Taxes are for the local community that pays for fire, police and schools. It also helps subsidize utilities for the community.

Now if I invested money in a plot of land that has no such things. Then my taxes are minimal, only paying for the federal government and maybe some small local government such as wildlife conservation.

My thick skull has invested into China in the past and the government took back the land they leased to me. Not even refunded me close to what I paid for it. Don’t let me get started with how much money I had to bribe these fuckers to get the transactions done.

Yes, I own the land I buy. The building that sits on it.

I was fortunate enough to have government support for my initial home purchase and since then my investment portfolio has increased ever since. Can’t say for others, but I also invested money early on in life in opposed to spending on stupid shit.

The two countries have different government dynamics. One is freedom to prosper and also freedom to fail. While the other is no freedom but there is the golden contract.

As for the “housing security” that you’re talking about. Are you talking about the housing collapse that is currently happening or the shoddy government homes defunded by bribes that the locals are calling tofu homes?

Nobody said it was made of cardboard.

As a Chinese person myself and have invested my own money in China, they can take away your investment without repercussions and pay you a tiny fraction of the value they take from you.

Plus, the amount of bribes needed to get transactions made is just relentless. Everyone from the fucking guy inspecting the factory to the guy stamping my deed. Everyone needed to get their beaks wet.

All my investments are in America and Taiwan. Never need to pay a single bribe.

Pssshhh. Keep drinking the Kool aid.

My family had a factory in Chengdu with a 50 year lease + a 50 year option.

A few years in they decided they wanted to expand the road and cut my family’s factory in half. The warehouse was literally butt up against the highway. Then a few years after they completed the road they decided to expand it again and took the entire land it was sitting on.

They gave us a tiny fraction on justthe land we “owned”. Not even accounting for the upgrades and improvements made to the facilities. We also lost all the bribe money we had to pay to buy this factory in the first place.

They completely ruined my family and our investment. It’s been 20 years and we still haven’t fully recovered.

At least Americans get to own their land. In China you don’t own the land. Just the building sitting on top. Also you start paying for the mortgage before the building is finished… IF it finishes.

Forget banana varieties, you’re missing so many different fruits that aren’t imported just because it doesn’t travel well.

I moved to Taiwan and found out there is a completely different avocado that is creamer. There is pineapple that is 10 times sweeter and doesn’t fuck up your tongue after a few pieces. You can even eat the core.

Mango season just started and there are 2 different kinds. One is (extremely)sweet and the other is sweet and sour.

Why would they are? The amount they get a year is still the same amount, just broken up more evenly.

I just host my own photo backup service and outside of Lemmy, I don’t use social media.

My favorite thing people say is that we don’t have the technology to rebuild the pyramids today. Wait, we are able to build skyscrapers but not able to stack some bricks in a specific shape?

I live in Taipei.

I live in one of the most dense cities in the world. I own an ebike, electric scooter board, and an ICE Toyota sienta(basically a shrunken Senna). All 3 vehicles serve a purpose.

Within 10 minutes? Walk.

Between 10-20 minutes walk, electric scooter board

From 20-30 walk, e bike

Over 30 min walk, car.

In-between these, I take the bus or subway, if the stop is close to the station.

Basically, every vehicle has a purpose. Adding an ebike might be good to have in addition to your ICE vehicle.

Honestly, the major issue is that they don’t pay us enough for us to stay longer than 2-3 years. When I was brought onto my job, I was having the hardest time navigating the home grown primitive system they custom built. The people who created this system were no longer working at the company. I was left trying to figure out a system that was custom built, semi functional and poorly maintained using an old confluence and Google doc.

I left the company after 3 years leaving in place of my own custom code, and my own sets of instructions for the next sap that has to try and figure it out.

Use home assistant. Its not very difficult to setup on an old laptop or pi or whatever you have. Its agnostic to whatever system you have. Talks between networks.

Come join us at /homeassistant

Errrr, I use bing and just click the cache button instead. I have to use a VPN for work and it’s annoying to turn it off just to see one thing on reddit.

I just found out that PopOS is getting abandoned. So I’ll just wait for Rust?

I get that. I think my line of work doesn’t require much. I just want the basics like slack and zoom. I just need the basics working “Back Gestures and a non freezing computer”

I do care about privacy. This was the primary reason to try Linux again.

I just didn’t realize how much work for a newcomer would need to do to get basic functionality working.

The main reason I was even attempting Linux was my concern for privacy.

Perhaps I didn’t give Mint a good enough chance. I felt the UX wasn’t very good. Like, why are there so many apps just preinstalled and thrown in an “All Application” section.

I see its categorized as well, but it’s just daunting the first time using it.

Insightful. You must be a professor.