1

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Do we really need yet another copyright extension?

« on: June 02, 2018, 02:14:01 PM »

It's not a bad thing that there is art that appeals to a mass audience. What is a bad thing is that it becomes so generic and commercialized that it loses all originality, authenticity and power. By making safe stuff to appeal to everyone, you lose your ability to actually making something great. You can't appeal to everyone without pandering to the lowest common denominator, or restricting artists creatively. What's even worse is that the companies that have the money and influence to do that end up monopolizing the trade and making it really hard for independent artists to become known. As for "good music and acting", that's very debatable.

Originality does not cost money. EVERYONE has the resources necessary to be original. And I do think we can agree that on general, big shot company movies will have higher quality of visuals, music and acting compared to smaller budget productions. There's no thing as "the companies that have the money and influence to do that (be original and bold)", because everyone can be. The only thing money will get you is quality, and technology. If you want your movie to be experienced in an original or creative way (3D etc.) you might have to put up with some money. And because it costs loads of money (at least in the beginning to develop) these creative ways of experiencing movies are often tried on unoriginal but popular/safe stories.

I explicitly said it wouldn't.

I know. But you responded to my post, where that is the kind of point I made.

It doesn't, that's what I've been trying to say...

Then you shouldn't had responded to a post trying to discuss copyrights

Why do you think better art necessarily costs more money? If it's an action movie then yes, but great art can be (and often is) made with very little money.

With quality I mean everything that is measurable. Fidelity, visuals, precision, acting, audio, effects. Quality isn't necessarily the overall goodness of the art, but the overall goodness of the work put into making the art. It doesn't necessarily make it a better piece of art, but it makes it easier to appreciate. What good is a piece of art if you can't appreciate it because of bad quality?

No, it's just two of the things that contribute to it being good. Otherwise art quickly gets boring.

Yes.

That is not what I said. Pandering to mass audiences and just appealing to them are two different things. Besides, what usually ends up happening is that instead of everyone finding it great, they just find it ok, because that's what happens when you try to appeal to everyone, instead of making something that can resonate to people on an individual level. [/quote
What do you count as pandering and what is appealing then? That's what I've been asking for a while now, even if I didn't spell it out clearly: What do you mean by pandering?

You said that without copyright laws, original art would still be made, because of capitalism. I agree that it would, but not because of capitalism. That's what I've been saying.

Well, I'm pretty sure that's just wrong. Capitalism will lead to originality. I don't know exactly how much, but you said it yourself: without originality the consumers will get bored. Demand will increase for originality, and the art industry will deliver at their own pace.

I did in a previous post in detail.

Please refer me to it.

Art isn't like physical products. It's not like a smartphone that gets better specs. Capitalism doesn't necessarily lead to an improvement in quality. Actually, as I've been explaining, it often does the opposite. And new and original ideas aren't usually the product of capitalism. They usually spring up, and then they gain traction, and then a company picks up on it and they start reproducing it over and over again until the next trend. It's true that a company can't do the same thing forever and turn a profit, but that new thing usually doesn't come from these big companies first.

Capitalism does lead to an improvement in quality (as I'm using the word; to basically make it easier to appreciate the art for what it is). It's observable in every art industry.

New original and interesting ideas springing up and gaining traction? That's just the art-equivalent of entrepreneurship. Why do they gain traction? Because people learn about the art and start demanding it.

Capitalism does not mean "muh big companies does everything". And independent single person making something themselves and distributing it to the public themselves is also part of capitalism.

2

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Do we really need yet another copyright extension?

« on: June 02, 2018, 07:48:00 AM »

Here's something I know, I'm not sure if it applies to the discussion or not. Some new author will come out with a great, well written book that is very popular. Then they'll do a second and maybe a third. What I've observed is that after that, they tend to start putting out inferior work and using their reputation to sell it instead of quality.

That's true (not for all authors). Now imagine if people could write their own iterations to a story. They can use the characters, places, the whole world and write their own story in a franchise that starts at a point they decide. There's both positives and negatives to this. Should it be possible for a fan to copy a whole book but change the ending because they didn't like the ending and then sell it? That'd go from breaking copyright laws to plagiarism for most of the work, so either they'd have to give full credit to the other author for the copied part, or they could just not copy anything and instead only write an ending and then clarify in what part of the original book this alternate ending picks up.

Imagine if pretty much no one bought the original work because of the really shitty ending, but everyone bought the fan-version because of it's great ending. Does the original author deserve profit from the fan version, and how much of it, and for what reasons? Again, if the fan version straight up copies most of the book it's basically a lot of "stolen" effort that is choosing the right words, pacing, scene, chronology etc., so it would be reasonable to see the original author as at least a co-author to the fan-version. But what if the fan-version has the same story and events and so on, but chooses different words and pacing and so on?

3

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Do we really need yet another copyright extension?

« on: June 02, 2018, 02:23:56 AM »

Major companies mostly fund, support and promote art that is safe and uninspired, created with the purpose to cater to as broad a demographic as possible, and largely homogenized. This is most evident in Hollywood, and in Top 40 pop.

Yes. So? They're making some art that can reach out to as many people as possible, influencing the greatest number of people and giving them what they want. They usually also try to have good effects, music and acting, which is an improvement to the quality. And again, this is not something that will be solved by extending copyrights. Because as you say it's the big companies, the one's with loads of funds and that already will have a popular story or franchise copyrighted, that can do this and profit. So I don't see how this ties into copyrights. And that is the only thing big companies CAN do. Their projects are too big to fail, originality and niches is a risk that could lead to bankruptcy. Quality costs money, big companies have money, small companies don't have that much money. If big companies didn't go for maximum quality, no one can go for maximum quality. Improved quality can often mean improved immersion which can lead to better emotional responses in the audience.

Also, is something being original and different enough to call it "good"? What you're saying is that because companies make art that the majority of people will like and because it focuses on what people think makes it good, that art is bad. That's basically saying that everything that all people can agree on is good, is in fact bad.

The thread is about copyright laws, but that's not what I was discussing with you in particular. I said I don't think capitalism really has a net positive effect in incentivizing and promoting original art. And I added that usually it's not the best art that comes out on top, but the art with the broadest appeal and best marketing behind it. Copyright laws are a different subject.

Well I was discussing copyright laws in particular, or rather how they function in capitalism.

That's not why I mentioned marketing. I didn't claim that you need copyright laws to have original art either. Actually I claimed the opposite. I just don't think capitalism is the main reason they're not needed.

Then why don't you explain what current influences on art prohibits the need for copyright laws? I didn't say that capitalism is the main reason for why copyrights don't need to be extended. I just said that capitalism is a reason for why copyright laws don't need to be extended. Capitalism WILL lead to new and original ideas, as well as an improvement in quality. Is it the BEST system for improving quality and promoting originality? Who fucking knows. That wasn't part of the point I was making. The point I was making is that because the art-market is influenced by capitalistic effects and forces, extended copyrights is not necessarily going to promote more originality (and if it does, is the original art going to be good?) and it won't promote more quality.

4

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Do we really need yet another copyright extension?

« on: June 01, 2018, 11:55:46 AM »

panders to the lowest common denominator?

I can't see what you mean by pandering here. Please explain, as I've already asked. I know what the word means, just not how you're applying it. Who or what is the lowest common denominator, and in what way is it being pandered to?

See where the issue is? What do copyright laws have to do with this? It doesn't contradict what I said.

The topic of this whole thread is copyright laws. What doesn't copyright laws have to do with this? And what issue are you talking about? You're being awfully vague.
And no, it doesn't contradict what you said. Just like I never said it did .

I don't know what that has to do with my post, I think there has been a misunderstanding.

I said that because the creation of art is dictated by a capitalistic system, original art can and will be created without the need for copyright laws, just like it has been for the hundreds and thousands of years that art has existed before copyrights. You then said that capitalism creates a focus on marketing, to which I responded that that holds true even with copyrights, meaning that your point (on marketing) doesn't refute any point I made.

5

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: "Normalcy"

« on: June 01, 2018, 07:57:29 AM »

tbf using the wrong there is a crime against humanity.

I knew you had it in you.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: "Normalcy"

« on: June 01, 2018, 07:27:52 AM »

You can normalize it if you want. I prefer not to.

What would our world look like if people didn't indulge in passionate discussions about whether or not someone's worse than Hitler because they mistake their and they're? It's so naive of people to think that we can just ignore such problems.

7

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: "Normalcy"

« on: June 01, 2018, 07:14:01 AM »

Finding fault in what other people say all the time is also not normal.

I see that you're not a true denizen of the internet, it's totally normal.

8

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Do we really need yet another copyright extension?

« on: June 01, 2018, 02:30:34 AM »

What do you mean "in what way"? Look around.

I am looking around. That doesn't answer my question.

I thought our conversation was about whether or not capitalism incentivizes creation of original art, not copyright laws. I already said I support copyright laws, even for a while after the creator's death.

The discussion overall is whether or not copyrights need to last so long. I argued that art is subject to capitalism and that it would mean that creators would be incentivized to improve quality or push for originality without copyright laws. You then argued that it would rather lead to an increased effort in marketing, and I countered that argument by arguing that even with copyright laws there will necessarily be a large effort put into marketing. In fact, precisely because of it's originality it is very uncertain how well liked it will be by the populace and the populace in turn might not know if the art is worth their time and money. Because of the insecurities involved in original ideas marketing is more important than ever.

9

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Do we really need yet another copyright extension?

« on: May 31, 2018, 12:06:31 PM »

Well, eventually the market does become saturated, but usually that takes quite a while and it's a problem that is to an extent caused by capitalism anyways. Also I don't think it leads to higher quality art, it just leads to more pandering and better marketing.

Pandering to who? The customers? In what way?
And better marketing has always been a driving force in both physical products and art, copyrights don't really affect marketing. Having exclusive rights to something is not going to make it popular, or help it get popular. It'll help you get it popular before anyone else is allowed to make it popular, which is why I support it for the life time of the original creator and in case the original creator suddenly dies it can be passed to someone else for a while.

10

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Do we really need yet another copyright extension?

« on: May 31, 2018, 10:58:20 AM »

Capitalism usually doesn't work very well for incentivizing creation of original art. Capitalism aside though, original art was still made looong before copyright laws.

Capitalism sure does encourage just copying other (successful) works of art, until the art-market is saturated. Same thing with the physical market: People won't generally create new technology and products if they can just copy something popular that isn't saturated. But that's seen as good in the physical market, because it drives people to try to make improvements to the product. The best product will be the most popular and will become accessible to more people, which generates profit for the business and might improve quality of life for people. I think this can also apply to the art-market, a saturation of zombie movies will push creators to stand out in the competition and create the best zombie movie ever. It generates profit to the creator and it gives people a really enjoyable zombie-movie. Sure it might not be very original, but is originality really that much more important than quality? Is it better to have three completely different but mediocre works of art, or three similar works of art that are mediocre, good and phenomenal. We can drop the first two similar works of art as they are just inferior to the phenomenal work of art. Now we have the question: Is one phenomenal work of art better than 3 different but mediocre works of art? The answer is obviously: it depends on the context and the society they exist in. The phenomenal work of art might not really be very important while one or two or all of the original works of art handle really important subjects. Or the phenomenal work of art handles a very important subject while the other are unimportant. And we don't just consume art to learn important ideas or meanings, sometimes (most times) we just want to relax and have fun or be engrossed.

11

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Do we really need yet another copyright extension?

« on: May 31, 2018, 10:27:55 AM »

Also, did people forget about good old capitalism? It doesn't just apply to physical objects, it also applies to more abstract stuff like art. If everyone created similar stuff you'd have a large supply of similar stuff with loads of competition within this supply of similar stuff. That's not very profitable. The more profitable option is to either create something different that is in low supply (but that hopefully have, or will gain, a high "demand") or to improve the quality of your specific samey stuff. Profit can mean either money, fame or influence or whatever your goal is as a creator. There is an art-economy and it runs on more than just money. Copyrights are basically patents, they ensure that you can profit off of your own idea so that you have a reason to create it in the first place. But once you've profited off of your work it turns from a security to a bonus. From this point out it actually disincentivizes you from creating a new work. As long as there is a demand you have monopoly on a part of the art-market. Since there is no competition within this part of the art market you don't have to work to improve or renew new iterations within the copyright.

Going into the public domain also pretty much ensures that the work will be put up on the internet and be accessible to anyone for free. There's no point in straight-up copying other's work, and there's going to be an abundance of fan-works with small changes available for free too. It's the ultimate supply, so there's no room for competition and no profit to be gained. People will still want some physical copies, and that'll be handled fine by publishers: It's just distributing the art to the people who might be interested in it. What is the point of creating some work of art if it can't be appreciated? Might even be translated or revised so that any language used in the work keeps up with society so that new meanings to words don't change the meaning of the story. The distributors do work to provide physical copies, so it's fair game that they profit.

12

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Do we really need yet another copyright extension?

« on: May 29, 2018, 06:12:04 AM »

Whose lose? Man's. By demoting behavior that drives true progress and new works. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, to save the toe!

That's exactly what copyright does. It's good as long as the original creator is alive, it gives them the incentive to create something to begin with. But once they're dead? It only leads to stagnation. Humans have the capability to get bored by the same stuff over and over again, so new stuff is going to show up naturally. Meanwhile old stuff that's either imperfect, unknown or outdated is not allowed to be improved or explored or tested. And often the copyright is so ambiguous that it locks down a whole concept regarding an idea, rather than a specific depiction of an idea. As Crouton said, vampires and zombies as a concept could had been copyrighted if there hadn't been a mess-up. There's been loads of cheap clichéd and unoriginal zombie and vampire movies, but there has also been plenty of interesting movies and series that use these concepts to explore what it means to be human, what it means to be alive and various morals and ethics. Copyrights also cover names and visual designs, which is good for protecting brands but it also makes it a lot harder to reference other works or to use similes that compares objects or people in the work to objects or people from another work (which is often done to convey information about the character without having to contain it all in the work). For example calling a character Lucifer to give the hint that the character is devilish. Or calling them Hercules, or Sherlock.

13

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Do we really need yet another copyright extension?

« on: May 28, 2018, 11:58:03 AM »

Should it ever reach the public domain? Is the entire idea is to support freeloading hippies that wish to profit off deadman's great deeds?

Who's loss is it? If it's truly a great deed it should be popular enough that no one can just straight up copy it and claim it's their work. If they can it shows that not enough people knew about the original work, so that's an opportunity for the work to spread even if the wrong person might be credited (but hey, dead people can't complain and living people need to earn their livelihood). And if people think they can take the same base work and improve it, let them. That's how progress is made. It'd be boring if there's only ever allowed one attempt to make one work great, and once that attempt has been made and the original creator has passed away the work can never be improved again, or in other ways translated to fit into new societies, cultures and people.

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Technology, Science & Alt Science / Re: More proof that space physics is a conspiracy

« on: May 24, 2018, 08:11:52 AM »

What makes you think that the EP is limited to point masses? 

Nothing, as I do not think so 

15

Technology, Science & Alt Science / Re: More proof that space physics is a conspiracy

« on: May 24, 2018, 01:30:38 AM »

A uniform gravitational field is homogeneous.  You were talking about non-homogeneous (non-uniform) gravitational fields.  Or do you not know what "homogeneous" means?

I do know what it means, as I clearly demonstrated . But just because a gravitational field is heterogeneous, that doesn't mean that every body within it will encompass a region of that gravitational field that is heterogeneous. Namely, point masses. They exist in a single point within which there can be no deviation in the gravitational field. If I place a point mass in earth's gravity then it will perfectly follow the equivalence principle, despite the fact that earth's gravity is heterogeneous.

16

Technology, Science & Alt Science / Re: More proof that space physics is a conspiracy

« on: May 23, 2018, 03:34:17 PM »

How is uniform acceleration equivalent to a non-homogeneous gravitational field?

If we are talking about a point mass, or a local experiment, how is it not? We've eliminated all tidal forces. As long as gravity is uniform across the body of mass equivalence holds.

17

Technology, Science & Alt Science / Re: More proof that space physics is a conspiracy

« on: May 23, 2018, 02:44:17 AM »

I have worries.

In GR you can distinguish between gravity and inertia(inertia is your word)
As markjo pointed out, the equivalence principle only applies locally. Locally does mean a small area. He used the usual space elevator example.

Then where is your worries? DNO made it clear that he meant it locally.

18

Technology, Science & Alt Science / Re: More proof that space physics is a conspiracy

« on: May 22, 2018, 09:18:40 AM »

Why would locality be special in GR? Locality has one meaning... I wasn't trying to imply it's got a different meaning in GR. I was just trying to say that no matter what the field is, in GR you can't distinguish between gravity and inertia. But I'm bad at explaining stuff so I guess it got a bit confusing.

I see, no worries then.

19

Technology, Science & Alt Science / Re: More proof that space physics is a conspiracy

« on: May 22, 2018, 03:42:05 AM »

What I'm trying to say is that a gravitational field is no longer a force field, ot is replaced with the concept of a curved spacetime.

Well I understood that already, I never called it a force field. Now it's a field (I guess more usually called a region in this context) of curved spacetime.

I'm not sure what you mean by "The whole point of GR was not to invent the idea of locality", I didn't say it was. But the point of Einstein's equivalence principle is that as long as an experiment is local, there is nothing you can do to determine if you are experiencing gravity. It doesn't have anything to do with whether the field is homogenous or not, so I found the statement that it doesn't "apply" kind of weird.

Markjo said "And if you understood general relativity, then you would understand that gravity and acceleration are indistinguishable only in a homogeneous gravitational field, hence the elevator vs spaceship analogy.  The earth does not have a homogeneous gravitational field."

Which doesn't make sense in a local example, but it does make sense in a non-local example. Then you responded with this:
"It' almost the entire point of GR to make the equivalence work even in non-homogeneous fields..."
If you thought he was talking about a local example it seems that you're implying that locality is different in GR from newtonian gravity. The equivalence already works in non-homogeneous fields in newtonian gravity as long as they are local. You make it seem that there's something special about GR and locality in this sense, and you explicitly state that the point of developing GR revolves around solving this (non-existent) issue. It made it seem as if you thought that locality was special to, or special in, GR.

And if you thought he was talking about a non local example, which I thought, then it would be wrong to imply that GR makes acceleration and gravity indistinguishable even in non-uniform gravity because tidal forces obviously come into play.

20

Technology, Science & Alt Science / Re: More proof that space physics is a conspiracy

« on: May 21, 2018, 03:23:47 PM »

Not at all. In GR, there is no thing as a heterogeneous gravitational field, because gravity isn't a force any more. The effect of a heterogeneous field is "mimicked" by the body following a geodesic on curved spacetime. That's the paradigm shift of GR, gravitation is no longer modelled as a force, but as a pseudoforce. It doesn't break any laws of physics. Unless what you're trying to say is that you can distinguish whether a force is gravitational if you conduct a non-local experiment in a heterogeneous field, where tidal forces come into play.

A field does not necessarily imply a force. A field is just a region within which some law, principle, characteristic etc. is being upheld or applied.

And I didn't say that the ides of geodesics breaks the law of physics. What I meant is that sucessfully applying the equivalence principle on finite bodies of mass inside a heterogeneous gravitational field would break the laws of physics. I assumed it was obvious that a point mass cannot distinguish between gravity and acceleration regardless of uniformity or what model we apply. Subsequently when someone brought up the statement that they are only indistinguishable in a homogeneous gravitational field I assumed that we were talking about bodies of mass with real volume, in which case it's true regardless of whether we apply newtonian gravity or GR.

The whole point of GR was not to invent the idea of locality - it's a concept which can be applied to newtonian gravity just as well as GR. GR was invented to explain that gravity is really just inertia, and how the implications would fit together with the model of special relativity.

21

Technology, Science & Alt Science / Re: More proof that space physics is a conspiracy

« on: May 21, 2018, 08:39:36 AM »

Um, yeah, exactly, it does that by generalizing the equivalence principle Einstein noticed was true for all gravitational fields.

Yes but that is the equivalence between inertial and gravitational mass. It doesn't solve the "problem" that mechanical acceleration is distinguishable from gravitational acceleration in a heterogeneous gravitational field. If it did that would break a couple of laws of physics.

22

Technology, Science & Alt Science / Re: More proof that space physics is a conspiracy

« on: May 21, 2018, 06:27:40 AM »

It' almost the entire point of GR to make the equivalence work even in non-homogeneous fields...

Eh, not really. The point of GR was to unify gravity with special relativity and the idea of a flexible space-time. All the problems of homogeneous vs heterogeneous fields carry over.

23

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Do we really need yet another copyright extension?

« on: May 19, 2018, 06:37:18 AM »

Rights being protected for 100+ years is fucking ridiculous. It hurts art creation instead of helping it.

How are the corporations supposed to turn a profit on their products within a 100 year span? Who would be motivated to create something that they do not have full control over until at least 50 years after their death?

24

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Do we really need yet another copyright extension?

« on: May 19, 2018, 02:22:04 AM »

Copyright was intended to help producers of media secure an income from their work until they can produce new works to earn money on. It's noice to see that the focus of copyright laws is remains to support the poor creators of media.

25

The Lounge / Re: RIP Boy Scouts

« on: May 18, 2018, 09:56:32 AM »

Why do you consider that abuse? By what set of values? The whole world turns on people buying something hoping to sell it for more. I really want to know what your basis is for calling that abuse?

I was just joking in that post, I don't consider it abuse.

Of course turning profits drives the economy. The problem is that housing is not just a product, it's a necessity, and it doesn't behave as well as other assets. You need somewhere to live. People who can't afford housing cant afford spending money on other wares too. Also, the act of purchasing something to sell it at a higher price later can come with benefits, that are not as strong in the estate market. For example it solves logistics. It's worthwhile to buy from a store rather than directly from a factory because they gather everything together and bring it closer to you. Stores are also more reliable buyers for factories, so they get quantity discounts that allows the store to keep the price a bit closer to what a factory could charge individuals. You don't solve this with short time investors. The estate stays where it is and remains as available as it did before. Now if someone bought some estate and somehow changed it, either by renovating or by flattening the land, then it saves someone else the time and hassle to do it themselves. The investor earns money and the buyer saves time and work, there's a benefit that helps both parts and the economy. If the investor also rents out the estate it can be beneficial, it allows people who need some estate to use, but cannot afford to buy estate, to get access to estate. It can be a problem if the investor only bought the estate for the sake of selling it in a couple of years and don't care who they sell it to, because the new owner might not want to keep renting out the estate. As long as the investor is honest with their intentions it shouldn't be a problem, but not everyone cares quite as much for the residents as they care about making as much money as possible out of the estate. A resident that knows that the estate is going to be sold off in a couple of years might not be as tempted in renting.

26

The Lounge / Re: RIP Boy Scouts

« on: May 18, 2018, 09:18:51 AM »

So, instead of selling to the highest bidder, the seller should take it in the ass and sell to someone who offers less?

No. Rather, the highest bidder shouldn't have joined if they're not actually interested in the asset and are just planning to hold on to it for a few years without doing anything with it as it passively increases in price so that he can sell it to those who are actually interested in the asset at a higher price.

27

The Lounge / Re: RIP Boy Scouts

« on: May 18, 2018, 08:39:47 AM »

*shrug* welcome to capitalism.  All you can do is somehow regulate against it...which is, of course, gubberment interference.

Yup. Dam gubberment interfering with my abuse of the economy.

28

The Lounge / Re: RIP Boy Scouts

« on: May 18, 2018, 07:25:20 AM »

If you want to buy a home you offer the owner some money. If the owner and you agree on a price a deal is done.

Property is worth exactly what someone is willing to pay.

Exactly.

You appear to be arbitrarily assigning evil to owners and victim to buyers.

No. You appear to not read my posts properly.

Imagine an estate is being sold, and there are 5 potential buyers (long term investors) who want to use that estate. However, let's say that a sixth person (short term investor) joins in, but that person does not need to use the estate for anything. Whereas before it was a competition between 5 people, it is now a competition between 6 people, one of which doesn't want to use the estate. Now, let's imagine that the short term investor manages to buy the estate. Now we still have 5 long term investors that want or maybe even need real estate for some use. Meanwhile, had one of the long term investors bought the estate, we'd have 4 long term investors that want or need estate, and the short term investor that doesn't actually need any estate will either drop out of the local demand, or maybe stay, who knows. But let's continue with the scenario where short term investor wins. The estate is not going to be developed, and the short term investor will not sell the estate until it rises in price.

Let us now say that there's a second estate at sale (not at the same time as the first one, but after, for simplicity). Without the short term investor there'd be 4 people competing for this second estate, as one already got the first estate. This second estate should sell for a little less, as there is less demand, than the first estate. The result of this scenario is that two people that wanted or needed estate to use got it, one possibly got it a little cheaper than the other, and we have three people who still want or need estate to use. If the short term investor was present during the selling of the first estate but lost interest in the second, the first estate would had been slightly more expensive because of increased demand for it. The short-time investor isn't in need for real estate, so there should be no harm for dropping out of the competition unless it's how he earns his whole living.

Let's bring in the short term investor for the second estate though, in the scenario where they do not get the first estate. Now the second estate should be sold for about the same price as the first estate would had been sold for without the short-term investor. If the short-term investor fails to get the estate again, then we'd have almost the same result as without the short-time investor. But not quite. Both estates would had sold for a little more, we'd still have 3 people that want or need estate to use and one person who's at worst annoyed, unless they're betting their livelihood on it.

Let's say that the short time investor gets the first estate. Now the second estate should sell for the same price that the first estate would had sold for if the short time investor wasn't involved. Then after x years short term investor sells the estate, unchanged, to one of the 4 remaining people who still needs or wants estate to use. The result is that one person got to buy an estate at full price (which it what I'll call the price of the first estate without short time investor) and the other got to pay for overprice (price of first estate with short time investor involved) plus inflated price over time. Then we still have 3 long term investors. And one happy short time investor.

Same thing with the second estate. One has to pay overprice, another has to pay full price plus inflation over time. 3 long term investors left and once again a happy short time investor.

This is obviously very oversimplified, but I think it's clear that the original owners and the final buyers do not profit, but are losing out, because of short-time investors. Original owners can earn a little since they get to sell at a higher price when there is a higher demand thanks to the short time investor. But investors will try to get the buying done BEFORE the real demand kicks in, it's possible that the original owner could had sold it a couple of months later for a bit of a better price when the real demand would had kicked in. But in the cases where the short time investor doesn't manage to buy any estate and they aren't actually in need of estate they are jacking up prices when there is no "real" demand for it, kind of like bidding for the sake of provoking a bidding war (of course they're really trying to get the estate. The point is that they're not "consumers", they do not need or want the estate, they just want to buy it and then sell it, so they do not accurately represent what a consumer wants to pay for estate). And I'm not going to say that they are evil or immorally greedy, they are just taking advantage of how the real estate market works and they're not actively trying to hurt other people economically. Prices increase more than they need to and makes it tougher for people who really just wants or needs estate to put to actual use to get that estate. This means fewer people who can afford own houses in good places, which could limit their productivity, and fewer people who can open up new businesses.

Which works until it doesn't.  If prices start spiralling down then you're fucked.

Yes. But that doesn't exactly make short term investments better for the economy.

29

The Lounge / Re: RIP Boy Scouts

« on: May 18, 2018, 04:35:08 AM »

If a home is purchased for $100,000 and held for 5 years to be sold for $135,000
it is no different than the original owner holding the property for the additional 5 years
and selling it for $135,000

Or, if the market turns tits up, it sells for $85,000

Poor people can't buy expensive things.

Well, that's not always what happens. An investor can buy an estate that's going to increase drastically in price in a couple of years, and then refuse to sell it to people who want to develop or use the estate until the price has increased. This works because everyone deals with estate this way, there's not going to be any alternative estate in the nearby area that will suffice, or there won't be enough at least (in case there is, that's a bad investment). It's about selling the estate at the right time at the right price, not about selling it as soon as a customer turns up and you can turn a profit.

And there is a difference in your example. The original owner loses out on $35 000, for no real benefit. It is unlikely that the price would suddenly drop without any warning so selling quickly to an investor isn't really much more of a safe bet than simply holding onto the property. The only benefit might be that the investor might be available right at the moment and you might not have to hassle with a realtor. But there might have been a buyer who actually wanted to use the estate for something during those 5 years available, so the final buyer might have been able to save $35 000 if the investor didn't bought the estate before them. Short-term investors bring up the demand by buying estate they won't use, and decrease supply by refusing to sell the estate for a few years until prices increase from this meddling with the supply and demand.

30

The Lounge / Re: RIP Boy Scouts

« on: May 18, 2018, 02:58:15 AM »

Of course it's not good when the real estate market is seen as a toy that investers can play around with for the sole purpose of earning cash.

Damn capitalists willing to risk their money on a speculative investment.

Well, notice the word "toying". It's fine when the investers develop the estate, but it can hurt the market price if they decide to buy an estate and then artifically inflate the price without developing it, or just hold on to it until someone is willing to buy it at a high price. The speculative investor is the only winner in that scenario, both the original seller and final buyer would have benefitted from interacting and doing business directly with each other, without the speculative investor as a middle man that just saps out money. And if they are renting out the estate, they should be transparent when they decide to sell off the estate to a new owner so that the resident(s) can prepare themselves if they'd need to move out or if rent might rise.

Why is it so hard to understand how the government can artificially modulate inflation, property values and any other commodity that a household needs to thrive?

Why is it so hard to understand when inflation and cost of living take off many times over the median income it makes survival all but impossible for the average family?

It's not hard to understand that government can artificially modulate inflation. It's hard to belive that it's the main factor driving up costs when any cost related to government regulations etc. is less than 10% of the cost to construct new houses and when it's clear that more people see estate as something to hold on to even if you move, because you can rent it out and eventually sell it at a higher price. It's especially lucrative in cities, where land doesn't grow but the population does grow. Can you describe exactly how your government is inflating the prices of real estate, preferably by using math and references so it's more than just wild guesses. And something that is a bit general, don't just take a single estate and use it to represent the whole market.

I'ts also really hard to understand why the government would inflate prices because more women are working.

My mum had a house when I was born 36 years ago. It was less than $30K. That same house is now worth at least $450ishK. What component do you think was the land and what is the construction cost?

Perhaps it is different in America....

1. Is it in an urban area?
2. What is the price increase, adjusting for inflation where you live(So that we don't use swedish inflation for US prices)?
3. Any renovations? Other improvements? Any nearby developments?

Ok, so the "land price index" I cited for sweden was actually real estate index I just realised. That's fine, doesn't change anything in that post and I can kinda use it for comparison here.

36 years ago was 1982. The real estate index for that year is roughly 770. The index for your mum's house is roughly 1500. So adjusting for the inflation of real estate values, the house doubled in value (compared to other real estate). Adjusting for consumer price index (swedish, not US), the usual measure of inflation, the value roughly tripled. This is probably highly inaccurate becasue I'm using swedish index for reference, but at least we can get a ballpark estimate. The value definitely increased, I would guess it didn't increase more in value than five-fold though (which is still quite a bit).
Now, what regulations and taxes do YOU think could have increased the value by that much? As i said to BHS, please use references and then build upon them with math to reach conclusive price-effects of whatever the government uses to inflate prices.

But don't you have roofs on real-estate taxes? In sweden the yearly tax is 0.75% of the assessed value, but no more than 7687 SEK (roughly 881 USD) for estate with single-family homes. So there's no point for the government to try to artificially inflate the values of real estate.