4 ms·

> It is, but that's if you don't mind the less fortunate folks starving. Not starving, but ending up as homeless drug addicts. There are homeless drug addicts

by badpun 4y ago

> It is, but that's if you don't mind the less fortunate folks starving. Not starving, but ending up as homeless drug addicts. There are homeless drug addicts and alcoholics everywhere. > And the large number of working poor. Yep, the working poor are better off in Europe, esp. in places like Denmark or Norway. They can actually have somewhat non-shitty life, even when working minimum wage jobs.

Sharlin 4y ago
> There are homeless drug addicts and alcoholics everywhere. The question is how many, of course. There are no homeless villages in my country, neither is there a massive-scale opiate abuse problem.
- badpun 4y ago
  Perhaps it's just too cold for the homeless villages to form? The homeless would have a hard time surviving winter in tents in Europe. Even the very southern ends don't get nearly as warm winters as Los Angeles, which has a climate of Morocco.
  - Sharlin 4y ago
    Most homeless people (at least around here) don’t literally live outside but in various temporary arrangements. Yes, in colder climates it is a more pressing social problem to get people inside from literal freezing conditions. But that’s definitely not the reason there are fewer homeless in Europe than in the US. Long-term homeless people tend to be either those who refuse help (and cannot be helped against their will) or those that the system has failed due to misguided right-wing policies like "sobriety first" which is totally backwards.
    - badpun 4y ago
      At the bottom of things, the homelessness is just a symptom, while the root cause is mental illness or people living self-destructive lives (addicts, people who just don't care what happens to them and have no care for the future etc.). It's no longer 1930s, where "normal" people could genuinely be homeless because of economic difficulties. Sure, it occasionally happens now as well, but such people generally disappear from the streets within months (as they get a job and get back on their feet), not spend their entire lives on them. In general, people care about homelessness, because it affects and offends them - so their solutions are to give some place to live to the homeless. It doesn't solve the problem though, as the homeless will still either be mentally ill or will engage in self-destructive behaviour - so they're quite likely to demolish the place, set it on fire, turn it into a crack den etc. But, the society does not ultimately care about that that much, but mostly wants to not have their moods ruined by seeing homeless on the streets - so warehousing them somewhere is seen as a good solution.
      - Sharlin 4y ago
        Unfortunately, at least around here, in one of the most "welfare" of welfare states, a major cause of homelessness is substance abuse (traditionally alcoholism) caused by insufficient social safety nets (almost always males who have undergone a major crisis in life such as a divorce or a loss of job, exacerbated by various toxic norms associated with masculinity such as the expectation of self-sufficiency). People who "live self-destructive lives" have not always done so; at some point something has gone wrong in their lives. It is not an identity or (usually) an inborn personality trait, and "othering" people with addictions like that is simply an example of the correspondence bias and a part of the meme complex that maintains the status quo of homelessness. In a representative democracy, we elect representatives in the hopes that they have a decisionmaking and problem-solving ability more holistic and less short-sighted than just "out of sight, out of mind". At least, that's what the ideal is. The process can be abused by populists good at appealing to people's intuitions and emotions while having few real solutions, but that doesn't mean we should just give up!
        badpun 4y ago
        > toxic norms associated with masculinity such as the expectation of self-sufficiency What? It's toxic to expect someone to be self-sufficient? I guess all our civilization was built on toxic grounds - it's amazing what all that toxicity accomplished though. > People who "live self-destructive lives" have not always done so; at some point something has gone wrong in their lives. It is not an identity or (usually) an inborn personality trait, and "othering" people with addictions like that is simply an example of the correspondence bias and a part of the meme complex that maintains the status quo of homelessness. I don't think I'm "othering" them (I'm not sure though, because I'm not sure what it means). I'm just describing their current situation. I'm not claiming there were born as petty thieves or alcoholics or will remain petty thieves or alcoholics for the rest of their lives. The homeless alcoholics I personally know usually took a decade or more of gradually increasing selfish and antisocial behaviour to eventually end up on streets (as they've eventually used up the good will of everyone in their lives and no one was there to support them any more). What made them go down that path while people, who have as shitty lives as them or worse, stood on their feet - who knows? We don't understand human psychology to the degree to be able to answer that question. BTW, I've recently re-read some Bukowski, and I think he's giving a good description of an inner life of a person with some self-destructive personality traits. In his case they were fairly mild, so he still managed to hold a job and be off the street most of the time. The real homeless I know have even more anger, self-pity, narcissism and/or straight up psychopathy. At least one of them is a straight-up predator, who's homeless because he finally ran out of people to prey upon.
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    I doubt it. Didn't used to see people living in tents before the pandemic in my Canadian city. Now there's loads and there's plenty of European cities far warmer.
    - badpun 4y ago
      Interesting. Perhaps it's police negligence? All the "defund the police" rethoric must have taken its toll and these guys are probably afraid to do anything remotely controversial now. I can't imagine police in Germany, France, UK or Poland would tolerate homeless encampments on main streets of major cities. In Poland, they usually take them to the shelter, where they get kick out for antisocial behaviour, so that the police can again grab them off the streets and take them to the shelter - and so it goes. They're not left unbothered though.
      - goosedragons 4y ago
        The police have removed them on multiple occasions. There has been both push back and support for this. It doesn't really have to do with police presence but the high cost of rent and low wages. It doesn't seem like it's something the UK at least is immune to either: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/17/removal-of-homeless-camps-trebles-as-charities-warn-of-out-of-control-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/17/removal-of-h...
- rightbyte 4y ago
  > homeless villages You mean like tents and sheds? Otherwise it is an oxymoron with a village of homeless people.
  - Sharlin 4y ago
    Yes, obviously.

by badpun 4y ago

Sharlin 4y ago

> There are homeless drug addicts and alcoholics everywhere. The question is how many, of course. There are no homeless villages in my country, neither is there a massive-scale opiate abuse problem.

badpun 4y ago
Perhaps it's just too cold for the homeless villages to form? The homeless would have a hard time surviving winter in tents in Europe. Even the very southern ends don't get nearly as warm winters as Los Angeles, which has a climate of Morocco.
- Sharlin 4y ago
  Most homeless people (at least around here) don’t literally live outside but in various temporary arrangements. Yes, in colder climates it is a more pressing social problem to get people inside from literal freezing conditions. But that’s definitely not the reason there are fewer homeless in Europe than in the US. Long-term homeless people tend to be either those who refuse help (and cannot be helped against their will) or those that the system has failed due to misguided right-wing policies like "sobriety first" which is totally backwards.
  - badpun 4y ago
    At the bottom of things, the homelessness is just a symptom, while the root cause is mental illness or people living self-destructive lives (addicts, people who just don't care what happens to them and have no care for the future etc.). It's no longer 1930s, where "normal" people could genuinely be homeless because of economic difficulties. Sure, it occasionally happens now as well, but such people generally disappear from the streets within months (as they get a job and get back on their feet), not spend their entire lives on them. In general, people care about homelessness, because it affects and offends them - so their solutions are to give some place to live to the homeless. It doesn't solve the problem though, as the homeless will still either be mentally ill or will engage in self-destructive behaviour - so they're quite likely to demolish the place, set it on fire, turn it into a crack den etc. But, the society does not ultimately care about that that much, but mostly wants to not have their moods ruined by seeing homeless on the streets - so warehousing them somewhere is seen as a good solution.
    - Sharlin 4y ago
      Unfortunately, at least around here, in one of the most "welfare" of welfare states, a major cause of homelessness is substance abuse (traditionally alcoholism) caused by insufficient social safety nets (almost always males who have undergone a major crisis in life such as a divorce or a loss of job, exacerbated by various toxic norms associated with masculinity such as the expectation of self-sufficiency). People who "live self-destructive lives" have not always done so; at some point something has gone wrong in their lives. It is not an identity or (usually) an inborn personality trait, and "othering" people with addictions like that is simply an example of the correspondence bias and a part of the meme complex that maintains the status quo of homelessness. In a representative democracy, we elect representatives in the hopes that they have a decisionmaking and problem-solving ability more holistic and less short-sighted than just "out of sight, out of mind". At least, that's what the ideal is. The process can be abused by populists good at appealing to people's intuitions and emotions while having few real solutions, but that doesn't mean we should just give up!
      - badpun 4y ago
        > toxic norms associated with masculinity such as the expectation of self-sufficiency What? It's toxic to expect someone to be self-sufficient? I guess all our civilization was built on toxic grounds - it's amazing what all that toxicity accomplished though. > People who "live self-destructive lives" have not always done so; at some point something has gone wrong in their lives. It is not an identity or (usually) an inborn personality trait, and "othering" people with addictions like that is simply an example of the correspondence bias and a part of the meme complex that maintains the status quo of homelessness. I don't think I'm "othering" them (I'm not sure though, because I'm not sure what it means). I'm just describing their current situation. I'm not claiming there were born as petty thieves or alcoholics or will remain petty thieves or alcoholics for the rest of their lives. The homeless alcoholics I personally know usually took a decade or more of gradually increasing selfish and antisocial behaviour to eventually end up on streets (as they've eventually used up the good will of everyone in their lives and no one was there to support them any more). What made them go down that path while people, who have as shitty lives as them or worse, stood on their feet - who knows? We don't understand human psychology to the degree to be able to answer that question. BTW, I've recently re-read some Bukowski, and I think he's giving a good description of an inner life of a person with some self-destructive personality traits. In his case they were fairly mild, so he still managed to hold a job and be off the street most of the time. The real homeless I know have even more anger, self-pity, narcissism and/or straight up psychopathy. At least one of them is a straight-up predator, who's homeless because he finally ran out of people to prey upon.
- goosedragons 4y ago
  I doubt it. Didn't used to see people living in tents before the pandemic in my Canadian city. Now there's loads and there's plenty of European cities far warmer.
  - badpun 4y ago
    Interesting. Perhaps it's police negligence? All the "defund the police" rethoric must have taken its toll and these guys are probably afraid to do anything remotely controversial now. I can't imagine police in Germany, France, UK or Poland would tolerate homeless encampments on main streets of major cities. In Poland, they usually take them to the shelter, where they get kick out for antisocial behaviour, so that the police can again grab them off the streets and take them to the shelter - and so it goes. They're not left unbothered though.
    - goosedragons 4y ago
      The police have removed them on multiple occasions. There has been both push back and support for this. It doesn't really have to do with police presence but the high cost of rent and low wages. It doesn't seem like it's something the UK at least is immune to either: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/17/removal-of-homeless-camps-trebles-as-charities-warn-of-out-of-control-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/17/removal-of-h...
rightbyte 4y ago
> homeless villages You mean like tents and sheds? Otherwise it is an oxymoron with a village of homeless people.
- Sharlin 4y ago
  Yes, obviously.