Sure, nice idea. I supported it back in 2008 or so.

But it will never get passed in any functioning democracy.

So better to figure out schemes that most people will actually support.

You are on the right track, but you have to be a bit more strategic.

Here is my proposal to get a LVT-like system with property owners embracing it and with less legal hurdles.

Keep the current system and make the minimal necessary changes.

E.g. if property tax is 0.6%, then make it 1.2% for houses that are vacant for a long period. This right there is a tax on speculation.

For undeveloped, derilict and/or underdeveloped lots, also double the property tax. E.g. if the property is worth less than 50% of the average property per area of land.

Now this extra revenue should flow directly to home owners and affordable housing.

For owner-occupied housing, make property tax up to half the average property tax deductible. E.g. if the average property tax is 6K, then two adults owning a home together with an 8K bill could deduct 6K from their tax.

For affordable rent, if the house is occupied, then half the property tax is given to the tenants.

All these figures are illustrative. Exact figures should be determined by good analysis.

Such a scheme would easily enjoy popular support and fix the housing crisis.

And it would kinda approximate the LVT, in the sense that it also provides similar corrections to the housing market that a LVT would have.

To my knowledge, both eMule and DC++ are still active, but I think private trackers have become the more dominant technology for file sharing.

I agree. It also works the other way in terms of censorship.

My original account was on an instance that once censored one of my comments. I don’t remember if they deleted my comment or banned me from the community.

On reddit, I had come to just accept that as a fact of life and every few years I would delete my old account and register a new one.

On Lemmy, I just switched to a different instance which is much more tolerant of free speech and I haven’t had issues since.

The irony is, my comments on the old instance can still be deleted, but only for users from that instance.

I don’t know the full details, but Lemmy definitely has the more 2000-2010 type of culture that allows people to speak their mind freely.