site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32854 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

23
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The recent Georgist uprising in the rat-sphere seems to be spreading outward, and gathering steam if anything. Lars Doucet, who wrote the original ACX post that blew up, is now releasing a book called Land is a Big Deal which summarizes his writings thus far.

There was also a major takedown of Detroit land assessment practices by a major land parcel data collector, ReGrid that dropped a few days ago. Major takeaways:

  • Property tax assessment is widely variable - some houses have *double* the tax burden of identical houses literally across the street.
  • Landowners tend to have far better valuations (i.e. pay less taxes) than homeowners, probably because they have more time/incentive to protest valuations.
  • Poor taxing and tax foreclosure in Detroit are likely a large part of why the city has fallen on such hard times in recent years.

In addition, some fairly mainstream political candidates such as Chloe Brown who's running for Mayor of Toronto, seem to be gaining steam. Land value tax is a large plank in her platform.

I got interested in land reform through the original series of ACX posts, and frankly I'm surprised how interesting the problem is and how overall neglected the topic seems to be. Even extremely intelligent and well read folks I talk to about it are surprised when they learn that land value is usually just pulled out of thin air - the industry standard is to just take 25% of the purchase price and not give a shit about location or any other factors, which seems bizarre upon a critical review.

I've seen some discussion about Georgism/LVT here, but curious if anyone else has been following this?

Also, what are the arguments against LVT, besides low-effort "taxes are always bad and raising them is evil?" Genuinely curious for well thought out reasons why an LVT would be a bad idea.

Edit: For those new to this idea, a Land Value Tax in it's most basic form simply says we should tax away the value of the land, and only let people who sell land profit off of the 'improvements' they make, such as buildings, restorations, etc. For instance if you bought a piece of land and tried to sell it 1 year later off pure speculation, doing nothing to the land, you would not receive any profit.

Also, what are the arguments against LVT, besides low-effort "taxes are always bad and raising them is evil?"

Still low-effort is "it's communism, but only with land". But given how bad communism has turned out, I think it's sufficient. The Georgist LVT is equivalent to the government owning all the land and leasing it out to the highest bidder.

One might equally say (and indeed Robert Nozick and others have said) that taxing income is slavery insofar as it forces people to do (fractional) unpaid labour, with the threat of force as ultimate guarantor. In both cases, I think it is a form of what Scott has called the worst argument in the world. If it did turn out that income tax was legitimately conceptually very close to slavery or LVT to Communism, it would be entirely reasonable to say, “huh, I guess at least one form of slavery/Communism is relatively unproblematic”.

Income taxes aren't slavery because they don't force you to work. A 100% land value tax really would be like confiscation of property-in-land.

Of course they force me to work. Without income taxes, I’d be already retired, instead, I have to work for couple more years.

Yeah, the income equivalent would be a... education-scaling poll tax, which would 100% be considered unacceptable by the exact same people pushing this. George Mankiw once trollishly proposed taxing height in a similar way, since it correlates so closely with earning potential.

The fact that human capital can't be easily taxed is pretty close to a grand unified theory of 21st century American politics, really.

The Georgist LVT is not fractional; it really is equivalent to the government owning all the land.

People keep bringing this up, but doesn't the government already own all the land? You have to pay property tax on it...

The distinction here is that the government is capturing the appreciation of land, or value not directly added by the landowner.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats