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There is absolutely so much wrong with this statement. You are trying to assert that something about the way this country functions is uniquely causing mental

There is absolutely so much wrong with this statement. You are trying to assert that something about the way this country functions is uniquely causing mental illness and other suffering, and that this should be the primary vector of analysis and intervention. There has been suffering and mental illness for as long as we know of. Human psychological suffering empirically can not be only about access to wealth and resources because otherwise every poor American would be free of suffering while everyone in the 19th century, no matter how wealthy, would have been a schizophrenic alcoholic. OTOH if there was something uniquely and overwhelmingly bad about the current United States versus other countries, we should be able to find that other countries have uniformly better mental health, yet look at suicide rates in Japan or Northern Europe. Your assertion also diminishes the challenges faced by people who struggle with these things, by making it about “the system” rather than really acknowledging these problems and how pernicious they are. And implied in your comment is disregard for human choice and how we each live a unique, sometimes extremely difficult, path through life.

joe_the_user 7y ago
The statistics showing "death from despair" as a significant cause of lowered life expectancy in the US are my "prima faci" evidence for my comment above. The idea that the situation of addicts and the homeless is "diminished" by complaints that their condition is related to a society that has reduced the minimum wage and failed to provide sufficient well-paid, satisfying jobs is kind of double-talk. Does talking about unaffordable rents in many major cities "diminish" the efforts of the homeless as well?
- whiddershins 7y ago
  “Does talking about unaffordable rents in many major cities "diminish" the efforts of the homeless as well?” Absolutely. This is actually a topic that I have moderate-to-substantial real world knowledge of. Long term homelessness is not primarily caused by high rents per se. Although in some cases rents can be a contributing factor, it is more commonly an issue of mental health, addiction, unemployability, and lack of access to a familial or similar safety net that are the proximate causes. Usually a combination of those issues. Pointing to homeless people sleeping on the streets and bringing up high rents is at best an uninformed opinion, and at worst using a suffering and marginalized population as rhetorical pawns in a political game. There was a lot more in what I said that you seemed to gloss over, but I appreciate you providing the opportunity for us to discuss a concrete case.
  - joe_the_user 7y ago
    The relationship between high rents and homeless is both common sense and reasonably well established by research [1] [2]. It should be noted that the present or absence of a safety net is also strongly influenced by the cost of survival - whether friends or family can take someone in depends their having extra-rooms, extra-food, etc. You're citing your personal knowledge without giving references or even details of your knowledge. The one factor confusing things is this; yes, once a person reaches hard-core homelessness or hard-core addiction, they indeed need much more than lower rents to get on their feet. But the chances of reaching that state are much higher when a person experiences incidental homelessness. And political? Yes, homelessness is political. There's no way to talk of homelessness without talking politically. [1] First reference: https://www.zillow.com/research/rents-larger-homeless-population-16124/ https://www.zillow.com/research/rents-larger-homeless-popula... [2] Google it: https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=correlation+between+rents+and+homelessness&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=cor...
    - whiddershins 7y ago
      All I see is the Zillow study. It’s correlation, there’s nothing to imply causation. Obviously large cities have very high rents, and most of the homeless people. It’s also Zillow. I am uncertain why they are doing these studies. The fact that you keep saying homelessness is primarily political and keep emphasizing that aspect kinda proves my point. I’m curious if you’ve worked in homeless services, or know a number of homeless people? In my experience, there is such a thing as suffering that shouldn’t be pinned on bad politics. Sometimes life is really hard, and it’s not the government’s fault, or corporations, or any of that. I think ... ideally ... the default first reaction to suffering should be compassion?
      - joe_the_user 7y ago
        All I see is the Zillow study. It’s correlation, there’s nothing to imply causation. Google can point you to several other studies. The phrase "correlation does not imply causation" basically could best broken down as "the correlation of two graphs doesn't mean much unless you have a decent model to explain why they're correlated". But in this case, we have a good model for high rents causing homelessness - people become homeless when they lose homes and can't find another house or apartment. High rents make this more likely - high rents also make it harder for someone who's working to "couch surf" until they find another place. Being a functional, short-term homeless person makes latent substance abuse and mental illness issues more likely to appear and intensifying existing ones - sleep deprivation is a major factor. The relationship between sleep deprivation and many such problems has been studied in depth. In my experience, there is such a thing as suffering that shouldn’t be pinned on bad politics. That's a pretty weird statement. Obviously, I'm politically to the left and believe that society in general and highly destructive social policies, in total is responsible for homelessness in aggregate but see below. I think ... ideally ... the default first reaction to suffering should be compassion? My default reaction to homelessness is generally an effort to step-in and help. I've spent thousands of dollars of my own money helping individual friends avoid homelessness (sometimes successfully, sometimes not so), I've distributed food at soup kitchens and I've protested the eviction of homeless camps. I give money directly to homeless people when I can. I've know others involved in social services. Oh, and I've been homeless for moderate periods. Your statements seem to imply that seeing homelessness as political negates efforts to help - but instead, my individual efforts to help give me the strong impression this problem larger than my personal ability to solve, hence it is a problem of society, a political problem in the sense of how do we run our society (assuming, maybe mistakenly, some "we" exists today). I think most people involved in homeless services feel also feel this problem requires more than just the intervention of charity. I understand that some people are so wholly dysfunctional that they aren't going to easily join society when offered a minimum wage job or even, necessarily, an ordinary apartment - mean, my original post mentioning broken people is what started this off, right? That doesn't change the way that social conditions are a large part of what creates this society. Of those groups involved in interacting with homeless, your attitude seems closest to that of the police and others in the "justice" system who constantly claim far greater knowledge of the conditions of the homeless than all others but who's views tend be twisted, cruel and malicious through their impulse justify society's brutal dictates towards the homeless. Plus unsupported by any objective studies. "You don't really know what these people are like" is the common rhetoric. I would mention that law enforcement sees the dysfunctional homeless primarily because anyone functional and homeless stays as far as practical away from law enforcement and any homeless service that aims to control people (ie, lots of shelters, etc).

joe_the_user 7y ago

The statistics showing "death from despair" as a significant cause of lowered life expectancy in the US are my "prima faci" evidence for my comment above. The idea that the situation of addicts and the homeless is "diminished" by complaints that their condition is related to a society that has reduced the minimum wage and failed to provide sufficient well-paid, satisfying jobs is kind of double-talk. Does talking about unaffordable rents in many major cities "diminish" the efforts of the homeless as well?

whiddershins 7y ago
“Does talking about unaffordable rents in many major cities "diminish" the efforts of the homeless as well?” Absolutely. This is actually a topic that I have moderate-to-substantial real world knowledge of. Long term homelessness is not primarily caused by high rents per se. Although in some cases rents can be a contributing factor, it is more commonly an issue of mental health, addiction, unemployability, and lack of access to a familial or similar safety net that are the proximate causes. Usually a combination of those issues. Pointing to homeless people sleeping on the streets and bringing up high rents is at best an uninformed opinion, and at worst using a suffering and marginalized population as rhetorical pawns in a political game. There was a lot more in what I said that you seemed to gloss over, but I appreciate you providing the opportunity for us to discuss a concrete case.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  The relationship between high rents and homeless is both common sense and reasonably well established by research [1] [2]. It should be noted that the present or absence of a safety net is also strongly influenced by the cost of survival - whether friends or family can take someone in depends their having extra-rooms, extra-food, etc. You're citing your personal knowledge without giving references or even details of your knowledge. The one factor confusing things is this; yes, once a person reaches hard-core homelessness or hard-core addiction, they indeed need much more than lower rents to get on their feet. But the chances of reaching that state are much higher when a person experiences incidental homelessness. And political? Yes, homelessness is political. There's no way to talk of homelessness without talking politically. [1] First reference: https://www.zillow.com/research/rents-larger-homeless-population-16124/ https://www.zillow.com/research/rents-larger-homeless-popula... [2] Google it: https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=correlation+between+rents+and+homelessness&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=cor...
  - whiddershins 7y ago
    All I see is the Zillow study. It’s correlation, there’s nothing to imply causation. Obviously large cities have very high rents, and most of the homeless people. It’s also Zillow. I am uncertain why they are doing these studies. The fact that you keep saying homelessness is primarily political and keep emphasizing that aspect kinda proves my point. I’m curious if you’ve worked in homeless services, or know a number of homeless people? In my experience, there is such a thing as suffering that shouldn’t be pinned on bad politics. Sometimes life is really hard, and it’s not the government’s fault, or corporations, or any of that. I think ... ideally ... the default first reaction to suffering should be compassion?
    - joe_the_user 7y ago
      All I see is the Zillow study. It’s correlation, there’s nothing to imply causation. Google can point you to several other studies. The phrase "correlation does not imply causation" basically could best broken down as "the correlation of two graphs doesn't mean much unless you have a decent model to explain why they're correlated". But in this case, we have a good model for high rents causing homelessness - people become homeless when they lose homes and can't find another house or apartment. High rents make this more likely - high rents also make it harder for someone who's working to "couch surf" until they find another place. Being a functional, short-term homeless person makes latent substance abuse and mental illness issues more likely to appear and intensifying existing ones - sleep deprivation is a major factor. The relationship between sleep deprivation and many such problems has been studied in depth. In my experience, there is such a thing as suffering that shouldn’t be pinned on bad politics. That's a pretty weird statement. Obviously, I'm politically to the left and believe that society in general and highly destructive social policies, in total is responsible for homelessness in aggregate but see below. I think ... ideally ... the default first reaction to suffering should be compassion? My default reaction to homelessness is generally an effort to step-in and help. I've spent thousands of dollars of my own money helping individual friends avoid homelessness (sometimes successfully, sometimes not so), I've distributed food at soup kitchens and I've protested the eviction of homeless camps. I give money directly to homeless people when I can. I've know others involved in social services. Oh, and I've been homeless for moderate periods. Your statements seem to imply that seeing homelessness as political negates efforts to help - but instead, my individual efforts to help give me the strong impression this problem larger than my personal ability to solve, hence it is a problem of society, a political problem in the sense of how do we run our society (assuming, maybe mistakenly, some "we" exists today). I think most people involved in homeless services feel also feel this problem requires more than just the intervention of charity. I understand that some people are so wholly dysfunctional that they aren't going to easily join society when offered a minimum wage job or even, necessarily, an ordinary apartment - mean, my original post mentioning broken people is what started this off, right? That doesn't change the way that social conditions are a large part of what creates this society. Of those groups involved in interacting with homeless, your attitude seems closest to that of the police and others in the "justice" system who constantly claim far greater knowledge of the conditions of the homeless than all others but who's views tend be twisted, cruel and malicious through their impulse justify society's brutal dictates towards the homeless. Plus unsupported by any objective studies. "You don't really know what these people are like" is the common rhetoric. I would mention that law enforcement sees the dysfunctional homeless primarily because anyone functional and homeless stays as far as practical away from law enforcement and any homeless service that aims to control people (ie, lots of shelters, etc).