7 ms·

All property, physical and digital, is rented if you squint just right.

by awwaiid 2y ago

noduerme 2y ago
I'm curious if this is a socialist lament about landlords or a libertarian complaint about governments.
- sgjohnson 2y ago
  I read it as a libertarian complaint about governments. i.e. own real estate? Try not paying the property tax on it, and see who really owns it. :)
- lazyasciiart 2y ago
  Maybe it's an existential comment about the fleeting existence of life.
  - noduerme 2y ago
    That was actually the first way I squinted at it, and it doesn't have to be existential - the lack of ownership in the fourth dimension is stated well in most religions. But for some reason I doubt they meant it that way.
- foobarbecue 2y ago
  Property is theft from the state
  - noduerme 2y ago
    A curious assertion, considering that the protection of private property and enforcement of contracts is one of the foundational reasons for the existence of most modern states. Stop me if I missed the sarcasm.
    - foobarbecue 2y ago
      This was intended to be a wry comment referencing a communist idea that has always tickled my brain. Somehow I had it in my head that Marx said this (probably because of another joke-- "why did Karl Marx only drink herbal tea? Because proper tea is theft"). Checking my facts now, I see it was actually Proudhon, not Marx (although Marx did discuss the idea here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/letters/65_01_24.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/letters/65_..., but seems to say it has a self-reference problem, and seems to delight in insulting Proudhon). I think the "from the state" part is an accidental addition either of my own or from whoever explained the "proper tea" joke to me the first time. I just thought it always referenced the extreme philosophy that all property should be communal and therefore private property was theft from everyone, or equivalently from "the state".
      - robertlagrant 2y ago
        Drinking tea is in itself an act of theft - he drank that tea and now no-one else can drink it.
      - noduerme 2y ago
        Hah! I love the proper tea joke. Hadn't heard that one. Extreme philosophy or not, I reject the idea that "everyone"=="the state". Most (all?) states which confiscate property in the name of "everyone" don't distribute it fairly anyway, so it's all a bit of a sham. Even if it wasn't, I still don't fancy having the 7 or 8 drunks I know at the local bar showing up to sleep on my floor, shower in my toilet and claiming it in the name of everyone, or the state, or whatever. Screw those people.
- nightpool 2y ago
  I think it's just acknowledging the reality that property is a social construct, one that's created by the social contract.
  - mathieuh 2y ago
    Well, Rousseau himself would say property is theft in not exactly those words From his discourse on inequality > The first man who, having enclosed a piece of land, thought of saying "this is mine" and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders; how much misery and horror the human race would have been spared if someone had pulled up the stakes and filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: "beware of listening to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to everyone and that the earth itself belongs to no one!"
    - short_sells_poo 2y ago
      Ultimately it comes down to force. The person with the pointiest sticks will likely be able to enforce their view about ownership over others. Taken quite literally, property is armed theft from the commons I guess. Unfortunately, it's tricky to do otherwise in a loosely organized swarm of barely tribal actors, because any peaceful society based on shared ownership will be prone to exploitation by malicious actors. It's basically a very large prisoner's dilemma: the global optimum would be to abolish private property, but as long as there are (enough) people around to exploit the situation for their own benefit (and to the massive detriment of everyone else), we have to stick to a sub-optimal system where everyone is worse off than the optimum.
      - robertlagrant 2y ago
        > the global optimum would be to abolish private property The Soviet Union had this I believe, at least with buildings, and it didn't necessarily work out optimally.
        short_sells_poo 2y ago
- short_sells_poo 2y ago
  I tend to think is neither of those, but meant very literally. For that reason I like it and I think it's an interesting subject. What is ownership after all? The universe does not seem to have any form of ownership embedded in it's fundamental laws. If ownership is a human construct, then it is only meaningful insofar as a group of humans agrees on it. I can stroll up to the White House and declare that I own it, but I'll struggle to convince a sufficient number of other people that this is true. If I can't assert my ownership, then I don't really own it, do I? It doesn't matter whether it is just, or fair (again - purely human constructs), ownership only matters if it can be enforced. Being a human construct, it is also by definition temporary. It is only valid as long as humans are around to enforce it, and humans are fleeting. Humanity might endure, but there's no reason to think we are going to be around for eternity. So it looks like ownership is not only temporary, but it is also fickle. People routinely disagree on ownership and are willing to kill- or be-killed for asserting their claims. It looks like neither the communists, nor the liberatarians are in the right. Things will be owned by whoever has more pointy sticks :D
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    > Things will be owned by whoever has more pointy sticks :D That sounds like the feudal or socialist systems. Isn't one of the points of modern democracies that we have the pointy sticks for outside invaders, and a legal system that replaces the system of internal-facing pointy sticks with an economic system and a justice system?
    - krapp 2y ago
      No. All systems of law, regardless of their "democratic" nature, are based on the principle of the state's monopoly on violence, and that violence is always directed towards the citizenry. No matter how civil your society may seem, resistance to the state will eventually mean you get shot or beaten with truncheons.
      - short_sells_poo 2y ago
        Exactly. Democratic and highly civilized countries still enforce property rights with pointy sticks. They maintain their claim on their territory against outside invaders with the army, and internally they enforce the laws of ownership using the police.
- SkyBelow 2y ago
  Maybe a deeper truth that is harder to put into words but which feeds into both of them. Something captured in much higher dimensional concept space that, when forced into our 3D world (and our <whatever>D political discussion space), looks like a sphere in one projection and a cube in the other, but which is neither.
- hhh 2y ago
  what's the difference?

All property, physical and digital, is rented if you squint just right.

noduerme 2y ago

I'm curious if this is a socialist lament about landlords or a libertarian complaint about governments.

sgjohnson 2y ago
I read it as a libertarian complaint about governments. i.e. own real estate? Try not paying the property tax on it, and see who really owns it. :)
lazyasciiart 2y ago
Maybe it's an existential comment about the fleeting existence of life.
- noduerme 2y ago
  That was actually the first way I squinted at it, and it doesn't have to be existential - the lack of ownership in the fourth dimension is stated well in most religions. But for some reason I doubt they meant it that way.
foobarbecue 2y ago
Property is theft from the state
- noduerme 2y ago
  A curious assertion, considering that the protection of private property and enforcement of contracts is one of the foundational reasons for the existence of most modern states. Stop me if I missed the sarcasm.
  - foobarbecue 2y ago
    This was intended to be a wry comment referencing a communist idea that has always tickled my brain. Somehow I had it in my head that Marx said this (probably because of another joke-- "why did Karl Marx only drink herbal tea? Because proper tea is theft"). Checking my facts now, I see it was actually Proudhon, not Marx (although Marx did discuss the idea here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/letters/65_01_24.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/letters/65_..., but seems to say it has a self-reference problem, and seems to delight in insulting Proudhon). I think the "from the state" part is an accidental addition either of my own or from whoever explained the "proper tea" joke to me the first time. I just thought it always referenced the extreme philosophy that all property should be communal and therefore private property was theft from everyone, or equivalently from "the state".
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      Drinking tea is in itself an act of theft - he drank that tea and now no-one else can drink it.
    - noduerme 2y ago
      Hah! I love the proper tea joke. Hadn't heard that one. Extreme philosophy or not, I reject the idea that "everyone"=="the state". Most (all?) states which confiscate property in the name of "everyone" don't distribute it fairly anyway, so it's all a bit of a sham. Even if it wasn't, I still don't fancy having the 7 or 8 drunks I know at the local bar showing up to sleep on my floor, shower in my toilet and claiming it in the name of everyone, or the state, or whatever. Screw those people.
nightpool 2y ago
I think it's just acknowledging the reality that property is a social construct, one that's created by the social contract.
- mathieuh 2y ago
  Well, Rousseau himself would say property is theft in not exactly those words From his discourse on inequality > The first man who, having enclosed a piece of land, thought of saying "this is mine" and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders; how much misery and horror the human race would have been spared if someone had pulled up the stakes and filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: "beware of listening to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to everyone and that the earth itself belongs to no one!"
  - short_sells_poo 2y ago
    Ultimately it comes down to force. The person with the pointiest sticks will likely be able to enforce their view about ownership over others. Taken quite literally, property is armed theft from the commons I guess. Unfortunately, it's tricky to do otherwise in a loosely organized swarm of barely tribal actors, because any peaceful society based on shared ownership will be prone to exploitation by malicious actors. It's basically a very large prisoner's dilemma: the global optimum would be to abolish private property, but as long as there are (enough) people around to exploit the situation for their own benefit (and to the massive detriment of everyone else), we have to stick to a sub-optimal system where everyone is worse off than the optimum.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      > the global optimum would be to abolish private property The Soviet Union had this I believe, at least with buildings, and it didn't necessarily work out optimally.
      - short_sells_poo 2y ago
short_sells_poo 2y ago
I tend to think is neither of those, but meant very literally. For that reason I like it and I think it's an interesting subject. What is ownership after all? The universe does not seem to have any form of ownership embedded in it's fundamental laws. If ownership is a human construct, then it is only meaningful insofar as a group of humans agrees on it. I can stroll up to the White House and declare that I own it, but I'll struggle to convince a sufficient number of other people that this is true. If I can't assert my ownership, then I don't really own it, do I? It doesn't matter whether it is just, or fair (again - purely human constructs), ownership only matters if it can be enforced. Being a human construct, it is also by definition temporary. It is only valid as long as humans are around to enforce it, and humans are fleeting. Humanity might endure, but there's no reason to think we are going to be around for eternity. So it looks like ownership is not only temporary, but it is also fickle. People routinely disagree on ownership and are willing to kill- or be-killed for asserting their claims. It looks like neither the communists, nor the liberatarians are in the right. Things will be owned by whoever has more pointy sticks :D
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  > Things will be owned by whoever has more pointy sticks :D That sounds like the feudal or socialist systems. Isn't one of the points of modern democracies that we have the pointy sticks for outside invaders, and a legal system that replaces the system of internal-facing pointy sticks with an economic system and a justice system?
  - krapp 2y ago
    No. All systems of law, regardless of their "democratic" nature, are based on the principle of the state's monopoly on violence, and that violence is always directed towards the citizenry. No matter how civil your society may seem, resistance to the state will eventually mean you get shot or beaten with truncheons.
    - short_sells_poo 2y ago
      Exactly. Democratic and highly civilized countries still enforce property rights with pointy sticks. They maintain their claim on their territory against outside invaders with the army, and internally they enforce the laws of ownership using the police.
SkyBelow 2y ago
Maybe a deeper truth that is harder to put into words but which feeds into both of them. Something captured in much higher dimensional concept space that, when forced into our 3D world (and our <whatever>D political discussion space), looks like a sphere in one projection and a cube in the other, but which is neither.
hhh 2y ago
what's the difference?