4 ms·

Why do you think experience of Romanian immigrants in Australia would be relevant to the experience of people with Romanian beggars in the UK? The UK for years

Why do you think experience of Romanian immigrants in Australia would be relevant to the experience of people with Romanian beggars in the UK? The UK for years was a part of the EU and thus allowed unlimited, no-questions-asked immigration from Romania: the literal opposite of immigration policy in Australia.

vertis 5y ago
I said nothing about Romanian immigrants, rather that homelessness was a real problem. The parent comment was choosing to suggest that all beggars were fake and that you "shouldn't encourage them". They were using a rather poor metro.co.uk article as the only justification for that statement. Homelessness is a real problem everywhere. That most of my experience comes from Australia does not make it less relevant. I've spent enough time in the UK to know if anything Australia is better about homelessness. My citations spoke to the percentage of people that were abusing the welfare system. Something closely related to the perception that people are bad actors. It happens but it's a tiny percentage. If you have a study about the number of Romanian gangs that are begging, then by all means share.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  I don't think welfare is all that tightly related to begging, though. As for numbers, the best I can find is a claim by UK police that the group of people arrested for begging was overwhelmingly not homeless. Not the most helpful stat, but it's something. If that's at all approaching the overall rate of beggars, then even if a ton are legitimate, it would mean "homelessness is a real problem" isn't super relevant. And that if you want to help homeless people there would be better places to put your money.
- native_samples 5y ago
  "I said nothing about Romanian immigrants" Your comment was a non-sequitur: the person you were replying to mentioned Romanian beggars in the context of cash in the UK, but you were so pleased to have a chance to be insulted on the behalf of other people, you started talking about homeless people in Australia: something that has nothing to do with the point being made. The comment doesn't mention metro.co.uk at all, so I don't know where you got that from, but if you think an article is poor you need to explain why. Dylan16707 has already explained why you're just wrong about this case. The guy whose comment is now flagged and dead is correct about what's happened in the UK, and this is well known there so the fact that you think you know the country well may be wrong: many beggars on the street aren't "normal" beggars who are there for the reasons you'd expect. As he says, the overwhelming majority are not homeless. The HN community struggles very badly when people post non-progressive facts, this is clearly one of them. If you're someone who flagged and killed the above comment about Romanian beggars, shame on you.
  - vertis 5y ago
    He replied to MY top level comment. I said nothing about being in the UK. I replied to a reply. The article was about cashless transition in UK, however many places are now similar and HN is a global forum. I saw the metro.co.uk comment in one of his other responses. But for the sake of completeness it has a bunch of photos of people with a Romanian number plates car arriving and begging, and 'allegely' not being disabled. It's not a good citation. For so many reasons. It's anecdotal, none of the people were arrested or even talked to. I replied with pieces of my experience, which I agreed are only tangentially related, precisely because I have less experience (though not none) in the UK. There are very similar narratives around begging, immigration, welfare and refugees. Whether it's "they're not real" or "they're not real refugees" or "they're all living the high life and don't really need welfare". It's the same poisonous argument. In the case of welfare, we know that this is not the case. That only 0.04% (Australia) were actually bad actors. I will happily provide citations around the other ones, but I'm on mobile at the moment. Not all beggars are homeless and not all homeless people beg. But suggesting they're all just taking people's money without need (i.e. getting rich) is almost certainly not supported by numbers. I will happily retract my statement if a valid citation is offered. Dylan16707's citation is better, but as he admits is limited because it is people that were arrested for begging, not the situation of all beggars.
    - native_samples 5y ago
      You're still citing stats from Australia, a country that literally puts illegal immigrants on an island, to dispute claims about the UK, a place that for years explicitly allowed unlimited legal immigration from much poorer countries and now has a massive problem with illegal immigrants crossing the channel. I think you should retract your statement. You've been given multiple forms of evidence here: 1. Evidence from press investigations that includes actual video evidence of it happening, so you can see it with your own eyes. 2. Statistical evidence from government authorities. The former you reject because, well, I'm not sure actually. You seem to think they actually were disabled but have no evidence. Or that if something is published in the Metro it can't be true, even when the underlying evidence is provided. Not sure. The latter you're rejecting because, you claim, the set of arrested beggars is not equal to the set of all beggars, but you've given no reason to believe that this would make any difference. It's also an impossible claim to satisfy - literally any source of data about the problem will be based on a sample you could claim theoretically might have bias. Here's a question: what evidence would you accept that this problem is real and that the UK situation doesn't match your experience in Australia?

vertis 5y ago

I said nothing about Romanian immigrants, rather that homelessness was a real problem. The parent comment was choosing to suggest that all beggars were fake and that you "shouldn't encourage them". They were using a rather poor metro.co.uk article as the only justification for that statement. Homelessness is a real problem everywhere. That most of my experience comes from Australia does not make it less relevant. I've spent enough time in the UK to know if anything Australia is better about homelessness. My citations spoke to the percentage of people that were abusing the welfare system. Something closely related to the perception that people are bad actors. It happens but it's a tiny percentage. If you have a study about the number of Romanian gangs that are begging, then by all means share.

Dylan16807 5y ago
I don't think welfare is all that tightly related to begging, though. As for numbers, the best I can find is a claim by UK police that the group of people arrested for begging was overwhelmingly not homeless. Not the most helpful stat, but it's something. If that's at all approaching the overall rate of beggars, then even if a ton are legitimate, it would mean "homelessness is a real problem" isn't super relevant. And that if you want to help homeless people there would be better places to put your money.
native_samples 5y ago
"I said nothing about Romanian immigrants" Your comment was a non-sequitur: the person you were replying to mentioned Romanian beggars in the context of cash in the UK, but you were so pleased to have a chance to be insulted on the behalf of other people, you started talking about homeless people in Australia: something that has nothing to do with the point being made. The comment doesn't mention metro.co.uk at all, so I don't know where you got that from, but if you think an article is poor you need to explain why. Dylan16707 has already explained why you're just wrong about this case. The guy whose comment is now flagged and dead is correct about what's happened in the UK, and this is well known there so the fact that you think you know the country well may be wrong: many beggars on the street aren't "normal" beggars who are there for the reasons you'd expect. As he says, the overwhelming majority are not homeless. The HN community struggles very badly when people post non-progressive facts, this is clearly one of them. If you're someone who flagged and killed the above comment about Romanian beggars, shame on you.
- vertis 5y ago
  He replied to MY top level comment. I said nothing about being in the UK. I replied to a reply. The article was about cashless transition in UK, however many places are now similar and HN is a global forum. I saw the metro.co.uk comment in one of his other responses. But for the sake of completeness it has a bunch of photos of people with a Romanian number plates car arriving and begging, and 'allegely' not being disabled. It's not a good citation. For so many reasons. It's anecdotal, none of the people were arrested or even talked to. I replied with pieces of my experience, which I agreed are only tangentially related, precisely because I have less experience (though not none) in the UK. There are very similar narratives around begging, immigration, welfare and refugees. Whether it's "they're not real" or "they're not real refugees" or "they're all living the high life and don't really need welfare". It's the same poisonous argument. In the case of welfare, we know that this is not the case. That only 0.04% (Australia) were actually bad actors. I will happily provide citations around the other ones, but I'm on mobile at the moment. Not all beggars are homeless and not all homeless people beg. But suggesting they're all just taking people's money without need (i.e. getting rich) is almost certainly not supported by numbers. I will happily retract my statement if a valid citation is offered. Dylan16707's citation is better, but as he admits is limited because it is people that were arrested for begging, not the situation of all beggars.
  - native_samples 5y ago
    You're still citing stats from Australia, a country that literally puts illegal immigrants on an island, to dispute claims about the UK, a place that for years explicitly allowed unlimited legal immigration from much poorer countries and now has a massive problem with illegal immigrants crossing the channel. I think you should retract your statement. You've been given multiple forms of evidence here: 1. Evidence from press investigations that includes actual video evidence of it happening, so you can see it with your own eyes. 2. Statistical evidence from government authorities. The former you reject because, well, I'm not sure actually. You seem to think they actually were disabled but have no evidence. Or that if something is published in the Metro it can't be true, even when the underlying evidence is provided. Not sure. The latter you're rejecting because, you claim, the set of arrested beggars is not equal to the set of all beggars, but you've given no reason to believe that this would make any difference. It's also an impossible claim to satisfy - literally any source of data about the problem will be based on a sample you could claim theoretically might have bias. Here's a question: what evidence would you accept that this problem is real and that the UK situation doesn't match your experience in Australia?