Gregory's Server@HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan so who am I to rent from? I can definitely not afford to own my own house, nor do I ever really want to - I am quite content to rent, as are many people. Sure - there are plenty of incredibly greedy property owners, who completely want to rip renters off, but that is not always the case. Who is to provide rent to those who prefer to rent - if not somebody who owns a property, but does not live in it?
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@HeavenlyPossum @Daojoan @violetmadder that doesn't answer my question- from whom am I to rent?  @storyworker @HeavenlyPossum @Daojoan @violetmadder the state, in the current model. Many cities in Europe — with Vienna being the canonical example — own a huge chunk of the rental properties, and it works very well for everyone. @violetmadder @lkanies @Daojoan @storyworker That’s just trading an individual landlord for a corporate landlord. @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan @storyworker but at least it’s an answer, and one that does not start with recreating the universe. @lkanies @storyworker @Daojoan @violetmadder I have not proposed recreating the universe. @HeavenlyPossum @storyworker @Daojoan @violetmadder I’m speaking to the limits of my imagination, not yours. @HeavenlyPossum fwiw I was genuinely not trying to be offensive. I’ve learned a lot from you and others, and in some cases I can use that to imagine how a different world might work. But in many others — like this one — I can’t quite. And I learned long ago not to let a better solution be blocked by the vague possibility of a perfect one. I assume you have a more complete picture of how things could work. But I’m just having to muddle through, and usually do quite poorly here. @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan @storyworker I’d love a world where housing existed that did not need to be purchased but also did not need to be rented from… someone. But I honestly cannot imagine how to create such a world, or how it would work. In the meantime, I can at least imagine there being a lot of public housing, and while that world is still flawed, it’s far less so than the one we live in now @lkanies @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan @storyworker @shamogan @lkanies @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan That is something I have pondered for my own future, especially in the context of a living/working arrangement. This is something that needs to be happening more, building more, over time. @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan this is the problem with so much discourse these days - I've offered you a personal and heartfelt reflection of my own experience as a renter, and you've remained lost on a labyrinth of words and concepts. Life is an experience between people, not concepts and word play. Your need to remain cynical is yours alone. @HeavenlyPossum @Daojoan @violetmadder "seeing things for how they really are" is a very treacherous path to walk. What that statement really means is - "seeing things as I see them". In my estimation of how things really are - this vast and incomprehensible universe has provided me with a roof over my head, and a bed in which to lay at night, and this has manifested through what we commonly know as "landlords". Feel free to state your position, but don't burden it as being "things as they are" @storyworker @Daojoan @violetmadder Medieval serfs were also taught to believe that their feudal lord had provided them the homes that those serfs had built and the farms that those serfs worked. @HeavenlyPossum @Daojoan @violetmadder I'm not a medieval serf. I am just someone who believes that the universe has given me a roof over my head right now, manifested through what I know as my landlord. Is my experience of reality sound? probably not, is it valid? probably not. Is it my experience of my reality ? yes it is. So for me, it is sound, and it is valid. @violetmadder @Daojoan @storyworker The universe did not give you a roof over your head. A builder constructed it and you are financing its costs and upkeep. @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan You telling me my experience of this life is wrong? Wrong for me or wrong for you? Give me some clarity here. @Daojoan @violetmadder @storyworker Your claim is false. “The universe” did not provide you with a roof over your head. It did not suddenly appear. It did not congeal through magic. It did not accrete through natural processes. Someone made it (a builder) and someone financed it (you). Landlords merely interject themselves into that process to collect rents—a toll, a private tax—off your need for housing. @HeavenlyPossum @Daojoan @violetmadder Are you really telling me my experience of reality is false? Seems a bit of a rude thing to do. Just admit it - it's just your own opinion, don't try to hook that one on me. @violetmadder @storyworker @Daojoan Yes, I am making the claim that “the universe provided it” is a nicely poetical metaphor but it doesn’t change the reality of how houses are built or financed. Are you telling me that no one built your house and no one pays for it? @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan I'm a buddhist, but I won't get into how "no one" might be regarded. Why does it have to be a poetical metaphor? Why so dismissive of another persons experience of reality? i know that my house was built, and is payed for, but that's none of my business. It allows me to do the work that I need to do. I'll pay the karmic debt for that at some point in this journey, no doubt. @violetmadder @Daojoan @storyworker It is your business because it is your home and you are financing its costs through your rent while accruing no ownership over it. @Daojoan @storyworker @violetmadder “Feudal exploitation is ok because the self is an illusion” is a hell of a take but it would go a long way towards explaining the survival of feudal landlording by Buddhists in Buddhist societies in which people are ostensibly eschewing the accumulation of material wealth. @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan No it is none of my business. I don't wish to own this building. It is my home and it is allowing me to do the work that I need to do, beyond that - it is none of my business. Keep telling me that it is, but that's none of my business either. I'm not even sure if the work I am doing is any of my business. It's just there to be done. @violetmadder @Daojoan @storyworker I’m sorry that this has upset you so much, to hear how landlording actually works @storyworker @Daojoan @violetmadder “I don't wish to own this building” That’s good because men with guns will prevent you from doing so, even though you are financing it yourself. @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan who said i am upset? It's rather condescending and arrogant to presume that my offering of my own perspective, as much as it differs from your own, comes from place of ignorance of what it is that you are trying to say. Are you able to hold a different viewpoint AND comprehend other viewpoints??? @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan then you can assume that i also have that ability. @storyworker @Daojoan @violetmadder Are you unfamiliar with the concept of being wrong? @HeavenlyPossum @Daojoan @violetmadder yes of course I am. Are you? @violetmadder @Daojoan @storyworker Yes. I have repeatedly and explicitly endorsed your subjective experience of your landlord as positive. @FrenchPanda @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan well darnit. I'm just a complex human being - surely you've encountered that before? Just because you see it differently to me, it doesn't mean I'm wrong. You able to let that land in you somewhere? Okay then. You don't care about whatever happens to you and your living place. I cannot even fathom that, and I don't understand your "complexity" but okay. Less complex people tend to not like not having control over the place they live in. They don't like to be faced with the options of paying more and more money each year or be homeless. They would actually like being able to be sure that their home is actually their home. @FrenchPanda @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan it is my home. You can see it how you want to, but I'm the one who lives here, so, I get to decide. @FrenchPanda @violetmadder @Daojoan @storyworker You don’t at all get to decide—your landlord owns the home, with all the coercive state authority that comes with that particular legal institution. @HeavenlyPossum @FrenchPanda @violetmadder @Daojoan ok this has been intriguing. But once you start delving into thinking that you have more right to determine how it is that another person experiences and defines their own reality, I'm pretty disinclined to continue engaging. Ideological dogma is ugly and dangerous - no matter what colour hat it wears. Cheers. Seeya. @Daojoan @violetmadder @storyworker @FrenchPanda It’s easier to dismiss a new and uncomfortable idea as “ideological dogma” than actually consider that your understanding is incorrect. I get that! Cheers. @FrenchPanda @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Having a home allows me to do the work I need to do. Having to leave at the end of the month would also allow me to do the work I need to do. @HeavenlyPossum @Daojoan @violetmadder With respect, and apologies - after nearly 3 years in the social work academic space, I have become somewhat adverse to blanket statements, such as "No one should be allowed to own a residence where they do not actually reside." - These issues always merit nuance, and invite complexity. @HeavenlyPossum @Daojoan @violetmadder My landlords have my consent to rent me their home. I'm ok with it. I get it that you are not, but I hope you are also able to be ok with the fact that I am ok with it, and that there are plenty of people who are also quite content to remain as renters - and without the current arrangement, as it is, that would not be possible. Historical contexts are always lovely, and there is so much academic discourse to be had here, but at the end of the day . I'm home @Daojoan @storyworker @violetmadder I have quite explicitly told you that I am not criticizing you for your choices. Consent given under duress, however, is not freely given. @HeavenlyPossum @Daojoan @violetmadder Sorry - here sits just a fleeting space time event, currently known as "me", dancing through an eternal space time field - not sure how it is that you can say that I am under duress - because I am certainly not. You can, of course, assert to me that I am under duress, but you would need to do that - under duress. @storyworker @violetmadder @Daojoan People who do not pay landlords or banks for housing are typically under threat of being violently made unhoused, with all of the harms that come along with that.  @storyworker @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan the idea is that without houses available to rent, at least prices should drop and it would be easier to buy. But I agree that renting has its place: for nomads that change town from time to time, for students that don't want to commit to one place yet, and many many other situations. I guess the idea is that should be more the exception than the norm. I wonder if any country provides census info about house ownership and will to own |
@Daojoan @violetmadder @storyworker
Passively accepting one’s role in an unjust status quo is a perfectly reasonable survival strategy, but it doesn’t make that status quo good or just.
Your landlord isn’t providing you with housing. You are providing your landlord with housing. If landlords did not hoard more housing than they could personally use to collect feudal rents from tenants like you, then housing costs would be dramatically lower, all else being equal.