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On December 24 2023 04:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2023 04:28 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 23 2023 23:09 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 23 2023 22:50 farvacola wrote:
Regardless of the specific number of low IQ people, a measure I’m not sure helps explain much anyway, there’s no question that there are a significant number of people who will throughout their lives have trouble finding productive things to do that enable them to make a place for themselves. We absolutely have the resources to provide for those people and we should endeavor to do so for both practical and ethical reasons. What that looks like is up for debate, but it’s a helpful starting place. I think that's what's important, yeah. As farv said: A lot of this follows from the simple, yet highly destructive premise that people who need help need to prove to society that they deserve it. Unless and until we can reorient ourselves away from that obsession, real solutions are going to continue to prove elusive. The premise/obsession farv describes is inextricable from capitalism. Recognizing that is basically the next step after acknowledging the premise farv articulated. Are empathy and compassion inherently at odds with all forms of capitalism?
Pretty much, yeah.
That's not to say that you can't find examples of empathy or compassion despite capitalism or vanity philanthropy because of it. It means that at the systemic level you can't maintain a compassionate/empathetic social order and capitalism simultaneously. You can give a pretty convincing appearance of one by outsourcing/offshoring the suffering and oppression to marginalized people you mostly keep out of sight though (sorta like the proto-morlocks from "The Sleeper Awakes").
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GH just curious, in your ideal socialist or communist world is there private property? IE can you "own" material goods or is that illegal and provided by the state? What about housing or a car or something like that. Is all of that owned by the state who divies it up amongst the citizens?
I think most people are OK with government ownership of utilities, roads, etc that are for the public good. I am just curious how far you want to take it.
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On December 24 2023 07:03 Sadist wrote:
GH just curious, in your ideal socialist or communist world is there private property? IE can you "own" material goods or is that illegal and provided by the state? What about housing or a car or something like that. Is all of that owned by the state who divies it up amongst the citizens?
I think most people are OK with government ownership of utilities, roads, etc that are for the public good. I am just curious how far you want to take it.
In communism, what you're calling "private property" is referred to as "personal property", like owning your own home, which yes, you can do under communism.
https://www.workers.org/private-property/
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On December 24 2023 08:29 StasisField wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2023 07:03 Sadist wrote:
GH just curious, in your ideal socialist or communist world is there private property? IE can you "own" material goods or is that illegal and provided by the state? What about housing or a car or something like that. Is all of that owned by the state who divies it up amongst the citizens?
I think most people are OK with government ownership of utilities, roads, etc that are for the public good. I am just curious how far you want to take it. In communism, what you're calling "private property" is referred to as "personal property", like owning your own home, which yes, you can do under communism. https://www.workers.org/private-property/
Who decides who gets which homes and how much they cost? Who decides how much people are paid? Are they paid at all, is there money?
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Brazil5776 Posts
On December 24 2023 07:03 Sadist wrote:
GH just curious, in your ideal socialist or communist world is there private property? IE can you "own" material goods or is that illegal and provided by the state? What about housing or a car or something like that. Is all of that owned by the state who divies it up amongst the citizens?
I think most people are OK with government ownership of utilities, roads, etc that are for the public good. I am just curious how far you want to take it.
Although you specified the question to GH, I'll go ahead and say that's a boring question. There's nothing inherent in communism against personal ownership of long lived or permanent consumer goods, just against owning capital goods. You can own a car, just not a car factory.
Of course, if you accumulate cars to run a car rental business, then the cars cease to be consumer goods and become capital goods. It becomes not about what they are but about how they're used and then it becomes a mess.
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On December 24 2023 09:00 Sadist wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2023 08:29 StasisField wrote:On December 24 2023 07:03 Sadist wrote:
GH just curious, in your ideal socialist or communist world is there private property? IE can you "own" material goods or is that illegal and provided by the state? What about housing or a car or something like that. Is all of that owned by the state who divies it up amongst the citizens?
I think most people are OK with government ownership of utilities, roads, etc that are for the public good. I am just curious how far you want to take it. In communism, what you're calling "private property" is referred to as "personal property", like owning your own home, which yes, you can do under communism. https://www.workers.org/private-property/ Who decides who gets which homes and how much they cost? Who decides how much people are paid? Are they paid at all, is there money?
Don't get bogged down in the details, comrade. Just condemn capitalism and support the revolution. We'll sort the rest out later.
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On December 24 2023 09:15 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2023 09:00 Sadist wrote:On December 24 2023 08:29 StasisField wrote:On December 24 2023 07:03 Sadist wrote:
GH just curious, in your ideal socialist or communist world is there private property? IE can you "own" material goods or is that illegal and provided by the state? What about housing or a car or something like that. Is all of that owned by the state who divies it up amongst the citizens?
I think most people are OK with government ownership of utilities, roads, etc that are for the public good. I am just curious how far you want to take it. In communism, what you're calling "private property" is referred to as "personal property", like owning your own home, which yes, you can do under communism. https://www.workers.org/private-property/ Who decides who gets which homes and how much they cost? Who decides how much people are paid? Are they paid at all, is there money? Don't get bogged down in the details, comrade. Just condemn capitalism and support the revolution. We'll sort the rest out later.
Im legit not trolling im curious. Its similar to when I asked how hyperinflation "worked" in practicality. I mean i know that money exists in China and former communist countries. Im just curious what the end game is and how it works in practicality since I would assume any communist state that has existed so far isnt really what the people supporting communism had in mind (give or take some good aspects they may have liked)
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On December 23 2023 16:25 gobbledydook wrote:
I think ultimately the economic problem boils down to this:
In terms of IQ, there are about one fifth of the population with an IQ below 80. Unfortunately that is an intellectual disability where they would have difficulty doing modern work requiring thinking. In the past, labourers were always wanted and it didn't matter that you were dumb as a brick, but nowadays even labourers need some specialist skills.
What we do with this one fifth of the population that is unfortunately just not productive enough in the modern world for anyone to hire for a living wage is the real problem. And as society continues to evolve, lower skill jobs will continue to disappear and the ratio of unemployable people will continue increasing.
People who are straight up shitty and not able to be productive end up causing a lot of problems. If someone just kinda keeps shitting the bed, and they are left to figure it out themselves, they simply won’t. They’ll keep shitting the bed. Eventually they just kinda run out of money and lose the ability to support themselves. Once they reach that point, they are more likely to engage in some form of crime, like steal a car or rob someone’s house. Or they will end up homeless and need even more help, because now they don’t even have a place to live. The process of fixing someone’s situation after they got evicted from their house, lost their belongings, and essentially need to rebuild their life, is way more expensive than just fixing their life before it falls apart.
The comparison I like to make is changing the oil in your car. If you need to change the oil in your car, let’s say it costs $50. You could save $50 by not changing the oil in your car, but if you never change the oil in your car, after a year, your engine will be irrecoverably busted. A new engine will cost $10000. The only way you actually save that $50 is if you just let the car die and don’t fix it. But so long as you decide you need a car, your choice is either $50 or $10000. Even though everyone hates the process of changing their oil, it’s way better than the effect from not changing it. Social programs are similar.
Many people will simply always suck ass. We can blame them for being shitty and tell them to work harder, but that usually does not work. So it’s easy to think to ourselves “ok, well then fuck that guy. He’s an idiot and not interested in making better decisions. If he’s choosing to keep making the same mistakes, why should I give him my tax dollars?”, but it actually costs more money to not help him. If he ends up committing crimes, those crimes cost society a lot of money. And if he goes to prison, the costs of imprisonment are wayyyyy more than that. Or if he ends up as some kinda drug addict living under a bridge, the costs associated with the mess he makes, damage he does, and various other ways he strains various systems costs a lot of money. This is the human version of not changing oil in a car.
Even though they may be “undeserving” or something along those lines, the funny thing is that we actually save money by just keeping the guy afloat. We’re better off just giving him $500 each month to prevent him from eating so much shit he breaks. The benefits of keeping someone employed rather than homeless are gigantic. The only way to avoid the problem from just being more expensive later is if we just chuck him in the ocean. We should not do that. So unless we decide to just toss these people in the ocean, the reality is that even if it feels painful to give him your tax dollars, you are giving him less tax dollars overall by just making sure he can pay his rent and keep his job. Just like changing oil in a car, even if we are being purely selfish, we benefit from just giving him money.
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In general society should be cautious giving money to things it doesn't want to incentivize. We have things like scholarships to attend college and tax incentives for first time home buyers and having children because we want to incentivize more people to attend college or buy a home and start a family. Cash stipends for being homeless might just incentivize _________? Seemingly every year progressive cities spend more and more on homelessness and every year the problem gets worse and worse. Unfortunately they lack the linear thinking to see why that's happening so instead they insist they just need a bit more money to right the ship.
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On December 28 2023 06:52 BlackJack wrote:
In general society should be cautious giving money to things it doesn't want to incentivize. We have things like scholarships to attend college and tax incentives for first time home buyers and having children because we want to incentivize more people to attend college or buy a home and start a family. Cash stipends for being homeless might just incentivize _________? Seemingly every year progressive cities spend more and more on homelessness and every year the problem gets worse and worse. Unfortunately they lack the linear thinking to see why that's happening so instead they insist they just need a bit more money to right the ship.
So arent all large cities progressive in the US for the most part? If you were homeless I would think going to a city makes the most sense (more people to panhandle to, likely more resources, etc). Being homeless in a rural area would be significantly tougher.
To me climate would be hugely important as well, California would be ideal for that. Its hard to combat that. If you are gonnna sleep outside better to do it where its not obscenely hot or cold so you dont have heat stroke or freeze to death. Theres also the whole train network etc.
Policies likely play a part but I think theres more to it than just policy.
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On December 28 2023 06:52 BlackJack wrote:
In general society should be cautious giving money to things it doesn't want to incentivize. We have things like scholarships to attend college and tax incentives for first time home buyers and having children because we want to incentivize more people to attend college or buy a home and start a family. Cash stipends for being homeless might just incentivize _________? Seemingly every year progressive cities spend more and more on homelessness and every year the problem gets worse and worse. Unfortunately they lack the linear thinking to see why that's happening so instead they insist they just need a bit more money to right the ship.
With inflation spending on everything goes up each year. With increases in population the population in every subcategory will go up each year. Is there evidence that homeless spending as a percentage of the budget goes up every year or homeless as the percentage of the population is going up every year?
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On December 28 2023 06:52 BlackJack wrote:
In general society should be cautious giving money to things it doesn't want to incentivize. We have things like scholarships to attend college and tax incentives for first time home buyers and having children because we want to incentivize more people to attend college or buy a home and start a family. Cash stipends for being homeless might just incentivize _________? Seemingly every year progressive cities spend more and more on homelessness and every year the problem gets worse and worse. Unfortunately they lack the linear thinking to see why that's happening so instead they insist they just need a bit more money to right the ship. Yeah because people are homeless for shits and giggles...
Somehow you think this is a problem for America, meanwhile the rest of the world figured it out years ago.
American exceptionalism at its finest.
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On December 28 2023 06:52 BlackJack wrote:
In general society should be cautious giving money to things it doesn't want to incentivize. We have things like scholarships to attend college and tax incentives for first time home buyers and having children because we want to incentivize more people to attend college or buy a home and start a family. Cash stipends for being homeless might just incentivize _________? Seemingly every year progressive cities spend more and more on homelessness and every year the problem gets worse and worse. Unfortunately they lack the linear thinking to see why that's happening so instead they insist they just need a bit more money to right the ship.
Should stop giving money to people with disabilities while we're at it. Wouldn't want to incentivize folks into losing limbs for that sweet sweet government moolah.
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United States43203 Posts
On December 28 2023 06:52 BlackJack wrote:
Seemingly every year progressive cities spend more and more on homelessness and every year the problem gets worse and worse. Unfortunately they lack the linear thinking to see why that's happening so instead they insist they just need a bit more money to right the ship.
Your ideology is such a joke.
Progressives argue that excessive policing isn’t getting anywhere and that some of that should be diverted to harm reduction programs. The so called “defund the police” movement.
Conservatives lose their custard over social media and tv echo chamber mischaracterizations of it and complain so hard that they actually win the debate through sheer obstinacy. The harm reduction programs never get funded and instead the police get given record funding. The conservatives get everything that they wanted like the whiny entitled children they are.
Then nothing gets better because of course nothing gets better because we knew it didn’t work last year and spending more money on policies that don’t work won’t change anything.
But you’re still online bitching about how the failure of your policy of giving the police record funding is really because the progressives defunded the police. Even though the progressives gave in and gave you the funding increases you wanted. It’s not that your policy failed, it’s really their fault for proposing something different before giving in and following your policy because in your mind you’re their victim somehow.
Where was this “progressives spend more and more and the problem just gets worse” Blackjack when it was about record police spending? You’re getting your way. You’re the one pissing away all the money on failed policing strategies. You’re the one that increases the budget each year while all the experts in the field say that harm reduction is the only path forwards. And despite fucking everything up, year after year, you still have the nerve to insist that progressives are to blame for things only getting worse as if your way wasn’t literally the only way that we’ve tried.
It’s the ideology of a child. And not a smart child. The kind of child who will make themselves sick eating only candy, then shit all over the floor, then blame the dinner you cooked them that they didn’t even eat. No accountability, not even a basic recognition that they got what they wanted. Everything is someone else’s fault and it’d all be fixed if you’d only let them eat even more candy.
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On December 28 2023 06:52 BlackJack wrote:
In general society should be cautious giving money to things it doesn't want to incentivize. We have things like scholarships to attend college and tax incentives for first time home buyers and having children because we want to incentivize more people to attend college or buy a home and start a family. Cash stipends for being homeless might just incentivize _________? Seemingly every year progressive cities spend more and more on homelessness and every year the problem gets worse and worse. Unfortunately they lack the linear thinking to see why that's happening so instead they insist they just need a bit more money to right the ship.
It’s a weird situation because, like I pointed out, it’s not like any of us are dazed and confused trying to figure out how to solve the problem.
The issue is that as they begin to plan how to address homelessness, city council or mayors or whatever look at 2 things:
1: the scale of the issue and approximate cost of solving the problem
2: resources available to use solving the problem
As is the case with most things, there simply is not enough available resources to fix it, so the question becomes what can be done to still improve it with the resources available. This approach works in many situations but it does not work for homelessness. The actual, in practice policies enacted by Portland are wildly deficient and basically don’t solve anything. And there are many ways to argue the policies are a net negative. They had the right idea. Their hearts weee in the right place.
But this is the fatal flaw: “well, we have to do something, so how can we work within these limitations to still make something happen? Even if we can’t solve it, we can make an impact through this or that”
This ultimately leads to extremely poorly executed, under-funded, and mechanistically deficient policies. The people writing the adapted policies don’t understand how to adapt them well. They do a poor job at estimating cost because it’s extremely challenging, even after deciding to “do what we can”. The timeline ends up messed up because the logistics are also challenging, which often leads to certain pieces not lining up right and making it even less effective. Or certain parts of the project get cut half way through, which ultimately ends up being a critical weakness, making it all even less effective.
And so I’ll say it again: homelessness is a federal problem. I would vote for a mayor/governor candidate who declared they would completely stop all the half-ass pats on the back and instead go absolutely nuclear on the federal government. Constantly posting graphic images, descriptions of deaths from overdose, and explicitly saying all of the blood is on mayor Pete or Biden’s hands. Make a national spectacle of it, be absolutely shameless, vile stuff left and right attacking the feds while highlighting the suffering of homeless people.
Maybe some kind of running counter of “number of homeless people hit by car’s being driven by Joe Biden” or something like that. I’d love it.
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Norway28706 Posts
yeah that's just silly. Being homeless is so shitty that it obviously won't be incentivized by money. Maybe you can argue that it's bad policy for a city to give money to homeless people because it can attract homeless people to that city, but (virtually) nobody is going to choose being with a home in x/y location to being homeless in y location because of some stipend.
I mean I'm assuming the stipends aren't in the $100k per year class because in that case I guess hypothetically someone could do homeless on existence minimum for two years to save up for a home in idaho but I'm assuming it's in the 'this'll afford you some food/drugs so you won't have to resort to crime/you can get away with less crime' range.
You can also argue that it'd be better to spend the money on housing for homeless people than stipends, or on various programs to help them get back on track, but the idea that homelessness is incentivized by stipends needs way more work than some type 'scholarships incentivize studying thus stipends for homeless incentivize homelessness' brain exploding meme logic.
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On December 28 2023 08:18 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2023 06:52 BlackJack wrote:
In general society should be cautious giving money to things it doesn't want to incentivize. We have things like scholarships to attend college and tax incentives for first time home buyers and having children because we want to incentivize more people to attend college or buy a home and start a family. Cash stipends for being homeless might just incentivize _________? Seemingly every year progressive cities spend more and more on homelessness and every year the problem gets worse and worse. Unfortunately they lack the linear thinking to see why that's happening so instead they insist they just need a bit more money to right the ship. It’s a weird situation because, like I pointed out, it’s not like any of us are dazed and confused trying to figure out how to solve the problem. The issue is that as they begin to plan how to address homelessness, city council or mayors or whatever look at 2 things: 1: the scale of the issue and approximate cost of solving the problem 2: resources available to use solving the problem As is the case with most things, there simply is not enough available resources to fix it, so the question becomes what can be done to still improve it with the resources available. This approach works in many situations but it does not work for homelessness. The actual, in practice policies enacted by Portland are wildly deficient and basically don’t solve anything. And there are many ways to argue the policies are a net negative. They had the right idea. Their hearts weee in the right place. But this is the fatal flaw: “well, we have to do something, so how can we work within these limitations to still make something happen? Even if we can’t solve it, we can make an impact through this or that” This ultimately leads to extremely poorly executed, under-funded, and mechanistically deficient policies. The people writing the adapted policies don’t understand how to adapt them well. They do a poor job at estimating cost because it’s extremely challenging, even after deciding to “do what we can”. The timeline ends up messed up because the logistics are also challenging, which often leads to certain pieces not lining up right and making it even less effective. Or certain parts of the project get cut half way through, which ultimately ends up being a critical weakness, making it all even less effective. And so I’ll say it again: homelessness is a federal problem. I would vote for a mayor/governor candidate who declared they would completely stop all the half-ass pats on the back and instead go absolutely nuclear on the federal government. Constantly posting graphic images, descriptions of deaths from overdose, and explicitly saying all of the blood is on mayor Pete or Biden’s hands. Make a national spectacle of it, be absolutely shameless, vile stuff left and right attacking the feds while highlighting the suffering of homeless people. Maybe some kind of running counter of “number of homeless people hit by car’s being driven by Joe Biden” or something like that. I’d love it.
Can you clarify what the solution is? My understanding of homeless people in the US is that many of them have mental health issues and or addiction issues. I dont know what the percentages are but I would guess a majority. I am curious about what the solution is for the folks with Mental Health problems are. Outreach and stuff is great but Im pretty sure thats already happening.
You can increase the Social Safety Net and I am 100% for that, I just think there will always be some homeless unless they are basically jailed in an asylum or something. Didnt the homeless population jump pretty dramatically once those places were shutdown in the US in the 70s and 80s?
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On December 28 2023 08:37 Liquid`Drone wrote:
yeah that's just silly. Being homeless is so shitty that it obviously won't be incentivized by money. Maybe you can argue that it's bad policy for a city to give money to homeless people because it can attract homeless people to that city, but (virtually) nobody is going to choose being with a home in x/y location to being homeless in y location because of some stipend.
I mean I'm assuming the stipends aren't in the $100k per year class because in that case I guess hypothetically someone could do homeless on existence minimum for two years to save up for a home in idaho but I'm assuming it's in the 'this'll afford you some food/drugs so you won't have to resort to crime/you can get away with less crime' range.
You can also argue that it'd be better to spend the money on housing for homeless people than stipends, or on various programs to help them get back on track, but the idea that homelessness is incentivized by stipends needs way more work than some type 'scholarships incentivize studying thus stipends for homeless incentivize homelessness' brain exploding meme logic.
I don't really intend to get too far into this conversation, but it's absolutely true that a large percentage of the homeless population choose homelessness rather than help if that help requires things like looking for work or getting off drugs. You can debate how much free agency a person really has when in the thrall of drug addiction, but merely having sufficient housing, for example, would still leave a very large number of homeless people on the street. There are people who panhandle for money and spend it on drugs and alcohol. Again, not saying these people don't need help, but by giving people cash with no conditions you are most definitely subsidizing at least some people's reckless behavior.
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On December 28 2023 08:47 Sadist wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2023 08:18 Mohdoo wrote:On December 28 2023 06:52 BlackJack wrote:
In general society should be cautious giving money to things it doesn't want to incentivize. We have things like scholarships to attend college and tax incentives for first time home buyers and having children because we want to incentivize more people to attend college or buy a home and start a family. Cash stipends for being homeless might just incentivize _________? Seemingly every year progressive cities spend more and more on homelessness and every year the problem gets worse and worse. Unfortunately they lack the linear thinking to see why that's happening so instead they insist they just need a bit more money to right the ship. It’s a weird situation because, like I pointed out, it’s not like any of us are dazed and confused trying to figure out how to solve the problem. The issue is that as they begin to plan how to address homelessness, city council or mayors or whatever look at 2 things: 1: the scale of the issue and approximate cost of solving the problem 2: resources available to use solving the problem As is the case with most things, there simply is not enough available resources to fix it, so the question becomes what can be done to still improve it with the resources available. This approach works in many situations but it does not work for homelessness. The actual, in practice policies enacted by Portland are wildly deficient and basically don’t solve anything. And there are many ways to argue the policies are a net negative. They had the right idea. Their hearts weee in the right place. But this is the fatal flaw: “well, we have to do something, so how can we work within these limitations to still make something happen? Even if we can’t solve it, we can make an impact through this or that” This ultimately leads to extremely poorly executed, under-funded, and mechanistically deficient policies. The people writing the adapted policies don’t understand how to adapt them well. They do a poor job at estimating cost because it’s extremely challenging, even after deciding to “do what we can”. The timeline ends up messed up because the logistics are also challenging, which often leads to certain pieces not lining up right and making it even less effective. Or certain parts of the project get cut half way through, which ultimately ends up being a critical weakness, making it all even less effective. And so I’ll say it again: homelessness is a federal problem. I would vote for a mayor/governor candidate who declared they would completely stop all the half-ass pats on the back and instead go absolutely nuclear on the federal government. Constantly posting graphic images, descriptions of deaths from overdose, and explicitly saying all of the blood is on mayor Pete or Biden’s hands. Make a national spectacle of it, be absolutely shameless, vile stuff left and right attacking the feds while highlighting the suffering of homeless people. Maybe some kind of running counter of “number of homeless people hit by car’s being driven by Joe Biden” or something like that. I’d love it. Can you clarify what the solution is? My understanding of homeless people in the US is that many of them have mental health issues and or addiction issues. I dont know what the percentages are but I would guess a majority. I am curious about what the solution is for the folks with Mental Health problems are. Outreach and stuff is great but Im pretty sure thats already happening. You can increase the Social Safety Net and I am 100% for that, I just think there will always be some homeless unless they are basically jailed in an asylum or something. Didnt the homeless population jump pretty dramatically once those places were shutdown in the US in the 70s and 80s?
There’s a few different groups and they have different solutions. Big problem is we need to do things for each of them.
Group A: just kinda suck ass at existing. Doing “their best”, but of course they make tons of mistakes and are also dumb. They go most of their life barely getting by and sometimes they end up homeless and never recover. These people just need as-needed assistance to stay afloat. Giving them handouts through various social programs makes sure they never fall below the homeless line. These methods are shown to be significantly cheaper than the costs incurred by a city from someone being homeless. If you can keep someone working and housed, they’re paying taxes and not straining various systems. These people should just be given what they end up needing because the only other options are killing them or letting them end up homeless and even more costly. The big part about this that conservatives generally refuse to acknowledge is that this group being homeless is more expensive than being given handouts. But it’s been studied to death and conservatives generally try to say “yeah but I want them to not be dumb!”. But they’re dumb and we need to move on.
Group B: actual mental illness prevents them from ever realistically being a part of society in a real way. Either we kill them or we keep them in mental institutions or medical facilities or whatever until they are healed and able to be normal again. If they’re never normal again, they stay in facilities forever. But better in a facility than hallucinating into traffic and dying.
Group C: this is a very, very, very small % group but they are among the most vile. These people insist being homeless is a “lifestyle”. They want to be homeless, begging, and basically they are a really bad version of a high school goth. They are bitter or insecure about this or that and they made their otherness an identity. They’re just garbage. They lash out at society through various forms of deviance and generally view themselves as morally right in lashing out and begging or harming society in whatever way they want. They assure themselves they are ultimately victims anyway but also they assure themselves they are free spirits. And also they are in their eyes above average intelligence. These people end up being the face of homelessness because they interact with the public the most. They do and say various things that make it deeply challenging to have sympathy for homeless people. But you see them more often because they aren’t ashamed like group A and they are mentally aware unlike group B. There is no solution for these. We should jail them when they do jail-worthy things. But there is no realistic solution to these people. You know how every 1000000 aluminum cans will have 1 can that the lid doesn’t work? That’s basically this group of humans. You can’t expect to ever have 100% yield in a manufacturing process. And you can’t expect all humans to be decent. Some people are vile and we can’t let it deter us from making things better. Many times, these people won’t even accept free housing because they like feeling very “other”. But for the ones that do accept it, it saves society money to have them use free housing, because they end up having more reason and incentive to be vile and be costly otherwise.
It really does come down to accepting the reality that this isn’t a motivational or cultural problem as a whole. Stuff like “they need to learn to improve and pull themselves up” has been disproven millions of times. It’s just not real. It pains me more than anything to give group C free housing, but it’s important to keep in mind the only other alternative is just executing them. We shouldn’t execute them, so I choose to think of it as “I save money selfishly as a taxpayer by giving this person a free mini homeless house or something to live in”.
This article summarizes how Utah has a ton of amazing success: https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2020/05/11/utah-was-once-lauded/
It also highlights the failures of Utah, what they could have done better, and the logistical challenges and funding challenges i originally described. It is a good framework. But it’s important to not get bogged down on “yeah but it wasn’t 100%” because 100% isn’t real. Some people will fight as hard as they can to remain homeless. And some still fall through the cracks. But if we give it the funding it needs and play the game correctly, we can enormously improve the situation and we have real world examples of these things working.
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EPT
