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[Image description: a dining room with teal blue walls, with a pink neon sign saying “let them eat cake” written in cursive.]

  • @[email protected]
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    31 year ago

    Mathematically, there is a finite limited number of resources on the planet.

    Why are resources going into social status symbol when not everyone has their basic human needs met?

    Why is it a higher priority that a rich person have a mansion to show off how rich they are, then have many other people get a roof over their head at night?

    • @[email protected]
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      11 year ago

      You have a point, but status symbols are positional goods so often their high cost doesn’t correspond to a large use of resources. If one rich guy buys a painting from another rich guy, ten million dollars changes hands but that’s it; ten million dollars worth of stuff isn’t being used up.

      This isn’t always the case - I presume an expensive yacht really does take a lot of resources to build. And this mansion took resources to build too. Still, the most valuable thing about the mansion is its location - the same mansion but not in Beverly Hills might be worth ten times less. I think it’s more like the painting than like the yacht.

      • @[email protected]
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        21 year ago

        If the value is all about location, then by your logic, for each homeless person we can simply build a Beverly Hills style mansion out in the Midwest, and now it’s affordable housing.

        You know, because the value is not in the mansion, it’s just in the Beverly Hills location.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 year ago

          You could certainly build a Beverly Hills style mansion in the Midwest for a lot less than you could build it for in Beverly Hills, although would still be a suboptimal use of public money…

          (The problem is that the homeless don’t want to be in the rural Midwest. Even if you give them homes there, they still have no money and all the same personal problems that led to them becoming homeless in the first place, but now they can’t effectively have an income from begging.)

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            Plenty of homeless people get by here from begging. Biggest struggle is that summers hit a heat index of 120, winters drop to a chill of -30.

            Milder climate is just better suited to a life without the privilege of climate control.

        • @[email protected]
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          01 year ago

          It depends on the yacht. There are yachts a lot more expensive than this particular mansion.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            That’s true, and you’re making an even better point for radicalization when society is creating superyachts for the superwealthy while lacking basic affordable housing.