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Accrual of vast amounts of wealth through unearned income and homelessness seems harder to reconcile. Especially since a lot of unearned income is essentially

Accrual of vast amounts of wealth through unearned income and homelessness seems harder to reconcile. Especially since a lot of unearned income is essentially predicated on keeping downward pressure on wages (wages and profit are often in conflict).

anbotero 7y ago
While your “unearned income” argument is usually technically right for the billionaires of the world, these days it’s commonly assigned to pretty much everyone but homeless, which irks me. It’s like no matter what you do, even if you work hard and you are a law abiding citizen (and some moral compass to help), you’re still the worst person in the world for not actively helping homeless. At some point in my country I had so many experiences with homeless using the money I gave them for drugs/booze or rejecting food because it was not money, that yes, I eventually just ignore them. I cannot know their background, but should I actively try to find out? I don’t feel like that’s what I like to do with my life. Am I a bad person because of it, according to the article? If so, well, I am.
- throwaway713 7y ago
  > homeless using the money I gave them for drugs/booze In grad school, I didn't have a whole lot of money myself, but a homeless person came up to me and asked for $20. I gave it to him, and—curious what he would do with it—proceeded to follow him at a distance. He walked into a gas station and purchased a six pack of beer. Today I was waiting in line outside a bakery in San Francisco and there was a kid about 10 years old in front of me. A homeless guy walked up next to him, pulled his pants down and proceeded to scream "asshole" loudly. Everyone in line did their best to pretend the guy wasn't there and he eventually wandered off. Call me callous and lacking empathy, but dealing with that particular "flavor" of homelessness is probably near the bottom of my todo list on ways that I can help improve the world. I get that there are a lot of homeless people that aren't like that (perhaps some catastrophic event happened to them), and I would like to help those people however I can, but the much more common kind of homelessness that I am exposed to on a daily basis around the Bay Area makes it very difficult for me to feel guilty about not doing more.

anbotero 7y ago

While your “unearned income” argument is usually technically right for the billionaires of the world, these days it’s commonly assigned to pretty much everyone but homeless, which irks me. It’s like no matter what you do, even if you work hard and you are a law abiding citizen (and some moral compass to help), you’re still the worst person in the world for not actively helping homeless. At some point in my country I had so many experiences with homeless using the money I gave them for drugs/booze or rejecting food because it was not money, that yes, I eventually just ignore them. I cannot know their background, but should I actively try to find out? I don’t feel like that’s what I like to do with my life. Am I a bad person because of it, according to the article? If so, well, I am.

throwaway713 7y ago
> homeless using the money I gave them for drugs/booze In grad school, I didn't have a whole lot of money myself, but a homeless person came up to me and asked for $20. I gave it to him, and—curious what he would do with it—proceeded to follow him at a distance. He walked into a gas station and purchased a six pack of beer. Today I was waiting in line outside a bakery in San Francisco and there was a kid about 10 years old in front of me. A homeless guy walked up next to him, pulled his pants down and proceeded to scream "asshole" loudly. Everyone in line did their best to pretend the guy wasn't there and he eventually wandered off. Call me callous and lacking empathy, but dealing with that particular "flavor" of homelessness is probably near the bottom of my todo list on ways that I can help improve the world. I get that there are a lot of homeless people that aren't like that (perhaps some catastrophic event happened to them), and I would like to help those people however I can, but the much more common kind of homelessness that I am exposed to on a daily basis around the Bay Area makes it very difficult for me to feel guilty about not doing more.