I know this is just a meme, but I’ll share something I recently learned since I find it fascinating.
The oceans started out as freshwater! Water evaporated from them, rained down as freshwater and formed into rivers and streams, and the process of flowing picked up trace amounts of salt from the ground and riverbeds. These rivers eventually dumped their ever-so-slightly salty water into the ocean. Then, the tiny tiny tiny bit salty ocean evaporated some pure water out, leaving less water - meaning the remaining water just got a little bit saltier in comparison. This process repeated for millions of years and those tiny increments resulted in the very salty oceans we have now.
Exactly! I almost said something to that effect but decided my comment was getting a little long. God just left figuring out science to all these nerds he created 😂
Sounds like in the future, people (or whatever intelligent life form is around then) will be like, “did you know the Earth didn’t always have a microplastic ocean?”
You know I was looking at some of the architecture down town today and thought to myself, “just think, none of this would be possible if there wasn’t someone critiquing mud huts 10000 years ago.”
If there was some other place to post that would get the same traction I’d gladly put it there. But its not really that big of a deal at the end of the day
Can we, without relentlessly criticizing, let people have their un-funny, non-memes and screenshots and whatever little harmless things in which they’ve managed to find a tiny shriveled flower of joy?
I've seen this particular tweet like a dozen times now, so it's definitely spread far and wide. Some people only think of image macros as memes, but yes the broader definition I've seen is essentially a viral concept.
Could we, without relentlessly criticizing, let people have… whatever little harmless things in which they’ve managed to find a tiny shriveled flower of joy?
I’m getting the impression from Lemmy that there’s an overrepresentation of the particular demographic of comfortable middle-aged bookish software engineers who live in the US or Canada.
What word would you prefer to someone who tells you to your face that they intend to “put you up against the wall” and then asks if you “know what that means, you fucking lib”?
I mean, I’m a demsoc, and of the last 20 death threats I have received in my life, 15 came from people who identify as Communist-Leninist. PLEASE give me a better word for them.
Funny because of the dozens, if not hundreds, of death threats I’ve gotten, practically all of them come from zionists, NAFOs, keyboard nazis or the occasional trumpeteer.
Full disclosure, as a leftist I avoid those far-right areas like the plague. I’m quite certain I would receive more far-right death threats if I did not.
What word would you prefer to someone who tells you to your face that they intend to “put you up against the wall” and then asks if you “know what that means, you fucking lib”?
And I bet you’re fun at parties. Please oh great psychic, tell me more about myself?
And actually, I do know the difference between demsoc and socdem. The formal definition for Social Democrat is “a supporter or advocate of a socialist system of government achieved by democratic means.” That we are constantly painted as “filthy liberal” for wanting to respect the will of the majority is a disappointing and disgusting lie. And the ONLY people who accuse socdems of being fake leftists? TANKIES. Who are not, by any meaningful definition, more left than those of us with a soul.
The only way I’m not a leftist is if your version of leftism says “fuck people, freedom, or democracy”. In **your ** version of leftism, are you ok with being the 1% ruling by force against 99% who hate you? Think very carefully before replying to that.
Social Democrat is “a supporter or advocate of a socialist system of government achieved by democratic means.”
That’s what a demsoc is. Social democrats support capitalism with social programs.
Who are not, by any meaningful definition, more left than those of us with a soul.
Speaking of succdems look how even in their mind palace they’re already dehumanizing anyone to the left of them. This helps when they cooperate with and enable fascist parties like they do every time in history. “Tankies don’t have a soul and they’re going to kill you first so it’s okay to let the nazis kill them actually” I’m a REAL leftist :D
Social Democrat is “a supporter or advocate of a socialist system of government achieved by democratic means.”
That’s what a demsoc is. Social democrats support capitalism with social programs.
You should tell Webster they’re wrong. And Wikipedia. And Brittanica.
By their definitions, a Socdem’s insistence on using democracy at all costs is what differentiates between them and demsocs.
By why is it so important for you to insist everyone use your nonstandard definition of the terms? Also, your calling us “succdems” tells me exactly everything I need to know about your permission. If I’m not willing to murder people, I’m less than human to you enough to be given a silly nickname.
“Tankies don’t have a soul and they’re going to kill you first so it’s okay to let the nazis kill them actually” I’m a REAL leftist :D
At this moment, you’re on the wrong side of the “First they came for” poem because you’re the one rejecting the Left.
You should tell Webster they’re wrong. And Wikipedia. And Brittanica.
Not to call the editors of those fine resources for elementary school aged children stupid or anything, but the adjective-noun pairs “social democrat” and “democratic socialist” literally imply within the terms themselves what these things are. A democratic socialist is a socialist who uses democratic means. It’s on the tin.
At this moment, you’re on the wrong side of the “First they came for” poem because you’re the one rejecting the Left.
Can you show us a time this happened? Genuinely, people shouldn’t throw around death threats to anyone but war criminals billionaires nazis transphobes and cops, so if thats happening to you just because you’re an average liberal I don’t support that
or I’ll have to assume you were on some cracker shit and actively supporting or being one of the aforementioned groups, in which case, lmao haha
Social democracy, noun a democratic welfare state that incorporates both capitalist and socialist practices
So, uh, capitalist, according to Webster. It is very funny to say “I totally know the difference between SocDem and DemSoc”, and then go on to not know.
However, I’ll write something up here. I’m from Denmark, a SocDem country. The current prime minister is Mette Frederiksen of the Social Democrat party. We are almost at SocDem as you can get.
This Social Democracy of Denmark formed around the time of the Soviet Union starting to get more influential, as the capitalists of Denmark found themselves needing to provide concessions to the working population, since an example of better worker rights was right next door. This was the birth of Social Democracy in Denmark. It expanded to have free healthcare, education, and a pretty strong social safety net. Now these things are of course nice for the people living in Denmark, however the second that the USSR fell, austerity started happening. I cannot remember a time in the last 20 years where the government wasn’t trying to “save money”. Now our healthcare system is crippled, education is getting defunded, and social safety is the same.
The only reason that the capitalist class of Denmark gave the concessions they did, was because the Soviet Union was next door. This is the reality. The capitalists will never give you anything, unless their security is threatened. To be a Social Democrat, and rejecting revolution as a concept, is to just play into what capitalists want. Social Democracy is just another way to preserve capitalism. It’s not a solution, it’s a band-aid for a bullet wound - might stop the bleeding for a bit, but it sure as hell will get infected if it’s not treated properly. At best it’s harm reduction, at worst it’s a detriment to the rights of the working class.
I’m not even getting into the exploitation necessary to uphold Social Democracy, and some of the other more icky elements of the ideology. I’m just giving you an example of what has happened to every single Social Democracy currently. I understand that it’s nice to think about, but I promise you that it’s not the solution to the problem.
The DemSocs at least have a problem with capitalism, however while their insistence on pacifism, and reform sounds very nice, it has literally not worked once in history. Not a single time. One of the only time it got close was with Allende in Chile, and the US fucking killed him, because you cannot fight empire with just words. I’m sorry, but that is the truth. You need to be able to fight counter-revolution, sabotage, sanctions, threats, war, espionage, etc. You cannot do this within the system that is funding all those things. You have to move away from capitalism entirely, suddenly, and forcefully, otherwise you will be crushed.
Call me a tankie if you want, I don’t care. But if you are going to call me this, at least tell me why. Tell me what part of what I just wrote is wrong.
Sorry, cited the wrong dictionary I guess. www.dictionary.com/browse/social democrats . I’m surprised at Webster disagreeing with everyone else. I figured every dictionary would agree. The dictionaries using my definition are:
So I’ve got mud on my face, citing the only source that disagrees with me.
But fine. If it really matters that much to a couple people, then there’s not a term for what I am. I’m not a DemSoc because I don’t realistically think we will achieve complete socialism in my lifetime and I think that’s OK in the short term as long as we improve things, and actually preferable until people actually want socialism. That doesn’t make me a capitalist.
Also you’re going off mainstream liberal dictionaries and not how the left as a cluster of organized movements has come to definitions for its working purposes. So you’re coming at it from an outside (liberal) perspective which reads as an indicator you’re a liberal.
The problem with dictionaries is that they describe the popular use of a word, not necessarily the academically correct one. I only used the dictionary because it was honestly too easy to do a gotcha there.
A great example of dictionaries being “wrong” is the word “factoid”. A factoid originally is a popular piece of information that is actually incorrect or false - a popular lie. Now the word factoid is in many dictionaries described as being “an insignificant or trivial fact”, which is like, the exact opposite of the original meaning of the word. I’m 100% sure that in certain universities, I would be marked down for using “factoid” as “fun fact”, even though dictionaries seem to think this is fine.
The original meaning of the word Social Democrat was a heavily discussed topic even in the beginning of the Soviet Union. After WW2, it was even popular within Socialist/Communist circles to call SocDems, “Social Fascists”, as the enabling of the SocDems in Germany (SPD) helped the Nazis attain power, since they positioned themselves against the rest of the “left”. SocDems will always rather align themselves with capital, rather than the “actual left”, because the entire ideology reinforces capitalism. The reason people are mad at you here, is that SocDems have historically, every single time, helped the fascists rather than the socialists when push comes to shove. It’s the reason for the quote “Social Democracy is the moderate wing of fascism”. Now you can disagree with that last part, but this is history. Schumacher did betray the socialists. And he always would have, because Social Democracy is a capitalist ideology, which is why Marxists refuse to let them call themselves socialists. You cannot believe in capitalism, and socialism at the same time. They are opposites.
DemSocs on the other hand, are Reformist Socialists. They are who the dictionaries should actually refer to. They are the people who believe that a peaceful reformist transition from capitalism to socialism is the way to go, even though it has never worked. They believe that if you just vote hard enough, the capitalists will just let the poor take away their power. I don’t actively dislike them, but I think it is very very naive.
Marxists are usually Revolutionary Socialists, who believe in revolution as a way to make change. This has worked several times in history, and there are several countries in the world right now that still exist after a socialist revolution, and are doing as well as you can considering that the entire western world is sanctioning them.
Marx hated Social Democrats btw. When one of the founding figures of the ideology does not think that a Social Democrat is a socialist, then I dunno what to tell you.
In short, the dictionaries are wrong. In an academic setting those definitions would be rejected instantly. People just do not understand what these ideologies are, so they use the words the wrong way. These words get used the wrong way enough, and the dictionaries will change to fit, as that is what dictionaries do. But the original meaning, that is part of the books that many of us read about these subjects, do not match with the dictionaries. If you referred to dictionary definition in a Political Science class, you would not pass, I assure you.
I appreciate the kind words, thank you. Might as well use my experience with Social Democracy for something, because it always bothers me when people think it’s the solution.
God, you’re such a big dumb idiot of a lib. That’s the definition of a democratic socialist, not a social democrat - you can tell by the way one of the groups are call socialists and the others are called democrats. Not only did you mix up your definitions, but you never actually managed to define democratic socialist - do you really know what the difference is if you can’t even remember to talk about one of them? The answer, scrolling down your post history to where you called yourself a socdem, is no, you think they’re the exact same thing, because you don’t even have a surface level understanding of leftism. It only takes 5 minutes in leftist spaces to discover that anarchists, socialists, and communists of all flavour hate socdems for exactly your “no really, somehow we’ll manage to vote socialism in this time” attitude, but you’ve never spent a single minute in them, because you’re not a leftist.
My version of leftism is called Marxism and is based in historical reality and current material conditions. Your version is fantastical utopianism that’s convinced the elite are just going to give up the reigns any day now.
Death threats are an inappropriate and disproportiate response but have you considered that it is because you’re more irritating to the left than you are to the right? Especially given how right wingers historically are massively more violent?
I’m a demsoc. I want to respect Communism more, but I never get death threats from liberals and do occasionally get death threats from Tankies.
It sucks because I feel they’d make a good ally to compromise with if they weren’t hoping to have me executed for not supporting an authoritarian seizure of power.
Well, i can’t speak to your experience but I’m a commie who doesn’t dig a forced central planning authority. Or death threats even!
Well that’s a breath of fresh air. That’s very different from what I’ve seen. I do have to point out what I said elsewhere, that I feel Communists have a responsibility to speak against violent communism, the same way “good cops” can only be good if they speak out against bad cops. (I know how most Communists feel about police, but at least I hope you can appreciate the intent of the parallel)
For my part i get called a “traitor” and such by libs often, simply for criticizing the DNC et al.
I think using the word “traitor” in a situation like that is terrible. I do take it personally if someone treats the DNC as “just as bad as Trump” after he managed to cause an unprecedented amount of devastation between his immigration policies, “pay me” COVID handling, and open hatred of marginalized groups and “great people on both sides” support for groups like the KKK… But as much as I am disappointed when people put even a moderate like Biden in the same boat as him, I wouldn’t use the word “traitor”.
But your point stands, no death threats.
I would love if I met more Communists who are more willing to have constructive conversation with the other Leftist groups, instead of the ones that group all of us in a wide-net neoliberal basket that includes everyone from Bernie Sanders to Adolf Hitler. So, thank you :)
Do you ever think maybe it’s weird that you get many death threats? I think have ever had one in my life and I’ve conversed with many many mentally… unhealthy people
I’m a Social Democrat, who used to be a Democratic Socialist. The Right sees me as a Communist and McCarthyism kicks in. Did you hear about the “Physical Removal” movement? A meme-like movement about giving the Left helicopter rides to the middle of the ocean. I lived in a farm town where 40% of the voters were overcompensating for the Right not being able to win a rural area by being very outspoken anti-left.
And then, the Left. When I considered myself to be a demsoc, I tried to hang out in LSC on reddit. Not sure if you know it, but they eventually got banned for all the death threats coming out of there. There is an attitude around some percent of Communists that non-Communist lives don’t matter. They might be a minority, but they’re outspoken.
That was what got me to realize the flaw in being a demsoc, and I shifted laterally (NOT to the Right as several people like to pretend) to Social Democrat. Then I got more death threats because Communists have a hard-on of insisting Socdems are literally the same category as fascists.
I DO think it’s weird that I’ve gotten and get death threats over my views, and I understand why so many people my age have given up having any views at all and just become “I just vote a party and go about my day” folks that are part of the problem.
By the silent downvote I take it that you think getting so many death threats is normal and not possibly linked to being an extremely weird person who argues with perhaps even weirder people
Bingo Im bisexual and based on history alone there is no version of socialism that has not been horrible for me except the GDR for a few years at the very end of 1985-92.
You have my sympathy. Even when I was actively involved with pro-LGBTQ movements, there were people marching for rights that that didn’t respect bisexuals.
Oh fuck off lol. The biggest instance literally preemptively removedd from everyone left of Bernie Sanders. Go back to reddit if you’re afraid of getting called out for being politically illiterate.
I’m guessing it dropped the F and rearranged the rest into the R slur. I can’t think of any other word with most of those letters, and it is a word otuside of the slur context, a verb meaning “to slow down”
Okay so I followed the first part, you want Russians dead and all that, it’s the thing rn. But you realize saying “launch the nukes” is exactly the same thing as “death to America” but with more steps, right?
What can I say, I want to actually do the job I trained for sometimes. Besides, the way the qoeld is going makes me less and less hesitant to actually flip the toggle switch when the order comes. Maybe that’s the point.
I know they’re Great Power Conflict adversaries, and I know my job is to put warheads on foreheads when directed. Everything else is just ammo for the IC community, SW, SO and MISO. Hooyah America.
It’s literally not. It takes me a few hours to stop thinking about work shit and everything else I have to do and I don’t have that long at the end of the day. I didn’t say I drink every day or even every week. I wouldn’t even say I have a drinking problem. Most days I just sit around being still stressed out for an hour or so after I get all my shit done and then go to bed. You don’t know shit about me so keep your platitudes to yourself.
Someone doesn’t need to know you to know how self-medicating anxiety (what you’re describing) with alcohol fucks people up long term
They did manage to be a dick about it, but yea the more someone feels like they can’t stop those thoughts, the deeper the need is for something sustainable (a practice, a hobby, a life change, a med, etc.) that can help them do that
Even at its best, if someone sidesteps all the side effects of alcohol, it still just delays someone from learning how to master those thought patterns in themselves
Being healthy gives you that time. Alcohol makes you tired the next day, then you come home and drink again because you feel like garbage so on and so forth. You also lose time to the extra sleep your body needs to filter the poison out.
I’m not about to say that it’s easy. I’ve done a ton of after work drinking in my day. If you’re able, going a week or two without a drink really helps to sharpen the difference when you go back. For me that’s what put it all into perspective.
I’m the healthiest person I know and it’s not even close. I don’t have time because I work 9-10 hours a day, then have to exercise, feed myself, clean up, do whatever other shit needs doing, prepare for the next day, and sleep for 7-8 hours. This leaves ~1-1.5 hours to “relax”. That’s not enough time to clear my head let alone actually do something relaxing.
I know how to break out of those thought patterns. The problem is, like I already said, it takes longer to do than I have time for. It’s not like there’s a switch I can flip off.
I’m going to be fucked long term regardless of what I do anyway because the society we’ve constructed is fucked and built around continuously making everything worse.
I think it’s the “said no land Lord ever” bit. There’s a lot of investment property owners with hundreds of units that can be shady AF. It’s just tough to be the " I can handle this mortgage if I get a basement suite rented out and work really hard" and get lumped in.
Yeah one of my better landlords was a sparky that worked hard af. This is Aus though so might be different. Any time we reported shit with the house he was out the immediately when he didn’t have a job to fix it personally and you could tell he was hot shit at his work too because he had his own business.
The corporate owners and management companies have always been the problem. Individual owner landlords of course have a risk of being picky, nosey and overbearing, but 99% of the time they just want to preserve the investment value of their property while ensuring it pays for itself instead of being a huge money pit. Corporations are in it to maximize profit extraction by doing the minimum legally required maintenance (if even that), and literally nothing else.
If it is the landlord’s primary home then they should not be lumped in. Renting out a room to help pay mortgage on the home you live in is not the problem. It’s the second homes, the third, fourth, tenth, hundredth homes where it is an issues, and I do think we can lump all of those together. They are using our limited housing supply as a portfolio piece, inserting themselves as profit-driven middle-men and making it less attainable for lower income families.
Entities that buy and own homes purely for “investment” at any scale are the problem. For-profit housing should not exist at any level. Want to own a second home and rent it out to cover the costs? Sure, but require that it be a non-profit.
Yeah. I think there is a pretty big difference in the dynamic between a person who owns and directly manages rental properties and a corporate land lord that exists purely to extract as much money as possible from a tenant.
Ya, I don’t love the mom and pop landlords who own a few rental properties as a way to actually retire at a reasonable age. They aren’t the same as fucking blackrock and the other corporate landlords who grew at exponential rates after the 08 collapse and have worked so hard to make housing unaffordable. At least the small guys seem to give a shit about their property even if they’re scumbags. So if there’s a water leak, mold etc they’re probably more interested in fixing it so it doesn’t get worse.
“I retired when I was 45, so your check covers the mortgage and my living expenses” - my landlord
She was upset that I auto-payed on the end of the month because she needed it to clear so she could pay her mortgage and rent. She bought in HCOL when it was cheaper, realized how much she could rent it for, “retired”, and then moved to LCOL. Landlords are cool.
Fucking amen… We aren’t giving a portion of the wheat we harvest to the landlords, but we’re effectively doing the same thing. Half of my buying power goes right to the landlord…
And to just +1 what the other commentor said, my landlord too depends on my income to pay her mortgage as did the last 3 landlords I had… So glad I could help four fucking people pay for their mortgage while I’ll never have a home of my own.
Except this is real. Land"lords" are parasites on our society. They could easily be replaced by an overseeing body or really nothing at all would even be better.
Facts. There’s really no excuse for being a landlord. Even the “mom and pop” ones people are sucking off in this thread are a fucking scourge who are hoarding resources and exploiting the working class. I don’t care how sweet and polite they might be about it.
The only good landlord is…
Edit: Blocklist fodder itt, so many greasy bootlickers…
What service do landlords offer? Every property I’ve ever rented myself or seen from my friends is falling apart and shitty for an insane amount of money each month. If landlords charged half as much as they do maybe you’d have a leg to stand on.
Rental property owners charge for the service of providing housing. Home Depot charges for the service of renting their tools. The bouncy house places charge for the service of renting their bouncy houses.
hoard (verb.)
To accumulate money, food, or the like, in a hidden or carefully guarded place for preservation, future use, etc.
Rental property owners don’t hoard shelter.
I might be inclined to agree with you if landlords took out the locks and made those empty rental properties into interim homeless shelters, but we both know they would never do it.
“There are currently 28 vacant homes for every one person experiencing homelessness in the U.S.”
landlords dont provide shit, they hoard properties and make it harder for non-landlords to get housing, which drives up prices and forces more people to live on the streets.
they are a leech on society, making everything worse for the rest of us.
The article you linked is misleading. Houses are vacant for various reasons. Some are temporarily vacant:
some are undergoing renovations
some are between tenants
some are for sale
Some are more permanently vacant because they’re in such a state of disrepair that they can’t be lived in.
Rental property owners rent out properties, which keeps people housed and off the streets. However there’s been a lack of housing development over the past decade in the United States which leads to a housing shortage.
The homeowners who let their house rot because they couldn’t afford to fix it or they just didn’t care? There’s been so many foreclosures that were blights on the neighborhood until investors bought them, fixed them up, and rented them to families who wanted a nice place to live.
So every business is a provider in your eyes? You would say that McDonald’s provides food for everyone? That’s ridiculous and not the way anyone uses the word provide it’s just been brought into landlording to make leeches feel better about themselves
You aren’t doing yourself any favors bringing home depot into this, the owners are also greedy cunts.
There’s also a huge difference between something that protects you from the elements and renting a tool. There is no fundamental need for a tool, there is a fundamental need for shelter.
With how invested you are on your side, I wouldn’t be surprised to see you admit that you’re a landlord.
Home Depot is just one example. Any other example works.
People can grow their own food but choose to use the grocery store. The grocery store charges more for the food than they pay for it, because they’re providing a service.
Pharmacies sell medication and people buy from them. They are providing a service of having all the medication in one place.
People trade money for goods OR services. That’s how the economy operates.
A landlord does not take housing off the market. Rental housing is still on the market for families to live in.
Rent costs more than mortgage payments because it includes the payment for services to the owner. If you work a job you expect to get paid for your work and so does the landlord.
I said they take property off the market, not housing. By buying it and holding it indefinitely, that property is no longer available for purchasing.
Yes, services. Services that an owner could very well get done himself/herself without the bureaucratic overhead of having to use the landlord as an intermediary to a contractor.
The only landlords that could get things done faster than doing it yourself are those who have contractors and supplies on call. In other words, management companies or multiple-property landlords—the same ones who are in it solely to profit from the lack of available housing in urban areas.
The property is still available for families who want to rent it. You take all the rentals off the market and those who want to rent housing will have no choices.
There’s still many properties available to purchases. Having a mixture of some properties for rent and some of sale gives people choices.
Many people don’t have the skill or resources to manage their own property, let alone pay for large expenses all at once.
We can agree that the land and building is still available as housing, but it’s not property. The renter has no stake in the real estate. They don’t own it. It’s not their property, and their privilege to stay in it is subject to the terms of the actual owner—the landlord.
There’s still many properties available to purchases.
Sure, if you can afford an $700k apartment with a down payment of jack-diddily-squat because most of your income went to paying off some other guy’s mortgage and topping up their savings.
While we’re at it, let’s keep pretending that people purchasing property for the sole purpose of rental doesn’t artificially increase demand and drive up pricing.
Many people don’t have the skill or resources to manage their own property.
If you don’t have the skill to Google the number of an electrician or other tradie, I don’t know what to tell you.
And therefore don’t have to incur the burden of large expenses such as replacing a roof, a sewer line, etc.
if you can afford an $700k apartment
If you want to cherry pick an example of the most expensive areas of the country instead of the more reasonable examples of a $70k single family house. But then the person buying the property is responsible for all the repairs and maintenance.
doesn’t artificially increase demand and drive up pricing
The lack of housing development with increased demand creates a housing shortage. When there’s a shortage, pricing goes up. The United States is at least a decade behind where they should be in housing development.
That’s what a mortgage is for.
A mortgage just pays the bank for the loan. A mortgage payment does NOT pay for repairs on the property. If the furnace goes out in the middle of winter, it’s up to the homeowner to come up with the money – typically thousands of dollars all at once.
And therefore don’t have to incur the burden of large expenses such as replacing a roof, a sewer line, etc.
If someone bought a house without doing an inspection, that’s their own fault. If it’s a natural disaster, that’s why you have insurance. If it’s expected wear and tear, you would have emergency savings to cover it.
At least as a homeowner, I know I can actually get it fixed before freezing to death. Can’t say the same when waiting for profit-driven landlords to go through the script of checking it out themselves, finding some reason to claim its not broken, and then eventually pestering them for long enough that they do their damn job and hire someone to fix it in a couple weeks.
If you want to cherry pick an example of the most expensive areas of the country instead of the more reasonable examples of a $70k single family house. But then the person buying the property is responsible for all the repairs and maintenance.
I’m sure I could build a nice doomsday-prepper shack in the woods somewhere for $70k, though.
The lack of housing development with increased demand creates a housing shortage. When there’s a shortage, pricing goes up. The United States is at least a decade behind where they should be in housing development.
And you don’t see how landlords—who are buying more real estate than they actually use—create increased demand?
A mortgage just pays the bank for the loan. A mortgage payment does NOT pay for repairs on the property. If the furnace goes out in the middle of winter, it’s up to the homeowner to come up with the money – typically thousands of dollars all at once.
Not everyone who owns a house has emergency savings. Not everyone is good at saving money.
Can’t say the same when waiting for profit-driven landlords to go through the script of checking it out themselves, finding some reason to claim its not broken, and then eventually pestering them for long enough that they do their damn job and hire someone to fix it in a couple weeks.
Not sure where you’re getting that false narrative from.
I’m sure I could build a nice doomsday-prepper shack in the woods somewhere for $70k, though.
Or a single family house in a Midwest city. The United States isn’t just the coasts, you know. There’s a huge portion of land in between.
And you don’t see how landlords—who are buying more real estate than they actually use—create increased demand?
People live in those properties, they’re not “unused”.
They buy all the houses and put them up on a subscription service that costs more than what the person would’ve paid for it and keep increasing the prices every month.
When someone is on a lease, the rent amount cannot increase during the lease period. At the end of the lease period, the person is free to move somewhere else.
That’s incorrect. Houses need maintenance. They are not self healing. Things break, items need replacing, grass needs to be cut, light bulbs need to be changed, etc. Tenants also need to be managed.
Interesting that every rental I’ve been in is in some state of disrepair, if that’s what you claim the extra is for. You’re purposely avoiding the fact that rentals are there to make the landlord money, and nothing more.
What service? They own something I need to live. Landlording is inherintly exploitative, there is really no way I can think of that renting out a property is ethical.
Before you say no I can’t live in a tent or my car that’s a crime. Sure technically I could but I wouldn’t be able to park or put up a tent without tresspassing or violating a no parking order, also not allowed to live in a caravan park either.
They provide a place to live that you can move into almost immediately with little upfront money, and with no worry about any maintenance costs that are associated with owning a property.
It’s very useful for social mobility as it allows people to move around for work relatively easy if they plan on relocating, especially when they’re young.
Buying a property not only takes a sizeable upfront amount of capital but it’s also a very slow process. I think it took 6 or 7 months for us to go from putting an offer in to getting the keys.
That’s the service and that’s why a rental market is important. I’m not defending scrupulous landlords here, they’re 100% an issue and there definitely needs to be changes to address that.
Problem is that the upfront cost for renting is still steep. One months rent as a deposit (which 9/10 you won’t even get back even if you left the property pristine) on top of your first months rent is quite expensive, and most mortgage payments people make are also usually cheaper than what they would pay renting but they do not have the startup capital to even get on the ladder.
you also have to ask permission to even decorate the place and more than likely if you do you then have to put it back the way it was. So you are stuck with lovely magnolia walls, and if you want to redo the bathroom you best be careful that the landlord doesn’t decide your renovations increased the value and charge you more rent because of it.
Of the people I know who rent, which is basically everyone in my age bracket, they want to own a property but cannot afford to it’s a massive issue.
I agree buying properties takes ages I cannot dispute that, and you can still get screwed by unscrupulous sellers.
The place I live now is the best rented property I have and that is only because the estate agents actually listen to me and fix issues promptly. Which as far as I am concerned is the bare minimum which most just don’t do, you also have no recourse because the landlord has way more power over you.
Don’t get me started on flat inspections every 3 months is a piss take.
No, owning rental property is not exploitative. It gives people a choice of where to live. No one rental property is required for anyone to live – there’s millions of choices in the United States alone for places to live.
And yes, camping is legal. People camp every single day in the United States. And yes, people own RVs. They live in them and travel around the country. This is legal. Both of these give even more options for places to stay.
It doesn’t though you get a property you don’t own and you enrich someone else instead of making enough money to actually own a property which you won’t be able to afford anyway
Good for the USA I suppose not for me though, and that falls apart if the person wants to live in or near a city
Owning a property means shelling out money, sometimes unexpectedly. The furnace goes out in the middle of winter? Better fix that quick. Don’t have the money? Let it get to freezing now your pipes burst and that’s just thousands of dollars more to spend on top of the thousands of dollars to replace the furnace.
If I owned the property I could get the boiler fixed faster but seeing now I have to wait on the landlord and hope he understands the urgency, or I fix his property and good luck for me getting that money reimbursed.
Landlords are leeches. They’re not valid by any stretch of the imagination. Even the “good ones” are exploitative.
I’m just not willing to downplay this just because someone has a hard time accepting that a friend or loved one who’s a landlord is a colossal piece of excrement.
It’s hilarious how many people are trying to defend landlords like they’re actually somehow good for society.
Outside of the rare landlord-as-a-roomate to afford the mortgage scenario, landlords and renting are a solution to a problem they’re creating themselves. They benefit property owners and developers, while creating housing environments that encourage the rest of us to be dependent on them until they day we die.
Yeah, it’s pretty disgusting and disappointing to see that here. I just had some bootlicker write a novel about how his father in law was “one of the good ones.”
My FiL owns a few properties that he rents out. He “retired” at 49. Now he spends most of his day, every day, either improving empty/not ready properties, or maintaining the currently rented properties. The people he rents to simply cannot afford a house, at any price, or they do not have the time and skills or maintain their own home. He’s only evicted one person in his time as a landlord, literally because the tenant didn’t pay for 6 months, turned the property into a drug den and went on the run when the police tried to serve a warrant.
I get that landlords on the surface level can be seen as predatory, and I agree that there are a disproportionate amount of scum and anti-humam business drones in the rental business; but its important to remember that there are genuine people who buy, maintain and rent out properties so that their community isn’t rife with dangerous dilapidated buildings filled with squatters.
Anyone who buys housing to rent it out is a part of the problem. Housing is a basic human right, not an investment.
Unless your fil was providing housing for free, fuck him, and fuck off with the classist shit about squatters. I’d take a million squatters over one landlord.
The people who owned and lived in it would maintain it, because it would be their home and they own it. He only has to maintain it because he’s getting other people to pay for it for him as an investment. The building wouldn’t just poof disappear if it were owned by a housing coop, and people could actually be earning equity with their living situation instead of paying for your FIL to spend 95% of his time fucking around doing nothing and 5% fixing leaks or whatever.
When you give everyone in your nation a house, food, and healthcare while protecting yourself from the West that’s actually fascism. big-coolbig-coolbig-cool
Assholes maybe. Nazis no. There is definitely a point where someone is beyond saving and you need to simply cut them off, and Nazis are far, far beyond that line.
Depends where you live. Areas with a smaller craft brew scene do end up with the “nothing but IPA” problem. But where I live in the PNW there’s simply so damn many that even with 50% of them being IPA’s, you still get a huge selection of other pilsners, stouts, amber ales, hefenweizens… its pretty nice.
The brand is not named after the famous St. Pauli neighbourhood in Hamburg, which is home to one of the world’s largest entertainment and red light districts. Rather, the name comes from the former St. Paul’s Friary [de] in Bremen, which was next to the original brewery established in 1857 by Lüder Rutenberg. There are currently three brands of beer brewed: St. Pauli Girl Lager, St. Pauli Girl Special Dark and St. Pauli Non-Alcoholic Malt Beverage. The beer is only produced for export and is not sold in Germany.
An exaggeration but I do get your point. Bars should probably have maybe two IPAs (one hazy and one standard) and then a host of other beers styles. I’d love to come across more dark lagers personally but those are pretty rare even in places like Chuck’s Hop Shop
About 10 years ago it was probably closer to 80% IPAs. It was a big joke here that IPA stands for I Pretend (I’m not an) Alcoholic.
The only reason there is more on the market now is because we all stopped pretending the taste of motor oil with grapefruit gave us a better buzz.
Even now, most breweries will only seem to offer 4 varieties of IPAs, a pilsner/lager and a stout. Maybe an Amber but I feel the Mac & Jack’s copycat scene has mostly died out now.
Very true. I thought I hated craft beer because I lived in a small town in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, Minnesota. I moved to Minneapolis, and it’s craft beer galore. My personal favorite brewery is Fair State
True. It does seem like it is more than 50% sometimes. Unforthcoming my taste buds are pretty burnt out from too many IPAs at this point. I used to love a wide range of beers but now basically stick to a hoppy-nonhoppy scale. I used to love Belgians and ambers and porters and all sorts of beers that were on the maltier side. Not really my jam anymore.
My comment isn’t disagreeing with you. Only adding my two cents.
I live in an city that is on the top 10 list for breweries per capita in the world. And it’s all IPAs. Maybe 20% is not. And yeah it’s nice that I have 20 beers to chose from that aren’t ipas when I go to a place with 100 taps. I just hate having to sort though it all.
There should be an IPA menu, and a non ipa menu.
Also: IPAs have a lot of sugar content, and combined with alcohol sugar gives me a shitty buzz and a headache. I don’t know how people can drink more than one.
My IPAs and my pilsners finish at the same final gravity. IPAs do not universally have a lot of sugar. It’s the same as any other beer of similar alcohol content/starting gravity. If I got rid of the hops, I’d just have a strong English ale.
I believe you. You obviously know more. But it just seems so clear when I drink something crisp and light that I’m not getting that sugar high and headache I associate with strawberry daiquiris. But I get it from IPAs.
I keep wanting to switch, but the fact you just said you still use windows for some things is enough for me to just stick with windows, until Linux can do everything windows can then I feel like constantly switching is more hassle than whatever improvements Linux provides
I installed Mint as dual boot over a year ago and the only reason I ever booted back was one game that didn’t run quite well enough. Of course depending on your wants and needs it may vary, but you won’t know until you give it a shot.
Well, my favorite is The Dark Mod (OpenSource), it works on all OS, but generally most games are Windows only, at least if you want more than sidescrollers or games like those 20 years ago. The problem is not that Windows is better for gaming than Linux, rather the opposite, the problem is only the availability of games for Linux, not something else. Mac users have them even worse, at least if you don’t settle for things like Mario Bros or 8 Bit sidescrollers.
You are. What you’re talking about are virtual desktops or virtual workspaces.
I said “desktop environments”, which is a specific thing in Linux. It’s the GUI and suite of tools that come with it. They all tend to have a usecase in mind and different philosophy. There’s Gnome, KDE Plasma, xfce, lxde, Budgie, Cinnamon, Sway, and a whole bunch more that I can’t remember.
No, nothing like that. It can seem that way from a quick glance, but there’s so much more under the surface.
It’s such a large change under the surface that sometimes the exact same system, but with a different DE is considered its own distro, but usually they’re called spins.
In Windows you can do this too by default, without the need to install nothing. In the setting you can create several desktops or monitors, separate or continuos. By default Windows include a lot of features, even speech to text or command, you can create your own fonts with a tool that Windows has by default (eudcedit) and a ton of other tools it has. That Linux can do more than Windows is nonsense, this isn’t the advantage Linux has, en both you can do way more than you ever need.
No it can’t. You don’t even know what I’m talking about, clearly. I said “desktop environments”. I didn’t say anything about virtual workspaces. The only alternative desktop environment I know about for Windows is Stardock, and even that was a massive hack. I don’t even know if they still exist.
By default Windows include a lot of features
Ironically, this is one of Windows’ largest issues. They give you everything including the kitchen sink, but they used construction glue to hold everything in place. So all those features you don’t need or want (Xbox Gamebar, or whatever it’s called now) is impossible to remove without breaking the system.
even speech to text or command, you can create your own fonts with a tool that Windows has by default (eudcedit) and a ton of other tools it has.
Oh sure, like any mature OS for the past two decades.
That Linux can do more than Windows is nonsense
I guess you missed the tongue-in-cheek tone from my comment. But even so, Linux being able to do more than Windows is a valid point. And the things it does the same as Windows, it sometimes does them better (things like performance and stability)
For example: On Linux, I can setup a new drive with BTRFS or even ZFS. Can’t do that on Windows, because our choices there are: FAT32, exFAT, and good ol’ NTFS.
Well, if you mean customize the Desktop, there are certainly several apps. The first which ocurres me is Rainmeter (FOSS), also Rainlendar(Freemium), and some others. Not a big Problem with this.
I don’t mean the obvious functions and features of Windows, like Xbox, but a lot of apps included, such as the aforementioned eudcedit or the somewhat more well-known GodMode. The problem is that these are very little to nothing documented by MS.
Where I give you the reason is in performance, although at this point Windows has also improved a lot, at least in this aspect I have no complaints at all in W10 (well, at least after removing all the unnecessary services that it brings by default). On Linux it is perhaps somewhat better, but it also depends a lot on the Distro you use, some can also be quite resource hungry.
Regarding stability, I have no complaints since W7 either, Windows is a fairly stable system, even more W10. In old Windows an Appcrash mostly also crashed or blocked the system, not so in last versions. In W10, if an app crash, Windows simply takes you back to the desktop, killing the process, or a Menu appears when an app doesn’t respond, giving you the choice if you want to wait if it finishes responding, or kill the process.
No, that’s not what I mean. DEs are so involved that sometimes just changing the DE on the installer qualifies as a new distro. Rainmeter is literally just theming your desktop. Not even close.
or the somewhat more well-known GodMode
Linux comes with God mode out of the box. It’s called root.
Edit: I just want to point out that I actually know what god-mode is on Windows. However, I find it funny that Microsoft called it “god-mode” when on Linux those are the most mundane settings you could find. If you think god-mode is interesting, then KDE Plasma would implode your brain and spawn a microverse. You can even configure how Windows behave and how you interact with them on a per application or per window basis. And that’s just scratching the surface. /End Edit
although at this point Windows has also improved a lot,
Most of that improvement is a direct result of better hardware. I’m not kidding. Try to install Windows 10 on an HDD. The disk gets thrashed so hard that it’s a miracle they don’t catch on fire.
Another fun fact is that Microsoft changed the boot for Windows 10 to compete with Linux and macOS. Windows now shows the desktop to the user before even loading services. So you see your desktop, but you can’t use it right away. On both Linux and macOS as soon as you see your desktop, your system has loaded.
some can also be quite resource hungry.
All of them are better than Windows. A lot of this comes down to the CPU scheduler. The one Windows uses is slower than just about every other OS out there.
In old Windows an Appcrash mostly also crashed or blocked the system, not so in last versions.
This hasn’t been the case since well before XP. In fact, for most OSes this hasn’t been the case for at least a decade or two.
I shut down the Laptop every night (Power off, no fast boot enabled), when I boot the Laptop in the Morning it shows 3-4 s the Logo and a second after this the log screen, after entering my password in less than 10 seconds it shows the Desktop with all icons and WiFi enabled and online, 10 seconds later I’m posting in Lemmy. Maybe it loads slower in your case , if you have enabled all the default services, I use only the essential ones, desactivated Hibernation and Index, the first one the worst Memory Hog which I don’t use anyway and the second not needed with an SSD apart of slowing down the system, services like a printer, I don’t have, servies for Digital pad and similar things I don’t use, no animations. Start apps are only Crow Translate (~20 Mb) and ShareX, not much heavier. No AV apart the Defender which is pretty good currently. No Desktop icons, only in the Taskbar for the most used which I access with WinKey +1, 2, 3, etc… No waiting time when appears the Desktop (maybe the difference to use an SSD instead of an HD), all pretty fast and snappy. Lenovo 15 AST, AMD Radeon 8 Gb +3Gb GPU, 256 Gb SSD for € 350 new, two years ago, not really an high end NASA PC, as you can see.
I literally said in my previous comment that Windows 10/11 is unusable without an SSD. And then you present to me a system with an SSD that’s “pretty fast”. Ok.
You also detail how you rewire half the system’s internals to get it useable. That’s not what I’d call performant.
Just about every Linux distro is 100% ready to go in terms of performance. No tweaking to get things working at all. Only customization stuff, which is not what you were describing.
I setup a friend’s old system to Linux that was brutally slow with Windows. It’s a Core Duo (12+ year old CPU), 4GB RAM, and an HDD. She uses it every day for remote work. She says she’d never know it’s an old system if no one told her. That’s performance.
I agree with you, if Windows were not so Bloated, it would still be an OS with excellent performance. But I already said at the beginning that Windows requires an afternoon before first use to gut it and throw out all the garbage and services (to improve the user experience") that it comes with by default, this is probably the biggest disadvantage it has compared to Linux. The weight of the OS itself and the system requirements are not much different than one of the larger distros, it even works well on tablets conveniently reduced to the basic OS. My previous laptop did not have an SSD and it worked quite well there too (there I used it in dual boot with Kubuntu), but this, if is used as it comes by default, which the vast majority of users probably do, then it is logical that Linux performance is much higher. This is why I also said that Windows requires an advanced user to function as it should. Anyway, in the moment I don’t have reasons to change to Linux, at least until I have support for W10 (>2025 min). It works as it should and I am not in the habit of changing if something works the way I want it to. My life with the Laptop is 99% online and for this the OS with which I do it is quite irrelevant to me.
It works as it should and I am not in the habit of changing if something works the way I want it to. My life with the Laptop is 99% online and for this the OS with which I do it is quite irrelevant to me.
This is ultimately the only argument that really matters. If it works for you, then just use it.
That is, we all know that Windows is a privacy nightmare by default (somewhat less EU versions* because GDPR, there it’s telemetries only go to MS, not to half the Internet, with even keyloggers by TowerData as in the US version) and Linux infinite better in this point. But apart of this, respect security and stability Windows isn’t as bad as everyone makes it out to be, at least not since W7 (~8 ?), if viewed from the perspective of stability, security, and manageability as an OS. Adding the infinite catalog of software, also FOSS, which is not in any other OS. No OS is perfect and there are also a lot of linux distros that are utter crap, not all that glitters is gold and each one has its pros and cons. What I am certainly never going to buy is Apple, I think they have rested too much time on their laurels and become too elitist, exclusive and hermetic, adding the high prices that are based more on design than utility and features, apart from compatibility with practically nothing, except Apple, a “joy” for any dev
And to be fair I could not even get Valorant running on windows. I am guessing become of something like ShutUp10 or whatever it’s called. I did not bother with figuring it out. I’m on linux for a while now.
Ironically, Windows has the largest FOSS catalog of any OS, apart from soft proprietary of course. Also, many official and professional business apps are only available for Windows. Gaming can also be a reason to use Windows, although this is slowly changing.
Shut the fuck up man literally every single post about any other operating system is “SWITCH TO LINUX, YOU WON’T HAVE ANY PROBLEMS WITH LINUX!!! LOOK HOW MUCH BETTER LINUX IS!!! LINUXXXXXXXX!!!”
All it does is give all the circle jerkers a reason to spam comments and not listen to anybody else’s opinions besides their own and it does absolutely nothing helpful for the post
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