This reminded me of having to install a codec pack like klite or cccp as one of the first things on a fresh install. I’m glad that isn’t a thing anymore.
The sad thing is that a Cyberpunk dystopia is nominally interesting. Violent, terrible, and impoverished, yes, but also fastpaced and exciting. Our world is dull, programmatic, largely predictable, and extremely boring unless you have disposable income. We all have cellphones, yes, but that doesn’t make it cyberpunk.
That’s because people in cyberpunk settings actually have the volition and guts to make change happen, and to put themselves through adversity against all the odds. People in the real world probably won’t attend a peaceful protest in their area for something they support if they aren’t in the mood.
This is true of any work of fiction. People in works of fiction - at least works of sci-fi or fantasy adventure - are typically more risk taking because that’s interesting to a reader/audience and the author knows this.
The characters the story is written about do. The people living in it that the main character doesn’t even interact with don’t. Nobody cares about salaryman #97543784 who, at the beginning and end of the story is still pushing pencils but maybe reads about an office explosion in the news.
Wait like restart as in go back in time to the year I was 6 or restart as in become a 6 year old in 2024. Because if it’s the former hell yeah stocks, bitcoin, sports betting back to the future style. If it’s the latter fuck that.
I’m thinking the situation would be, you would be reverting to 6 year old you in 2024, living with your spouse and kids… at that point I think I would be fine
Did you guys know most rental properties are made of wood?
Unrelated but apparently worker termite colonies will molt into reproductive adults in the absence of a queen and many hobby sources supply worker termites to most US states! It can be a fun and fulfilling hobby for those of all walks of life.
Lemmings continue to vastly underestimate who landlords are.
In fact, fewer than one-fifth of rental properties are owned by for-profit businesses of any kind. Most rental properties – about seven-in-ten – are owned by individuals, who typically own just one or two properties, according to 2018 census data. And landlords have complained about being unable to meet their obligations, such as mortgage payments, property taxes and repair bills, because of a falloff in rent payments.
Individual investors owned nearly 14.3 million of those properties (71.6%), comprising almost 19.9 million units (41.2%). For-profit businesses of various sorts owned 3.7 million properties, or 18.8%, but their holdings totaled 21.7 million units, or 45% of the total. Entities such as housing cooperative organizations and nonprofits owned smaller shares of the total.
only about half of individual landlords reported net income in 2018, with the rest losing money on their properties. Such losses can, under certain conditions, be used to offset other taxable income.
I’m glad to see some actual numbers. I am curious how quickly that is changing. I was a social worker for ten years until the last few months, and I would help people find housing all the time. It feels like there used to be more “mom and pop” landlords when I first started compared to now. Now I see this corporate players for the majority of rental listings.
I think the high price of housing will eventually prevent most individuals from buying a rental property, and like every other industry, the immensely wealthy corporations will take over. My last landlord paid $800 per month for her mortgage on the place. If someone wanted to buy a comparative property to rent out today, their mortgage would be closer to $5400 per month. There aren’t a lot of people who could commit to that. The ladders are being pulled up.
Ok, now what conclusions do you want people to take away from this information?
Possible takeaway: There are worse people / entities that could own the apartments and houses that are being rented out.
If that’s the only takeaway, it’s still not going to make me feel sad for landlords.
If they created an LLC, then whatever happens to their business, they can always just get a different job and their own housing situation will remain stable.
If they didn’t, maybe because they couldn’t get a large enough loan to buy property without putting up their own collateral, that was presumably their choice.
I don’t want anyone to lose access to housing (or food, or healthcare), but I’m much more worried about renters ending up unhoused than landlords.
I don’t want anyone to lose access to housing (or food, or healthcare), but I’m much more worried about renters ending up unhoused than landlords.As it stated, most are charging reasonable prices at or below market price. Meaning they are one tiny dam blocking hundreds of thousands of people who can’t afford to live in that city from being homeless. It’s one of the biggest takeaways when you read the article.
Most landlords, the large majority, are essentially people who decided to put their savings into equity rather than tossing their money into a big giant pile for the rich to make themselves richer, aka, the stock market. Sometimes you toss it somewhere and just lose it.
Their price to pay for that equity are taxes and upkeep. Their payoff is selling it when they retire or giving it to their children or grandchildren. I don’t think I’ve ever rented from any suburban or rural landlord that wasn’t in one of these two positions.
These people aren’t megacorporations buying up land from potential homeowners. They’re people in their 60s and 70s now realizing that their investment more often than not was a poor one. They subsidize their tenants allowing them to live in cities and areas they normally wouldn’t. And when they die, the homes are going to children to either sell for a quick buck to fund their own kids college or moving into them when they’re house is now too big since the kids just moved.
As always, the gamut of possibilities is way too wide for such anti-human extremist propaganda that gets pushed then eaten up by people who should know better.
So far the worst outcome for landlords that you have posed is that they “realize that their investment was a poor one”.
And yes, I want that landlord’s grandchildren to be able to afford college (which I think should be free for all, paid for by tax increases on the rich).
But you have to admit that we’re talking about vastly different worlds here, right?
What percentage of renters live paycheck to paycheck and are at risk of living on the street?
What percentage of landlords are at risk of living on the street?
What percentage of renters expect to be able to leave enough in money and assets to their children, so that those children can afford to pay college tuition for the renter’s grandchildren?
I agree with you that dehumanizing people is wrong. I agree that landlords can struggle too.
I agree that there are worse people / entities that could own apartment complexes and houses.
But you haven’t really convinced me that I should worry about the general well-being of the landlord class, or that it’s worth my time and energy to chide renters who say mean things about them online.
Blue. No mistake reversion or bitcoin investing would outweigh possibly never meeting my partner again. With Blue, I have everything I could ever want from this life, with red, I may lose everything important to me now.
Absolutely. Anyone who would go back in time purely to make more money is a fool if they think having more than 10 million dollars would make a tangible difference on their quality of life. Who cares if you make a billion off of bitcoin? For 10 mil you can be extremely comfortable and don’t have to relive some of the most awkward years of your life. Only way it would be different is if your choices got someone killed or something.
So true. My wife and I are high school sweet hearts but also both very different people now. The boy she fell in love with initially I couldn’t properly emulate. We were deep into Christianity and even met at church. We’ve since both lost our faith. I wouldn’t be able to pretend without her seeing through my bullshit.
Blue pill. I’m young enough (37) that I’d lose far more than I’d gain if I chose Red. The knowledge I currently possess can change the world with 10 million.
Everyone. I’m writing a book to explain but I’ve come up with a problem solving framework that can solve any clearly defined problem using a combination of strategies and theories from a wide variety of different subject areas. But I’m still in the process of articulating it. Original idea is only 2 months old at this point, so I still need more time to tinker and experiment with it.
The reason 10 million would be helpful is that it would simply enable me to quit my job and focus entirely on my long term plan.
What’s a deck? Does that mean a presentation? I’m not really interested in selling the idea, I think it’s too important to risk just becoming another money hoarding trick for some soulless corporation to just keep for their own ends.
If anything it’s going to get published open source. It doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to everyone.
Yeah, I will. It still needs more preliminary work though. All I have is a rough outline that’s sufficient for me to verbally walk someone through it in 2.5 hours. Nowhere near ready for people to be able to read it and know what I’m talking about. If anything it looks like gibberish right now, or it looks like I’m a crackpot. But so far I’m comforted by the fact that everyone I’ve explained it to thinks I’m on to something. I’m happy with the progress rate though, I’m only 2 months in, and juggling a lot in life right now.
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