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I’ll go back to what I noted in my original comment: “why should I subsidize the comfort of people who are so aggressively antisocial?” This group has generate

I’ll go back to what I noted in my original comment: “why should I subsidize the comfort of people who are so aggressively antisocial?” This group has generated so much negative goodwill with the general public that any “logical” solution that requires public $ is going to have a difficult time prevailing. The easiest and intuitively cheapest solution in the minds of most people is: make them go somewhere else.

noobermin 5y ago
My point is you subsidize them or the issue is not fixed and the issue persists including the aspects you don't like. Making them go somewhere else doesn't work because somewhere else will make them go back to you. I get that it's not popular with the public, that's why we have these debates, because the public needs to figure out whether it really wants to solve the issue by partially getting over itself or it doesn't and prefers to live in the bad situation that current exists. EDIT: usually these arguments from the progressives appeals to morality or whatever, but in this case, it's literally an effectiveness argument. It works, regardless how one feels so it should be done. Now, if one argues "well, it might not work here," that to me is a more interesting and worthwhile discussion. But if one's point is "well, I don't dispute whether it works or not or whether it won't work here, I just hate the homeless so much I don't want to do the thing that would actually fix it," leads me to question whether one hates it enough to actually address the issue or not.
- bequanna 5y ago
  > Making them go somewhere else doesn't work because somewhere else will make them go back to you. Not really true at all. If you are a Midwestern city with a homeless "problem", giving them a one-way ticket to San Francisco (or somewhere else that is hospitable to homeless) seems to be a good way to get rid of them for good. If one is able to look at this situation objectively, this is a really interesting and complex problem to consider at the level of the municipality. Different cities will have different strategies. ...and like in my example above, a change in one city's strategies might actually change your strategy. If San Francisco starts cracking down on tent cities and tries to prohibit panhandling, open drug use, etc. then those Midwestern cities may have to start sending their homeless to another place, or just deal with them in-place. The equilibrium that this game reaches may be the place that has the most reasonable, humane and probably expensive solution to homelessness actually increases the number of homeless they have to accommodate as they become a permanent draw.
  - wonnage 5y ago
    So your proposed outcome is that nobody has homeless services?
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      If they’re going to suffer, it seems like making them suffer somewhere else is incredibly popular.

noobermin 5y ago

My point is you subsidize them or the issue is not fixed and the issue persists including the aspects you don't like. Making them go somewhere else doesn't work because somewhere else will make them go back to you. I get that it's not popular with the public, that's why we have these debates, because the public needs to figure out whether it really wants to solve the issue by partially getting over itself or it doesn't and prefers to live in the bad situation that current exists. EDIT: usually these arguments from the progressives appeals to morality or whatever, but in this case, it's literally an effectiveness argument. It works, regardless how one feels so it should be done. Now, if one argues "well, it might not work here," that to me is a more interesting and worthwhile discussion. But if one's point is "well, I don't dispute whether it works or not or whether it won't work here, I just hate the homeless so much I don't want to do the thing that would actually fix it," leads me to question whether one hates it enough to actually address the issue or not.

bequanna 5y ago
> Making them go somewhere else doesn't work because somewhere else will make them go back to you. Not really true at all. If you are a Midwestern city with a homeless "problem", giving them a one-way ticket to San Francisco (or somewhere else that is hospitable to homeless) seems to be a good way to get rid of them for good. If one is able to look at this situation objectively, this is a really interesting and complex problem to consider at the level of the municipality. Different cities will have different strategies. ...and like in my example above, a change in one city's strategies might actually change your strategy. If San Francisco starts cracking down on tent cities and tries to prohibit panhandling, open drug use, etc. then those Midwestern cities may have to start sending their homeless to another place, or just deal with them in-place. The equilibrium that this game reaches may be the place that has the most reasonable, humane and probably expensive solution to homelessness actually increases the number of homeless they have to accommodate as they become a permanent draw.
- wonnage 5y ago
  So your proposed outcome is that nobody has homeless services?
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    If they’re going to suffer, it seems like making them suffer somewhere else is incredibly popular.