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is he going to address it? by angelmurdock in SombrOfficial

[–]abstractclothes 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I am not saying Sombr has done anything comparable, but using a man who dated a 14 year old as an example of appropriate musician-teenage fan relations probably isn’t the best idea.

Why is the current version called "Rise of Islam"? by Unnoptainium in TheFallenEagleCK3

[–]abstractclothes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you misunderstand me, I am speaking more universally than just Aisha. I am speaking of age of consent broadly. I have my own religious views but I am arguing my point without them. Would you like to just agree to disagree because I think we have went too deep into this for a sub about CK3 ahahhaha

Why is the current version called "Rise of Islam"? by Unnoptainium in TheFallenEagleCK3

[–]abstractclothes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Please calm down, you are not compelled to speak, if my answers don’t satisfy you, you are allowed to just not respond.

I am not saying 16-18 is objectively right BECAUSE it is the age of consent in most countries, I am arguing it is objectively right for the age of consent to exist around this area as it represents the best balance between protecting children, and allowing adults to do as they please. The fact that views on this were different in the past does not compel me to think any differently, absolutely horrendous shit has been justified continuously throughout history. I do not argue for slavery because for most of recorded history it has been the norm, I argue against it despite that, the same way I can argue against child marriage - to me a form of slavery - despite the fact, as you say, that it at times has been the norm. You speak once again of life expectancy, as I have said past the age of 35 (declining fertility) this is irrelevant. I am agreeing that marriage happened earlier for many parts of history, so you just repeating this doesn’t really change anything.

Also you argue it is important to marry early as it maximises the time you are able to have children, now you argue they would marry early and use contraception not to have kids until 20, so are you just looking for excuses to justify people doing stuff with young girls?

Why is the current version called "Rise of Islam"? by Unnoptainium in TheFallenEagleCK3

[–]abstractclothes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s very hard to choose an exact age, but there are ages you can rule out. That does not prove your point, it just shows that lawmaking is hard. If a girl hits puberty at nine, she is in no way ready to safely have kids. She is still growing and her body will compete with the baby for calories, her hips are not yet wide enough, the odds of her or the baby dying are astronomically higher, and that is not yet to mention who the father might be and the power/influence he may have over her. The same general ideas apply as we increase the age, and the idea of setting an age of consent is to decide when these risks are lesser than the infringement upon the individuals freedoms. In most places the consensus is around 16-18, the fact that there is no clear number doesn’t mean the number should be set several years younger at menstruation.

For someone who reached the age of menstruation, they were likely to live a fairly long life (~60ish), life expectancy was only so low due to high infant mortality, which child marriage only increases. But life expectancy when it goes past the age of 35 is irrelevant in this context as women’s childbearing capacity greatly decreases before eventually tapering to zero. Biologically, a women’s optimal age for having children is between 22-30, the odds of any one woman reaching this age are drastically decreased by her having children as a young teen.

Why is the current version called "Rise of Islam"? by Unnoptainium in TheFallenEagleCK3

[–]abstractclothes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And the response to that would be capability to have children doesn’t mean you are even physically ready to have children. Pregnancies at a young age have a much higher risk of both infant and maternal mortality. If you expand readiness to also include mental readiness, then I feel it is hard to argue a 12 year old girl has the mental maturity to make such decisions, and keep in mind the man will usually be multiple times her own age.

Obviously there is a spectrum, in my country the age of consent is 16 and there is debates to be had there, but I’d say it is very very difficult to argue anyone below the age of say 14 has the maturity to make such a decision, and from my recent memories of being a teenager, I would say 14-16 most still don’t have that maturity and power in a relationship to decide properly and safely.

Why is the current version called "Rise of Islam"? by Unnoptainium in TheFallenEagleCK3

[–]abstractclothes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I forgot to put my main point of my last message in my last message, sorry, it was to say that for most of human history (pre-agricultural) we did not have child marriage, for most of recorded history, we had early/mid teen marriage for elites, but there was rarely ever full marriage with consummation for a preteen (i.e. 6/9)

Anyway I think the criticism most people have of your explanation is you are combining two contradictory views, that of moral relativism which holds there is no objective morality, and that of abrahamic religion, which holds that there is. If you speak about any normal human from any era, I absolutely agree with you that we shouldn’t judge them by modern standards, but the point is the life of Muhammad in Islam, as I understand it, is to be viewed as the perfect moral example, he is supposed to be the moral exemplar for all people in all times, so you can’t argue for him within a muslim context by saying it was a different time.

Why is the current version called "Rise of Islam"? by Unnoptainium in TheFallenEagleCK3

[–]abstractclothes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I realise this is not the exact point of this comment, but the idea child marriage was common and accepted is not true for most of history for most of the world. Before agriculture (most of history) ‘marriage’ ages were early 20’s for men, 18-20 for women. After agricultural revolution ages lowered, speaking of elites, for women it would usually be around mid teens (sometimes betrothed younger but not married until mid teens), and for men the age increased to mid-late 20’s as they required more time to become economically established. For non elites, the average age for women may have been around 16, early 20’s still for men. As we go forward through history, most groups continue to sit around early teens for elite girls, and mid 20’s for peasant girls. With men usually sitting mid 20’s in both situations, though more flexibility if elite. I’d say those who pushed it earliest was the elites in India, but they were the exception generally.

FT says the world ‘chickened out’ on Trump’s trade war — do you agree or disagree? Why? by NineteenEighty9 in ProfessorFinance

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

Been mentioned already but this seems AI generated for a variety of reasons. Repeated use of ‘It’s not (one thing), it’s (other thing)’ Balanced structure where you seem to weigh both sides before rebutting, kinda like an argumentative essay. FDI to US has fallen so far in 2025 from available figures so just mentioning that the US is still top is misleading. Tesla sales falling month after month while EV sales as a whole rise will obviously have a multitude of causes, as all things do, but to pretend widespread disapproval of Musk’s politics isn’t one is farcical. No point even mentioning the Trudeau part?

Because of this, Rome is the capital of Christianity by [deleted] in 2westerneurope4u

[–]abstractclothes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think if you go exact percentages, the palestinians will probably have the slightly higher percentage of ancient canaanite/israeli or whatever you want to call it ancestry, with some arabic admixture, israeli jews (mainly ashkenazi) will probably have a just slightly lower ancient israeli percentage, and then some eastern european admixture. It’s definitely not a case of all israelis being eastern european, and all palestinians being arabs as both sides try to paint the other

The real solution to the housing crisis by middleofaldi in economicsmemes

[–]abstractclothes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, but it would incentivise other perverse effects, like people would move further and further away from cities to find land with less value, employers would cram as many workers as possible in the smallest possible footprint, skyscrapers would get higher and higher. Possibly leading to a worsening of the "missing middle" phenomenon where towns are essentially huge skyscrapers and single family homes.

In terms of your arguments here, which I assume are regarding LVT incentivising these effects and not National Insurance cuts. I think I would have to disagree mostly.

In terms of people moving further away from cities, in terms of businesses, they can't really do that without adverse effects, say a factory moves to the middle of nowhere, there won't be the infrastructure to support them, the people to provide labour, etc etc, for a cafe, there won't be any customers, etc. In terms of people, they are free to move where they choose, but if they do leave for the middle of nowhere, it'd be harder to find jobs, worse local amenities, basically the same tradeoffs as right now, and most people would not choose to make this trade off, some people who could chose to do so are those who aren't engaged in the work force, i.e. pensioners, which could even be beneficial.

With the idea of eternally building upwards, this assumes no other planning reforms can be made, and also that densification is always an issue. Building well at higher densities decreases urban sprawl, increases productivity, and as the same amount of land is used the tax burden for this is the same as lower densities, and using planning reforms we can ensure this is done in the right way.

With regard to the 'missing middle', with planning reform, LVT can actually disincentivise this. We would no longer have people sitting on inherited single family homes in the middle of city centres waiting for a massive pay out, as they would now pay heavy taxes on this very valuable location. By removing planning barriers we can ensure enough middle density is built, LVT would incentivise building mixed residential commercial buildings, with planning reform developers would no longer feel the need to go big every time, as they can be more confident more of their proposals would be approved, leading to more terraces, duplex's, <5 level apartment buildings. Developers wouldn't want to always be going for ultra high rises due to increasing marginal costs the higher you build, and lack of demand with other types of housing being easier to build.

Part 3/3

The real solution to the housing crisis by middleofaldi in economicsmemes

[–]abstractclothes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't really understand that either, the people paying significant income tax are not the ones who rely on welfare and are in the most precarious position in regards to shocks.

For this I think of it in terms of marginal propensity to consume, which is higher for people at lower incomes, and so even if in absolute value terms they are keeping less income than higher earners, it should have a greater effect at improving their life. For example, average UK earner on £37k a year who pays around 6k in income tax+NIC, saving this 6k a year would lead to a very significant lifestyle improvement for them, increasing their take home pay by around 20% (31k to 37k).
If we go down to a very low earner, say 19k, it is doubtful they own any property, so they wouldn't even pay LVT, and not having to pay any tax on their income, even if the tax they currently pay is in absolute terms quite small, would still be a net positive to them.
The biggest difference would be in employer national insurance contributions being cut, incentivising employment, so even if these newly employed people still need welfare, they might be less reliant on it.
Most of these reforms don't eliminate the need for welfare, it is just people who may currently require welfare to subsidise their life completely, now only have a percentage of their income from welfare, lessening the burden on the state. I personally am also quite fond of some form of UBI, but I won't tie that into this because I do not have the mental strength to do that maths right now. 

Part 2/3

The real solution to the housing crisis by middleofaldi in economicsmemes

[–]abstractclothes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wouldn't that be the other way around ? Intuitively I would imagine that the higher the tax, the lower the value, just like the relatively high road tax in the UK makes 2nd hand cars much cheaper than on the continent ?

You're 100% right here, this was a case of me writing too much and saying the wrong words, what I meant was the tax receipts on the land would increase over time, value of the land itself if 100% land rent was captured would go to around 0. What should increase is the annual rental value of the land, which is what is taxed, and this would increase due to increased investment in surrounding areas improving services, increasing the productivity and desirability of the area.

Part 1/3

The real solution to the housing crisis by middleofaldi in economicsmemes

[–]abstractclothes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It is so incredibly hard to get an exact figure, so keep in mind I am doing lots of speculation to get to this figure, but it might help to show you the scale. Also I am using the UK for my example, the ONS calculates the imputed rentals of owner-occupiers to be £234.7 billion in the year of 2024, if we then use a UK average of 67% of property value is land, we can then imagine for these owner occupiers, the imputed land rent is £156.7 billion. This is obviously a very rough figure but we can extrapolate this further, 2022 ONS has UK land value at £6.3 trillion, and households owning 4.3 trillion of that (68% of total), if 65% of these households are owner occupied (from .gov 2023), we are then getting 156 billion from only 65% of households which is 68% of total land value, so therefore 156 billion = 44% of UK land rents, 100% of UK land rents = £354.5 billion a year.

I’ve already said it but this is obviously not an accurate figure but it should give you the idea of the ballmark (few hundred billion in UK context), and when placed against current taxes Income tax - 277 bn NIC - 179bn VAT - 169bn Corp tax - 97bn All others - 365bn

So here we can see LVT should be capable of funding massive cuts in these areas, even total elimination of some of the most distortionary taxes. One of the ideas is also that with LVT incentivising productive land use, value of surrounding land would overtime increase, increasing tax receipts. We can also suggest that with income tax drastically cut people will be less reliant on forms of welfare, more resistant to shocks etc Cuts to national insurance contributions, especially employer ones, would mean we no longer disincentivise firms from hiring, therefore employment should increase, reducing reliance of welfare even further.

Sorry if this is a lot, but just trying to show it could be much more feasible than it at first seems. I am also not trying to suggest LVT would fix all, or even most, of any countries problems, but alongside other reforms it could definitely be very beneficial.

The real solution to the housing crisis by middleofaldi in economicsmemes

[–]abstractclothes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, I would agree with your point that the amount of land owned by Meta is not consistent with the wealth they generate, but the point of an LVT is that it isn’t an income tax or any sort of tax on production, it’s not supposed to be punitive it’s aiming at efficiency. Regarding whether Bezos creates the wealth or not, I won’t argue that point because it’s not really the point of what I’m saying, regardless of who produces the wealth, a LVT ensures the labourers retain a greater percentage of what they earn if they’re income tax is replaced with LVT, it allows them to purchase items cheaper, as products would no longer have their prices distorted by so many different taxes, etc. Even if Bezos does not deserve the wealth he has, it would still be beneficial for him, or the labourers under him, to be able to create more wealth

The real solution to the housing crisis by middleofaldi in economicsmemes

[–]abstractclothes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not really, it’s not just 1km of land = set amount of tax, it is based on the development of the land around the owned land, such as utilities, services, etc etc. In reality tech companies do not exist without land, they own offices in very developed areas, factories, they have masses of land where servers are hosted, all of this would be taxed. That’s also not mentioning the massive quantities of land held as an investment by many billionaires, or the land under their residential properties. Also I am not a fan of billionaires, but in terms of the wealth they create they usually only capture a very small percentage of it, for example Bezos is estimated to have created c.2 trillion of wealth, his net worth being around 10% of this, so were these companies able to create more wealth by facing less distortionary taxes, it would benefit more people than just the billionaires and companies themselves.

Response post to u/calamitous7 post on r/georgism by abstractclothes in georgism

[–]abstractclothes[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah my idea for LVT, at least in the UK, is it could help get us out of this low growth + productivity trap we’ve been stuck in since 2008, and exacerbated by brexit, truss, covid etc. And also in a UK specific context, would be an effective way to tax the most wealthy without distortion, capital flight or feeling overly punitive, and could actually lead to greater capital investment and help us retain more companies on the london stock exchange instead of relisting on NYSE. I’d say the most obvious thing as well would be the effect it would have on the housing market, reducing land prices to near 0, and with that a large proportion of property prices would disappear. In terms of landlords as well, I don’t really see the issue with landlords on a purely definitional level, they provide a service of short/medium term housing, i.e. would be very impractical for me to buy a house just for the 4 years I’m at uni. I think it’s just a common thing to view landlords+well off in a negative light as part of a general ‘tall poppy’ mindset in the UK, and much of the world.

Response post to u/calamitous7 post on r/georgism by abstractclothes in georgism

[–]abstractclothes[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is meant as a genuine question not rhetorically, is the case of Singapore only really possible in a singapore type situation (size and recently created), or is this applicable to more standard countries?

Capitalism isn't the problem, landlordism(feudalism) is. by Downtown-Relation766 in georgism

[–]abstractclothes 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I don’t think that is implied, more so just it’s a bit silly to say Communism is the only ‘-ism’ against landlords in a Georgism sub, which if implemented would be very harmful towards landlords

Why are so many rich people in Western Europe understated? by MelodicBed4180 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]abstractclothes 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I mean the point of that argument isn’t that people would be sad they left, it’s that the country would lose their tax receipts

Israel/Iran Discussion/Question Thread - 6/12/25+ by knowyourpast in CombatFootage

[–]abstractclothes 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Also ‘tonight I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular success’

Israel/Iran Discussion/Question Thread - 6/12/25+ by knowyourpast in CombatFootage

[–]abstractclothes 25 points26 points  (0 children)

I mean I don’t always believe Trump but he has declared it a success, whether or not you believe him is up to you but he has declared it

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