this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
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A Boring Dystopia
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@zedgeist How about rent of things, as opposed to rent of living space? I'm specifically thinking of the hardware I'm renting for this Fediverse server. A network connection, power, and cooling come with it. In my view this is more acceptable than having to rent a house or car. (Related topic: is having a car moral? Related to that: Is there a moral argument to be made for our against living away from a population center? And related to that: why the Hell do people refuse to wear masks during a pandemic?)
Is my renting that hardware more paying for a service than straight rent? There's certainly the aspect of my not being able to afford the hardware cost up-front and just renting space, network, and power.
Ideally I'd just run the server in my cellar, but I live in the woods and trees fall on the power lines all too often. (Loop to the question of the morality of living away from population centers.)
Rental of land is unique because land ownership is made by drwing line on a map and drawing up a contract with the state. Equipment rental is the product of labor that has transformed natural resources into something people can use.
Land ownership is inherently a violent act in that paper agreements are a surrogate for establishing territorial dominance. End of the day land ownership is enforced though force.
Renting objects on the other hand is rooted in mutual benefit. Tool creation and use being separate skills creates a natural opportunity for cooperation.
All ownership is inherently backed by violence. If someone wants to take away your things without giving anything back you either give up ownership or use (the threat of) violence to defend your ownership. That threat of violence might be deferred and abstracted to a legal system, but in the end it is all rooted in force.