6 ms·

>We give cars free places to sleep while people are homeless. This is basically the equivalent of saying, "People give pets free food and shelter while letting

by gph 8y ago

>We give cars free places to sleep while people are homeless. This is basically the equivalent of saying, "People give pets free food and shelter while letting the homeless starve, what's wrong with our society" Sure sounds deep and meaningful, but really it isn't

joe_the_user 8y ago
Uh, "People give pets free food and shelter while letting the homeless starve, what's wrong with our society" is ... meaningfull, "telling" but not insightful. Misery and poverty in the midst of plenty is symptom of a serious problem, it's signal we should be thinking about the situation. The non-insightful part is that this, by itself, doesn't point the way out of the problem.
benatkin 8y ago
It is meaningful, if you choose to think about it. Most people choose to ignore it, because it brings up a lot of thoughts that are inconvenient or uncomfortable. Effective Altruism asks these questions. It's a pretty easy decision for me whether to support a pet charity (including the wildly inefficient service of personally rescuing a dog or cat) or a humanitarian charity. It's different if you have pets for your own enjoyment. I really would like straightforward answers. I'm surprised there isn't more things like this: https://causeprioritization.org/Cause_prioritization https://causeprioritization.org/Cause_prioritization It gets very complicated and turns into three dimensional chess. Well I guess I answered my own question of why it's a small niche. This has influenced my thinking a lot: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-fuzzies-and-utilons-separately https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-f... As a consequentialist I'm a bit noncommital. I would hate to spend 40 hours in a month helping an acquaintance to find a job when I could spend that same 40 hours saving a life by making more money and using it to buy mosquito nets for Against Malaria.
CalRobert 8y ago
If I said "you can't build apartments because this is zoned for low density dog houses" what you said _might_ be a relevant comparison.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
karambahh 8y ago
I think you're comparing apples to oranges here. If you reclaim a parking space for another use (such as building accommodation for families or an animal shelter), you're not depriving the car of anything, it's an expensive, large piece of metal and is not sentient. Next, you'll say that you're depriving car owners from the practicality of parking their vehicles anywhere they like. I'm perfectly fine with depriving car owners from this convenience to allow a human being to have a roof over their head. (speaking from direct experience as I've just minutes ago had to park my car 1km away from home because the city is currently building housing and has restricted parking space nearby) Then, some might argue that one should be ashamed of helping animals while humans are suffering. That's the exact same train of thought with «we can't allow more migrants in, we have to take care of our "own" homeless people». This is a false dichotomy. Western societies inequalities are growing larger and larger. Me trying to do my part is insignificant. Me donating to human or animal causes is a small dent into the mountains of inequalities we live on top of. Us collectively, we do make a difference, by donating, voting and generally keeping our eyes open about the world we live in... Finally, an entirely anecdotal pov: I've witnessed several times extremely poor people going out of their ways to show solidarity to animals or humans. I've also witnessed an awful lot of extremely wealthy individuals complaining about the poor inconveniencing them by just being there, whose wealth was a direct consequences of their ancestors exploiting whose very same poor people.
- gph 8y ago
  So we should never have parking lots, because they could be repurposed into homes for homeless people? I feel this is only really relevant to high-density cities that are being underdeveloped because of local regulations and NIMBY. Most of America has plenty of space when it comes down to it. And aren't the parking lots this article is talking about basically public access parking for beaches? Do ya'll really think it's reasonable to say we need to remove public beach parking because it could be better used for condos? Because that's dumb, and that quote I responded to was said as if parking is a violation of human rights because it takes away room for shelter.
  - karambahh 8y ago

by gph 8y ago

joe_the_user 8y ago

Uh, "People give pets free food and shelter while letting the homeless starve, what's wrong with our society" is ... meaningfull, "telling" but not insightful. Misery and poverty in the midst of plenty is symptom of a serious problem, it's signal we should be thinking about the situation. The non-insightful part is that this, by itself, doesn't point the way out of the problem.

benatkin 8y ago

It is meaningful, if you choose to think about it. Most people choose to ignore it, because it brings up a lot of thoughts that are inconvenient or uncomfortable. Effective Altruism asks these questions. It's a pretty easy decision for me whether to support a pet charity (including the wildly inefficient service of personally rescuing a dog or cat) or a humanitarian charity. It's different if you have pets for your own enjoyment. I really would like straightforward answers. I'm surprised there isn't more things like this: https://causeprioritization.org/Cause_prioritization https://causeprioritization.org/Cause_prioritization It gets very complicated and turns into three dimensional chess. Well I guess I answered my own question of why it's a small niche. This has influenced my thinking a lot: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-fuzzies-and-utilons-separately https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-f... As a consequentialist I'm a bit noncommital. I would hate to spend 40 hours in a month helping an acquaintance to find a job when I could spend that same 40 hours saving a life by making more money and using it to buy mosquito nets for Against Malaria.

CalRobert 8y ago

If I said "you can't build apartments because this is zoned for low density dog houses" what you said _might_ be a relevant comparison.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

karambahh 8y ago

I think you're comparing apples to oranges here. If you reclaim a parking space for another use (such as building accommodation for families or an animal shelter), you're not depriving the car of anything, it's an expensive, large piece of metal and is not sentient. Next, you'll say that you're depriving car owners from the practicality of parking their vehicles anywhere they like. I'm perfectly fine with depriving car owners from this convenience to allow a human being to have a roof over their head. (speaking from direct experience as I've just minutes ago had to park my car 1km away from home because the city is currently building housing and has restricted parking space nearby) Then, some might argue that one should be ashamed of helping animals while humans are suffering. That's the exact same train of thought with «we can't allow more migrants in, we have to take care of our "own" homeless people». This is a false dichotomy. Western societies inequalities are growing larger and larger. Me trying to do my part is insignificant. Me donating to human or animal causes is a small dent into the mountains of inequalities we live on top of. Us collectively, we do make a difference, by donating, voting and generally keeping our eyes open about the world we live in... Finally, an entirely anecdotal pov: I've witnessed several times extremely poor people going out of their ways to show solidarity to animals or humans. I've also witnessed an awful lot of extremely wealthy individuals complaining about the poor inconveniencing them by just being there, whose wealth was a direct consequences of their ancestors exploiting whose very same poor people.

gph 8y ago
So we should never have parking lots, because they could be repurposed into homes for homeless people? I feel this is only really relevant to high-density cities that are being underdeveloped because of local regulations and NIMBY. Most of America has plenty of space when it comes down to it. And aren't the parking lots this article is talking about basically public access parking for beaches? Do ya'll really think it's reasonable to say we need to remove public beach parking because it could be better used for condos? Because that's dumb, and that quote I responded to was said as if parking is a violation of human rights because it takes away room for shelter.
- karambahh 8y ago