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Probably quite highly paid people who don't mind manual labour. I find it really interesting to think about how prices and practices would have to shift if we

Probably quite highly paid people who don't mind manual labour. I find it really interesting to think about how prices and practices would have to shift if we couldn't "force" anyone to do anything.

SllX 5y ago
We don’t. We hire for a job that needs doing for a price that someone is willing to do it for. If no one applies to do it, you’re not entitled to go out and impress someone into service: you keep looking or you do it yourself.
- philosopher1234 5y ago
  The reason some people are willing to do some jobs involves force. The idea that people have freedom of choice in what they do is a sleight of hand to obscure the fact that many jobs are taken due to threat of immediate homelessness.
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    Believe it or not, that's still a choice. There are people on the street not willing to make that choice. Most people on the street chose homelessness in some sense and to some degree. Someone on r/homeless once said "I didn't choose the choice." In other words, homelessness is often a case of choosing the lesser evil. They decided it was better than staying in an abusive relationship or something like that. I wish we would design and build a world with better options and fewer people being pushed into homelessness. But I also wish people would see homeless people more clearly as real people with minds and personalities and some degree of agency. It is a disservice to them to simply stamp "victim" on their forehead and think no further on the matter.
    - SllX 5y ago
      I can’t add to your response, so I’ll simply endorse it.
    - BackBlast 5y ago
      The forefront of our society's choices that creates this state are zoning laws. They create artificial barriers that increase the minimum viable income level. Around here that minimum is about $1000 for a one bedroom. That's a pretty tall minimum, especially when someone is down and out. Anyone who doesn't make the financial cut for any reason and has no willing support network is on the street. I'm not talking about more high density housing, though making that less limited would help. With existing resources it wouldn't be hard to turn parking lots from rundown commercial districts into live-in-your-car lots. I ran a bunch of numbers, and it would be reasonable for a person to rent their parking space and additional shared facilities (wifi, bathrooms, showers, food prep area, laundromat) for less than $150/mo. You might hit as low as $50-$100 depending on local real estate pricing as a non-profit. Most of these ingredients are readily available in every modern city and having a very low rent outlet that allowed people independence would clean up a lot of homelessness. I know I'd much rather live out of a car than on the street. This is just one potential solution. The impediments are more institutional inertia than an actual inability to solve the problems.
      - DoreenMichele 5y ago
        It's a lot more complicated than that and I'm really not interested in hearing more schemes to provide "homes for the homeless." All such schemes boil down "I have some idea for housing people that sounds like it might interest people currently sleeping in a dumpster." The thing about homelessness is that the minute you have a home, you are no longer homeless. This is not a separate population that needs some weird sub par answer that damn few people would genuinely desire as a housing solution. Homeless people are just people currently without housing. That's it. That's all it is. We need more housing for ordinary, not wealthy people. Housing with dignity but that dignity needs to stop being defined by people who think "If it's not a mansion, I ain't living in it!" We used to build small homes. Normal, market rate small homes. We mostly don't anymore. Financing mechanisms and tax incentives are part of the morass of housing policies creating the current mess, not just zoning codes. Though we have largely zoned out of existence the ability to build Missing Middle Housing, etc.
        BackBlast 5y ago
nerdponx 5y ago
You know how in the early and mid 20th century people were predicting all this cool stuff about how the world will be post-scarcity some day soon, nobody will have to work more than a few hours a week, etc? There is a reason why the "people in power" (hand-waving over who they might actually be) never want that to come to pass.
- jhanschoo 5y ago
  That's a conspiracy I can't get behind, considering how desperately we cling on to the one taste of a post-scarcity society, having cheap power (pun intended) from oil.

Probably quite highly paid people who don't mind manual labour. I find it really interesting to think about how prices and practices would have to shift if we couldn't "force" anyone to do anything.

SllX 5y ago

We don’t. We hire for a job that needs doing for a price that someone is willing to do it for. If no one applies to do it, you’re not entitled to go out and impress someone into service: you keep looking or you do it yourself.

philosopher1234 5y ago
The reason some people are willing to do some jobs involves force. The idea that people have freedom of choice in what they do is a sleight of hand to obscure the fact that many jobs are taken due to threat of immediate homelessness.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  Believe it or not, that's still a choice. There are people on the street not willing to make that choice. Most people on the street chose homelessness in some sense and to some degree. Someone on r/homeless once said "I didn't choose the choice." In other words, homelessness is often a case of choosing the lesser evil. They decided it was better than staying in an abusive relationship or something like that. I wish we would design and build a world with better options and fewer people being pushed into homelessness. But I also wish people would see homeless people more clearly as real people with minds and personalities and some degree of agency. It is a disservice to them to simply stamp "victim" on their forehead and think no further on the matter.
  - SllX 5y ago
    I can’t add to your response, so I’ll simply endorse it.
  - BackBlast 5y ago
    The forefront of our society's choices that creates this state are zoning laws. They create artificial barriers that increase the minimum viable income level. Around here that minimum is about $1000 for a one bedroom. That's a pretty tall minimum, especially when someone is down and out. Anyone who doesn't make the financial cut for any reason and has no willing support network is on the street. I'm not talking about more high density housing, though making that less limited would help. With existing resources it wouldn't be hard to turn parking lots from rundown commercial districts into live-in-your-car lots. I ran a bunch of numbers, and it would be reasonable for a person to rent their parking space and additional shared facilities (wifi, bathrooms, showers, food prep area, laundromat) for less than $150/mo. You might hit as low as $50-$100 depending on local real estate pricing as a non-profit. Most of these ingredients are readily available in every modern city and having a very low rent outlet that allowed people independence would clean up a lot of homelessness. I know I'd much rather live out of a car than on the street. This is just one potential solution. The impediments are more institutional inertia than an actual inability to solve the problems.
    - DoreenMichele 5y ago
      It's a lot more complicated than that and I'm really not interested in hearing more schemes to provide "homes for the homeless." All such schemes boil down "I have some idea for housing people that sounds like it might interest people currently sleeping in a dumpster." The thing about homelessness is that the minute you have a home, you are no longer homeless. This is not a separate population that needs some weird sub par answer that damn few people would genuinely desire as a housing solution. Homeless people are just people currently without housing. That's it. That's all it is. We need more housing for ordinary, not wealthy people. Housing with dignity but that dignity needs to stop being defined by people who think "If it's not a mansion, I ain't living in it!" We used to build small homes. Normal, market rate small homes. We mostly don't anymore. Financing mechanisms and tax incentives are part of the morass of housing policies creating the current mess, not just zoning codes. Though we have largely zoned out of existence the ability to build Missing Middle Housing, etc.
      - BackBlast 5y ago

nerdponx 5y ago

You know how in the early and mid 20th century people were predicting all this cool stuff about how the world will be post-scarcity some day soon, nobody will have to work more than a few hours a week, etc? There is a reason why the "people in power" (hand-waving over who they might actually be) never want that to come to pass.

jhanschoo 5y ago
That's a conspiracy I can't get behind, considering how desperately we cling on to the one taste of a post-scarcity society, having cheap power (pun intended) from oil.