The fact that innocent people are purposefully being killed in Gaza is just that - a fact.

What you can do is argue that that's okay. What you CAN'T do is argue that that isn't happening.

For example, it is a fact that the US slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

You can argue it was justified and the lesser of two evil - people do it all the time. What you CAN'T argue is that hundreds of thousands of innocent people werent slaughtered. They were, it just happened.

I'm sorry, you just have to live with that and live with whatever resulting beliefs you may have.

Ultimately, a lot of the wealth of the West comes from core countries siphoning wealth from the periphery and propping up psueodo governments to place their thumbs on the scale of world politics. Exhibit A: Israel.

Despite, you know, literally creating it.

If you want to actively make the world a worse place for everyone be my guest. But naturally, people are probably not gonna like you. People might point to you as an example of what's wrong with humanity.

That's a something you have to live with.

The laws regardless this almost always make a distinction between intentionally surveillance and by chance background noise. Taking a picture of the street with people on it doesn't matter, recording the street 24/7 probably does, and purposefully singling someone out and photographing them definitely matters.

We already kind of have this. Think about it - stalking is illegal, but you've walked behind people right? You've glanced into someone's window before, right? You've taken a picture of a random person before, right?

So why aren't you in jail? Because laws aren't algorithms

Maybe loyalty is the wrong word - if they really go to left field, I would abandon them.

But I have a lot of faith in their design decisions and overall vision. Their software works, continues to work, and has always worked amazingly for me.

I also feel the same way about Firefox but donating to Firefox isn't like donating to thunderbird.

No, housing is not always cheaper, feel free to do some research. Its highly dependent on your city.

If you truly think buying is cheaper in Manhattan then I don't know what to tell you. You're just wrong, period.

What's happening here is youre comparing suboptimal housing to THE ABSOLUTE most expensive apartments you can find.

My parents do the same thing. "Oh housing is so much cheaper, imagine renting in Dallas!"

But... We're an hour and a half outside of the city.

The reason the housing is cheap is because nobody wants it.

And, if you really want to compare apples to apples, you have to compare properties in the same area. Its easy to make housing look cheap when you compare upper Manhattan to New Jersey.

Suddenly that 4,000 dollar apartment looks pretty competitive when the alternative is 5 million mortgage + 3000 a month HOA.

- multi-unit buildings are significantly more efficient in cost per-unit.

The cost of a 1500 sqft apt and 1500 sqft home is not the same, the home is going to cost a few times more. Because it's on its own lot, with its own land, and it's on the ground, and it gets its only municipalities (gas, water, steam, electricity), and then it also has its own road requirements.

Basically with, say, a 12 story block you can get hundreds of units for the same amount amount of land (and associate cost) as a few homes. And then you can spread the cost of municipalities, too.

Even with just a duplex or dingbat you're looking at the same land costs and the equivalent accomodations as a few homes. But it doesn't scale linearly, meaning a duplex != the cost of 2 homes.

Also large landlords (corps) can spread the cost of price across all their units. Meaning, like Walmart, some are loss leaders for competitive reasons and some make more money than they need to.

Interestingly, the cost per unit continues to go down until about 12 stories. Then it goes back up, because of building requirements. Which is why commie blocks were historically 8 to 12 stories tall, it's the cheapest way to build housing.

Can't really move companies easily if you're owning a home, ergo, about 10% potential loss per year over renting, not including the difference in investments you could achieve by having more liquid income w renting vs buying.

Buying DOES make sense. I think it almost never makes sense if you're early in your career. The ceiling is just too high to give up potential earnings that early. The closer you get to the ceiling though, the more sense buying a home makes.

Made up numbers: consider:

Mortgage: 2,000 Home price: 200,000 Difference from rent: -500

Rent: 1,500 Home price: 0 Difference from mortgage: +500

If (500/month invested over 30 years) > (200,000 appreciated home price over 30 years) then you came out on top by renting.

It might be or it might not be.

Also, the type of asset matters. Stock might be a more flexible asset than real estate, in which case you should probably rent depending on your location.

If you have your first job and therefore little to no liquid cash, and then on top of that you require tenants to make your mortgage, you're in a pretty risky position.

That means that if just about anything goes wrong you can be absolutely fucked.

If you compare homes and apartments in the same location, the gap grows even wider. Yes, $4,000 a month in Manhattan is expensive.

But $4,000 might be JUST the HOA cost for buying in the same area. Never mind the 10 million dollar mortgage.

(Spoiler: fake numbers, actually do the math for your city)

Also, if you're buying in NYC you WILL get recurring and increasing monthly costs.

That $800/month HOA? Yeah, it's not gonna be $800 in 5 years.

Buying is not the same everywhere.