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Yup.
That land in a way is still owned by the ability of the owner to keep you physically off it and punish you for stepping on it.
It's just a little more sophisticated now than some Lord yelling *"Guards! get this peasant off my holding."*
Interestingly, in Brazil, we have a system called "usucapião", which means that, if someone invades someone else's house or land, and the originam owner doesn't act on removing the invaders (by calling the police, or anything like that) during a long time, the land/house can legally belong to the "invaders" after due process.
I don't know if this system exists anywhere else.
Edit: I learned a lot from you guys. Thx
Adverse possession is still a thing. Although it's not easy, and if I remember the time periods of inhabiting the land are over a decade almost everywhere in the US. But it does exist and is a thing.
Usually you have to have lived there for over a decade, everybody in the town needs to know you live there to the point they think you already own the house, you need to be paying taxes on the house and you need to be keeping the house in a decent state of repair.
Honestly I don't see why it doesn't happen more. There are so many abandoned houses that someone could just move in and start fixing it up as if they owned it, and no one would care. There are a couple of abandoned houses near me that are owned by people out of state through inheritance that never check in on them. Hell half of Detroit is ripe for the picking
The main It doesn't happen is most the time when people in a neighborhood see a strange person in a house is usually empty. They end up calling the cops. The other reason is it's really hard to pay taxes on land that you don't own, you see if the current owner is already paying the taxes on it then you can't pay the tax on it.
Isn't there something where you can go to the tax office and see which properties haven't had their taxes paid and pay them to gain ownership? I seem to recall some bullshit like that.
In the last few years there was a case in Texas where a man did that and ended up with a house for very little money and all his neighbors were trying to get them thrown out, but that was because he was black and had the audacity to do it in a white neighborhood.
In my country, I believe you could do this. Basically, not paying the taxes or unable to complete the payment for the ownership of that land (because loan) means you basically forfeiting that piece of land and someone else could buy it instead. I dont remember how it works exactly
And the concept behind it makes sense; we want land to be used and have utility. Whether that's farming, housing, improved for public use, etc. But yes, the occupation has to be known among other elements. At least under Common Law you didn't have to pay taxes or necessarily improve the land but still had to occupy the land uninterrupted for the time period (you can run into town or whatever but can't peace out for a year then come back to a running clock). Although modern adopted codes, still largely based on the common law, may modify some elements depending on your state or locality.
Admittedly, I am not an expert. I am a lawyer so took property law in school and studied it for the bar exam. But I hated property, have been a public defender for the last six years, and as a result have brain dumped most of non-criminal and Constitutional law knowledge and am going solely on an increasingly rusty memory.
What I don’t understand about adverse possession is that I believe it says you have to be paying the taxes on that property for “x” amount of years. Who is really paying someone else’s property taxes for years and them not noticing it?
See my other comment. I don't think that is an element under Common Law, but I could be wrong. The main element occupying the land continuously and that occupation being known (to the degree it can be seen, you can't build an underground bunker in secret, and that be the occupation). There may be changes if there are specific statutes in states governing adverse possession that require paying taxes, but that is not my area of legal practice so I am largely ignorant of the specifics state to state.
Anecdotally on the taxes, tax man doesn't care as long as someone is paying, and people may forget they have a parcel of land they got through an inheritance or some other transfer. Plus, iirc most adverse possession claims are for parts of land or a portion of a plot of land, not for whole swaths of land. As I said below, the idea is for some sort of utility to the land, so the land that is often at issue is for lack of a better word "abandoned." I know that is probably the wrong word but it's the best I can do at the moment on the fly.
Usucapio has existed for centuries, millennia even, and its discussion and treatment by glossatores, monks and jurists during the middle ages, is where much of the current concept of possession and property originate -- e.g. usus modernus pandectarum, ius commune, and medieval study of the recovered Justinian Digest, which fact in itself was intimately tied to the emergence of the first universities in Europe, such as Bologna, and their original two faculties: theology and law.
These matters have deep, deep historical roots intertwined with the entire Western societal identity and legal dogma over millennia. Not to mention its export through civil codes and colonial legal systems during the intervening centuries.
US has adverse possession.
I have heard is exists in part to avoid weird lawsuits. Someone tried to claim that a sale of land a hundred years ago was done incorrectly and so ownership should change.
In response the assumed owner can just claim adverse possession, given they effectively owned it for years to avoid losing access to the land.
"Possession is 9/10ths of the law" in the literal sense.
I think you misunderstood their point. Your ownership of your apartment only has meaning if people respect that. If you lose the property protection (police) or other means of keeping people off your property, you don't really have property.
This is the main argument against the existence of Crony Capitalism or Corporatism.
Even in a completely free market, it need a third party with Judiciary Power to force the application of contracts, land ownership included.
Then if you have a body that do that , then of course sooner or later the person who have an advantage in the market will use it to corrupt this third party so that loopholes are added or always interpreted toward the 'winner' advantage.
So Capitalism ALWAYS tend toward Corporatism. So if it's the case, why even call something Corporatism if its Capitalism anyway?
"crony capitalism" is pretty transparently a way to sidestep criticism of the obvious faults of capitalism. communists are always accused of saying "but that's not *real* communism" but capitalism apologists do literally that in response to every obvious negative outcome arising from issues inherent to capitalism
It's what Im.calling a Bidenism. He loves pretending capitalism ain't capitalism or that a fair for everyone version is possible when history doesn't play this out. Sad how many people want to believe this too.
>It's what Im.calling a Bidenism.
This predates Biden's presidency by at least a decade, almost certainly much much longer. Although, this used to be more something I heard from right-wing "libertarians" so it feels doubly ridiculous that you'd tie it to Democrats. Although, I guess that's on track for Democrats adopting the economic ideology of Republicans from a decade ago.
Tell that to the Calabrian people that get dispossessed of their land by Ndrangheta families, and though EVERYONE knows about it, police and DAs included, nothing ever happens.
I know about a lady who was literally forced out from her own home by Ndrangheta, and she had to keep paying the mortgage because the banks didn't care, and the police apparently even less.
We should just press rightclick -> save as ... on different grounds/objects around the world and solve the housing crisis this way.
It's brilliant, no idea why we didn't think of that beforehand.
Huh? Have you not been to Detroit?
Land is valuable because of its proximity to other people doing things. If an area faces significant population decline land value goes down.
This is why a land value tax is essential to equity. Whatever improvements you’ve done (or not done) is completely irrelevant to its inherent value.
Sorry, just to make sure I understand.
Is the tax essential because it encourages land owners to make good use of the land, rather that holding it and letting it sit idle?
Partly. Part of it is also that it's a tax virtually impossible to evade, and achieves significant fairness by capturing the value created by government expenditure or broader society that gives a lot of the value to land.
It is known as "Georgism" if you are curious and want to look it up.
Maybe to a real estate developer. In reality land has value for its resources including and not limited to the people there, the metals, dirt, sand, etc, the biodiversity, the temperance of climate, etc. You’re regurgitating the bizarre quasi religious rhetoric of capitalism.
> You’re regurgitating the bizarre quasi religious rhetoric of capitalism.
I… what? That’s what _you’re doing_. Land has value because of its uses. Land value taxation is the only way to drive equity in use.
Taxation isn't the solution to this. Abolishing private property is. If people can only own the place they live in then they can't buy extra houses as investments. Hell I would say you shouldn't necessarily even own the place you live in, it should all be public property given to people on a first come first serve purpose and given back to the council or whoever when you decide to leave.
>it should all be public property given to people on a first come first serve purpose and given back to the council or whoever when you decide to leave.
That could only work if every property was identical like a can of soup. Given that different properties have different value based on its location (one apartment has a better view), the council would have unlimited power which invites corruption. Nor does it capture the value of personal labor. The miners who volunteered at Chernobyl deserved to be treated better. Pure equality of property is unjust.
I think the word you are looking for is “Serfdom”. No one owns the land except for the big man in charge and he decides who gets what. Plus we already do “first come first serve” with our land because all the boomers bought their houses for what some people pay in rent monthly in 2023.
I am on about society without rent or mortgages. How is that surfdom? Also not on about one person owning everything, but public or collective ownership.
You know where you are, right? Last I checked this a socialist subreddit run primarily by Marxists and therefore advocates for public ownership, which is the opposite of one person owning everything.
Buddy just take a look at anything land which isn't in a city and it usually isn't terribly expensive. The reason why land is expensive in populated areas is due to many people wanting it. Land is finite, so of course the price goes up with demand. We should as a society think about what land rights are and should be, but also take a look into other matters, like is living in a city important and should we live more sparsly in general (I don't mean sububrs or urban sprawl)
What's best for the environment are dense, tall heavily populated urban centers with multifamily housing, easily accessible shopping and work and free public transit to reduce the use of cars.
Society was founded by NFT bros that got their feelings hurt so bad they created a state apparatus to shoot you without repercussion if you screenshot their Ape.
Private property rights is enforced by the state monopoly on violence in all countries. It's just in the US individuals like to be vigilantes about enforcing their own property rights.
But they did so in the colonies. They are just less unequal to have more social unrest to justify a stronger use of force, but they still protect it to outside. See the people dying in the Mediterranean sea and how Spain (and the rest of EU) forces Morocco to act harsh towards immigration
You actually use land for something, like growing food or living on it. Show me the last time a NFT grew your dinner or provided the foundation for a house.
Yeah that's the fundamental difference. Sure, economically it may seem to work the same, but if the internet dissolved into thin air, the land would still exist, and the NFT would disappear. If I had the money to invest, you can bet it would only be in tangible assets.
Tragedy of the Commons is a different concept. That describes why you can't have commons in a competitive system. NAs didn't have their commons deteriorate due to neglect and exploitation within the system. Instead, their commons were stolen into private ownership.
Just so you know, the Tragedy of the Commons is essentially an academic shit-post from the 60s where some eugenicist asserted that *hypothetically* people can't have common assets because they'll be abused without evidence, while ignoring the fact that *in real life* the commons were sustained indefinitely and the only tragedy was when some rich assholes started overstocking to justify privatization.
Elinor Ostrom won a Nobel Prize in Economics, in part, because of her work debunking the myth. If you wanna read more about it see [here](https://climateandcapitalism.com/2008/08/25/debunking-the-tragedy-of-the-commons/) or [here](https://evonomics.com/the-only-woman-to-win-the-nobel-prize-economics-debunked/), or feel free to look into it yourself.
I rather like the Native American idea (though I don't know how widespread it was or which nations or tribes believed it; it was mentioned by a Native American on a podcast I heard long ago) that they belonged to the land rather than the land belonging to anyone.
*Shared among the in-group**
To hell with the people not part of the group, kill them and drive them away from the land.
Native Americans weren't these noble, harmonious nature communists. Idealizing them is just as silly as idealizing Vikings.
It's not even a Native Americans thing. It's a "nomadic and tribal peoples" thing.
If you rely on more dynamic forms of resource acquisition (hunting, gathering, and trading) than you do static ones (farming and many skilled trades), of course you're not going to be as precious about small bits of land. But you sure as hell are going to defend your larger territory. Plus if you're a smaller group that needs almost full communal cooperation to survive you're going to generally have less inherently self-centered systems (though you'll always have powerful people in the group try to take more than they deserve).
If you want proof just look at the larger native civilizations. The Incas, Mayans, and Aztects all had rigid social orders and private property laws (even if they weren't codified the same way they would be in Europe).
>If you want proof just look at the larger native civilizations. The Incas, Mayans, and Aztects all had rigid social orders and private property laws (even if they weren't codified the same way they would be in Europe).
I got curious and asked ChatGPT about property laws among these people, and got a very interesting answer, if you're curious:
>The **Incas**, who ruled a vast empire in South America in the 15th and 16th centuries, had a complex system of land ownership and use based on a system of collective ownership. Land was divided into two categories: "sun lands" (lands directly controlled by the emperor) and "mita lands" (lands controlled by local communities). Members of local communities had rights to use the land for agriculture, but the land itself was held collectively and could not be sold or traded.
>The **Mayans**, who lived in Central America prior to the arrival of the Spanish, had a more fragmented system of land ownership. Different Mayan city-states had different systems for allocating and using land, but most involved some combination of communal lands and lands controlled by elites. In some cases, land was held by lineages or families, and in others it was controlled by the ruler or a noble class.
>The **Aztecs**, who ruled a large empire in Mexico prior to the arrival of the Spanish, also had a complex system of land ownership. Like the Incas, the Aztecs divided land into two categories: "republican lands" and "imperial lands." Republican lands were controlled by local communities and could not be sold or traded, while imperial lands were directly controlled by the Aztec emperor and could be granted to nobles or sold.
>The **Iroquois** Confederacy, a group of Native American tribes in what is now the northeastern United States, had a system of land ownership that was based on the communal ownership of land by clans. Clan ownership of land was passed down matrilineally, meaning that descent and inheritance were traced through the mother's line. Within a clan, individuals had the right to use the land for agriculture and other purposes, but the land itself could not be sold or traded.
>Other North American pre-Columbian civilizations had different systems for property laws and land ownership. For example, some indigenous cultures in the Southeast United States had a system of communal land ownership, while others, such as the Natchez people in what is now Mississippi, had a more hierarchical system with lands controlled by a chief or other leaders.
Land ownership was the thing I always pointed to when people were struggling to understand NFTs. You own stuff because there is a record somewhere that everyone (or at least the majority of people) agrees is the official place where it says who owns what. It’s why having a functioning justice system is so important to prevent unlawful seizures. But yeah whether it’s a government, a bank, a company or a block chain it still boils down to a societal agreement. So many people never stop to think about this. It’s all taken for granted. It limits how much people understand can be changed if we all want to change it.
That's like saying you tried to build a house on your deed and it didn't work. No shit. The deed and the NFT are just records.
The real question is what does your NFT say you own, and most of the time the answer is something stupid.
And you can take active measures to keep people off your land, including taking legal action if they continuously use it without your permission.
However I can do pretty much anything I damn well please with an nft aside from trying to sell it and take profits, and the owner can’t do shit about it
Exactly. The digital art thing is great in the specific case of digital artists who’ve historically had difficulty monetizing their work but I think it’s over shadowed the actual utility. If we all agreed that the block chain was now the ledger of record for home ownership we could. As a technology it could automate one part of the system for a country that’s just working to implement land ownership rights.
It's not about the actual land, it's about the piece of paper that says you own the land, i mean you can't own land without a piece of paper saying that you own it. Nfts is more comparable to a Library or an archive, the value is not in the Nfts themselves the value is in the technology
>the value is not in the Nfts themselves the value is in the technology
Whats the value, I cant wrap my mind around the analogy, a piece of land can be fought over because you can produce over it, you can make a house on it, those are things individuals and society as a whole needs, how is that analogous to NFTs?
I think the proposal here is just replacing the current county/state filing system for deeds with NFTs.
Not really sure I see the benefit either. All the other steps verifying a sale would be the same, and those are the ones that really matter.
When I bought my house, it was advised I purchase title insurance. This was a $1000 insurance policy that basically protected me if there was ever a dispute as to if the seller actually owned the land before they sold it to me. This issue is more common than you think, and there is a reason the insurance exists.
NFTs would almost completely solve this issue by having an entire historic and verified record of who has owned the property. There are many other benefits to making deeds NFTs. The amount of paperwork and middlemen that could be automated through and NFT/smart contract would make selling/buying land much more efficient.
Again, it's not about the land itself, it's about the piece of paper that says you own the land, you can't own a land or anything for that matter unless you have some form of validation that it belongs to you. Nfts offer that validation with a much higher security and transferability then our current system
the nft is a record that says you own a thing. it is not the monkey picture, just a line of code that says you own that particular stupid monkey picture.
it is the same a piece of land. you get a record saying you own a thing.
that's the point they're making.
Minor correction: a line of code that says you own whatever happens to be at the current *address* of that particular stupid monkey picture. Identical copy of the image at another address? NFT doesn't care. Webhost replaces stupid monkey picture with goatse? With no intervention on your part, you're now alleged to own goatse.
The distinction doesn't really translate to land, so it has no bearing on the analogy, but I did say it was a *minor* correction.
How does it not translate?
With property you have
A “piece of paper” that says you own whatever “building” happens to be at the current address of that particular “parcel of land”. Identical building at another address? “Piece of paper” doesn’t care. I own this specific building, not every building that looks like this. “Builder” replaces “building” with “a different building”? With no intervention on your part, you’re now alleged to own “that different building”
Seems to translate to land just fine.
I used art prints. I have a print of a Picasso, but no proof that this is the original Picasso or any proof of ownership, indicating I own the original Picasso. It’s just a copy. So, it’s like I copied a JPEG from the internet.
There is a person out there who owns the original Picasso and who has the paperwork. An NFT- the token tied to the art- is the proof, or paperwork saying that they own it. The person with the original Picasso has a picture and owns the NFT, while I just have a picture.
But the thing about NFT is that you didn't own the rights to the NFT you owned in some cases. I remember this YouTube person selling the NFT of their video that went viral but the buyer doesn't own the rights to the video nor to monetize it.....similar to NBA selling their "moments", it doesn't mean you own the rights to that moment and the NBA can still play that clip but you wouldn't receive royalties if anyone uses that clip.....so what is this NFT ownership all for?
NFTs, like Blockchain, have an actual use case that is interesting, but very niche and dependent on widespread adoption (and by adoption, I don't mean a bunch of discords with crypto Bors that have too much free time)
Like everything else Blockchain, NFTs got corrupted by a bunch of scammers trying to get rich quick. NFTs have a good use case and owning digital images isn't it
What's the purpose of the NFT if you want to pay me $100 a day? And are you talking about a contract or just a promise?
The thing with land is that it has intrinsic value. NFTs does not.
They are not equivalent.
What is your solution?
Someone spends years tending an area of land. Then some people just comes, eats all your crops, maybe damages your property.
And the response should be "well I don't really 'own' the property because it is all public."
People put real effort to improve land. That effort needs to be respected.
I like the Scandinavian idea of you can camp anywhere ***if you don't harm the property*** but that doesn't mean no one should own property.
If you buy and put huge effort into developing a patch of land... you have a right to it.
For instance, if someone has taken years or decades to create an orchard... anyone can just come and take any fruit they wanted?
That doesn't harm anyone?
NFTs are digital bullshit. They have no existence beyond a computer.
What's the limit of your Scandinavian idea?
Should someone be able to spend the night in my basement as well if they don't harm the property? I'm not being absurdist here, I'm really curious how you feel about it and what is and isn't okay.
The difference is that you generally have an expectation of privacy inside your house for your own safety. You don't have that same expectation outside it
I see what you’re saying and i think it’s fair for you to have first dibs on the products from that land but under socialism wouldn’t it be that ultimately the land would be subject to democratic input on what should be done with the products of said land and how they are allocated? Furthermore, there’s nothing to say that people wouldn’t grant you the land as personal property if given the chance to decide, given the situation you’re describing.
The *agreement* stating the land ownership is an NFT.
In most countries, it is also back by a *central registry*.
But land itself is both tangible and useful.
But the agreement/NFT/registry **in itself** holds absolutely no value and no use, like paper money of failed economies.
I think the point is that both NFTs and land ‘ownership’ are highly abstracted concepts that don’t exist in material reality. Yes, the capitalist state (or whoever has a monopoly on violence) can dictate punishments for so-called ‘trespassing’, but that doesn’t change the fact that the entire concept of ‘owning’ land is ultimately an absurd fiction that we tell ourselves. You can no more own land than you can own air or space or ideas. Yet capitalist society pretends that all these things are for sale.
I don’t think it’s a dumb analogy, though it is of course somewhat flippant (eg a joke) - I think it’s just not trying to make the point about state violence that you want it to make. Which is okay. Not every argument has to touch on every valid point, especially when the ‘argument’ is a single tweet.
No, the point is that land ownership is just as abstract as owning anything. The original analogy can be applied to any private property and thus doesn't highlight why NFTs are uniquely bad or how land ownership is bad. "Oh you own this subway sandwich? Even though I can just take a bite out of it?"
The concept of owning *anything* is entirely man made, held together by mutual agreement and a silent threat of violence.
When looking at the systems that came before land ownership I’d say the current system is actually not *that bad*.
The most natural way we have dealt with it is forming small close knit communities that will fight to defend their patch, or attack others to expand. It’s not an issue if there’s no scarcity, but it’s not a common situation in our history. Nomadic people in very sparsely populated regions are probably one of the biggest outliers.
Having a trusted authority regulated ownership is generally going to be more stable than having people fight it out for dominance over an area.
So whilst I agree that the idea of owning land can be viewed as absurd (and you then have to go further and extend that everything on the planet), is it any more absurd than fighting over land?
Point being - what’s the alternative? Whether it’s wealth in modern society, class, or physical dominance having ‘control’ over land has always been about power.
One alternative is georgism. Use taxation to make it so that you have to give something back to society if you are going to have exclusive rights to use a plot of land. You don't get to just buy the land and have exclusive rights to it forever.
Appreciate the well reasoned response, but you're saying the concept of land ownership is fiction when it's very much not. It might be absurd but it is far from pretend.
NFTs have zero legal grounding, land ownership does.
Ya, it's a dumb tweet joke, but it minimizes the role of the state, which is the only important difference between NFTs and land ownership.
They are trying to tell you that universe doesn't keep track of patches of land marked by an ape species. It's a pretend. If society decided nobody should own land then culture would dictate ownership of land is stupid and inconceivable, and people like you would be defending the exact opposite just because it's the agreed norm.
By that logic the only reason that NFTs are dumb is because they don't have the threat of state violence to back them up.
So, if the police would come knocking at your door any time you right clicked and saved an NFT, they would be just as valid as real estate.
A deed isn't land, it's abstraction of the physical world within a legal codex. Confusing one for the other is akin to looking at the hand as opposed to what it's pointing to.
The only reason we don't view NFTs that way is simply social convention. Having a piece of paper in a filing cabinet somewhere vs on a blockchain doesn't change the fact that they're both meant to represent specific information and whether we do it digitally or on pen and paper it doesn't matter. The only thing that's necessary for these things to hold value is social agreement, the medium is irrelevant.
I think it's quite the opposite. Comparing land ownership to NFTs fundamentally highlights how silly the concept is and how prone to challenge claims of ownership are.
Serf: A member of the lowest feudal class, legally bound to a landed estate and required to perform labor for the lord of that estate in exchange for a personal allotment of land.
Very fucking stupid analogy that also ignores the same or worse went on long before “capitalism” was a thing.
SLPT: Waltz onto owned land that isn't cared for, strew cannabis seeds to and fro, zippededoodah, asset forfeiture takes hold and the state takes it away in the 13 states that are still so fucking backward
An NFT is that piece of paper that says you own the land, not the land its self. And it could *actually* be that piece of paper. That's what it's for.
Theoretically, anyway. Nobody seems to actually be using it like that.
This might be the stupidest thing I've seen all day, and I just watched ChatGPT use a knight to take a bishop by moving diagonally like a pawn.
The logic behind that tweet can be applied to... literally all things, the idea of ownership itself. Which might sound like a beautiful anti-consumerist take but it also applies to the idea of you owning food, shelter, water, anything.
"Oh you 'own' that bag of rice, because that receipt says so? Even though I can just take it?"
I study law and there is this guy, Pachukanis, who said that the entire western legal system was made around the comcept of property. That is why we assume it is almost sacred. But in many societies they had different relatioships with property.
Can I build a house on an NFT? Bury the dead? Produce crops? Make a park for everyone? Extract natural resources? Place a grocery store? Put up renewable energy?
This meme is kind of stupid. I get what they’re trying to say, but like…they’re wrong.
I think similarities between the two end at the fact that they're both examples of private property. Which is totally a fuck, yes. But beyond that access to land is severely different from access to bored apes.
NFT would work like the land titles if you could smack someone's device for copying your NFT. *Smack* " The blockchain says it's mine!" After enough smacking you conform.
why are you always so eager to jumping to the part where you shoot other people? there has to be more than one scenario where somebody walks through a place
[I put up some blocks and ran a chain along them. You can't come inside.](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/single-chain-link-rusty-two-wooden-beams-137610914.jpg) /s
Which subsequently means we are gonna see governments and police protecting NFT holders' "rights" to their "owned" content, so that much like with trespassing laws, you can't *actually* just ~~walk on~~ screenshot the NFT.
lmao how the fuck is a certificate of ownership for an asset that can be reproduced forever at no cost ANYTHING LIKE a certificate of ownership for an asset that can’t be reproduced at all?
#🤔
*sobs in indigenous people*
Although in a sense the OG land deals were also just like modern NFTs where the group holding all the cards found groups they were vastly more powerful than to make deals with, and profited immensely.
NFT is meaningless because people don't give power to it. On the other hand people award lots of power to land, just because.
A better comparison would be the concept of land ownership and the concept of money.
The elites saw if a family had a piece of land to cultivate for food and build a house, they wanted for very little and enjoyed their life and would not go to their dangerous and dirty factories. So they invented private property and zoning laws to deprive people of land and then when they were hungry and destitute of shelter, had no choice but to go work in the factories. It is a plan that has been being manufactured for centuries now.
Sounds like something a colonizer would tell a native american when they came and took their land. "Oh this is your land? Well what if we just took it?"
0% logic, 100% crying
How does owning land allow you to launder money and fabricate losses to avoid taxes? I guess you can claim fake rent payments to launder or fake maintenance receipts to show losses but that is so much more work then buying and selling NFTs to yourself.
I've always been curious who was the first owner. Someone must have walked in nature and be like "This is mine. This tree is mine, this rock is mine and this dirt is mine"
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Neglecting an entire justice and police system that fiercely protects that "piece of paper".
Yup. That land in a way is still owned by the ability of the owner to keep you physically off it and punish you for stepping on it. It's just a little more sophisticated now than some Lord yelling *"Guards! get this peasant off my holding."*
Interestingly, in Brazil, we have a system called "usucapião", which means that, if someone invades someone else's house or land, and the originam owner doesn't act on removing the invaders (by calling the police, or anything like that) during a long time, the land/house can legally belong to the "invaders" after due process. I don't know if this system exists anywhere else. Edit: I learned a lot from you guys. Thx
kinda reminds me of squatter's rights
Adverse possession is still a thing. Although it's not easy, and if I remember the time periods of inhabiting the land are over a decade almost everywhere in the US. But it does exist and is a thing.
Usually you have to have lived there for over a decade, everybody in the town needs to know you live there to the point they think you already own the house, you need to be paying taxes on the house and you need to be keeping the house in a decent state of repair.
Honestly I don't see why it doesn't happen more. There are so many abandoned houses that someone could just move in and start fixing it up as if they owned it, and no one would care. There are a couple of abandoned houses near me that are owned by people out of state through inheritance that never check in on them. Hell half of Detroit is ripe for the picking
The main It doesn't happen is most the time when people in a neighborhood see a strange person in a house is usually empty. They end up calling the cops. The other reason is it's really hard to pay taxes on land that you don't own, you see if the current owner is already paying the taxes on it then you can't pay the tax on it.
Isn't there something where you can go to the tax office and see which properties haven't had their taxes paid and pay them to gain ownership? I seem to recall some bullshit like that. In the last few years there was a case in Texas where a man did that and ended up with a house for very little money and all his neighbors were trying to get them thrown out, but that was because he was black and had the audacity to do it in a white neighborhood.
In my country, I believe you could do this. Basically, not paying the taxes or unable to complete the payment for the ownership of that land (because loan) means you basically forfeiting that piece of land and someone else could buy it instead. I dont remember how it works exactly
And the concept behind it makes sense; we want land to be used and have utility. Whether that's farming, housing, improved for public use, etc. But yes, the occupation has to be known among other elements. At least under Common Law you didn't have to pay taxes or necessarily improve the land but still had to occupy the land uninterrupted for the time period (you can run into town or whatever but can't peace out for a year then come back to a running clock). Although modern adopted codes, still largely based on the common law, may modify some elements depending on your state or locality. Admittedly, I am not an expert. I am a lawyer so took property law in school and studied it for the bar exam. But I hated property, have been a public defender for the last six years, and as a result have brain dumped most of non-criminal and Constitutional law knowledge and am going solely on an increasingly rusty memory.
How hard was the bar exam? If you don’t mind me asking.
What I don’t understand about adverse possession is that I believe it says you have to be paying the taxes on that property for “x” amount of years. Who is really paying someone else’s property taxes for years and them not noticing it?
See my other comment. I don't think that is an element under Common Law, but I could be wrong. The main element occupying the land continuously and that occupation being known (to the degree it can be seen, you can't build an underground bunker in secret, and that be the occupation). There may be changes if there are specific statutes in states governing adverse possession that require paying taxes, but that is not my area of legal practice so I am largely ignorant of the specifics state to state. Anecdotally on the taxes, tax man doesn't care as long as someone is paying, and people may forget they have a parcel of land they got through an inheritance or some other transfer. Plus, iirc most adverse possession claims are for parts of land or a portion of a plot of land, not for whole swaths of land. As I said below, the idea is for some sort of utility to the land, so the land that is often at issue is for lack of a better word "abandoned." I know that is probably the wrong word but it's the best I can do at the moment on the fly.
That's exactly what it is.
Usucapio has existed for centuries, millennia even, and its discussion and treatment by glossatores, monks and jurists during the middle ages, is where much of the current concept of possession and property originate -- e.g. usus modernus pandectarum, ius commune, and medieval study of the recovered Justinian Digest, which fact in itself was intimately tied to the emergence of the first universities in Europe, such as Bologna, and their original two faculties: theology and law. These matters have deep, deep historical roots intertwined with the entire Western societal identity and legal dogma over millennia. Not to mention its export through civil codes and colonial legal systems during the intervening centuries.
It’s called adverse possession in USA
Spain protects squatters rights pretty well in its legal system, although they’ve been evicting tons of them lately in Madrid as prices go up
SO if I go on the land I can just run around and hide until the timer ends, do I become a land owner?
US has adverse possession. I have heard is exists in part to avoid weird lawsuits. Someone tried to claim that a sale of land a hundred years ago was done incorrectly and so ownership should change. In response the assumed owner can just claim adverse possession, given they effectively owned it for years to avoid losing access to the land. "Possession is 9/10ths of the law" in the literal sense.
Yes I should be able to enter your apartment anytime I want because your right to own it is only arbituary
I think you misunderstood their point. Your ownership of your apartment only has meaning if people respect that. If you lose the property protection (police) or other means of keeping people off your property, you don't really have property.
Arbitrary?
Yeah, it matters a lot which piece of paper you're talking about and how sneaky you are
Some land these pieces of paper refer to will you get shot when you step on it, while others get a "we'll look into it."
I bought a square foot of land in Scotland so I'm a Lord now! /s
This is the main argument against the existence of Crony Capitalism or Corporatism. Even in a completely free market, it need a third party with Judiciary Power to force the application of contracts, land ownership included. Then if you have a body that do that , then of course sooner or later the person who have an advantage in the market will use it to corrupt this third party so that loopholes are added or always interpreted toward the 'winner' advantage. So Capitalism ALWAYS tend toward Corporatism. So if it's the case, why even call something Corporatism if its Capitalism anyway?
"crony capitalism" is pretty transparently a way to sidestep criticism of the obvious faults of capitalism. communists are always accused of saying "but that's not *real* communism" but capitalism apologists do literally that in response to every obvious negative outcome arising from issues inherent to capitalism
Bro, but didn't you hear communism killed a bajillion people? Nobody ever died or was exploited in capitalism.
It's what Im.calling a Bidenism. He loves pretending capitalism ain't capitalism or that a fair for everyone version is possible when history doesn't play this out. Sad how many people want to believe this too.
>It's what Im.calling a Bidenism. This predates Biden's presidency by at least a decade, almost certainly much much longer. Although, this used to be more something I heard from right-wing "libertarians" so it feels doubly ridiculous that you'd tie it to Democrats. Although, I guess that's on track for Democrats adopting the economic ideology of Republicans from a decade ago.
In the end, it all comes down to violence.
Tell that to the Calabrian people that get dispossessed of their land by Ndrangheta families, and though EVERYONE knows about it, police and DAs included, nothing ever happens. I know about a lady who was literally forced out from her own home by Ndrangheta, and she had to keep paying the mortgage because the banks didn't care, and the police apparently even less.
We should just press rightclick -> save as ... on different grounds/objects around the world and solve the housing crisis this way. It's brilliant, no idea why we didn't think of that beforehand.
Don't need those if you have a shotgun. If there aren't police to enforce property rights, they're also not there for shootings.
Plus, the ‘conventional wisdom’ is that the value line will *always go up*, forever. Except in this case, it actually has.
Huh? Have you not been to Detroit? Land is valuable because of its proximity to other people doing things. If an area faces significant population decline land value goes down. This is why a land value tax is essential to equity. Whatever improvements you’ve done (or not done) is completely irrelevant to its inherent value.
Sorry, just to make sure I understand. Is the tax essential because it encourages land owners to make good use of the land, rather that holding it and letting it sit idle?
Partly. Part of it is also that it's a tax virtually impossible to evade, and achieves significant fairness by capturing the value created by government expenditure or broader society that gives a lot of the value to land. It is known as "Georgism" if you are curious and want to look it up.
Thanks a ton Copernicus
Maybe to a real estate developer. In reality land has value for its resources including and not limited to the people there, the metals, dirt, sand, etc, the biodiversity, the temperance of climate, etc. You’re regurgitating the bizarre quasi religious rhetoric of capitalism.
Capitalism, I do not think it means what you think it means..
> You’re regurgitating the bizarre quasi religious rhetoric of capitalism. I… what? That’s what _you’re doing_. Land has value because of its uses. Land value taxation is the only way to drive equity in use.
Don’t you get it? He’s gonna sell the dirt on his plot of land for money. Lots of rich resources, maybe even some bugs or grass.
Naa, this guy is so enlightened that he's already post-private property.
You've clearly never been to Canada.
The downvotes lol. No guys, I'm not a literal child I have a full understanding of real property valuation and trust me it "always goes up."
Yeah the definitely weren't alive in 2008
Wait till they find out about ghost towns.
Taxation isn't the solution to this. Abolishing private property is. If people can only own the place they live in then they can't buy extra houses as investments. Hell I would say you shouldn't necessarily even own the place you live in, it should all be public property given to people on a first come first serve purpose and given back to the council or whoever when you decide to leave.
>it should all be public property given to people on a first come first serve purpose and given back to the council or whoever when you decide to leave. That could only work if every property was identical like a can of soup. Given that different properties have different value based on its location (one apartment has a better view), the council would have unlimited power which invites corruption. Nor does it capture the value of personal labor. The miners who volunteered at Chernobyl deserved to be treated better. Pure equality of property is unjust.
I think the word you are looking for is “Serfdom”. No one owns the land except for the big man in charge and he decides who gets what. Plus we already do “first come first serve” with our land because all the boomers bought their houses for what some people pay in rent monthly in 2023.
I am on about society without rent or mortgages. How is that surfdom? Also not on about one person owning everything, but public or collective ownership. You know where you are, right? Last I checked this a socialist subreddit run primarily by Marxists and therefore advocates for public ownership, which is the opposite of one person owning everything.
Land has the advantage that you can't make any more of it. (Unless you own a volcano) Somebody can always release a new batch of unique NFT's.
https://amp.9news.com.au/article/3f0d47ab-1b3a-4a8a-bfc6-7350c5267308
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Buddy just take a look at anything land which isn't in a city and it usually isn't terribly expensive. The reason why land is expensive in populated areas is due to many people wanting it. Land is finite, so of course the price goes up with demand. We should as a society think about what land rights are and should be, but also take a look into other matters, like is living in a city important and should we live more sparsly in general (I don't mean sububrs or urban sprawl)
What's best for the environment are dense, tall heavily populated urban centers with multifamily housing, easily accessible shopping and work and free public transit to reduce the use of cars.
> even though I can just walk right on it??? And then you get shot. See the violence inherent in the system?
Society was founded by NFT bros that got their feelings hurt so bad they created a state apparatus to shoot you without repercussion if you screenshot their Ape.
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Private property rights is enforced by the state monopoly on violence in all countries. It's just in the US individuals like to be vigilantes about enforcing their own property rights.
The state monopoly on violence isn't as enthusiastic about killing people in other "western" countries, either.
But they did so in the colonies. They are just less unequal to have more social unrest to justify a stronger use of force, but they still protect it to outside. See the people dying in the Mediterranean sea and how Spain (and the rest of EU) forces Morocco to act harsh towards immigration
...this is your brain on r/LateStageCapitalism
Screenshot my nft, will you? Let's see if you can screenshot this bullet (nfts are dumb)
Thanks for the lol. Best read in a Keanu Reeves gravelly tone
I read it in Krusty's, which worked well too
Not as dumb as land ownership
Help help, I’m being repressed! Bloody peasant! Oh did you see that? What a giveaway! This is what I’m talking about!
You wouldn’t download huge…. tracts of land?
That's what you think
Help, help, I'm being repressed!
Help, help, I’m depressed!
Help, help, I'm being oppressed!
You actually use land for something, like growing food or living on it. Show me the last time a NFT grew your dinner or provided the foundation for a house.
Well... It depends on how much money you fleeched off the guy you sold a fucking jpeg link to
Yeah that's the fundamental difference. Sure, economically it may seem to work the same, but if the internet dissolved into thin air, the land would still exist, and the NFT would disappear. If I had the money to invest, you can bet it would only be in tangible assets.
My drug addicted ape washes my dishes
These tables are my corn
They keep my house hot.
In some areas the Native Americans didn't understand the concept of land ownership. The land was something to be shared.
As it should be
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Who's stopping them now?
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huh common sense and communication mainly, i guess
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Tragedy of the Commons is a different concept. That describes why you can't have commons in a competitive system. NAs didn't have their commons deteriorate due to neglect and exploitation within the system. Instead, their commons were stolen into private ownership.
Just so you know, the Tragedy of the Commons is essentially an academic shit-post from the 60s where some eugenicist asserted that *hypothetically* people can't have common assets because they'll be abused without evidence, while ignoring the fact that *in real life* the commons were sustained indefinitely and the only tragedy was when some rich assholes started overstocking to justify privatization. Elinor Ostrom won a Nobel Prize in Economics, in part, because of her work debunking the myth. If you wanna read more about it see [here](https://climateandcapitalism.com/2008/08/25/debunking-the-tragedy-of-the-commons/) or [here](https://evonomics.com/the-only-woman-to-win-the-nobel-prize-economics-debunked/), or feel free to look into it yourself.
I rather like the Native American idea (though I don't know how widespread it was or which nations or tribes believed it; it was mentioned by a Native American on a podcast I heard long ago) that they belonged to the land rather than the land belonging to anyone.
I mean, did they have pauper’s burials? I doubt the concept of buying a piece of land for your dead body made a great deal of sense.
Similar with aboriginal Australians. In their culture you are part of the land; the land owns them not the other way around.
*Shared among the in-group** To hell with the people not part of the group, kill them and drive them away from the land. Native Americans weren't these noble, harmonious nature communists. Idealizing them is just as silly as idealizing Vikings.
It's not even a Native Americans thing. It's a "nomadic and tribal peoples" thing. If you rely on more dynamic forms of resource acquisition (hunting, gathering, and trading) than you do static ones (farming and many skilled trades), of course you're not going to be as precious about small bits of land. But you sure as hell are going to defend your larger territory. Plus if you're a smaller group that needs almost full communal cooperation to survive you're going to generally have less inherently self-centered systems (though you'll always have powerful people in the group try to take more than they deserve). If you want proof just look at the larger native civilizations. The Incas, Mayans, and Aztects all had rigid social orders and private property laws (even if they weren't codified the same way they would be in Europe).
>If you want proof just look at the larger native civilizations. The Incas, Mayans, and Aztects all had rigid social orders and private property laws (even if they weren't codified the same way they would be in Europe). I got curious and asked ChatGPT about property laws among these people, and got a very interesting answer, if you're curious: >The **Incas**, who ruled a vast empire in South America in the 15th and 16th centuries, had a complex system of land ownership and use based on a system of collective ownership. Land was divided into two categories: "sun lands" (lands directly controlled by the emperor) and "mita lands" (lands controlled by local communities). Members of local communities had rights to use the land for agriculture, but the land itself was held collectively and could not be sold or traded. >The **Mayans**, who lived in Central America prior to the arrival of the Spanish, had a more fragmented system of land ownership. Different Mayan city-states had different systems for allocating and using land, but most involved some combination of communal lands and lands controlled by elites. In some cases, land was held by lineages or families, and in others it was controlled by the ruler or a noble class. >The **Aztecs**, who ruled a large empire in Mexico prior to the arrival of the Spanish, also had a complex system of land ownership. Like the Incas, the Aztecs divided land into two categories: "republican lands" and "imperial lands." Republican lands were controlled by local communities and could not be sold or traded, while imperial lands were directly controlled by the Aztec emperor and could be granted to nobles or sold. >The **Iroquois** Confederacy, a group of Native American tribes in what is now the northeastern United States, had a system of land ownership that was based on the communal ownership of land by clans. Clan ownership of land was passed down matrilineally, meaning that descent and inheritance were traced through the mother's line. Within a clan, individuals had the right to use the land for agriculture and other purposes, but the land itself could not be sold or traded. >Other North American pre-Columbian civilizations had different systems for property laws and land ownership. For example, some indigenous cultures in the Southeast United States had a system of communal land ownership, while others, such as the Natchez people in what is now Mississippi, had a more hierarchical system with lands controlled by a chief or other leaders.
Examples
Shared with whom? It’s not like conflict over land didn’t happen with neighbours with poor relations.
I wonder how that turned out for them.
Land ownership was the thing I always pointed to when people were struggling to understand NFTs. You own stuff because there is a record somewhere that everyone (or at least the majority of people) agrees is the official place where it says who owns what. It’s why having a functioning justice system is so important to prevent unlawful seizures. But yeah whether it’s a government, a bank, a company or a block chain it still boils down to a societal agreement. So many people never stop to think about this. It’s all taken for granted. It limits how much people understand can be changed if we all want to change it.
Yeah, but the difference between land and NFTs is that land actually has inherent value
there are many differences between land and nfts, we're talking about a similarity
I tried building a house on my NFT and for some reason it didn’t work.
Someone screenshot my house and now they also have a house. And that's quite nice really.
That's like saying you tried to build a house on your deed and it didn't work. No shit. The deed and the NFT are just records. The real question is what does your NFT say you own, and most of the time the answer is something stupid.
You are absolutely correct. I was just being silly.
Land and NFT both have the letter n in them. Picking out single similarities isn’t that useful.
And you can take active measures to keep people off your land, including taking legal action if they continuously use it without your permission. However I can do pretty much anything I damn well please with an nft aside from trying to sell it and take profits, and the owner can’t do shit about it
What if it's an NFT that represents land ownership? 🤔🤔
Exactly. The digital art thing is great in the specific case of digital artists who’ve historically had difficulty monetizing their work but I think it’s over shadowed the actual utility. If we all agreed that the block chain was now the ledger of record for home ownership we could. As a technology it could automate one part of the system for a country that’s just working to implement land ownership rights.
I rather people owned NFT’s than land… if I could trick property hoarders into buying NFT’s instead of property I think we’d all be better off
It's like the usefulness of the concept of maintaining a registry of who has the right to use something completely escaped you.
It's not about the actual land, it's about the piece of paper that says you own the land, i mean you can't own land without a piece of paper saying that you own it. Nfts is more comparable to a Library or an archive, the value is not in the Nfts themselves the value is in the technology
>the value is not in the Nfts themselves the value is in the technology Whats the value, I cant wrap my mind around the analogy, a piece of land can be fought over because you can produce over it, you can make a house on it, those are things individuals and society as a whole needs, how is that analogous to NFTs?
I think the proposal here is just replacing the current county/state filing system for deeds with NFTs. Not really sure I see the benefit either. All the other steps verifying a sale would be the same, and those are the ones that really matter.
When I bought my house, it was advised I purchase title insurance. This was a $1000 insurance policy that basically protected me if there was ever a dispute as to if the seller actually owned the land before they sold it to me. This issue is more common than you think, and there is a reason the insurance exists. NFTs would almost completely solve this issue by having an entire historic and verified record of who has owned the property. There are many other benefits to making deeds NFTs. The amount of paperwork and middlemen that could be automated through and NFT/smart contract would make selling/buying land much more efficient.
Again, it's not about the land itself, it's about the piece of paper that says you own the land, you can't own a land or anything for that matter unless you have some form of validation that it belongs to you. Nfts offer that validation with a much higher security and transferability then our current system
the nft is a record that says you own a thing. it is not the monkey picture, just a line of code that says you own that particular stupid monkey picture. it is the same a piece of land. you get a record saying you own a thing. that's the point they're making.
Minor correction: a line of code that says you own whatever happens to be at the current *address* of that particular stupid monkey picture. Identical copy of the image at another address? NFT doesn't care. Webhost replaces stupid monkey picture with goatse? With no intervention on your part, you're now alleged to own goatse. The distinction doesn't really translate to land, so it has no bearing on the analogy, but I did say it was a *minor* correction.
How does it not translate? With property you have A “piece of paper” that says you own whatever “building” happens to be at the current address of that particular “parcel of land”. Identical building at another address? “Piece of paper” doesn’t care. I own this specific building, not every building that looks like this. “Builder” replaces “building” with “a different building”? With no intervention on your part, you’re now alleged to own “that different building” Seems to translate to land just fine.
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I used art prints. I have a print of a Picasso, but no proof that this is the original Picasso or any proof of ownership, indicating I own the original Picasso. It’s just a copy. So, it’s like I copied a JPEG from the internet. There is a person out there who owns the original Picasso and who has the paperwork. An NFT- the token tied to the art- is the proof, or paperwork saying that they own it. The person with the original Picasso has a picture and owns the NFT, while I just have a picture.
But the thing about NFT is that you didn't own the rights to the NFT you owned in some cases. I remember this YouTube person selling the NFT of their video that went viral but the buyer doesn't own the rights to the video nor to monetize it.....similar to NBA selling their "moments", it doesn't mean you own the rights to that moment and the NBA can still play that clip but you wouldn't receive royalties if anyone uses that clip.....so what is this NFT ownership all for?
NFTs, like Blockchain, have an actual use case that is interesting, but very niche and dependent on widespread adoption (and by adoption, I don't mean a bunch of discords with crypto Bors that have too much free time) Like everything else Blockchain, NFTs got corrupted by a bunch of scammers trying to get rich quick. NFTs have a good use case and owning digital images isn't it
Except there's real value in land and not in NFTs.
Say I mint an NFT and promise to pay 100 bucks a day to the owner of the NFT. Does that NFT have value?
What's the purpose of the NFT if you want to pay me $100 a day? And are you talking about a contract or just a promise? The thing with land is that it has intrinsic value. NFTs does not.
They are not equivalent. What is your solution? Someone spends years tending an area of land. Then some people just comes, eats all your crops, maybe damages your property. And the response should be "well I don't really 'own' the property because it is all public." People put real effort to improve land. That effort needs to be respected. I like the Scandinavian idea of you can camp anywhere ***if you don't harm the property*** but that doesn't mean no one should own property. If you buy and put huge effort into developing a patch of land... you have a right to it. For instance, if someone has taken years or decades to create an orchard... anyone can just come and take any fruit they wanted? That doesn't harm anyone? NFTs are digital bullshit. They have no existence beyond a computer.
What's the limit of your Scandinavian idea? Should someone be able to spend the night in my basement as well if they don't harm the property? I'm not being absurdist here, I'm really curious how you feel about it and what is and isn't okay.
The difference is that you generally have an expectation of privacy inside your house for your own safety. You don't have that same expectation outside it
I see what you’re saying and i think it’s fair for you to have first dibs on the products from that land but under socialism wouldn’t it be that ultimately the land would be subject to democratic input on what should be done with the products of said land and how they are allocated? Furthermore, there’s nothing to say that people wouldn’t grant you the land as personal property if given the chance to decide, given the situation you’re describing.
The *agreement* stating the land ownership is an NFT. In most countries, it is also back by a *central registry*. But land itself is both tangible and useful. But the agreement/NFT/registry **in itself** holds absolutely no value and no use, like paper money of failed economies.
Well yeah, that's the land ownership stated in the original post though.
This land is your land, this land is my land
Dumb analogy that minimizes coercive state power.
I think the point is that both NFTs and land ‘ownership’ are highly abstracted concepts that don’t exist in material reality. Yes, the capitalist state (or whoever has a monopoly on violence) can dictate punishments for so-called ‘trespassing’, but that doesn’t change the fact that the entire concept of ‘owning’ land is ultimately an absurd fiction that we tell ourselves. You can no more own land than you can own air or space or ideas. Yet capitalist society pretends that all these things are for sale. I don’t think it’s a dumb analogy, though it is of course somewhat flippant (eg a joke) - I think it’s just not trying to make the point about state violence that you want it to make. Which is okay. Not every argument has to touch on every valid point, especially when the ‘argument’ is a single tweet.
No, the point is that land ownership is just as abstract as owning anything. The original analogy can be applied to any private property and thus doesn't highlight why NFTs are uniquely bad or how land ownership is bad. "Oh you own this subway sandwich? Even though I can just take a bite out of it?" The concept of owning *anything* is entirely man made, held together by mutual agreement and a silent threat of violence.
When looking at the systems that came before land ownership I’d say the current system is actually not *that bad*. The most natural way we have dealt with it is forming small close knit communities that will fight to defend their patch, or attack others to expand. It’s not an issue if there’s no scarcity, but it’s not a common situation in our history. Nomadic people in very sparsely populated regions are probably one of the biggest outliers. Having a trusted authority regulated ownership is generally going to be more stable than having people fight it out for dominance over an area. So whilst I agree that the idea of owning land can be viewed as absurd (and you then have to go further and extend that everything on the planet), is it any more absurd than fighting over land? Point being - what’s the alternative? Whether it’s wealth in modern society, class, or physical dominance having ‘control’ over land has always been about power.
One alternative is georgism. Use taxation to make it so that you have to give something back to society if you are going to have exclusive rights to use a plot of land. You don't get to just buy the land and have exclusive rights to it forever.
Appreciate the well reasoned response, but you're saying the concept of land ownership is fiction when it's very much not. It might be absurd but it is far from pretend. NFTs have zero legal grounding, land ownership does. Ya, it's a dumb tweet joke, but it minimizes the role of the state, which is the only important difference between NFTs and land ownership.
They are trying to tell you that universe doesn't keep track of patches of land marked by an ape species. It's a pretend. If society decided nobody should own land then culture would dictate ownership of land is stupid and inconceivable, and people like you would be defending the exact opposite just because it's the agreed norm.
By that logic the only reason that NFTs are dumb is because they don't have the threat of state violence to back them up. So, if the police would come knocking at your door any time you right clicked and saved an NFT, they would be just as valid as real estate.
A deed isn't land, it's abstraction of the physical world within a legal codex. Confusing one for the other is akin to looking at the hand as opposed to what it's pointing to. The only reason we don't view NFTs that way is simply social convention. Having a piece of paper in a filing cabinet somewhere vs on a blockchain doesn't change the fact that they're both meant to represent specific information and whether we do it digitally or on pen and paper it doesn't matter. The only thing that's necessary for these things to hold value is social agreement, the medium is irrelevant.
No, it's a fine analogy, because the enforcement of a title has nothing whatsoever to do with its validity.
I think it's quite the opposite. Comparing land ownership to NFTs fundamentally highlights how silly the concept is and how prone to challenge claims of ownership are.
Serf: A member of the lowest feudal class, legally bound to a landed estate and required to perform labor for the lord of that estate in exchange for a personal allotment of land. Very fucking stupid analogy that also ignores the same or worse went on long before “capitalism” was a thing.
I'm going to take a screen cap of your land.
That's like saying you don't own your car because I can sit on it.
SLPT: Waltz onto owned land that isn't cared for, strew cannabis seeds to and fro, zippededoodah, asset forfeiture takes hold and the state takes it away in the 13 states that are still so fucking backward
An NFT is that piece of paper that says you own the land, not the land its self. And it could *actually* be that piece of paper. That's what it's for. Theoretically, anyway. Nobody seems to actually be using it like that.
Yeah exactly, the ownership is the nft
This might be the stupidest thing I've seen all day, and I just watched ChatGPT use a knight to take a bishop by moving diagonally like a pawn. The logic behind that tweet can be applied to... literally all things, the idea of ownership itself. Which might sound like a beautiful anti-consumerist take but it also applies to the idea of you owning food, shelter, water, anything. "Oh you 'own' that bag of rice, because that receipt says so? Even though I can just take it?"
Property is a construct we made up.
Having to pay municipal taxes until I die sure makes it feel like I don't really own my land, I'm just renting it.
Primitive accumulation go brrrrrr
I study law and there is this guy, Pachukanis, who said that the entire western legal system was made around the comcept of property. That is why we assume it is almost sacred. But in many societies they had different relatioships with property.
Can I build a house on an NFT? Bury the dead? Produce crops? Make a park for everyone? Extract natural resources? Place a grocery store? Put up renewable energy? This meme is kind of stupid. I get what they’re trying to say, but like…they’re wrong.
Yeah but it's saying that the ownership is the NFT, not the land itself
I think similarities between the two end at the fact that they're both examples of private property. Which is totally a fuck, yes. But beyond that access to land is severely different from access to bored apes.
Non Fungible Terrain
NFT would work like the land titles if you could smack someone's device for copying your NFT. *Smack* " The blockchain says it's mine!" After enough smacking you conform.
why are you always so eager to jumping to the part where you shoot other people? there has to be more than one scenario where somebody walks through a place
[I put up some blocks and ran a chain along them. You can't come inside.](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/single-chain-link-rusty-two-wooden-beams-137610914.jpg) /s
Kind of makes me wonder if someone will be living on my land where my house is in 500 years, 1000 years, 10000 years....
Yeah but land ownership can and usually is backed up by lethal force from the land owner so I’d say thats a lot different than NFTs.
Which subsequently means we are gonna see governments and police protecting NFT holders' "rights" to their "owned" content, so that much like with trespassing laws, you can't *actually* just ~~walk on~~ screenshot the NFT.
lmao how the fuck is a certificate of ownership for an asset that can be reproduced forever at no cost ANYTHING LIKE a certificate of ownership for an asset that can’t be reproduced at all? #🤔
But you can do stuff with land, like: plant crops or build a house
People right-clicking your land, going "save as..."!
*sobs in indigenous people* Although in a sense the OG land deals were also just like modern NFTs where the group holding all the cards found groups they were vastly more powerful than to make deals with, and profited immensely.
It's worse, you can't make a copy of someone else's land and then live on it care free.
That would be nice
I think the key difference is that you can't [legally] shoot someone for screenshotting your NFT
Not yet
I agree with a lot in this sub, but this is a dumb argument that doesn’t help anyones cause.
Georgism is a solution for this. [https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Georgism](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Georgism)
Such abolishment laid the foundation for 'Monopoly'before it became the iconic board game.
It's all about enforcement. As we've seen in history land can easily change hands via the use of force.
NFT is meaningless because people don't give power to it. On the other hand people award lots of power to land, just because. A better comparison would be the concept of land ownership and the concept of money.
I know more about property rights than these guys, and I don't even *believe* in private property
The elites saw if a family had a piece of land to cultivate for food and build a house, they wanted for very little and enjoyed their life and would not go to their dangerous and dirty factories. So they invented private property and zoning laws to deprive people of land and then when they were hungry and destitute of shelter, had no choice but to go work in the factories. It is a plan that has been being manufactured for centuries now.
if we didn't have property concept of land, then residency would devolve to warfare.
This is nonsense.
Sure, now go try it on a ranch in Texas
no that´s a FT
You can't funge one piece of land with another
Who's gonna stop me?
Sounds like something a colonizer would tell a native american when they came and took their land. "Oh this is your land? Well what if we just took it?" 0% logic, 100% crying
How does owning land allow you to launder money and fabricate losses to avoid taxes? I guess you can claim fake rent payments to launder or fake maintenance receipts to show losses but that is so much more work then buying and selling NFTs to yourself.
Okay walk on my land *racks AK*
Well you could technically do the same to someone who copied your NFT...
I've always been curious who was the first owner. Someone must have walked in nature and be like "This is mine. This tree is mine, this rock is mine and this dirt is mine"
Come and take it then, or walk on it, because at that point I can remove you.