are things like the FTC, and a company is an organization, so certain concepts like "liability" and "rights" to utilize the property are better defined than for a random parcel of land, but still, it's not like "ownership by many" is that foreign.
trhway 10y ago
>Property rights are the foundation of civil society. are you sure that indigenous people want your version of civil society? >when everyone owns something, no one owns it. yes. And isn't it how many tribes own their land?
matt4077 10y ago
> Property rights are the foundation of civil society. It's one a set of rights generally considered essential, i. e. "human rights". But among those it doesn't seem to be considered very special. The UN charter of human rights (written in no small part by the US) finds 16 other rights to list before it gets around to property: http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights. But anyway, I fail to see how even utmost reverence for the centrality of property would change anything about this: > one small parcel has over 300 informal owners who are descended from a Portuguese immigrant People inherit stuff. They leave it to multiple children. Therefore it gets split up. To force any of them to sell against their will is obviously infringing property rights – not that it's not possibly justified, but it seems pretty clearly on the side of a less strict application of "property rights". And "when everyone owns something, no one owns it" is just wrong-ish, at least in the intended sense of neglect and uselessness. The Statue of Liberty is owned by everyone and no one, as are the airwaves, most of the Rocky Mountains and the works of Shakespeare. All of them seem to be doing fine.
ue_ 10y ago
>Property rights are the foundation of civil society. For the exact opposite view of property, that it is in fact the sign of barabrism and the law of the jungle, read Proudhon's "What is Property?".
drivingmenuts 10y ago
If the land was going for a public use, I might be a bit more sympathetic. However, it's being bought for a private use by a person who can well afford to pay for it and the number of owners of a piece of land isn't the problem. Zuck's using lawyers to force a sale is a huge problem. What specifically entitles him to have a special case for purchasing without going thru all the motions?

by abtinf 10y ago

hueving 10y ago

Why would anyone read the article when they can take the opportunity to bash the rich?

meanduck 10y ago
The GP is good comment lets not init a flame war here.
debt 10y ago
because the top 8 billionaires own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the global population? the rich have really been sucking it up lately. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/18/richest-62-billionaires-wealthy-half-world-population-combined https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/20...
- tedunangst 10y ago
  Which is itself a rigged stat.
- laingc 10y ago
  Good grief. Any child with $2 in pocket money has more wealth than 2bn people. If you are a doctor with a massive student loan, you're probably in the bottom 10% of humanity in terms of wealth.
- hueving 10y ago
  Yet killing these 8 billionaires and taking their wealth would do almost nothing when spread across the bottom 50% you are comparing them to. You don't raise civilization by chopping off the top.

nym 10y ago

You could err on the side of the living ancestor(s). In absence of saying "that fraction is approaching zero", you could assume the intent of the original buyer that they wanted anyone from their family living there.

smallnamespace 10y ago
And how could you enforce that -- sue the owners to force them to live on the land? At least this way, all the owners are finally identified (at considerable cost to the plaintiff, I might add), and they are properly monetarily compensated for the land. If the current owners really did want to live on the land, they are more than free to band together and bid on the parcel themselves in the auction -- especially the ones who didn't know about the land before.

iaw 10y ago

It didn't sound like any of the parcels had occupants nor were the ownership rights concentrated in a single individual. I'm not sure how I feel about this but it isn't a cut and dry issue.

debt 10y ago

It's complex. Only a very rich aristocrat gives a shit about it though. Obviously why it's stood for 110 years.

rtpg 10y ago

the part I don't get here: What's the legal framework for allowing Zuckerberg to force a sale? Let's say 20 people own parts of the house in front of yours. It's confusing, so you whine a lot, and suddenly a public auction is triggered? At the very least, he must understand that he is _not_ the owner, so everything else is kinda moot right? EDIT: seems like he bought out certain percentages of ownership on these parcels, and there's a law that can help to force a sale when the ownership gets too confusing. Seems like the sort of law for billionaires wanting to have their own private beach.

an_account 10y ago
I believe that he found people with a partial ownership in the land and bought that partial ownership. Now, as a partial owner, he can force the sale. Having this law makes sense, because as ownership gets more diluted you would never be able to get everyone to agree on anything.
debt 10y ago
Billions bro the guy has unlimited money what does no one get about mark zuck? He has literally unlimited wealth and power HELLO why is everyone in denial about it
rusanu 10y ago
Being Hawaii though, I don't think he will get a private beach, though :) http://seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu/coastal-access-hawaii http://seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu/coastal-access-hawaii http://dlnr.hawaii.gov/occl/beach-access/ http://dlnr.hawaii.gov/occl/beach-access/
- mjlee 10y ago
  He'll get pretty close. The terrain along the shoreline makes the beach in question pretty much inaccessible. It's not unusual in Hawaii to flaunt the law by making public access as inconvenient as possible by buying the surrounding land and removing roads/paths so people who do want access have to trek miles to the beach.
- chris_wot 10y ago

jeswin 10y ago

I am surprised by the number of people who claim this is rich bashing. Indigenous people around the world have lived for centuries with widely different concepts of property ownership. In many cultures, once you reach a working age you build your house where land is available and do your bit (say farming, or crafts) towards a functioning society. There is no land ownership record, but rather it's based on trust. Once these lands become part of countries without adequete protection for indegenous cultures, they become susceptible to exploitation. Interpreting their culture through our legal system is one way to do this. The indigenous people of Hawaii (and elsewhere in the world) are the true owners of that land. Even if you get legal rights from each one of the current owners, it still deprives the unborn children of their rights. It's unfair at best. At best.

0bfus 10y ago
I agree with you that the social structures we've set up have largely forced the hands of the indigenous people who want to keep their lands in their families in perpetuity to sell. How can we actually make sure these lands stay within families forever possible though? To do something like disallowing the sale of these lands outside of their communities doesn't seem particularly ethical either. In this case, that could mean that some of the landowners who might be hard pressed for money might have a pressing need to sell, so how could we forbid that? Just like preserving our diverse cultures, I totally understand the value proposition, but how can you ethically force cultural preservation? Not a perfect analog, but I'm curious how you think a more equitable system might work here.
- pyrale 10y ago
  Just accept that the property which you buy is provided with agreements granted to neighbours, and that by buying the property, you inherit the duty to said neighbours. And then, don't fill a lawsuit to put people out of their homes in order to void these duties.
- matt4077 10y ago
  Isn't that the exact problems that Indian reservations were set up to solve? A kind of community-administered perpetual land grant, basically. It seems that – some problems within the tribal administrations non-withstanding – the external legal relationships are solved pretty well within that framework.

noobermin 10y ago

IANAL and IANA business/stocks person, so allow me to vomit nonsense, but how is this not unlike equity in a start-up? Or stocks in a public company? Especially in the latter case, one can have theoretically a 17/333,396 stake in a company. I'd imagine it might be different though because companies are regulated and there are things like the FTC, and a company is an organization, so certain concepts like "liability" and "rights" to utilize the property are better defined than for a random parcel of land, but still, it's not like "ownership by many" is that foreign.

trhway 10y ago

>Property rights are the foundation of civil society. are you sure that indigenous people want your version of civil society? >when everyone owns something, no one owns it. yes. And isn't it how many tribes own their land?

matt4077 10y ago

> Property rights are the foundation of civil society. It's one a set of rights generally considered essential, i. e. "human rights". But among those it doesn't seem to be considered very special. The UN charter of human rights (written in no small part by the US) finds 16 other rights to list before it gets around to property: http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights. But anyway, I fail to see how even utmost reverence for the centrality of property would change anything about this: > one small parcel has over 300 informal owners who are descended from a Portuguese immigrant People inherit stuff. They leave it to multiple children. Therefore it gets split up. To force any of them to sell against their will is obviously infringing property rights – not that it's not possibly justified, but it seems pretty clearly on the side of a less strict application of "property rights". And "when everyone owns something, no one owns it" is just wrong-ish, at least in the intended sense of neglect and uselessness. The Statue of Liberty is owned by everyone and no one, as are the airwaves, most of the Rocky Mountains and the works of Shakespeare. All of them seem to be doing fine.

ue_ 10y ago

>Property rights are the foundation of civil society. For the exact opposite view of property, that it is in fact the sign of barabrism and the law of the jungle, read Proudhon's "What is Property?".

drivingmenuts 10y ago

If the land was going for a public use, I might be a bit more sympathetic. However, it's being bought for a private use by a person who can well afford to pay for it and the number of owners of a piece of land isn't the problem. Zuck's using lawyers to force a sale is a huge problem. What specifically entitles him to have a special case for purchasing without going thru all the motions?