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It's solved in some [rather left leaning] countries. When you buy land you must put it to use, and if it's unused after X years, it's considered abandoned and i

It's solved in some [rather left leaning] countries. When you buy land you must put it to use, and if it's unused after X years, it's considered abandoned and it goes up for sale again. TBH, I think it's a solid model -- buying a finite resource like land merely with the intent to deprive others of it and make a profit in the long term is as unethical as it gets. Though completely legal is most places, of course.

loonster 5y ago
With land, not using it is the equivalent to a privately funded conservation site. Its not necessarily a bad thing. Many capitalistic countries also have adverse possession laws, where if someone uses the land for X number of years, it becomes theirs.
- have_faith 5y ago
  This loophole is solved by making it that declaring the land as such status means the land is commited to that use for a minimum number of years that makes the conservation meaningful. Something like a decade minimum with a high bar for converting it for other usage afterwards. Farmers in the UK for instance already have some incentives to leave some fields alone.
InitialLastName 5y ago
This is effectively the justification that was used to repeatedly confiscate land from the indigenous peoples of the current US: "They aren't building visible improvements on the land in the way that settlers will, so move them off and give it to settlers".
- WhyNotHugo 5y ago
  Yeah, the justification is sensible to take land from organisations under your jurisdictions, that are part of your society, not civilizations that were there before you landed from another continent. But the US has a mentality of "our jurisdiction is infinite", so I'm not surprised they'd do that.
flashgordon 5y ago
But how hard is it really to put a domain to use? Put up a hugo generated page that is even remotely related to the topic and off you go. Worse save a few related pages and reupload to a static site provider. A genuine entity wanting the domain will look to purchase even with "valid looking" content in there no? Surely "put to use" doesnt imply profiting? If it does put up banner ads? I am not saying this is ethical - just hard to make it discernible from ethical use. Atleast with land building something on it costs real money so it is easier to validate the "put to good use" clause! Sigh!
- WhyNotHugo 5y ago
  You make valid points, and, ultimately, what constitutes a "valid use" and what doesn't falls back on the registrar or the entity in charge. If it's a for-profit, you're gonna have a hard time, but if it's more of a non-profit, or government organisation, you might have better luck. It's a huge "it depends" to be honest. FWIW, if someone buys a huge amount of land next to the big city, and puts up some ads, I wouldn't consider that giving it "proper use", and if someone needs to build a house, I'd consider that land abandoned and unused -- but I can understand that opinions (and even laws on the subject) will vary greatly around the world. The big question is: do you care about allowing people to have access to unused land to buy houses, or do you care about a corporation's right to own everything in sight?

loonster 5y ago

With land, not using it is the equivalent to a privately funded conservation site. Its not necessarily a bad thing. Many capitalistic countries also have adverse possession laws, where if someone uses the land for X number of years, it becomes theirs.

have_faith 5y ago
This loophole is solved by making it that declaring the land as such status means the land is commited to that use for a minimum number of years that makes the conservation meaningful. Something like a decade minimum with a high bar for converting it for other usage afterwards. Farmers in the UK for instance already have some incentives to leave some fields alone.

InitialLastName 5y ago

This is effectively the justification that was used to repeatedly confiscate land from the indigenous peoples of the current US: "They aren't building visible improvements on the land in the way that settlers will, so move them off and give it to settlers".

WhyNotHugo 5y ago
Yeah, the justification is sensible to take land from organisations under your jurisdictions, that are part of your society, not civilizations that were there before you landed from another continent. But the US has a mentality of "our jurisdiction is infinite", so I'm not surprised they'd do that.

flashgordon 5y ago

But how hard is it really to put a domain to use? Put up a hugo generated page that is even remotely related to the topic and off you go. Worse save a few related pages and reupload to a static site provider. A genuine entity wanting the domain will look to purchase even with "valid looking" content in there no? Surely "put to use" doesnt imply profiting? If it does put up banner ads? I am not saying this is ethical - just hard to make it discernible from ethical use. Atleast with land building something on it costs real money so it is easier to validate the "put to good use" clause! Sigh!

WhyNotHugo 5y ago
You make valid points, and, ultimately, what constitutes a "valid use" and what doesn't falls back on the registrar or the entity in charge. If it's a for-profit, you're gonna have a hard time, but if it's more of a non-profit, or government organisation, you might have better luck. It's a huge "it depends" to be honest. FWIW, if someone buys a huge amount of land next to the big city, and puts up some ads, I wouldn't consider that giving it "proper use", and if someone needs to build a house, I'd consider that land abandoned and unused -- but I can understand that opinions (and even laws on the subject) will vary greatly around the world. The big question is: do you care about allowing people to have access to unused land to buy houses, or do you care about a corporation's right to own everything in sight?