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I’m curious to know if the author has spent any significant time in any place that is going to feel the brunt of the climate catastrophe. I’d invite them to spe

I’m curious to know if the author has spent any significant time in any place that is going to feel the brunt of the climate catastrophe. I’d invite them to spend a couple months in Delhi or Dhaka and then take another pass at this think piece. Or maybe they’re cool with taking in a few hundred million climate refugees into the US and just didn’t mention it, as many parts of South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa will have wet bulb temperatures that are unsurvivable in the next few decades. Also, some parts just are off: “A bigger society has more cuisines, more architectural styles, more types of fashion, more sub-genres of entertainment.” Then why are tons of languages on the verge of extinction? Why do so many apartments around the world look like IKEA exploded in it? How come the weaver I visited in Lombok is making patterns and cuts for westerners rather than their traditional stuff, and he himself was just wearing basic tshirts? How come the clothing store across from the spot I stayed at in south Goa was selling Jack Daniel’s t-shirts rather than traditional crafts? How come every gen z person is wearing what I wore in middle and high school? It’s not like SHEIN is making new niche styles for people. “Better matching to careers” Tell that to the young men in Algiers that asked us for directions to any consulate that would maybe help them get a work visa to leave since there’s no work. Or any of the migrants getting on dangerous boats to cross the Mediterranean to do whatever work they can find. Every cousin of mine that can leave has left. There are plenty of geniuses sitting around without many options just because of where they were born, we don’t need more population to get more geniuses if we’re not even working with what we’ve got. I’ll give him the niche markets one, though that’s more a function of communication via the Internet than it is about population numbers go up. I don’t know, it’s hard to take a think piece like this seriously. It just reeks of privileged guy in tech that lives in a major metropolitan region of the US that hasn’t really experienced much of the world outside that niche. Living in a luxury Airbnb in Canggu doesn’t count. Happy to be wrong though.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
yellowapple 3y ago
> It just reeks of privileged guy in tech that lives in a major metropolitan region of the US that hasn’t really experienced much of the world outside that niche. Even a "privileged guy in tech that lives in a major metropolitan region of the US" would be feeling the brunt of a growing population in his wallet. More people = more demand for land = higher land prices = higher housing costs. Even in my somewhat-minor metropolitan region of the US am I feeling it. There are of course approaches to solve that issue (cough cough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax cough cough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism cough cough), but the exact sort of person who'd benefit from population growth under the socioeconomic status quo is also in all likelihood someone with a vested material interest in opposing said approaches - that is: someone who owns land and seeks to profit from said ownership, be it by renting it to others or by speculating on its future sale price.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  Georgism isnt a viable solution for the modern world where a majority of the economy is services or knowledge work. 100% of the tax falls on use of physical goods, while 0% falls on consumption of labor. Of course this sounds attractive for tech workers who would live nearly tax free under such a system, requiring few physical goods and selling none.
  - yellowapple 3y ago
    > Georgism isnt a viable solution for the modern world where a majority of the economy is services or knowledge work. You need land for datacenters and offices. There is zero economic activity that doesn't use land in at least some capacity. That's indeed the very basis of Georgism's viability, including in the present day. And even if there was some tech company that used zero land whatsoever, there are plenty of other things with inelastic supply that would confer the same benefits if taxed by value; IP addresses and domain names both come to mind. > 100% of the tax falls on use of physical goods Correction: 100% of the tax falls on landowners, while 0% falls on everyone else. > Of course this sounds attractive for tech workers It should sound attractive to literally everyone whose wealth derives primarily or entirely from their own labor. > who would live nearly tax free under such a system That depends on their living arrangements. If they're renting, then yes, it'd be entirely tax free, as it would be for every other renter. If they own their own homes, then it depends on location; given equal physical characteristics, a plot of land in Downtown is more valuable than a plot of land in the middle of nowhere, and so would be the tax on that value.
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      Saw this very late, but here are my thoughts. >Correction: 100% of the tax falls on landowners, while 0% falls on everyone else. The way you approach this seems to assume that any Georgist taxes get passed on to corporations & owners, but not individuals. A data center would bear the cost of taxes for land and construction materials based on their availability and demand even if the land and building were rented. Similarly, taxes of land, water, fertilizer, metals, would be passed on to the consumer. At the end of the day, Georgism boils down to a material use and consumption tax. Because there is no Georgist tax for capital gains or income, A janitor would pay the same tax as a CEO if they personally use and consume the same amount of raw materials. A stock trader making 1B/year pays the same as a carpenter, maybe less because the carpenter need more physical materials to work like wood & nails, while the stock trader just sends a few megabytes down the wires. Much of what humans exchange for value does not have a strong relation to scarce physical materials, primarily labor and money. The incomes of Apple or Google are not proportional to their material use, just like the the incomes of hyper billionaires is not proportional to their cheeseburger consumption. ( e.g. Musk's income is maybe that of 500,000 Americans, but he doesn't use as much land, eat as much food, or use as much fuel as 500,000 people). This is why a georgist tax regime is very regressive (which isnt inherently a bad thing). I just dont think it is a great social equalizer many proponents claim.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

yellowapple 3y ago

> It just reeks of privileged guy in tech that lives in a major metropolitan region of the US that hasn’t really experienced much of the world outside that niche. Even a "privileged guy in tech that lives in a major metropolitan region of the US" would be feeling the brunt of a growing population in his wallet. More people = more demand for land = higher land prices = higher housing costs. Even in my somewhat-minor metropolitan region of the US am I feeling it. There are of course approaches to solve that issue (cough cough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax cough cough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism cough cough), but the exact sort of person who'd benefit from population growth under the socioeconomic status quo is also in all likelihood someone with a vested material interest in opposing said approaches - that is: someone who owns land and seeks to profit from said ownership, be it by renting it to others or by speculating on its future sale price.

s1artibartfast 3y ago
Georgism isnt a viable solution for the modern world where a majority of the economy is services or knowledge work. 100% of the tax falls on use of physical goods, while 0% falls on consumption of labor. Of course this sounds attractive for tech workers who would live nearly tax free under such a system, requiring few physical goods and selling none.
- yellowapple 3y ago
  > Georgism isnt a viable solution for the modern world where a majority of the economy is services or knowledge work. You need land for datacenters and offices. There is zero economic activity that doesn't use land in at least some capacity. That's indeed the very basis of Georgism's viability, including in the present day. And even if there was some tech company that used zero land whatsoever, there are plenty of other things with inelastic supply that would confer the same benefits if taxed by value; IP addresses and domain names both come to mind. > 100% of the tax falls on use of physical goods Correction: 100% of the tax falls on landowners, while 0% falls on everyone else. > Of course this sounds attractive for tech workers It should sound attractive to literally everyone whose wealth derives primarily or entirely from their own labor. > who would live nearly tax free under such a system That depends on their living arrangements. If they're renting, then yes, it'd be entirely tax free, as it would be for every other renter. If they own their own homes, then it depends on location; given equal physical characteristics, a plot of land in Downtown is more valuable than a plot of land in the middle of nowhere, and so would be the tax on that value.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    Saw this very late, but here are my thoughts. >Correction: 100% of the tax falls on landowners, while 0% falls on everyone else. The way you approach this seems to assume that any Georgist taxes get passed on to corporations & owners, but not individuals. A data center would bear the cost of taxes for land and construction materials based on their availability and demand even if the land and building were rented. Similarly, taxes of land, water, fertilizer, metals, would be passed on to the consumer. At the end of the day, Georgism boils down to a material use and consumption tax. Because there is no Georgist tax for capital gains or income, A janitor would pay the same tax as a CEO if they personally use and consume the same amount of raw materials. A stock trader making 1B/year pays the same as a carpenter, maybe less because the carpenter need more physical materials to work like wood & nails, while the stock trader just sends a few megabytes down the wires. Much of what humans exchange for value does not have a strong relation to scarce physical materials, primarily labor and money. The incomes of Apple or Google are not proportional to their material use, just like the the incomes of hyper billionaires is not proportional to their cheeseburger consumption. ( e.g. Musk's income is maybe that of 500,000 Americans, but he doesn't use as much land, eat as much food, or use as much fuel as 500,000 people). This is why a georgist tax regime is very regressive (which isnt inherently a bad thing). I just dont think it is a great social equalizer many proponents claim.