@JuicyJuuce @StatisticUrban That is a case for data centers on farmland, not data centers in the middle of NYC.
English
DownwardlyMobileJew
18 posts
Many of you would understand the world much better if you took 4-5 economics classes, or purchased a textbook and made an honest and rigorous effort to understand it.
Many of you appear to think ~0 about incentives, trade-offs, constraints, or second-order effects.
English
@JuicyJuuce @StatisticUrban Minds will be blown when Georgists realize the returns on data centers in urban areas are higher than apartments, and that the LVT reacts to this by raising taxes on apartments to that of the most productive data centers.
English
@DownwrdMobility @StatisticUrban in urban centers, apartments will certainly be incentivized. but unless you think LVT spawns more humans out of thin air, your apocalyptic predictions don't make sense.
English
@JuicyJuuce @StatisticUrban They are productive, but less productive than most alternatives unless you are creating massive apartment blocks.
Current cities would be torn apart by the implementation of a LVT. Exceptions would be created to save them. Then we are back where we started.
English
@DownwrdMobility @StatisticUrban so all neighborhoods near valuable retail evaporate and get replaced with more retail? *that* is what is nonsensical
i think maybe you're not realizing that homes are, economically, a productive use of land?
English
@JuicyJuuce @StatisticUrban Like yeah, of course, if you disfigure the LVT into something completely different that weighs equilibriums it will work. You are reinventing our current system.
English
@JuicyJuuce @StatisticUrban LVT isn’t made to account for the market equilibrium, property taxes are. LVT maximizes productivity, and the calculation is based on the maximum potential productivity of the land.
English
@alexbronzini Because Hasan Piker’s influence is growing among the elites. This is a broadside aimed at the NYT staff and urban champagne socialists.
Unfortunately, the dispute is spilling into the public sphere and we are condemned to read it.
English
Setting aside whether this argument is good, hasn’t it been made, identically, about five other times in the last month? Why do editors keep publishing this?
USA TODAY@USATODAY
Opinion: Democrats and the legacy media are right to call out Nick Fuentes. He deserves it. But that’s no excuse to ignore a very real extremist on the left. usatoday.com/story/opinion/…
English
@JuicyJuuce @StatisticUrban There are objectively developments that are superior to all others in terms of rent. These are what will be maximized under Georgism, to the detriment of everything else.
English
@DownwrdMobility @StatisticUrban i think your definition of affordable housing is circular, and "taxed as if it should convert to retail" isn't quite right. some residential locations are simply more appealing than others and nearby amenities contribute to that. nothing nonsensical about it.
English
@JuicyJuuce @StatisticUrban The LVT is intended to maximize productivity. The fact is not every piece of land can be maximally productive.
The affordable housing next to retail will be taxed as if it should convert to retail as well. It’s nonsensical.
English
@DownwrdMobility @StatisticUrban i think it is unsubstantiated that most owners wouldn't be able to afford the new tax.
ultimately, their area has now become a more appealing place to live. a LVT really is the best tax and best way for society to handle private use of natural resources.
English
@JuicyJuuce @StatisticUrban Retail tends to massively inflates the values of nearby real estate irregardless of the potential utility of the land.
LVT implemented as theorists suggest would factor in the value spike and increase taxes to compensate for the new value. Most owners can’t afford the new tax.
English
@DownwrdMobility @StatisticUrban why would a retail development require a modified LVT?
English
@jmhorp @StatisticUrban Economically, it almost works, until it’s recognized that the LVT can negatively impact economic activity and exceptions must be carved out.
Then you either get something that looks suspiciously like a modern property tax or some behemoth that would evict half the population.
English
@StatisticUrban @DownwrdMobility Here is from David Hyman's Public Finance textbook. He also thinks it wouldn't work as the only source of revenue, but the idea has merit.
Again, these are standard, non-libertarian undergraduate public econ textbooks
English
@tracewoodgrains Next time people don’t believe me when I say there is more ideological diversity on the right I will show them this post.
English
Reading historical racist books is fun, bc you get a steady stream of arguments against slightly different racists.
Like this, from 1832: "Look, we all agree the slave trade was horrendous and evil. Obviously, nobody disputes that. But now that they're here..."
A brief thread.
English
I majored in economics because I knew in the future I would need to craft bulletproof excuses for being unemployed.
English
@stanfordNYC Ban rage bait on X. Ban lower caste Indian immigration. Ban grade inflation. Ban puppy mills. Ban obnoxious fumes. Ban obesity. Ban low-quality socks. Ban usury. Ban
English
Ban gambling. Ban marijuana. Ban endless scroll. Ban pornography. Ban gacha. Regulate crypto. Ban AI romance chat. Put daily caps on short-form video, maybe on streaming and multiplayer gaming too.
We can either regulate our way out of this or watch millions succumb. Up to us.
English
@captgouda24 Professors are unaware of the potential for noise shocks and close their windows in response to new information.
English
Have you ever noticed how professors close the classroom window whenever a particularly loud car goes past? This doesn't make sense. Opening the window allows for stochastically arriving noise shocks. Realizing one of those shocks should not update your prior.
English
@arctotherium42 German military command was neutered nearly to the point of impotence and that has carried on to modern day.
They remain overly reliant on foreign nations and the civil command of their military is excessive compared to fellow democracies.
English
Historical confusion here. Japan was militarily neutered after WWII, but Germany was not, and was fielding the second most powerful land forces (founded and led by ex-Nazis) in NATO for most of the Cold War. Incorrectly projecting 21st century Germany back to 1945.
Palantir@PalantirTech
Because we get asked a lot. The Technological Republic, in brief. 1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation. 2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible. 3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public. 4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software. 5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed. 6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost. 7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way. 8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive. 9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret. 10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed. 11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice. 12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin. 13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet. 14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war. 15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia. 16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn. 17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives. 18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within. 19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all. 20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim. 21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful. 22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what? Excerpts from the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska techrepublicbook.com
English
@alexbronzini Stop begging for handouts and go found the next VICE News.
English
Relatedly, if you’re an editor and want to put me in harm’s way this summer, hit my line alexanderbronzini@gmail.com
English
The culture of sending hipster Brooklynite freelancers to imperil their lives in service of gonzo journalism was dying post-pandemic and I’m very glad Citrini is bringing it back
English