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I believe that the matter of their defense is irrelevant. The truth is that real people were harmed by this, and they deserve reparations today. As to who pays,

I believe that the matter of their defense is irrelevant. The truth is that real people were harmed by this, and they deserve reparations today. As to who pays, it must be the landlords. This is the supposed 'risk' they take on by being landlords, which everyone tells me is so great to bear. Also to get on a soap-box, this is the truth of reparations, it is not in relation to a single event, it is an attempt to solve injustices that exist institutionally in our world today.

racketcon2089 3y ago
This approach is at odds with rule of law and historically has not redressed injustices but rather created societies where power is even more concentrated and even less accountable. The primary purpose of any and all reparations rhetoric in the US today is to divide the electorate by anything other than economic position in order to maintain a status quo whose legitimacy is beginning to erode. And it's working quite well, since you're delivering grandiose proclamations while advocating for nihilism and ignorance towards the existing legal processes that will actually impact the lives of millions of people in the coming years.
- sinistersnare 3y ago
  I agree that contemporary rhetoric on reparations is quite poor. But, scholars today agree that reparations are a way of understanding our government's position on change and not on giving money to people (Reconsidering Reparations by Olufemi Taiwo is about this). You give some good stuff to think about with the historical point, but I still believe it must be tried again, and better this time. So I don't discount the legal processes, I am saying they must be changed. That is how we can actually solve issues like this, instead of simply putting a band-aid on each time we have systemic issues like this. I find myself to be an anti-nihilist as a matter of fact. Reparations is not an _ideal_ for which I have grounded in nothingness (nihilism). Reparations must be a state of being for our government, whose material being should be solving injustice and not propagating it.
  - gosub100 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - sinistersnare 3y ago
      Funny enough, Olufemi also writes a book on this!
  - racketcon2089 3y ago
    Anyone who wants to change the legal system to deliver a specific outcome instead of follow a specific process is always going to be my enemy. I would be happy to die for habeas corpus, the right to face your accuser, the right to a trial by jury, freedom from ex post facto expropriation, public trials, the right of appeal, and countless other things which literal wars were fought over for a good 700 years of hammering out common law. To be ignorant of the protections this brings and the costs its absence imposes is legal nihilism, the focus on a single outcome in the present with no provision for the future. I hope the prosecutor makes their case well and the jury follows the judge’s instructions and returns a verdict favorable to tenants. But if the prosecutor drops the ball or the jury makes a decision that baffles me, upholding that process is more important to justice than any single outcome. Many Americans are not only willing to die to uphold this, but part of their job is also to kill in its defense. The pseudo-heidigerian stuff about government having a state of being just reads like you’re gearing yourself up to rationalize imposing your beliefs through nominative positioning.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  divide the electorate by anything other than economic position Punishing landlords for colluding against tenants by forcing them to give back the money is pretty much the opposite of the status quo and about as focused on pure economics as you can get.
  - racketcon2089 3y ago
    I would disagree in very strong terms. The entire economic, legal, and taxation system of the US are organized in a certain way that's only a couple of hundred years old. Returning some money to some tenants as a one-off and restricting some forms of landlord collusion is about as far as you can get from pure economics or structural reform. Both capital R reparations and reparations as a social justice hobby horse are ultimately intended to preserve and legitimize the existing system, even in their maximalist demands which tend to deflect and discredit more concrete advocacy. Economics is a vast field with a long history and many possible futures so it's quite sad that the horizon for many people is "american neoliberalism with more regulation and redistribution" or "american neoliberalism with less regulation and redistribution." I can think of at least three actual opposites of the status quo: one would be a georgist tax that makes holding land speculatively unprofitable, one would be a singapore style nationalization where the government purchases all of the apartment buildings at their tax-assessed rate but allows for a market in 99 year leases, and still a third would be ex post facto arbitrary expropriation without compensation in the style of many communist revolutions. "Some landlords return .01% to 15% of their last 2-3 years of passive revenue increases and promise to raise rents more arbitrarily" is not a bad thing for those renters, but in terms of economic trends and policy it's quite literally using existing law to _return_ to the status quo.
cscurmudgeon 3y ago
Reparations is an ugly box nationally and globally. Remember, every major group had injustices committed against them at one point and by them at one point.
- mattmaroon 3y ago
  It’s also just impossible. To pay an amount that even meaningfully improved the lives of 10% of the people it was aimed at, we’d bankrupt ourselves. If your government printed enough money to give let’s say 12% of the population an amount to make up for lost income over several generations, it probably wouldn’t help much, and even if it did, that money would be worthless due to hyperinflation and government bankruptcy. It’s a well-meaning idea that’s proven stupid by even elementary school math. Anyone who suggests it is clearly incapable of rational though.
  - sinistersnare 3y ago
    I am not saying the solution here is by giving people dollars. But creating a system where landlords (by disallowing this kind of price centralization) can't screw over their tenants. And saying that people who argue for reparations are incapable of rational thought is quite rude.
    - cscurmudgeon 3y ago
      What does landlord collusion have to do with reparations?
      - anigbrowl 3y ago
        Have you tried reading the subthread you're posting in? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38297746 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38297746
        cscurmudgeon 3y ago
        Have you tried looking up who I posed the question to?
mattmaroon 3y ago
This is a good example of why most people don’t belong in politics or management. You’re basically saying that because this violates your code of ethics, it should be punished by the legal system wherever or not they’ve actually broken a law. So the system of laws is meaningless, what’s important is how you feel, and your moral code. And I get it, we probably all feel this way on some level. But I’m glad society doesn’t operate that way.
- sinistersnare 3y ago
  Today, we punish people by taking away their money. Taking away someones money should not doom people to poverty over this kind of stuff! I am not saying kill all landlords here. I am saying that the landlords profited too much and it must be made fair. There should be no 'punishment' of the landlords truly, I am saying we make a system where landlords can not unjustly profit from us (and I do speak generally here). Stuff like this is what causes the housing crisis, it must be dealt with systemically, not by giving a few people none-the-wiser a lesser life.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    > I am saying that the landlords profited too much and it must be made fair. There's for better or worse no law against 'too much profit' in the general case. How would one define 'too much'? A certain margin? That has historically led to merchants increasing their costs so they can profit more in absolute terms once the relative profit cap is met. Seems like the answer is just to allow more construction and densification, which in turn creates a more competitive market for housing. If they then tried to aggregate, roll-up and collude they would fall under the Sherman act no?
    - sinistersnare 3y ago
      Well the problem is that with these software systems, we have already answered your question. If we do not change something (after seeing this!) then we have allowed 'dumb' collusion. Where these landlords can profit exceedingly and then claim complete innocence. The landlords see their rent prices increase in their checks each month, it is not as if they have not noticed increased profit over the last years due to this. So if this is allowed, we will start to see increased centralization and then passive acquiescence to gross profit.
GenerWork 3y ago
People like you are why frivolous lawsuits like this exist, because they simply feel that "harm" occurred because something you they didn't like happened.
- sinistersnare 3y ago
  My argument is that if harm can be proved, those harmed must be made whole. I don't understand how that is frivolous. I am not the one saying that a collusion suit should move forward here.

racketcon2089 3y ago

This approach is at odds with rule of law and historically has not redressed injustices but rather created societies where power is even more concentrated and even less accountable. The primary purpose of any and all reparations rhetoric in the US today is to divide the electorate by anything other than economic position in order to maintain a status quo whose legitimacy is beginning to erode. And it's working quite well, since you're delivering grandiose proclamations while advocating for nihilism and ignorance towards the existing legal processes that will actually impact the lives of millions of people in the coming years.

sinistersnare 3y ago
I agree that contemporary rhetoric on reparations is quite poor. But, scholars today agree that reparations are a way of understanding our government's position on change and not on giving money to people (Reconsidering Reparations by Olufemi Taiwo is about this). You give some good stuff to think about with the historical point, but I still believe it must be tried again, and better this time. So I don't discount the legal processes, I am saying they must be changed. That is how we can actually solve issues like this, instead of simply putting a band-aid on each time we have systemic issues like this. I find myself to be an anti-nihilist as a matter of fact. Reparations is not an _ideal_ for which I have grounded in nothingness (nihilism). Reparations must be a state of being for our government, whose material being should be solving injustice and not propagating it.
- gosub100 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - sinistersnare 3y ago
    Funny enough, Olufemi also writes a book on this!
- racketcon2089 3y ago
  Anyone who wants to change the legal system to deliver a specific outcome instead of follow a specific process is always going to be my enemy. I would be happy to die for habeas corpus, the right to face your accuser, the right to a trial by jury, freedom from ex post facto expropriation, public trials, the right of appeal, and countless other things which literal wars were fought over for a good 700 years of hammering out common law. To be ignorant of the protections this brings and the costs its absence imposes is legal nihilism, the focus on a single outcome in the present with no provision for the future. I hope the prosecutor makes their case well and the jury follows the judge’s instructions and returns a verdict favorable to tenants. But if the prosecutor drops the ball or the jury makes a decision that baffles me, upholding that process is more important to justice than any single outcome. Many Americans are not only willing to die to uphold this, but part of their job is also to kill in its defense. The pseudo-heidigerian stuff about government having a state of being just reads like you’re gearing yourself up to rationalize imposing your beliefs through nominative positioning.
anigbrowl 3y ago
divide the electorate by anything other than economic position Punishing landlords for colluding against tenants by forcing them to give back the money is pretty much the opposite of the status quo and about as focused on pure economics as you can get.
- racketcon2089 3y ago
  I would disagree in very strong terms. The entire economic, legal, and taxation system of the US are organized in a certain way that's only a couple of hundred years old. Returning some money to some tenants as a one-off and restricting some forms of landlord collusion is about as far as you can get from pure economics or structural reform. Both capital R reparations and reparations as a social justice hobby horse are ultimately intended to preserve and legitimize the existing system, even in their maximalist demands which tend to deflect and discredit more concrete advocacy. Economics is a vast field with a long history and many possible futures so it's quite sad that the horizon for many people is "american neoliberalism with more regulation and redistribution" or "american neoliberalism with less regulation and redistribution." I can think of at least three actual opposites of the status quo: one would be a georgist tax that makes holding land speculatively unprofitable, one would be a singapore style nationalization where the government purchases all of the apartment buildings at their tax-assessed rate but allows for a market in 99 year leases, and still a third would be ex post facto arbitrary expropriation without compensation in the style of many communist revolutions. "Some landlords return .01% to 15% of their last 2-3 years of passive revenue increases and promise to raise rents more arbitrarily" is not a bad thing for those renters, but in terms of economic trends and policy it's quite literally using existing law to _return_ to the status quo.

cscurmudgeon 3y ago

Reparations is an ugly box nationally and globally. Remember, every major group had injustices committed against them at one point and by them at one point.

mattmaroon 3y ago
It’s also just impossible. To pay an amount that even meaningfully improved the lives of 10% of the people it was aimed at, we’d bankrupt ourselves. If your government printed enough money to give let’s say 12% of the population an amount to make up for lost income over several generations, it probably wouldn’t help much, and even if it did, that money would be worthless due to hyperinflation and government bankruptcy. It’s a well-meaning idea that’s proven stupid by even elementary school math. Anyone who suggests it is clearly incapable of rational though.
- sinistersnare 3y ago
  I am not saying the solution here is by giving people dollars. But creating a system where landlords (by disallowing this kind of price centralization) can't screw over their tenants. And saying that people who argue for reparations are incapable of rational thought is quite rude.
  - cscurmudgeon 3y ago
    What does landlord collusion have to do with reparations?
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      Have you tried reading the subthread you're posting in? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38297746 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38297746
      - cscurmudgeon 3y ago
        Have you tried looking up who I posed the question to?

mattmaroon 3y ago

This is a good example of why most people don’t belong in politics or management. You’re basically saying that because this violates your code of ethics, it should be punished by the legal system wherever or not they’ve actually broken a law. So the system of laws is meaningless, what’s important is how you feel, and your moral code. And I get it, we probably all feel this way on some level. But I’m glad society doesn’t operate that way.

sinistersnare 3y ago
Today, we punish people by taking away their money. Taking away someones money should not doom people to poverty over this kind of stuff! I am not saying kill all landlords here. I am saying that the landlords profited too much and it must be made fair. There should be no 'punishment' of the landlords truly, I am saying we make a system where landlords can not unjustly profit from us (and I do speak generally here). Stuff like this is what causes the housing crisis, it must be dealt with systemically, not by giving a few people none-the-wiser a lesser life.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  > I am saying that the landlords profited too much and it must be made fair. There's for better or worse no law against 'too much profit' in the general case. How would one define 'too much'? A certain margin? That has historically led to merchants increasing their costs so they can profit more in absolute terms once the relative profit cap is met. Seems like the answer is just to allow more construction and densification, which in turn creates a more competitive market for housing. If they then tried to aggregate, roll-up and collude they would fall under the Sherman act no?
  - sinistersnare 3y ago
    Well the problem is that with these software systems, we have already answered your question. If we do not change something (after seeing this!) then we have allowed 'dumb' collusion. Where these landlords can profit exceedingly and then claim complete innocence. The landlords see their rent prices increase in their checks each month, it is not as if they have not noticed increased profit over the last years due to this. So if this is allowed, we will start to see increased centralization and then passive acquiescence to gross profit.

GenerWork 3y ago

People like you are why frivolous lawsuits like this exist, because they simply feel that "harm" occurred because something you they didn't like happened.

sinistersnare 3y ago
My argument is that if harm can be proved, those harmed must be made whole. I don't understand how that is frivolous. I am not the one saying that a collusion suit should move forward here.