"Today, only a very few people actually use their land to produce wealth, but we are still charged a tax as if we do."
Actually, Land in the economic sense is not physical Land most of the time today, as you rightfully observed. It's all that which is economic opportunity, which does happen to often arise from social context or interpersonal relationship nowadays, moved around via stock ownership titles or access to desirable/well-paying roles.
Also, a Land Value Tax is not a property tax. You can own all the property that is not land without a tax on it no problem in my view. All the work you did on the land or that others did on the land, you can keep, and if the land itself isn't very valuable, no need to tax it either.
"Have you ever worked with the cluster-fuck called section 8 housing?
For the amount we spend on that, greasing the hands of the people that grease the hands of our politicians, I could build a tiny house for every single man, woman and child in america."
Absolutely something that the a Land Value Tax entirely avoids, as it concerns itself nothing with actual property on the Land. It only concerns itself with the unimproved value of the Land, the stuff that's below the property, which is quite easily measured in value and taxed (ask any bank selling mortgages in the area), if the location experiences surging demand from outside investor interest.
"And then we would never have to pay again."
I mean you still probably have to forfeit all of your work if you want to participate in the economic Land beyond that, thanks network effect and economies of scale paired with technological advancements.
"I know these writers you have read try to make the point about land being the basis for all income"
Only for 60% of GDP today, and I'd suggest that the incomes that are low on capital cost are tendencially also low on Land portion.
So no, not trying to spin some story about how the land is somehow magically the cause for all income.
"The most profitable pieces of land are factories where lots of stuff is made in a tiny space. Tax the land or tax the profit. Both are the same outcome. Both affect where an entrepreneur will build a company (or affect if he will build the company).
The next most profitable pieces of land are arable farm land. This is where all of our food comes from. So any taxes paid on these lands are immediately put into the prices of food.
After that, the land becomes next to worthless. Dirt cheap, as they would say. Without a whole lot of work, it is useless. So, no taxes there."
Pretty much, though we are moving from "factories" to "platforms" right now, or at least adding that. Also popular city land is still something that could be much more available to people who actually care to live there, if we introduce an LVT in cities and award the proceed to all residents. It makes vast Landholding where it's actually valuable less of an investment. It ensures the Land is more used for its utility, in those cases.
"It doesn't come from the land, it comes from people working the land.
And in EVERY SINGLE CASE you are going to tax the more productive people to pay for the living arrangements of the less productive people."
Think about it like this: Jack pays Joe to pick up some coal from the maintain. Jill also has a pickaxe but for some reason, Jack neither wants Coal anymore, nor is there any in the mountain. That is economic opportunity, Land, in its simplest sense. It fundamentally raises the question why Jack had money in the first place, and why Jill has to deal with starvation symptoms till Joe maybe figures out a use for her not quite dead body. Because today, Jill is on sale. Tomorrow, maybe Jack is!
"There is no magic way to come up with money. Every single way taxes the productive people."
See this is a misconception. The money doesn't just arrive from the past. In growth capitalism, we must self indebt ourselves to owners of the Land to use the Land, and we must play a game of musical chairs to keep growing customer spending by taking new business loans that get passed through to workers, if we want to effectively avoid paying the interest, the interest on a loan we had all the right in the world to object to taking in the first place, if we just want to access our Land.
It's social agreement that forms the basis for (economically valued) Land access, and that forms the basis for all currency. Just like in growth capitalism, nobody complains till people run out of reasons/customer spending/investment opportunities to take new loans over. Money is made out of nothing, to ensure people with good ideas get to access the Land, today. We can maintain to make it out of nothing, but tax the Land to give it value, if we don't feel like playing this silly game of perpetual self-indebting to people who we don't owe stuff to. (edit: also, tax the opportunity to command the land we added in the first place, the money itself! Its exchange or its holding, either is something to consider taxing, (while the holding of it on savings accounts could probably be tax exempt entirely) to ensure it goes back to everyone. For everyone to have a modest level of claim towards the land. Everyone gets to use the Land for subsisting, everyone gets to get chances to make something off of the Land for everyone or themselves. That's the idea. Because that's how we did things and I don't see why we now suddenly need to go beg to whoever ended up winning a game of musical chairs or whoever has the shiniest rocks. Society hardly made decisions based on how shiny your rocks were, at least in the past 2000 years, unless you stole em in an act of war and had no social credit with the people you came across.)
"So, as a very broke productive person, I would rather build a tiny home for every american than to pay them all $400 every month so they can rent a tiny home.
It is far more economic and provides for the need.
Yes, it does feel nicer for the individual person to have money that they can use to rent a place. But this is fallacious. Because we are not talking about a single person, we are talking about all the persons."
Again, while I see the logic in what you propose and see it's a noble goal, this is not the problem I am interested in addressing here. It's fallacious to make this problem that the UBI is trying to solve, about housing that doesn't meet the community standards as defined by whoever (yes we might want to improve on this process, still). It's about the sociocultural minimum. You can build housing for those in need, I care to improve Land access for everyone, rather than settling for everyone having to take on debt towards people who they owe nothing to, if they want to use the Land. It's about enabling people to work for themselves and each other where mutually beneficial.
We have a problem with the legitimation of our currency unless we maintain inflation rates to eat the interest. Even worse legitimation problem you got with gold/bitcoin, as these entitle early adopters to the labor of latecomers, meaning people who care to exchange their labor for the labor of others while using some of their land, well they'd rather use a currency that includes fees on Land usage as well as a demurrage potentially (rather elegant solution compared to inflation, in my view). The only money I could fully approve of in exchange for my labor, is one that I regulate the printing of and removal from circulation myself, together with fellow minded people. We just need to put in place transparent, uniform rules that bind all equally, then we can come to agree to whatever deals we consider fair, within the framework we put in place ourselves. I'm one for creating a kind of social money. (edit: interesting read for a bit of a historic introduction to money and similar currency concept to what I could imagine.. David Graeber's book on debt or this presentation thereof is interesting and proposing some similar historic outlining, as well.)
tl;dr we gotta make our own money, with rules we find fair and suited for our purposes.