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> why on earth would you be allowed to live in a place where nobody wants to live with you? You might want to step back and take a deeper thought about this.

> why on earth would you be allowed to live in a place where nobody wants to live with you? You might want to step back and take a deeper thought about this. We aren't very far removed from redlining and all manner of restrictions on where people live. But even stepping back from mindless restrictions based on race, sexuality and religion, this is even problematic with objectively undesirable elements, like the homeless. Lots of states and localities would love to make homelessness illegal. Many of them already toe that line. But what is a homeless person to do if each and every city outlaws their presence? Will we build giant homeless refugee camps in the country's interior?

pkdpic 5y ago
Aren't we already allowing / building increasingly large homeless refugee camps?
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  Not in the US. Occasionally, some effort to make a homeless camp livable is talked about but the powers-that-be still act to do the opposite, first the make homeless camp a hellhole and then kick everyone out to re-appear elsewhere.
  - exporectomy 5y ago
    Isn't a livable homeless camp a shanty town? Is that really something to aim for as the long term solution? Personally, I like the freedom it gives residents but it also gives them health and safety problems and people are generally awful at protecting themselves from that.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  That's not the answer to the homelessness. There's plenty of housing everywhere just sitting by to drive speculation. Building ghettos/camps is just for giving rich people good conscience that they don't have to see homeless people when they go out on the street.
pasquinelli 5y ago
> You might want to step back and take a deeper thought about this. We aren't very far removed from redlining and all manner of restrictions on where people live. the situation is: in a co-op living arrangement the community can kick someone out by consensus. someone says: why should you be allowed to live somewhere if the community wants you out? you respond talking about redlining and de facto criminalization of homelessness. but these things happened and are happening not in the context of a cooperative community. so by comparison you have a co-op that can banish someone if the community decides on it collectively, and you have a status quo where other forces can also banish a person. i don't get what you're getting at.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- stale2002 5y ago
  > but these things happened and are happening not in the context of a cooperative community. They absolutely could be. A cooperative community full of racists might very well attempt to kick out people of certain races. > you have a status quo where other forces can also banish a person. Ah, see, but we don't have that status quo. Nobody can kick me out of my apartment, as long as I keep paying rent. And that paying rent part, isn't even strictly something that would get me kicked out, in certain places! There are tons of laws and rules and regulations that very much prevent people from being kicked out of places. > i don't get what you're getting at. What he was getting at, is that it should be obvious that just because a majority of people want someone kicked out, that this might not be a good reason to actually kick them out! EX: if a majority want to kick out certain races, we, as society, should prevent that majority from democratically excluding certain races. So, in other words the answer to the question of "why should you be allowed to live somewhere if the community wants you out?" is because we live in a society, and in that society we want to prevent racists from kicking people out of where they live, even if they kick them out democratically.
  - tmp538394722 5y ago
    If I understand the point you’re trying to make - I appreciate it, but I wonder if you might be talking past each other. Just to be clear, consensus is intentionally very different from a simple majority system - the way that most of the historical racist systems have perpetuated. It’s certainly not impossible for these things to exist in a consensus based environment, but it’s a different beast.
bsanr2 5y ago
This, of course, leads to the uncomfortable answer to OP's original question. We know what the US would look like under those circumstances: it would look like it does today.
southerntofu 5y ago
> this is even problematic with objectively undesirable elements, like the homeless. Homeless people are sensible and capable people, not "objectively undesirable elements". Also, no one is essentially "homeless" like one is assigned a race or gender based on certain physical characteristics. Homelessness is the disease of a society which has no respect for humans whatsoever, and in which the number of empty dwellings far outweigh the number of homeless people. Many self-organized communes are built by people who were previously homeless or living in squats. Yes, of course that includes queer and colored folks, and people of different religions. In fact, some previously-homeless folks can be very helpful to a community because they're often used to various forms of mutual aid and doing the best we can with what we have (hacking around stuff). > But what is a homeless person to do if each and every city outlaws their presence? We're talking about autonomous communes based on various forms of affinity, not centralized power structures. That's a very different topic. I may be wrong, but i'm tempted to believe even in most cities, if there were any actual form of democracy, most people would choose to help the homeless (at least in the popular neighborhoods, as research has shown empathy decreases with wealth) because the solution is easy: just take the empty apartments and place homeless people in. Problem solved. As easy as 1-2-3 if you don't care for this tiny piece of paper called "property title" which in our cultures is deemed more important than actual human lives. If that sounds way too radical for you, how about giving some space for people to build their own housing? Many homeless people would be happy to build something if there were not angry blue-uniformed psychopaths tearing it all down whenever they liked it. But in this topic, we're talking about collective housing on the countryside, which is very adapted for formerly-homeless folks. First, because after years on the streets it can be frightening to suddenly have a place of your own where you have to stay alone. Second, because having people around can help with many physical/psychological/material problems. Third, because taking part in a collective project such as building a commune can be very empowering. Fourth, because getting closer to nature is soothing, especially after a long time struggling for basic survival in the concrete jungle. But please remember we're talking about a small commune without a mayor, and where consensus (100% of people agree!) is required to kick someone out. It's not exactly kafkaian tyranny. If anything, the rules we're used to on a daily basis are much more unjust and violent. Like the one that says if you don't have enough imaginary numbers (money) to give to an arbitrary person (landlord) then heavily-armed puppets (cops) will tear down your door and evict you at gunpoint. That's the kind of ordinary injustice and violence which does not exist in free communes. If you still think excluding someone from a community is oppressive, you might want to take a step back and look around you at the evil barbarism lying at the roots of capitalist society.

pkdpic 5y ago

Aren't we already allowing / building increasingly large homeless refugee camps?

joe_the_user 5y ago
Not in the US. Occasionally, some effort to make a homeless camp livable is talked about but the powers-that-be still act to do the opposite, first the make homeless camp a hellhole and then kick everyone out to re-appear elsewhere.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  Isn't a livable homeless camp a shanty town? Is that really something to aim for as the long term solution? Personally, I like the freedom it gives residents but it also gives them health and safety problems and people are generally awful at protecting themselves from that.
southerntofu 5y ago
That's not the answer to the homelessness. There's plenty of housing everywhere just sitting by to drive speculation. Building ghettos/camps is just for giving rich people good conscience that they don't have to see homeless people when they go out on the street.

pasquinelli 5y ago

> You might want to step back and take a deeper thought about this. We aren't very far removed from redlining and all manner of restrictions on where people live. the situation is: in a co-op living arrangement the community can kick someone out by consensus. someone says: why should you be allowed to live somewhere if the community wants you out? you respond talking about redlining and de facto criminalization of homelessness. but these things happened and are happening not in the context of a cooperative community. so by comparison you have a co-op that can banish someone if the community decides on it collectively, and you have a status quo where other forces can also banish a person. i don't get what you're getting at.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
stale2002 5y ago
> but these things happened and are happening not in the context of a cooperative community. They absolutely could be. A cooperative community full of racists might very well attempt to kick out people of certain races. > you have a status quo where other forces can also banish a person. Ah, see, but we don't have that status quo. Nobody can kick me out of my apartment, as long as I keep paying rent. And that paying rent part, isn't even strictly something that would get me kicked out, in certain places! There are tons of laws and rules and regulations that very much prevent people from being kicked out of places. > i don't get what you're getting at. What he was getting at, is that it should be obvious that just because a majority of people want someone kicked out, that this might not be a good reason to actually kick them out! EX: if a majority want to kick out certain races, we, as society, should prevent that majority from democratically excluding certain races. So, in other words the answer to the question of "why should you be allowed to live somewhere if the community wants you out?" is because we live in a society, and in that society we want to prevent racists from kicking people out of where they live, even if they kick them out democratically.
- tmp538394722 5y ago
  If I understand the point you’re trying to make - I appreciate it, but I wonder if you might be talking past each other. Just to be clear, consensus is intentionally very different from a simple majority system - the way that most of the historical racist systems have perpetuated. It’s certainly not impossible for these things to exist in a consensus based environment, but it’s a different beast.

bsanr2 5y ago

This, of course, leads to the uncomfortable answer to OP's original question. We know what the US would look like under those circumstances: it would look like it does today.

southerntofu 5y ago

> this is even problematic with objectively undesirable elements, like the homeless. Homeless people are sensible and capable people, not "objectively undesirable elements". Also, no one is essentially "homeless" like one is assigned a race or gender based on certain physical characteristics. Homelessness is the disease of a society which has no respect for humans whatsoever, and in which the number of empty dwellings far outweigh the number of homeless people. Many self-organized communes are built by people who were previously homeless or living in squats. Yes, of course that includes queer and colored folks, and people of different religions. In fact, some previously-homeless folks can be very helpful to a community because they're often used to various forms of mutual aid and doing the best we can with what we have (hacking around stuff). > But what is a homeless person to do if each and every city outlaws their presence? We're talking about autonomous communes based on various forms of affinity, not centralized power structures. That's a very different topic. I may be wrong, but i'm tempted to believe even in most cities, if there were any actual form of democracy, most people would choose to help the homeless (at least in the popular neighborhoods, as research has shown empathy decreases with wealth) because the solution is easy: just take the empty apartments and place homeless people in. Problem solved. As easy as 1-2-3 if you don't care for this tiny piece of paper called "property title" which in our cultures is deemed more important than actual human lives. If that sounds way too radical for you, how about giving some space for people to build their own housing? Many homeless people would be happy to build something if there were not angry blue-uniformed psychopaths tearing it all down whenever they liked it. But in this topic, we're talking about collective housing on the countryside, which is very adapted for formerly-homeless folks. First, because after years on the streets it can be frightening to suddenly have a place of your own where you have to stay alone. Second, because having people around can help with many physical/psychological/material problems. Third, because taking part in a collective project such as building a commune can be very empowering. Fourth, because getting closer to nature is soothing, especially after a long time struggling for basic survival in the concrete jungle. But please remember we're talking about a small commune without a mayor, and where consensus (100% of people agree!) is required to kick someone out. It's not exactly kafkaian tyranny. If anything, the rules we're used to on a daily basis are much more unjust and violent. Like the one that says if you don't have enough imaginary numbers (money) to give to an arbitrary person (landlord) then heavily-armed puppets (cops) will tear down your door and evict you at gunpoint. That's the kind of ordinary injustice and violence which does not exist in free communes. If you still think excluding someone from a community is oppressive, you might want to take a step back and look around you at the evil barbarism lying at the roots of capitalist society.