faceh
1mo ago
I'm more asking if friend A has to move to a different city for a job opportunity, friend B has to move across the country for his family, and Friend C is stuck in the same place for [reasons], is it better for them to have a virtual environment to hang out, even if it is an imperfect simulation, or should they all forgo other opportunities to maintain close distance with each other?
faceh
1mo ago
Boeing having to get rescued from their latest boondoggle, despite that company having more funding than GOD, should be an illustrative point.
faceh
1mo ago
A modern day Tony Stark is 'impossible' because no one person can achieve the total amount of expertise and do the actual intellectual and physical labor needed to build anything really cool and effective, esp. at scale. You can't really build a magical reactor and suit of powered armor in a cave, with scraps.
If you're only willing to give a guy credit if he personally designs, builds, tests, and produces the end product without delegation, then literally nobody gets credit for cool stuff happening.
Maybe when Elon is fully Neuralinked up and has a squadron of those Optimus robots responding to his very thoughts he could go it 'alone.'
But the dude who can identify, acquire, and direct the necessary experts and keep them motivated and funded long enough to build some cool shit is like 1/3 of the way to being Tony Stark.
My point about Elon has long been that YES, he constantly overpromises and underdelivers. But he still delivers more than his closest competitor so he wins anyway. Overhyping a product matters much less if you're the only one who can deliver anything close to the hype.
At least part of that has to do with him putting in absurd hours and, as we see above, actually adding his technical input to the process rather than just sitting back and funding other workers. Indeed, the Principal-Agent problem would suggest that if you just sit back and fund people, they will optimize for getting paid rather than delivering results, so I think he throws himself in there mainly to make sure everyone else is, too.
faceh
1mo ago
Man, I've been a Thomas fan since Law School, and I think what we're seeing now is a guy who has almost all the same convictions he did 30 years ago, but he's finally gotten to implement them rather than just writing terse and pithy dissents.
There HAS been an uptick in reporters and other platforms attempting to make Alito and Thomas' conduct off the bench out to seem somehow abberrant and worthy of removal, though.
Man, say whatever you want about Elon. The guy comes up with crazy ideas that break with some convention, and is willing to stick with them until they either fail or miraculously work out. Cybertruck is having some birthing pains but I will timidly predict that it has achieved a decent level of acceptance and we'll see imitators soon. AND he's good at picking the right people to implement these ideas.
Like there's still probably some irreducible risk from this approach, but to pluck it out of the space of possible solutions when it wasn't even on anybody else's radar? Damn.
faceh
1mo ago
By their nature they tend to be those who are exceptionally good at blending in, at 'hypnotizing' the masses, at deflecting blame, and navigating social environments to favorable ends.
So just because you manage to identify them doesn't mean you can rally enough support/power to keep them out or to oust them. They're the ones who will sacrifice virtually every other value to maintain power, and you, as a normal person, have people and things you value which can be attacked or threatened to get you to back off.
faceh
1mo ago
There's still other frictions in moving, e.g. losing all your friends, that will continue to discourage moving even for people without mortgages and even if those people rent their furniture.
There are no subscription models for friends... yet. But there are plenty of ways to stay connected with them across physical distance.
Indeed, maybe in this future we have a fully-realized VR metaverse where as long as your subscription is paid up you can go 'visit' and hang out with friends in an idealized environment as much as you like.
Is this tangibly worse than being 'forced' to live geographically near your friends if you want to spend time with them?
faceh
1mo ago
Indeed.
But that sort of person is seemingly becoming more common these days, and it would surely make sense for them to have subscriptions/rentals for everything since that gives them maximum mobility and minimal friction?
faceh
1mo ago
This ultimately seems like a generalized argument against centralized authority, however.
There's a version I can conceive of with enough competition between various entities that it is less likely that a person gets frozen out of everything at once due to violating the policy of one of them. And likewise the competition prevents any one company from engaging in full monopoly pricing to suck all the consumer surplus out of the system.
There needs to be a balance and I personally think we're already too close to the latter, better to arrest this trend than accelerate it.
What would you say the optimal balance looks like, and is that sustainable as an equilibrium? Or barring that, what metrics would you examine to determine where the balance lies, and why are those metrics important?
I ask because it can be a bit hard to measure "individual sovereignty" on a scale or "convenience" as an objective phenomenon. How much 'inconvenience' should we accept to avoid giving away too much autonomy?
faceh
1mo ago
There's a cohort that largely already owns nothing, they don't seem very happy.
I'd suggest that's downstream of them being poor, not necessarily their lack of ownership rights (which is, in this case, ALSO downstream of being poor).
If you're the sort to buy a good 10 year old used car and drive it until it dies or is un-economical to repair in 12+ years, you've already optimized this as much as possible. Unless you only have a car and don't need a car, people living in cities who rarely drive etc.
Or you live in a time where tech advances quite rapidly and so a ten year old car is qualitatively different and arguably inferior to the new versions, so you're missing some tangible benefits from not being up to date.
Kind rolls into the software as a service thing too. If you buy a piece of software outright but don't pay for patches and updates, eventually it might stop working, have security vulnerabilities, or otherwise become less useful as it is outdated. vs. subscribing to a piece of software, guaranteeing ongoing development and updates in response to security threats or new tech.
If you find it worthwhile to subscribe to a piece of software to keep it up to date and functional, why not do the same for hardware? The computer you're running the software on, for instance. Or, how big of a leap is it to subscribing to a service that does this for vehicles? They get you an upgrade whenever there's an improvement in safety tech or fuel efficiency, for example.
What situations does it make absolute economic sense to hold onto an older piece of tech, even if it is 'obsolete' or 'outdated,' for the sake of owning it outright?
faceh
1mo ago
Seems like you're talking about owning property as a 'hedge' against economic downturns to the extent that, say, physical assets have intrinsic value to you whilst money held as equities can 'disappear' in a market crash.
And there's probably some logic there.
faceh
1mo ago
So I'm trying to distill the argument this supports down to a few sentences.
"Slack in the system" and "freedom to be expressive/innovative" is the basic idea, but what is the actual reason why systems without individual ownership wouldn't permit such innovation and would remove slack, which could be catastrophic?
Is it just a centralization vs. decentralization argument, or is there something a tad more nuanced here, where people who aren't able to own things will never act as if they own things, stifling their own creativity and preferences in the process?
Ownership creates slack in the system, slack in the system is what creates new and great things.
I also believe that allowing people to 'hoard' capital and property individually (i.e. decentralization) is important for ensuring systems are robust and to some extent antifragile.
It only exists because of the odd circumstances leading to that particular human living in that particular location. And that brings joy. Somebody might see it and be inspired to do something with their house.
This is also my argument against strict HOAs and zoning laws. Enforcing high levels of uniformity is good in some ways (making sure homes in a hurricane-prone area are built to a particular standard!), but really bad in others.
I prefer to live in an environment with novel and 'unique' aesthetics, even if this creates a hodgepodge of styles without any uniting theme, because the alternative seems to be everything is designed around the same blueprint and is painted the same shade of beige. But a lot of people seem to be fine with living in the uniform beige suburbs.
Same with my squat rack, my heavy bag, my moon board. I might not use them every day, but I can use them when I so choose. When I get inspired, there they are. For a gym membership, unless I pay continuously, it isn't there.
For me, the tradeoff of a gym membership in exchange for having more space in my living area is generally worth it, and the gym will have a wider variety of equipment that I wouldn't want to store long-term (let alone move) anyway.
Would it be so bad if you have a 'community' gym that was <5 minutes walking distance from your house and had all the equipment you needed, readily available in most cases (i.e. NOT constantly occupied by other users)?
Because there is certainly an efficiency tradeoff. If every household had their own exercise equipment, even assuming they use it several times a week, it is still sitting idle most of the time. Whereas a communal gym area will minimize the overall cost of setting up (because you're paying for less equipment overall) and ensure that the available equipment is in regular use so you're getting more value for the equipment you do have.
I'm seeing how the 'slack vs. efficiency' argument seems to be moving in favor of efficiency these days.
faceh
1mo ago
Would modal behavior start to change if the economics of renting were blatantly better than the economics of owning?
I think that's the thrust of the discussion. In a more mobile world where people DON'T live in the same town for their whole lives, there's value in being able to transfer to a new location with minimal friction.
Likewise, in a world where ownership becomes more and more complex.
T-Mobile, for instance, offers a monthly subscription that guarantees your ability to trade in your old phone for the latest version every two years. Can you actually do the math to figure out whether it is preferable to trade-in and upgrade every two years... WITHOUT knowing how much the new models will cost two years out?
They also offer a plan that is explicitly a lease of a smartphone and lets you change every 30 days.
Smartphones are a complex product, so I can't blame anyone for deciding just to pay a small monthly fee to know for sure they'll be able to get upgraded after 24 months. It does not appear that the majority of cell users take this deal, however, as it seems most just buy the phone outright.
If you're proposing that someone offers a couch subscription service that costs less over the lifetime of the couch than the value of the couch itself, we're talking about some kind of economic paradox.
Well, these companies do in fact exist, explain that to them.
Seems like I would have the option to buy a sofa for about $1000 new or pay $43/month for a year lease, after which point it looks like they sell it used for like $400 used. If I planned on moving after a year, then paying $500 for the sofa rental for the year would cost less than buying the $1000 sofa then selling it for $400 when I move (unless I really thought I could get more for it), as that would cost me $600.00.
I think I can imagine a scenario where I'm not planning on living in a given place for greater than a year, and rather than buy furniture, use it, then try to sell it on facebook marketplace OR pack it up and move it to my new place, I just rent the stuff I want and they arrange for pickup when it is time to move.
And incidentally, if we're living in this "own nothing and be happy" world, it should be pretty easy to pick up and move because you don't need to drag your belongings with you. Better job offer in another town? Drop everything, move into a new rental, rent new furniture, get a new vehicle subscription (don't even need to worry about updating registration!) and move along almost seamlessly. If you want to move to a new town every year, its much easier if you don't have to worry about the cost of moving or liquidating all your existing furniture, to say nothing of the house.
For a type of person who just follows the highest salary or moves about on a whim, surely this is the best arrangement?
faceh
1mo ago
Change my furniture any time I want for a flat fee and with a warranty? we already have this, it's called having someone deliver/haul away your furniture and buying a manufacturer's warranty, no renting necessary. People don't usually do this because it isn't really worth it to them. Extended warranties in particular have a real bad reputation afaict.
Right.
So the model I'm proposing avoids you needing to pay for the hauling away part, or the repair or the warranty. It would all be folded into the subscription/rental fees, so you only have to worry about paying your monthly cost.
Its a close-to-identical outcome, but you are not the 'owner' of your furniture and decor.
If the cost ends up being somewhat less, then what argument remains for choosing ownership?
I doubt it, because replacing carpets is pretty expensive and the firm would need to amortize the cost of the guy who swaps his carpet out every week across the entire customer base, even if the median customer changes carpets once a year.
Or offer the "swap it out every week" guy some other kind of deal. I think we're hitting a point where companies have extremely creative business models and can use tons of data to identify how to best provide for each customer's personal use habits.
There's clearly a place for services that rent you something that you're only going to use once, and clothing for special events seems to be the target market for this list of services.
Yes.
And if there's a market for renting things you'll only use once. Why not a market for things you'll only use twice? Or 12 times?
People who try to keep up with fashion trends or who prefer to wear new clothing on the regular could probably save TONS of closet space (or trips to the thrift store) by having a service that will rent them clothes on some kind of set time frame.
faceh
1mo ago
The increase on the prior item due to the Principal-Agent problem
Principal-Agent problems seems like the most basic argument against "everything is rented" as an economic model. You can't be sure that someone else will treat 'your' stuff as responsibly as you will.
That said, Uber, Airbnb, Doordash, etc. have what seem to be workable solutions to this issue, even if there are those who try to circumvent it. Those systems work well enough in most cases.
the decrease in Quality due to good-faith mitigations of the previous costs
Being honest, do we think that the average person is a good judge of quality? Do they care? or Are they buying the cheapest chinese knockoff they can find from Amazon in most cases?
I'm not convinced anyone who isn't a serious chef is going to pay attention to this, as long as anything that breaks gets replaced immediately.
the middleman's operating expenses the middleman's profits
Surely this also applies to buying your own kitchen implements at retail?
that's a hell of a lot on one side of the scale that needs to be balanced out before this actually becomes a good proposition for the consumer.
Hmmm. Let us assume that twice a year you put together a large feast for a big group of people (maybe its for the holidays, I dunno). You need more pots and pans, an air fryer, an instant pot, and a few other specialized tools that you WILL NOT use the rest of the year. They'll just take up counter or cabinet space waiting for the next big event.
How does the cost of buying specialized implements that you only use 1-2 times a year match up to paying to have those same implement delivered when you need them, then once you're done sending it back so another person can use it? A large air fryer, for example, costs $150-200 new. If, for example, it cost $30 to rent for the day, or was part of the deal of some larger subscription service you paid for, then it'd take 3ish years before your purchase paid itself off. And meanwhile its just sitting there taking up space for the 363 other days you're not using it.
Much of this really does seem to come down to how much you intend to use the more specialized, expensive implements.
faceh
1mo ago
"Services" can be taken away with far less difficulty than possessions. It's a lot easier for your "Citibike for cars" or robotaxi to say that they won't rent you a car because (thanks to your tweet on x.com last night) your social credit score just dropped too low, than it is for someone to come tow away the car you own.
At the same time, the fact that people happily use Netflix instead of buying DVDs gets towards the idea that... the average person would be completely happy with this arrangement! There are probably more movies out there than any one person can watch. More being made every month. Its not clear why it would be vital to guarantee that you have access to EVERY SPECIFIC FILM you like at all times.
And I'm old enough to remember when it WAS economical to rent DVDs from Blockbuster (and Netflix! They used to do that!) because most movies you would only watch once or twice. Why store them permanently unless you want to watch them many times?
So I can imagine if people were offered a subscription where they could pick one from a dozen different cars every week to drive for just that week, then just return it at the end of the week and get a new selection next week, they might find it appealing.
Centralization makes failures so much bigger — see supply chains under COVID.
Decentralization seems important and is a good argument against renting everything, honestly. But I'm not convinced it is a knockdown argument as long as we assume there IS competition.
Ownership grants resilience.
Assuming you can handle all the risks/responsibilities that come with it.
I think for a lot of people, they can't. If they're negligent on repairing and maintaining their vehicle and aren't very responsible drivers, renting vehicles from a central depot where professionals will make sure they're in decent condition prevents foreseeable issues later. Kinda how it works with vehicle 'fleets.' The employees who drive them aren't the ones doing maintenance and repair, they're just expected to drive them responsibly.
And robotaxis, if they live up to the hype, avoid the risk of having a random breakdown because you let the "check engine" light stay on too long.
This is totally bizarre to me and I don't really know why people do it. I've literally never had a problem with a router/modem I bought from Amazon. This is probably the best example of what you are talking about, though. I don't know how many people opt to rent rather than just buy.
Same here, although aging equipment sometimes takes some work to make compatible, or simply won't work and force an upgrade.
ONE reason I can understand people renting Comcast Equipment is that they'll upgrade it for you periodically and you pretty much don't have to fiddle with it to get it to work.
For me, though, owning the equipment gives me reassurance that I actually CONTROL my home network, in that no other parties can shut down or interfere with my personal equipment. At least, not without some effort.
So they'll put up wallpaper, I'll pay them a monthly fee for years for nothing (I don't want my wallpaper changed every six months,
Nah, I'm suggesting you COULD do that. But there could just as easily be a service that does it for a flat fee anytime you want to update, and perhaps there's also a guarantee to replace anything that breaks as part of the deal.
The point here is, what's the benefit to you from owning your furniture and decor? Why would you argue against someone renting it to you instead? Is it really just about having the 'option' to do what you want and decorate however you like?
Water leak? Call the plumber. Electric problem? Call the electrician. Floors dirty? Call the carpet cleaners. Etc. what is the benefit of renting my carpets?
In theory, it reduces complexity a lot. Now the expense to you is collapsed down to a monthly or annual fee which represents the entire expense of using the carpet. And if you want to replace the carpet, you can call up a replacement from the same company. Maybe they even have an app.
Apparently you can rent fucking clothes these days, so I'm trying to hear the strongest arguments against doing such a thing, if we assume the service that allows you to do so exists.
As a rentcel, I'm extremely disincentivized from improving anything about the unit I live in because I don't want to put money and effort into improving someone else's asset.
I like this argument, although I prefer the inverse "I may be more neglectful and cause more damage because it doesn't belong to me." There's a reason its generally not advisable to buy a used car that was previously a lease or a rental.
But I begin to think that the average person isn't really going to do much with a place they own that would 'justify' having them own it themselves.
And why not just have them subscribe to a service that will do the interior decorating for them? Similar to those companies that do house staging for real estate sales, you could pay for subscription that lets you swap out your decor every 6 months.
Likewise, many people who own their homes nonetheless pay someone else to mow their lawn, and they rent e.g. their modem and router from Comcast, since its really a hassle to maintain your own hardware.
Seems like its not so far removed to just rent... everything in your home and then you can also outsource annoying maintenance and repairs.
Yes I am hardcore doing Devil's advocate here.
faceh
1mo ago
I mean, what if the subscription service was simply you pay $20/month (or whatever) and have access to whatever implements you desire, and can add to or return implements as needed or if they get broken, AND if you ever move out, you can just leave it all there instead of packing, as your subscription will carry over to your new place.
I don't imagine that there will be some central communal store of knives and whisks and bowls that gets delivered on demand in this scenario, just that you aren't so attached to your implements that you feel like they're 'yours', rather than you just possessing them for a period of time. No need to cart them around.
someone will still be eating steak, flying around in personal jets and that someone will also lease you the flat, the car and the phone.
Most likely this will be a publicly-traded corporation, which means you can 'own' shares in the company (via your 401(k) or whatever) and thus the wealth won't inherently all accrue solely to the executives and such. Indeed, maybe everyone at this point only rents their property, but some people can afford to rent nicer property than others. Like there are 'tiers' of subscription models, and some people are in the diamond tier, but just as a rich person can't buy a better smartphone than whatever model is then-considered top of the line, they're not getting extraordinarily better service than you, just the best the economy has on offer, on demand.
Why would an extremely wealthy person want the hassle of owning a supercar or private jet, when they could, again, just rent one on the spot in any city they happen to be in?
What benefit does the private ownership actually convey to them in this scenario?
This sounds like an argument from either egalitarianism, or from human liberty, not sure which one you're couching it as.
This might be SLIGHTLY too big for small-scale Sunday, but I will give it a go:
What is the strongest argument against "you will own nothing and be happy" as a concept?" Ideally an argument that can be expressed in a few sentences of average complexity.
For instance, one argument might be that "people will not be able to build up wealth." However, I note that most of the property people own are depreciating assets. It actually might make sense for someone to not own a car and instead simply rent one on a weekly basis from a fleet of vehicles maintained by a larger company that are mostly standardized and will suit whatever their needs are at the time. Or a system like Citibike for cars. Or maybe later on, just call a robotaxi as needed.
This means they will not have to worry about the costs of repairs and maintenance, or insurance, or storage, and they can expect to get new models on a regular basis, thus it reduces a potential source of stress and unexpected costs to a simple monthly subscription. This seems like it would work well for a lot of people, and save them money in the long run!
And similar can apply to housing! If you live in a rented, pre-furnished apartment you are far more flexible if you want a change of scenery, to expand your living space, or need to move to a new city to pursue opportunities. Home ownership introduces lots of complexity and presents an illiquid asset even if it appreciates.
Same can apply to, say, smartphones, which upgrade so fast that 'owning' one almost doesn't make sense as it becomes outdated in < 1 year.
So extending some logic, I begin to see reasons why the average person might prefer to own nothing but a retirement account, and simply have a subscription service for most items they will use throughout their life.
What philosophical, economic, psychological, social, biological, political etc. etc. argument do you think most strongly refutes or rejects this as an ideal?
Taking a guess at the argument that will be the most common response, Rot-13'd:
Vg qvfpbhentrf snzvyl sbezngvba naq yrnqf gb n pvgvmrael gung vf vapncnoyr bs erfvfgvat nhgubevgl.
(Let us be clear, I'm not supporting owning nothing, but I do plan on trying to do a steelman or similar in the future)
faceh
1mo ago
A slightly less critical read could add the point:
They help politicians to design and pass actual policies that advance a given ideological agenda.
That is, if your think tank is focused in on immigration reform, and you've got some friendly politicians in office, and one of said politicians' staff calls you and says "Because of [event] immigration reform is now a major concern and we have a window to get some bills passed. Give us some moderate reform policies that we can present to the legislature."
Then the think tank pulls up its archives and can send over a 'package' of proposed legislation language, talking points, and research/studies they've conducted or collected in favor of the given policy, and can join in the campaign towards getting it passed.
This avoids the need for a politician to work too hard at becoming an expert on the topic at hand and designing bills from scratch.
Of course if the think tank ecosystem becomes too crowded, it probably makes it LESS likely for any legislation to get passed since every think tank is pushing their own favored issued or their own favored policy solution to a given issue, and politicians now are faced with deciding which ones they want to appease and which they want to anger, and are less likely to decide at all, I'd guess.
So think tanks are also probably constantly jockeying for status so they can get more funding and attention from pols so they can get more funding so they can get more attention... round and round it goes.
THAT is when they really become a grift, if you ask me. When they exist solely to convert money into public attention into more money (Hi there, Project 2025) without any real chance of getting a good policy agenda passed.
Me neither, but occasionally I drive a modern car as a rental and there's a lot of safety and convenience features that have arisen in just the past, call it 8 years alone.
But this model seems dominant now, and consumers generally don't seem to be en masse demanding one-time purchases (although for video games this is still a thing).
And from the standpoint of "everything is internet connected and thus a possible security risk" I can see the basic logic of paying to keep vulnerabilities patched, at least!
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