Three years ago, lawyer Jordan van den Berg was an obscure TikTok creator who made videos that mocked real estate agents.
But today the 28-year-old is one of the most high-profile activists in Australia.
Posting under the moniker Purple Pingers, Mr van den Berg has been taking on the nation’s housing crisis by highlighting shocking renting conditions, poor behaviour from landlords, and what he calls government failures.
It is his vigilante-style approach - which includes helping people find vacant homes to squat in, and exposing bad rentals in a public database - that has won over a legion of fans.
Some have dubbed him the Robin Hood of renters.
“If this energy was directed to our MPs and senators, maybe there would be sufficient funding and resources to resolve public housing waitlists,” said a spokesperson for the Real Estate Institute of Australia.
This is the most aggravating part of the article for me. This will force policy change way faster than “putting that energy into pushing representatives.” Which is twice removed from the issue.
He’s helping people find shelter, AND he’s causing a huge stir, taking it worldwide, and making news. THIS is the type of direct action that we need.
Less incrementalism, more fucking over landlords and making the ownership class uncomfortable.
Bugging politicians can work, if you’re sufficiently relevant to re-election. This dude has achieved that relevance very well by doing what he’s doing.
Sure, but what this stupid fucking association of landlords or whatever is saying is that he needs to “work within the system.” They mean “write to your representatives, vote, donate to politicians, etc.” It’s complete horseshit. Because that clearly hasn’t worked. They don’t want it to work. These people lobby (read: bribe) to make sure the laws keep shifting in their favor. Which is exactly the point. Citizens trying to influence policy are very limited and removed a few steps from the actual decision making and decision makers. They want it to stay that way, because they get to write laws, lobby directly, spend face-to-face time with these people, call their cell phones because they’re large donors, and the winds are blowing ever harder in their favor. Their power grows exponentially while ours dwindles and we become exponentially LESS powerful as lawmakers become more and more insulated from the people they’re supposed to serve.
The quotes in here were indeed horseshit, but voting and donating (plus volunteering!), at least, work pretty well. I don’t want to pick a fight with you, but sometimes boring is good. Shit, even insurgencies get pretty paperwork-heavy at any kind of scale.
Well, I don’t feel like arguing either honestly lol
But I will say that I believe this approach on its own has led us exactly to where we are today. They are—on their own—a bandaid on a massive wound.
The biggest victories for the masses are so often won through direct action, through huge fights with the powerful. Often bloody ones. Strikes are the most powerful tool we have, because the system that is more and more only benefitting the wealthy actually runs on our bodies and minds. And strikes turn bloody because they try to beat us back into submission.
I’m not saying it’s pretty. But it’s a war, and we’ve been surrendering this entire time. And in that surrender, plenty of people have been writing their representatives, voting, signing petitions, etc. The system has continued to get worse. Look how much the recent trend of strikes and walkouts has accomplished for those people. In my industry, the writer’s strike changed a lot for them. Actors too. Which is kinda funny because those of us that don’t work in front of the camera know how well actors are treated, but whatever. Even though they’re wealthy celebrities, against the massive corporations squeezing all of us harder and harder, they’re still kind of on our side.
I’m not saying we need to stop doing any of the tedious work of Revolution. We still need all aspects. But when it’s just the tedium and the quiet work, we keep moving backwards.
That is my point. You’re definitely right, that sort of clerical work is a necessary part of revolutionizing, but when it’s all clerical work and no revolution—which is what we are constantly corralled into, solution-wise—we are stuck slowly falling behind on the treadmill of capitalism. Which is exactly how we’ve found ourselves so far behind at by this point.
You’re right, action is also a missing piece - even when it’s way easier than getting shot or pepper sprayed. I also don’t know you personally, but I see a lot of people that wanna revolution because they think it’s an easy shortcut. I like to emphasise that it’s not whenever that comes up.
And in that surrender, plenty of people have been writing their representatives, voting, signing petitions, etc.
Sometimes about restricting access to gender affirmation care, or keeping the browns out. It’s depressing, but I think the real problem is that most people don’t care, and many of (the older-leaning group of) those that do don’t like our newfangled ideas.
Edit: After thinking about this, I should have a disclaimer that I’m in a country where useful new laws get passed all the time. It’s probably not a shortcut in really flawed democracies either, but normal participation is bound to be less fruitful. In autocracies, the approaches mentioned obviously don’t work at all, so it is kind of a shortcut.
The number of MPs who own investment properties means that this IS going directly to the source, but it’s doing it in a manner that they can’t fob off, ignore, or form a committee about.
I’m not sure if Robin Hood fits. He’s not stealing. Either way, fuck predatory landlords.
Given the abstract nature of a lot of the economy these days (which unsurprisingly benefits those with wealth) it’s debatable if it fits to be honest. I would lean more towards yes. They would argue that by exposing bad conditions, helping people lower the cost, causing a rental to go empty, or whatever else means they aren’t getting the money they feel entitled to.
The same kind of arguments are often used when corporations argue that piracy is stealing. All that has happened is an unauthorised copy of a movie/etc had been created. Yet that is called stealing and they try and fine people sometimes thousands more than what a legal copy would cost.
Illegally appropriating access is close enough.
He’s encouraging squatting, which is stealing. He’s an awful person.
Found the landlord.
If there is an empty house,and they aren’t doing damage, no harm no foul.
Well, it’s trespassing, but I’d argue it should be a crime to own a house and leave it empty. They should have it rented at least.
It is a crime, a crime against humanity. It’s just not a crime recognized in most legal systems.
Having more than you need of anything, while other people have so little they are on the street, go hungry, or die should be a crime that is punished.
Forcing bad landlords to fix their properties, go for it.
Squatting yeah no. Get the f out
What’s the harm in squatting, as long as they aren’t damaging the property, and the property is well and truly vacant?
If by definition of truly vacant you mean
No one is knocking on the door saying hey get out, and there is reasonably no one going to come knocking on the door… Then yeah fine it’s empty. Then I don’t care. But if anyone who has the title is saying get out then yeah get out.
If there is someone who has the title says get out, and the squatter doesn’t leave, it’s basically theft of property.
How is it theft of property? Theft usually involves taking something material away from someone. If the property owner has left their property vacant, having a squatter there doesn’t change anything. They’ve gone from making no money on their vacant property to… still not making money on their property.
And don’t say “the squatter is preventing the property owner from making future profit off of the property”, because now you’re not talking about theft. Profits that don’t exist yet can’t be stolen.
If I have a piece of property and somebody moves in there, squats, they are basically preventing me from using that piece of property as I choose. Yes I could go in there anyways but let’s be honest how would I actually use it in the way that I want if they are in there? How would I lay out financial documents on the kitchen table to do my bookkeeping? Knowing that someone else is in there could easily take pictures of it? That makes no sense. They’ve effectively taken the property from me and prevented me from using it as I choose. That is effectively theft. No they didn’t pick up a pen from you and take it away. No they didn’t take a phone and take it away. But they have effectively taken my property.
If they insist on living there for six months, how am I going to be there for six months? Realistically. Think about it. So yeah it is that you may not agree with the term of that. But that to me is just irrelevant. In the eyes of the law it’s leaning more and more towards unlawful usage of the property. Which is why the laws are being wrote to remove squatter rights.
How is this stealing? At most it’s prohibiting passive income on capital investment.
Stealing is taking someone’s property without permission. That’s what squatting is. By encouraging squatting, this person is encouraging stealing and that makes them an awful person.
Holy shit, they took the whole house? That’s impressive!
Honestly if I ever own a house and someone steals it without me noticing… They can keep it.
Squatting is not “taking property” especially if the property in question is vacant. The property is still there and will stay there when the squatters leave.
It’s very much stealing property. The same way a crime is committed when someone is raped. The victim still has their body afterwards, but a crime has been committed.
That’s the weirdest comparison I’ve seen yet. Yes rape is rape and rape is a crime but rape is not stealing. I really don’t see the point you are trying to make.
Rape is stealing as well. You’re taking something from someone they didn’t freely give you.
My point is that stealing is bad and shouldn’t be encouraged.
Theft is a crime but not all crimes are theft. If I punch you in the face that isn’t theft. The only way someone could consider rape to be theft is if they considered women to be property.
The problem here is that you seem to value your own property rights over the right of individuals to have shelter. Sure, it’s not an ideal situation; in an ideal society “squatting” shouldn’t occur, but we live in a society where people are forced to choose between being homeless or squatting in someone’s property. If you think they should forgo their right to shelter to preserve your right to property then you are the awful person.
No name calling on this sub. You are blocked.
Holy shit my guy. “Someone vaguely disagreed with me and used the same verbiage I used on someone else, time to block them”. Touch grass, please, for your sake as much as ours.
Ah, but you see, it’s not hypocritical because rules are just weapons to use against your opponents, and we’re suckers for not using it against them first. /s
It’s better to block people than engage in back and forth that won’t go anywhere.
“I’m not here to engage in discussion, I’m just here to make people listen to me and I only want to hear people who agree with me.”
Okay then.
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Removed, civility.
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It was phrased as a conditional, they weren’t DIRECTLY saying the other person was awful, they were saying “people who do x are awful.” It leaves it open to the idea that the original commenter does not do x and is therefore not awful.
In YOUR case, yeah, calling someone awful breaks the civility rule.
Does the rule only apply if they’re name-calling other commenters and not the subject of the article? If not then mke_geek’s original comment should be removed since he directly calls the subject of the article an awful person with no conditional.
Personally I think this rule is being a bit over-enforced and none of these comments should have been removed. Being overly strict with civility rules allows bad actors to take advantage of “civility politics” to shut down dissent.
Edit: except maybe the one calling them a dickhead, I get why that one was removed. The ones that just reflect their own words back at them I think should be left alone.
Clearly stated in rule 5:
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect!
Name calling. Blocked.
You’re an awful person. Stealing is what capitalists use land ownership for.
No name calling on this sub. You are blocked.
There’s entire countries that are on land that wasn’t originally theirs. Stealing isn’t sufficient for evil on it’s own.
I think you dropped your /s
LOL - Reported as “not world news”, where the definition is “news outside the US.”
Being as this is Australia and Australia is outside the US…
Is Australia inside the world, though? 🤔
It’s more ON the world. I think it’s kinda like the world’s cummerbund, with Antarctica being either the world’s pants or slippers.
I thought it was underneath.
That’s New Zealand you’re thinking of, it’s only there some of the time.
Its natural predator is the cartographer
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IT’S BBC.
Can someone explain all this “everyone is good but straight white men in America” bullshit to me? How is the world “everything but America”? Why is racism anything possibly negative about a race except free range on white people? Why is it that I’m so privileged that I’m not allowed in a homeless shelter in a small town because they’re all living in grants for target minorities/disabilities/women/addicts?
If I didn’t know any better, and I don’t, I’d think the world is playing spades and white Americans are the dealer.
World News should be things that concern the whole world and include things originating from space even!
Because there are already communities for American news (News) and American politics (Politics), other communities were needed to give non-US centric news room to breathe.
The last thing anyone wants is another community that’s Donald Trump and Elon Musk top to bottom.
There are already communities for news for literally every country. Why is America left out with North Korea to be excluded?
America isn’t left out. “News” is exclusively US News. “Politics” is exclusively US Politics.
Ever heard the arguments against segregation? America goes on an island while world news is just “everyone but America”?
How about everyone gets their own news community and world news is whatever affects more than one country rather than whatever happens in a not-America country?
Anyone is welcome to make a community for whatever country interests them.
And this one here is for haters to specifically exclude a specific group.
Ever heard the arguments against segregation?
Right? Why should I be subbed to a different community to get my latest sports news? Or to hear what’s happening in Helldivers? That’s news too! Segregation is bad!
It’s all on Lemmy dude. People can freely access any Lemmy community and add it to their feed to access that news. You’re just complaining you can’t force something on them that they aren’t interested in (because if they were they’d already be subbed to the appropriate communities).
Can someone explain all this “everyone is good but straight white men in America” bullshit to me?
I think it’s a rather natural reaction to strait white males beeing in power for all of the modern time and therefor beeing the ones that were made to set the rules and, even more importantly, decide what the discourse looks like. Hence the view on women, minorities, non “White” countries, etc is heavily formed by their views.
Can someone explain how you went from “This sub is for news about not America, if you want news about America there’s a whole sub for that” to “straight white men are victims of systemic injustice”?
It seems like there is a step in between, like, “America is the victim of injustice because it isn’t given priority status in the world news sub that has to be distinct because all the other news subs end up being about America.” Some sort of persecution complex?
being a victim is great as long as you’re not actually a victim. you get to be outraged and make demands of people and, because no one is actually victimizing you at all, there’s no downside!
“Isn’t given priority status” is totally the same as “specifically banned here”. Move them goalposts harder.
You transitioned into panicking that cishet white Christians are being persecuted because there is a sub for US news and a different sub for other news, but it is the other people’s hyperbole that is wrong, got it.
You just go on ahead and make up more stuff to argue about. I’ll watch since my input isn’t really represented here.
Your input isn’t represented? Uh oh, sounds like you are being silenced and persecuted!
It went to that because you decided to misrepresent what I said. You did that because you don’t have a response for my actual position and needed something easy to attack.
Can someone explain all this “everyone is good but straight white men in America” bullshit to me?
Yes: when you’ve become accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
You specifically are not allowed here because equality.
Anyone is welcome to be here. Americans just aren’t allowed to make this another community dominated by American-centric news.
Why is the “News” magazine for American news and not world news? Why is there no “American News” magazine?
Did anyone say “American news here only”?
Go find me a post of a non-American news story.
I’ll wait.
Or you could POST one ya fucking bum!
who said you’re not allowed here, or anywhere?
Bro. Go outside.
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Hopefully it ends up better than it did for friendlyjordies.
