5 ms·

Coming soon to a demographic group near you. Homelessness, not just for day laborers and factory employees anymore. People ask what our plan will be when midd

by VLM 10y ago

Coming soon to a demographic group near you. Homelessness, not just for day laborers and factory employees anymore. People ask what our plan will be when middle class jobs are eliminated by automation and robots. As if things can't happen without a plan. And a good plan at that. Well, lack of plan never stopped anything in the 70s.

tomjen3 10y ago
Why not retry the work progress administration? Worst case we will end up with a bunch of cabins in national parks and a bunch of people who have learned that they are not total failures but can, in fact, make something both of themselves and their environment.
- douche 10y ago
  This makes entirely too much sense. Bring back the CCC. I had one of the better summers of my life doing something similar working for an Appalachian trail club.
  - politician 10y ago
    This solution would immediately be denounced as a forced labor camp.
jknoepfler 10y ago
I would encourage you to look at the actual national data around homeless rates and public investment into programs to fight and prevent homelessness. As a matter of fact, care for the homeless is something that people do invest in (although not enough). Although I don't disagree that we have structural economic challenges to overcome, and sooner rather than later (I happen to favor some kind of UBI), nothing will be improved by glib doom-saying. Getting public policy right is extremely difficult, but it would be made easier if the quality of discussion surrounding it were improved.
- VLM 10y ago
  Interest can be increased. Not just a blue collar issue from decades past, its the white collar future. Its incredibly important to note that the last couple decades of misadventure in analogous situations have failed. The worst possible outcome would be to convince ourselves to reimplement Detroit, for example. A stealth UBI seems likely. Much as America will never tolerate socialized medicine but we love our medicare, we'll have aggressive opposition to UBI while none the less having a stealth UBI under a different name. Note that on a personal level, not societal level, "we" threw those guys to the wolves. Its likely that when its "our" turn we'll get thrown to the wolves. That IS completely non-useful for society and fixes no large scale problems but is very helpful for small scale individual planning. Tradition is throw them to the wolves, and its likely in our lifetimes we'll be thrown to the wolves. So think up personal scale solutions to avoid their fate... No one will be coming to our defense.

by VLM 10y ago

tomjen3 10y ago

Why not retry the work progress administration? Worst case we will end up with a bunch of cabins in national parks and a bunch of people who have learned that they are not total failures but can, in fact, make something both of themselves and their environment.

douche 10y ago
This makes entirely too much sense. Bring back the CCC. I had one of the better summers of my life doing something similar working for an Appalachian trail club.
- politician 10y ago
  This solution would immediately be denounced as a forced labor camp.

jknoepfler 10y ago

I would encourage you to look at the actual national data around homeless rates and public investment into programs to fight and prevent homelessness. As a matter of fact, care for the homeless is something that people do invest in (although not enough). Although I don't disagree that we have structural economic challenges to overcome, and sooner rather than later (I happen to favor some kind of UBI), nothing will be improved by glib doom-saying. Getting public policy right is extremely difficult, but it would be made easier if the quality of discussion surrounding it were improved.

VLM 10y ago
Interest can be increased. Not just a blue collar issue from decades past, its the white collar future. Its incredibly important to note that the last couple decades of misadventure in analogous situations have failed. The worst possible outcome would be to convince ourselves to reimplement Detroit, for example. A stealth UBI seems likely. Much as America will never tolerate socialized medicine but we love our medicare, we'll have aggressive opposition to UBI while none the less having a stealth UBI under a different name. Note that on a personal level, not societal level, "we" threw those guys to the wolves. Its likely that when its "our" turn we'll get thrown to the wolves. That IS completely non-useful for society and fixes no large scale problems but is very helpful for small scale individual planning. Tradition is throw them to the wolves, and its likely in our lifetimes we'll be thrown to the wolves. So think up personal scale solutions to avoid their fate... No one will be coming to our defense.