> Should we dive into the relationship between "preferred" and "better"?
Yes, that's what I'm talking about. They are not the same things; there is nothing magical about subjective preference that makes something 'better', no matter how many people share it. If they like burritos and I like ramen, does that make burritos 'better'?
In fact, people can prefer things that are clearly 'worse', for many purposes, such as beer over hydration fluid. People can prefer things that are clearly wrong, such as disinformation.
ultimately, when someone takes this stance what they really mean is that nothing is knowable so you're a terrible person for judging someone as if you know something!
sue me. I think food for someone without food is more important than a middle class person being able to drive a brand new car.
You can manipulate language as much as you want, I will still judge you for that opinion.
A large part of why I made the post I did is because people post shit like this on this website and expect to be protected by such judgements.
absolutely not, it's an immoral stance made by moneyed people who believe this site is a safe space.
What about it angers you? Do you have a personal experience with it? From what I can see, we're talking about real estate, not usually an inflammatory subject. Nobody else seems angry, but you seem to have something to be angry about.
I can tell you from my experience, whatever it is, you seem to apply it to me. You're attributing things to me that I haven't said nor have they crossed my mind, and attacking me about whatever is making your angry. I just stopped by at my favorite spot for a chat.
The problem is that you are playing a word game that ignores anything that actually matters. Thereby destroying any interesting conversations that could be had about a topic.
And you are doing it in the worst way possible where you get to be technically correct, but correct in a way that is completely irrelevant to what anyone else is saying and is also worthless.
Here is how this conversation basically went.
Other person: "I like these very common qualities about housing that many other people also like. This is proved by the fact that houses with all these qualities have much higher demand and price".
You: "Whoa dude. Have you consider that everything is relative? And that there is no way to prove that those qualities are better than other qualities?
What about a person who really likes their house to be burnt down. Or to have rats in their walls. Or to have high crime and being in constant danger. Nothing is better or worse dude!"
All of this is completely worthless commentary. Yes, it is technically true that I cannot use math or science to prove that certain qualities about a house are better or worse.
But that doesn't matter. Because we live in the real world and it is perfectly ok to generalize preferences without getting into the fact that I cannot prove to the universe that some qualities are better than others.
Instead, we can just generalize things based on obvious and common preferences.
It's hard to penetrate to the heart of the matter, because I'm not sure what you are saying.
> Other person: "I like these very common qualities about housing that many other people also like. This is proved by the fact that houses with all these qualities have much higher demand and price".
That's backwards. The other commenter was saying their home was less expensive and larger than what was in NYC, and therefore superior.
> we can just generalize things based on obvious and common preferences
We can't truly say something is better or worse without some scale on which to measure it. Is a Macbook or cloud Linux instance better? It depends on what we want to do with it - graphic design? Macbook. Host some files publicly? The Linux instance. In other cases it depends on the user - a veteran Linux sysop may use their favorite OS for more things, an Apple guru will prefer theirs.
For some things almost everyone shares the same scale and generalizations are accurate. We could generalize that people prefer running water, heat (as needed), roofs that don't leak, larger spaces (to some limit), lower costs, etc.
But for other things people have different scales and then generalization is false. In this case, preferences for location vary widely; some want NYC because on their scales, it scores really high; some want quiet suburbs, based on their scales; some want rural or small town, warm climate or four seasons, etc. The other commenter seemed to assert that their scales/preferences were universal, and I disagree.
IMHO the best part of human interaction is learning about people and points of view I don't already know - I learn infinitely more than hearing myself talk or by framing their points of view in my perspective; that limits what they say to what I already know, like a someone insisting mathematics be described only in English words they already know - they need to learn new words and use some actual math, or they are limiting themselves. The other commenter seemed maybe to think it was a fight (I don't want to speak for them), so we didn't get far.
> you are playing a word game that ignores anything that actually matters
It seems like you're saying that the other person's ideas are games, and yours are the only ones that actually matter. If you notice I'm not addressing your ideas, you might be right, but not because I'm playing games - I actually have different ideas. My ideas aren't measured by how much they agree with yours - I use a different scale in that case.
Those are the very best chances to learn in life, IME - an opportunity to open territory I didn't even know existed 5 minutes before. If I am curious and interested (and I genuinely am), I find that almost everyone has very interesting, valuable things to say. You too.
I think I'm signing off, as this thread isn't yielding much of that sort.
you go on and on about scales and act as if the context wasn't clear. my post was about affordability and price/sqft.
What you're doing is called post-hoc rationalization. You took issue with the idea of me telling people to move if they can't afford a house and tried to back into all sorts of reasons why that's not possible and tripped over the philosophy of nihilism in your haste.
Apparently I'm angry that other people spend a lot more than me to live in a nice neighborhood in a nice house? rawr, why is my life so much better than the people in NYC!?!?!?
When it's all done I'm still going to believe food is more important than a brand new car. I'm comfortable knowing things are true.
Personally, if you're not a coward you'll proclaim here and now that a brand new car is as important as food. After all, this stuff isn't knowable.
Your comments look pretty angry to me, with lots of extra punctuation, ridicule, and insults. It's too bad we can't connect right now. I think you have some good points, but not to the exclusion of others. Have a good one!
Of course not, you know how heinous that position is, but it's the direct result of what you're arguing here, that we can't make judgements like that.
instead of reading my posts as angry, read them as a complete and utter dismissal of your argument. It has no merit and it's easy to see because you won't make the proclamation that's the obvious result of your stance.
Your argument is just nihilism in a funny dress.
A poor person is _forced_ to strip down to the bare essentials. Middle class _should_ do the same but they have enough money that they can afford the delusion until they can't (lifestyle inflation) due to losing a job, unforeseen expenses (medical bills, for example). The wealthy can do whatever the hell they want because the unforeseen expenses and job loss are a blip to them rather than an existential crisis the way it is for the middle class and poor.
IOW, just because someone is not willing to forego something does not imply it's an essential, it implies they have a preference they won't compromise on. That may or may not be a good decision, but people make poor decisions all the time.
I drive a 2004 corolla, early in 2023 I decided I needed a minivan and purchased a 2007 Honda Odyssey and then paid to have it fixed up. The GPU in my gaming machine was literally more expensive than the initial purchase of that Odyssey.
I'm a tech person and a gamer, I was not willing to compromise on the GPU but at no point was I ever under the delusion that made it an essential. it's like sneaking that candy that you know you probably shouldn't eat, it's a guilty pleasure.
On the flip side, if someone tells me they can't leave NYC because of family, I absolutely get it.
For the average human music listener, yes that is what that means. Should we dive into the relationship between "preferred" and "better"?
The preference is not individually objective, but objectively the people have spoken.