If anyone’s wondering what the dude who sang “chocolate rain” is up to these days, he’s dropping absolute bangers about housing and he’s fucking right

@Daojoan

No one should be allowed to own a residence where they do not actually reside.

That alone would change all KINDS of things.

@violetmadder @Daojoan I for one am certainly glad that my landlords own the home I am renting from them, it has been by far the best rental experience I have ever had. It is clear that they have absolutely no desire to make profit from my need to rent, their desire is to allow me to have a roof over my head.

@storyworker @violetmadder @Daojoan

But they are profiting from your rent. That’s what rent is.

@HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan so who am I to rent from? I can definitely not afford to own my own house, nor do I ever really want to - I am quite content to rent, as are many people. Sure - there are plenty of incredibly greedy property owners, who completely want to rip renters off, but that is not always the case. Who is to provide rent to those who prefer to rent - if not somebody who owns a property, but does not live in it?

@Daojoan @violetmadder @storyworker

Passively accepting one’s role in an unjust status quo is a perfectly reasonable survival strategy, but it doesn’t make that status quo good or just.

Your landlord isn’t providing you with housing. You are providing your landlord with housing. If landlords did not hoard more housing than they could personally use to collect feudal rents from tenants like you, then housing costs would be dramatically lower, all else being equal.

@HeavenlyPossum @Daojoan @violetmadder that doesn't answer my question- from whom am I to rent?
Sorry, but your statement about my landlord "not providing me housing" is unreasonable. They have provided me more than housing - they have provided me a home, one where I have been able to dramatically rebuild what was a pretty awful life.
So..are 6iu able to answer *my* question? A question with an emotional and experienced basis in *my* life. Talk to me - not concepts.

@storyworker @violetmadder @Daojoan

> “from whom am I to rent?”

Landlords, of course, in the same way that feudal peasants would have received the same answer to the same question.

I’m not telling you that you’re doing anything wrong. “The system in which we’re forced to live is unjust” doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong by renting. I too am a renter.

> “They have provided me more than housing - they have provided me a home, one where I have been able to dramatically rebuild what was a pretty awful life.”

No, they are using their control of a scarce resource to extract rents from you. Unless they’re renting to you at a loss, your rent is paying for the capital costs on the house—the mortgage, upkeep, etc. *You* finance their ownership of the house in which you live, with no ownership rights despite paying those capital costs.

You might also be paying them wages on top of buying them a house, if your rent is greater than those capital costs.

@HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan this is the problem with so much discourse these days - I've offered you a personal and heartfelt reflection of my own experience as a renter, and you've remained lost on a labyrinth of words and concepts. Life is an experience between people, not concepts and word play. Your need to remain cynical is yours alone.

@Daojoan @storyworker @violetmadder

I am not describing a labyrinth of words and concepts. You are purchasing housing for your landlord, and possibly paying them a salary in the process.

That doesn’t mean you can’t feel gratitude that you are housed. I am immensely grateful that I am housed. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a positive interpersonal relationship with your landlord. I’m not questioning your personal experience.

I would like people to be able to see things for how they really are, and landlording really is a feudal holdover.

@HeavenlyPossum @Daojoan @violetmadder "seeing things for how they really are" is a very treacherous path to walk. What that statement really means is - "seeing things as I see them". In my estimation of how things really are - this vast and incomprehensible universe has provided me with a roof over my head, and a bed in which to lay at night, and this has manifested through what we commonly know as "landlords". Feel free to state your position, but don't burden it as being "things as they are"

@storyworker @Daojoan @violetmadder

Medieval serfs were also taught to believe that their feudal lord had provided them the homes that those serfs had built and the farms that those serfs worked.

@HeavenlyPossum @Daojoan @violetmadder I'm not a medieval serf. I am just someone who believes that the universe has given me a roof over my head right now, manifested through what I know as my landlord. Is my experience of reality sound? probably not, is it valid? probably not. Is it my experience of my reality ? yes it is. So for me, it is sound, and it is valid.

@violetmadder @Daojoan @storyworker

The universe did not give you a roof over your head. A builder constructed it and you are financing its costs and upkeep.

@HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan You telling me my experience of this life is wrong? Wrong for me or wrong for you? Give me some clarity here.

@Daojoan @violetmadder @storyworker

Your claim is false. “The universe” did not provide you with a roof over your head. It did not suddenly appear. It did not congeal through magic. It did not accrete through natural processes. Someone made it (a builder) and someone financed it (you).

Landlords merely interject themselves into that process to collect rents—a toll, a private tax—off your need for housing.

@HeavenlyPossum @Daojoan @violetmadder Are you really telling me my experience of reality is false? Seems a bit of a rude thing to do. Just admit it - it's just your own opinion, don't try to hook that one on me.

@violetmadder @storyworker @Daojoan

Yes, I am making the claim that “the universe provided it” is a nicely poetical metaphor but it doesn’t change the reality of how houses are built or financed.

Are you telling me that no one built your house and no one pays for it?

@HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan I'm a buddhist, but I won't get into how "no one" might be regarded. Why does it have to be a poetical metaphor? Why so dismissive of another persons experience of reality? i know that my house was built, and is payed for, but that's none of my business. It allows me to do the work that I need to do. I'll pay the karmic debt for that at some point in this journey, no doubt.

@violetmadder @Daojoan @storyworker

It is your business because it is your home and you are financing its costs through your rent while accruing no ownership over it.

@HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan No it is none of my business. I don't wish to own this building. It is my home and it is allowing me to do the work that I need to do, beyond that - it is none of my business. Keep telling me that it is, but that's none of my business either. I'm not even sure if the work I am doing is any of my business. It's just there to be done.

@storyworker

You say that it is your home. Isn't it by default your business? If the current owner decides to kick you out, wouldn't that be an issue? A direct impact on your life? I still can't understand your resistance to the idea of owning your home?

@HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan

@FrenchPanda @HeavenlyPossum @violetmadder @Daojoan it is my home. You can see it how you want to, but I'm the one who lives here, so, I get to decide.

@FrenchPanda @violetmadder @Daojoan @storyworker

You don’t at all get to decide—your landlord owns the home, with all the coercive state authority that comes with that particular legal institution.