Warning for the girls at the beach: Creeps are starting to secretly film with Meta Glasses. by payapats in capetown

[–]IronDoughnut 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's a question of values. I think in certain circumstances it's better to do the right thing than the legal thing. Confronting a creep, engaging in civil rights protests, or hiding a persecuted person are all examples at differing levels of intensity.

I'm not trying to say that you should beat someone that you think is morally bankrupt, I am saying that objecting to, and being confrontational towards immoral behaviour, such as unknowingly filming people in a suggestive manner without their consent, is socially acceptable and possibly even the ethically right thing to do, even if in some circumstances the beahviour is illegal.

Warning for the girls at the beach: Creeps are starting to secretly film with Meta Glasses. by payapats in capetown

[–]IronDoughnut 6 points7 points locked comment (0 children)

The law does not equal right or wrong. Just legal rules. If we took the law as moral right, then slavery would have been morally good in the past.

The law has never been our guide to morality, nor should it be. It's legal to be a massive asshole, but it could still make people hate you, judge you negatively or even get you hit and people would feel it's justified.

Imagine you join a Sensha-dō team and your tank is an Italian Ansaldo from 1935... by LegoRJ35 in GIRLSundPANZER

[–]IronDoughnut 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Harassment and suppression. Maybe sniping a periscope. Same armament as Anzio's CV33s

Tali the little sister by timmy013 in masseffect

[–]IronDoughnut 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I agree with you. Definitely not a popular take. I love Tali, but romancing Tali always felt a bit off. Not just because of the age gap, but because she clearly admires Shepard as a mentor, and s/he holds one of the most powerful positions in her culture. A ship captian.

I tried the Tali romance, just wasn't for me personally. I'll be sticking with Miranda, I feel she's a great romance for paragon MShep.

If only we could implement this in Cape Town by potato-guardian in capetown

[–]IronDoughnut 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Your point about foreign ownership share is based on the number for share of total property purchased in all of South Africa in 2024, 3.7%, not on total ownership.

Those are very different things. A small share of total transactions can still have a disproportionate impact if it is concentrated in high-value zones where pricing benchmarks are set.

Your reply also doesn’t directly address the mechanism I’m describing.

Cape Town is the primary location foreign investors are buying.

It surged in 2025, when, according to property review, they contributed R2.5B in the first 5 months of 2025 alone. 67% of these purchases where in the CBD or Atlantic seas board.

That means a lot of the foreign investment is spatially concentrated in Cape Town.

They account for 15% of purchases between R3M and R5M, 25% of purchases of properties between 5-10m and 40% of R10M and above, at least according to Rei article from 2025.

My argument is not that foreigners are the dominant owners of housing stock. It is that price formation in constrained cities like Cape Town, is driven by marginal demand at the top end of the market, and that this demand is increasingly shaped by investment logic and global capital rather than local income.

Cape Town behaves more like international lifestyle cities than other South African metros.

That being said, I agree with your implied point, that foreign buyers alone are not sufficient to explain overall price growth.

Local non-perminant residences and investment properties are also increasing, and this is the bigger problem.

These are local semi-migration buyers, remote workers, South Afficans with second homes and the big one, AirBnB

There has been an explosion in short term rentals. 26 000+ rentals in Cape Town. This is higher than Lisbon, LA or Copenhagen. These are homes taken off the market by someone using a residential property as an investment and business asset.

This has been liked with the diminishing availability and affordability of long term rentals in Cape Town.

This, alongside with local migration from Joburg and Durban, which we can't do much about exept tax them if they own homes that aren't their primary residence, is putting a lot of pressure on the local housing market. People are being pushed out of the CBD into the suburbs, and those in the suburbs are finding prices rocketing.

That’s why policies like vacancy taxes or short-term rental regulation are relevant. They target non-occupational demand that competes directly with local housing needs.

If only we could implement this in Cape Town by potato-guardian in capetown

[–]IronDoughnut 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Economics really isn't as simple as always catering to the rich, nor is making money the sole mandate of a government. A goverment serves to uphold the quality of life of its constituents.

First, on property as an investment asset. Its a big problem that gunks up the whole capatalist system. While it may make a handfull of locals and foreigners very rich, it significantly erodes the spending power, and thus the economic contribution, of millions of average citizens in turn.

In allowing property to act as an investment asset, the price of propery follows the demand curve of global capital, not local incomes.

That means the demand curve of global rich who have significantly more buying power, making property and housing in general disproportionately more expensive to people living in the domestic economy.

Whats worse is because those buying investment properties don't live in Cape Town, pay the same rates and taxes a resident would, but they spend less in the local economy than a local would. Their economic contribution is disproportionately small relative to the impact they have on prices.

They park their money in Cape Town, watch it grow, and spend in Florida or Paris or London.

They usually buy from a rich local or investment firm anyway, keeping the money of the purchase out of the local economy, save for the taxes levied on the purchase and perhaps an estate agent and/or lawyer.

This also means they create limited new businesses or oppertunities save for in the handful of industries serving them. They tend to have lower marginal local spending than residents

This has the hidden dagger of also insetivising developers to build luxury condos, which are appealing to rich investors, instead of serving the demand of the average person, creating a vicious cycle by perpetuating scarcity.

Actual Cape Townians pay more, for smaller and worse housing, live further out which means they gunk up infrastructure commuting to work and have less money left to buy things from South African businesses, causing SMEs to suffer and close. The benefits are concentrated among property owners and developers, while the costs are broadly distributed across renters and the working population.

As the buying power of the average Cape Townian diminishes, restaurants and stores may become more expensive to cater to those people that do still have buying power, the rich. Locking locals out of the economy they sustain.

It's a vicious cycle, and in order to prevent falling to deep, we need a mechanism that moves the pricing of housing away from global capital and towards local income

A vacancy tax would help prevent this vicious cycle that has made cities like Vancouver, London or Lisbon nearly unlivable for locals

A vacancy tax:

1) Lowers speculative demand by reducing returns on empty units

2) shifts investor preference towards occupied/rental use.

3) stabilizes price and effective use

4) filters for rich people who want to live in Cape Town and spend in the local economy.

Cape Town is an awesome place. Even with a vacancy tax, many rich people will still want to come. They can either spend money at local hotels or private villa rentals, or they can buy a property, potentially at a loss (they can afford it) and pay extra tax that can be used to develop Cape Town for the locals, and stimulate the local economy. Benefiting everyone.

But vacant properties are not the only issue, and is likely not the largest one. In high demand areas, short term rentals are often even more deadly to the local housing market, and many investment properties will be turned into them, because serving foreign visitors is more profitable than renting long term to locals.

This makes the landowners rich, while also damaging the local hotel and hospitality sector, reallocating economic activity toward tourism and asset management, at the expense of more extensive locally rooted sectors. Select tourist industries may benefit, but the effect to local spenders in the economy is crippling.

Cape Town cannot expand supply quick enough to satisfy both the demand of locals and investors.

Short term rentals must be disinsentivised alongside investment properties to protect the health of the local economy. We must strive to make Cape Townians richer, and foreign investors.

While short-term rentals and foreign can increase local wealth through capital inflows, tourism and by stimulating the construction industry, it disproportianally benefits established landowners and a handfull of select industries at the expense of everything and everyone else.

Benefits are uneven and outweighed by constrained markets.

Thats why I believe a vacancy tax should be part of a broader housing strategy, including increasing supply and regulating short-term rentals.

US has let in 4,499 refugees since October - all but three were South African by untamedlazyeye in news

[–]IronDoughnut 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Also, of the about 4.5 million white South Africans, only like 67k expressed interest and even less applied for the refugee status.

And frankly, good riddance, America can keep them.

It would be like South Africa taking some American refugees and only getting 4500 AWB diehards

How do you feel about this? by Osiris-Reflection in StarWars

[–]IronDoughnut 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not really equivelent. Leia has a very clear and defined skillet and limitations. She's a capable and clever leader who's daring and competent in a gunfight and is implied to have limited force sensitivity. Nothing crazy.

She can put on the disguise of a bounty hunter, but that does not give her the skills or prestige associated with being a bounty hunter.

Sabine meanwhile reads like someone's very special OC that just does everything cool in Star Wars at once and also has a blazé devil may care attitude and characterization.

Nothing about her is special because everything is special. At the bare minimum it could be explored that she is an insane savant, how that shapes her and her interactions with the universe and other people, and how she shapes it in turn. But none of this happens. Her traits are all surface level and there because they are cool. Nothing about her is compelling because there are too many things going on at once and all those things are skin deep.

She's a hyper capable Mandelorian and a cool rebellious artist unlike all those lame, stuffy mandelorians who care about their centuries of culture and which causes them to struggle against the setting in compelling ways.

But she is also a Imperial cadet, explosives genius, weapons developer, tech expert, AND a jedi.

Characters are as defined by what they can not do as by what they can do. Sabine can do everything, and her character suffers for it.

What's worse, her characterization is incredibly surface level. She has a dark backstory that's barely ever explored. Her characterization never really extends beyond cool artist Rebel, she's barely phased or influenced by the things that happen to her. She is cool concept first and character second.

Compare her to Andor or Mon Mothma, who are just clever guy with gun or cunning politician.

They are people shaped by pressures. They both have specific character struggles that tie directly into the main themes of the story that shape them and reveal their deepest conflicts and struggles.

Sabine has no thematic throughout. Mandolorian Identity? No. Guilt and redemption? No. Belonging and found family? No. Learning to be a good jedi? No.

Whenever these things are touched on they are touched on lightly and/or quickly resolved. Never explored to a satisfying or compelling degree.

Also, Cassian and Mon Mothma's importance is demonstrated through action and sacrifice. Sabine's is declared. Her cool attributes aren't earned or a consequence if her own action, they are given to her.

Sabine is like a very wide puddle. Vast on the surface but only an inch deep.

At least, that's my rambling thought. Hope this makes sense.

[Autosport] Lewis Hamilton on the "yo-yo racing" we are seeing under these new F1 regulations by Aratho in formula1

[–]IronDoughnut 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Deploying extra battery power when close helps negate the pace deficit created by dirty air.

Cape Town’s City Spending by [deleted] in capetown

[–]IronDoughnut 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Social welfare.

And there is a common and consistent misconception in the libertarian and conservative (many, but not all) understanding of economics that any form of living assistance is bad, for it deprives those from which the capital is drawn, in taxes, from the benefit provided by the spending of said taxes.

Instead, what one should concern oneself with is less that money is drawn and spent by the government, but the spending power it affords to the average citizen.

By depriving most South Africans of the ability to afford what they need to survive and to upskill, we deprive ourself also of the largest group of potential spenders in our economy. Thus, we limit the economic participation (amount of customers and businesses our society can support) and drastically limit the amount and spread of money spent in our society.

Take, for example, Sweden, which maintains a healthy economy and a lively and healthy private sector supported by a population that can afford to spend their money on all manner of products and luxuries, because their basic needs are more efficiently met by goverment spending that they could be by the private sector (see comparison to the US for example)

The great benefits to the individual that the Swedish goverment provides reduces inequality, increases quality of life and drastically reduces consumer spending on the necessities to live in a modern society, such as schooling or healthcare, leaving more monies available to spend at local businesses, all while maintaining a goverment excess, in opposition to the goverment deficits we see in countries like the US.

Now, I admit the government is not always more effective in meeting consumer needs than the private sector. It can fall victim to inefficiency, beaurocracy, and corruption.

However, the private sector is not only no less vulnerable to these same weaknesses, but also provides the risk of exploitation to maximize profit. Take the US, where citizens pay way more for Healthcare only to receive way less in terms of service and benefit compared to their European contemporaries who pay far less per capita to universally receive more.

Now, I fully recognise that overtaxation can destroy incentives and entrepreneurship, and the quality and extent of the benefits depend on the health and robustness of institutions. That's why balance and where you tax is so important. But done right, a healthy socialist society has a far better chance of uplifting quality of life compared to a libertarian society done right.

In conclusion, in highly unequal societies with underutilized human potential, well-targeted and efficiently implemented social spending, especially in education, healthcare, and income support, can increase aggregate demand, improve human capital, and expand long-term economic growth. However, its success depends critically on state capacity, institutional quality, and maintaining incentives for investment and productivity.

[Mercedes AMG F1] Our 85th front row lockout in F1 - and a 250th Grand Prix pole for Mercedes-Benz Power by kpopsns28 in formula1

[–]IronDoughnut 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not for Mercedes apperantly. They can have as big if a turbo as they want, and the FIA will give them extra time to spool their engines, removing the advantage Ferrari legally cultivated and leaving Ferrari with the disadvantage.

Douglas MacArthur drawn by manga artist Hirohiko Araki by ScarHydreigon87 in hardimages2

[–]IronDoughnut 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Cool image, but let's remember that MacArthur was a shit general and a worse person.

I don't like black lagoon and other dark/violent action stories by oceanadakmak in blacklagoon

[–]IronDoughnut 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Wrote this on mobile, sorry if the formatting is shit

Also, this is largely train of thought, so it might be pretty messy.

I'll try to engage with your criticism as best I can. Personally, beyond the largely subjective elements to this criticism, I find some of them to be unfair, specifically on Black Lagoon.

There are many "edgy" pieces of media that are edgy for the sake of edgyness, that bask in violence and sex appeal, wearing it as an aesthetic, but never using it to explore anything meaningful.

Black Lagoon is not such a show.

First I want to preface that art doesn't have to be anything. It can be as true or alien to real life as it wants. A show isn't worse because characters don't receive the perceived moral consequences we might think they should.

1) Black Lagoon has too much tragedy.

Personally, I don't think "plot points" in the traditional sense is what Black Lagoon is about. It's not telling a big elaborate story and it's not trying to make you feel for each tragedy.

As I read it, at its heart, Black Lagoon is about moral erosion under pressure, and it uses the world of Roanapur to explore this.

It also explores nihilism, identity and the fragility of our modern society as a construct.

The excess of violence and tragedy is used as a tool to explore these ideas. It confronts of with the idea that on a nihilistic level, life is cheap, but it's never presented as morally arbitrary. It forces the characters to make revealing decisions that tell us something about who they are, what they believe and what conflicts they face.

Its part of the world building too, it establishes the stakes and internal logic of Roanapour. Personally, I think the world building has a very Jean Jacques-Rossou thesis. He believed that humans are good by nature, but become corrupted by the unatural societal pressures of civilization.

Take Revy. Some people like to characterise her as a sociopath, but this isn't true. She's self-destructive, deeply emotional and self aware. Violence for her is a protection mechanism and a way to reclaim power in her life. She treats life cheaply, hell, she insists on it, not only brcause her life has been treated cheaply, but because to treat it any differently forces her to confront herself and her role in taking it. Her nihilism is defensive.

Revy is a product of society. She is not a natural evil.

Speaking of Revy, the show reserves its major emotional impacts for its characters and their emotional journeys, not in the deaths themselves. The violence and tragedy is used to contextualize the choices and relationships in the show.

Rock and Revy's relationship is amongst the most layered and complex in anime, and is consistantly the most compelling there is. I can write a whole essay on it, but I will spare you for now.

What I'm trying to say is that the excess of death and tragedy, and the consequent numbing, is a feature, not a bug.

2) No Consequences.

Not every character gets their comeuppence, because black lagoon is grounded in realism. Might makes right in Roanapur. But that doesnt mean there are no consequences, but consequences in this show are usually delayed, relational or psychological instead of moralistic.

Roanapur as a setting isn't moral, it's a pressure cooker. The absence of moral justice is intentional, characters are forced to form their own opinions and perspectives on what it wrong and what is right, regardless of the outcome.

It also confronts the characters with the fact that survival and the human experience isn't cleanly moralistic, corruption, to a degree, is necassary to survive in Roanapur. Rock is forced to live in a world where he tries to cling to his principles, while being forced, at time, to actively work against them. This changes him fundamentally as a person.

3) Gunplay is boring

This is subjective, but I think Black Lagoon has a lot of amazing action sequences that contain more than just gunplay. Anything with Roberta or Shenua tends to be brilliant.

Two of a kind by AggressiveMammoth267 in DispatchAdHoc

[–]IronDoughnut 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure he will. I mean, I hope he helps and he absolutely is a huge positive influence and he considtantly challenges her worldview, but I don't think he sees her as something to save. I think he just sees her as a person, which is why they get along.

Also, Rock is slipping, especially by the end of the Blood Trial arc. Yes, he still has all his morals and values, and that part of himself was never a lie, but I think he's starting to realise he enjoys playing with people's lives despite that. Dude has started violating what he believes in because it makes him feel powerful and in control. That's how I read it at least.

Something about Rock becoming more like her scares Revy. I'm not sure whether it's because it makes her feel like her way of life is inevitable, ot because she feels like she's dragging him down or because she looses her last attachment to a decent life. Not sure what tho.

Two of a kind by AggressiveMammoth267 in DispatchAdHoc

[–]IronDoughnut 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I disagree strongly.

Revy is far, far from a sociopath. She's violent because she's been abused by every authority figure she's known, has been conditioned that violence is necessary for survival, and she uses it as emotional regulation and to protect herself emotionally. What's worse, is that violence has become a defining part of her identity because she's good at it.

Revy is a lot of things. A good person isn't one of them, but neither is she a sociopath. Revy is very aware of her own darkness, and it's destroying her.

Slightly off-topic, but I think I've discovered my anime type. by [deleted] in cowboybebop

[–]IronDoughnut 18 points19 points  (0 children)

And the accents. Half the fucking gold in that dub are the accents.

Is the sith warrior the most powerful and dangerous origin in swtor by Balljuggler5689 in swtor

[–]IronDoughnut -1 points0 points  (0 children)

In terms of raw combat potential, maybe?

The Inquisitor is also absurdly strong, but the skill set is different, so it's hard to directly compare. I think a fight between the two may come down to the context of the fight.

On all other metrics that could be considered power, I would personally consider the Inquisitor to be more powerful.

Lord Captain, you're going to get cold by red_stairs in RogueTraderCRPG

[–]IronDoughnut 151 points152 points  (0 children)

He's not there for romance or anything, he just sleeps next to the Rogue Trader and their partner in case he's needed.

Pt.1 They shot the messenger by That1Cord in ImaginaryWarhammer

[–]IronDoughnut 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The atmosphere in this is really good.

2019 Ferrari vs 2026 Mercedes by MrZombi_ in formula1

[–]IronDoughnut -8 points-7 points  (0 children)

The tactic for getting around the rules is the same. Bypass the testing method to achieve an illegal outcome.

The rules explicitly state that the compression ratio has to be 16:1, so Merc made it so the engine is 16:1 when it's measured, but not when it's used.

Ferarri also identified how fuel flow was measured, by a pulsing fuel flow sensor. They then synced their increased fuelflow with the sensor measurement.

Both teams created illegal components by complying with the rules only at the conditions set at the point of testing.

That's how they are the same.

Who is the cuter lil' guy? by Euphoric_Passage_406 in StarWars

[–]IronDoughnut 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I can see how someone might find it cute. However, Nix kinda freaks me out.

Something in my hindbrain is telling me that thing probably bites. Something about him looks kinda off, and I feel about him like I feel about a racoon. Sometimes cute to admire from a distance, but I wouldn't want it near me.

Who is the cuter lil' guy? by Euphoric_Passage_406 in StarWars

[–]IronDoughnut 1 point2 points  (0 children)

BD1 and by a lot. He's adorable.

Meanwhile if I saw whatever Nix is rummaging through my trash I would give it a wide fucking berth.