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Comment by jallen_dot_dev | Hacker News Reader

"I have the right to build apartments on the land I own."

"I have the right to tell you what you can and can't build in my neighborhood."

Which one is positive and which is negative?

Neither is positive, both are negative. Also the former does not exist in reality, in fact you often don't have a right to build anything in a township thus you have to get a permission from the local government for almost any construction (with some things implicitly permitted).

A "right" to stop other people from freely developing their property is absolutely a "positive right", or the whole dichotomy is incoherent.

I guess I don't understand the distinction or how the second one isn't a positive right. By your own rule of thumb, if you take away other people then the right to tell others what they can/can't build disappears.

> Also the former does not exist in reality

Irrelevant, we're discussing how things should work not how they are.

Who prevents you from telling anything if others don't exist? But I did not think you mean it literally, to be honest, I thought you meant allowing/disallowing construction in one's neighborhood. If other people did not exist you could just as easily allow and disallow construction, could not you?

No? If other people didn't exist then there is nothing to disallow. We are talking about how people will go to meetings to try to veto building proposals.

I am not sure I understand. In your view, if I live in the middle of nowhere, with no people around me, then I don't have the right to disallow people into my home because nobody is coming? How is it different from me living in the center of NYC and not allowing people into my home, the result is the same - people are not coming into my home, are they?

In your middle of nowhere example, you didn't disallow anyone anything.

This is really such a silly and pointless thread.

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