That’s a well-established economic theory and I’m not contradicting it. What I’m saying is that renting out the house after it’s built continues to create wealth. A world in which I build a nice house but keep it empty is wealthier than a world in which I leave the land unimproved, but a world where I rent that house out (or live in it myself) is wealthier still. The experience of living in that house, as opposed to some inferior option, has value.
Renting out property does create wealth. Think of a house as a factory that produces shelter. Running the factory, as opposed to leaving it idle, increases the amount of shelter in the world, and shelter is a form of wealth.
Did you read the article that you’re linking to? Rent seeking in the economic sense does not mean purchasing property in order to rent it out to tenants.
Well, yes - George W. Bush appears in retrospect to have been sincere. Some of the other powerful supporters of the war did profit from it, but at the expense of American taxpayers rather than Iraqis.
I had a six-month-long marriage. My ex-wife was not a nice person and everyone else could see it almost immediately, but I was swept away by how determined to be with me she was. It felt so good to have a woman who was attractive, successful, and very, very interested in me. Too good to be true, as it turned out. I’m not sure exactly what was wrong with her - something like borderline personality disorder? Once I committed to her, she became very jealous and would go from sweet to angry frequently and with no provocation. Although she only ever yelled at me, I was scared of her.
I’ve made mistakes in my life that were good for me because they were learning experiences. My marriage wasn’t one of them - I wish that it had never happened. However, I did still learn from it:
Don’t look down so much on people who make obvious, foolish mistakes. You might end up as one of them. I didn’t think I was the kind of person who would ever get divorced but here I am…
Admitting that you made a big mistake feels terrible, but the real problem is the big mistake, not the admission of it. I was a fool to be married for just six months, but I would have been a bigger fool if I stayed in that marriage longer than that. I’m still ashamed that I married my ex, but I’m proud that I had the courage to leave.
Time does heal wounds. All my hopes and dreams about the future with her were garbage, my judgement was no better than that of a daytime talk-show guest, and my humiliation was known to every single person who was important to me, since they were all at my wedding. Then years passed, and while I still haven’t spoken to some more distant relatives simply because I don’t want to explain that I’m not with my ex-wife any more, I have in fact moved on with my life.
How are you getting reliable success with any spell that allows for a saving throw? I’m seeing pretty terrible odds with my bard’s offensive enchantment spells (on Tactician difficulty).
So drinking a real-world cow’s milk is ok, but drinking a Zootopia cow’s milk would not be ok because… the Zootopia cow is presumably a full member of society who earns a living by consensually being milked?
Nobody really knows why that’s supposed to attract a potential dating partner, but it’s really common
Back when I did online dating I wrote about playing computer games, not because I expected that to be attractive to the average woman (of course it isn’t) but because I was hoping to meet one of the rare women who shared my interest.
A friend of mine managed to marry a woman who agreed to have their honeymoon be a week-long canoe trip through the wilderness in Maine, complete with living off of the fish they caught. It can happen!