4 ms·

Like when people are talking about what we should do about homeless people, and how we can't house them because that would cost too much money.....like, might i

Like when people are talking about what we should do about homeless people, and how we can't house them because that would cost too much money.....like, might it be possible that there's something in between sleeping on the sidewalk and a condo? Homelessness is a complex topic. It's hard to wrap one's brain around it. Trying to adequately analyze a complex topic and then effectively communicate about it with people who haven't studied it the way you have for years is actually, like, hard. People want to think it's not. Unlike, say, Physics, they want to think something social like that is simple to understand or whatever. It's really not. My answer to something "between the sidewalk and a condo" is updating the concept of the SRO and bringing them back. We've torn down about a million of them in the US in recent decades. And what do they produce: more of the same, well within the boundaries of the Overton Window. Yet another reason to not want to pay people merely to "be smart." Solid solutions typically come from the margins and from people directly impacted by the pain points enough that they have skin in the game and can't just walk away, no matter how much they might wish they could. our super duper "free" medical system is falling apart Health care and medical care are not the same thing. There is vast room for improvement in non-medical health care which has tremendous potential to alleviate some of the stressors on modern medical systems while improving quality of life and reducing costs. I believe things are much worse than they appear on the surface I'm an optimist whose father fought in the front lines of two wars -- including WW2 -- and was decorated both times. Humans have faced potentially world-ending crises before and risen to the occasion. I see no reason why it can't be done again. I've studied what we (in the US) did for WW2 and I don't see any reason we can't do a lot of those things again. We raised Victory Gardens. We made work spaces female-friendly with on-site daycare and such. We converted all our efforts to solving the problem and it got solved and the prosperity of the 50s and 60s was rooted in what we did during the war. We did a whole lot and I get tired of trying to repeat it. It's the kind of thing you can write entire books about and still miss stuff and a comment on a forum never does it justice and is exhausting to write.

mistermann 4y ago
> Homelessness is a complex topic. It's hard to wrap one's brain around it. Trying to adequately analyze a complex topic and then effectively communicate about it with people who haven't studied it the way you have for years is actually, like, hard. Reading, writing, and arithmetic also used to be hard, until we started teaching people how to do it. Perhaps thinking is similar? (Sorry for the animosity, I'm angry at the system, not you.) > People want to think it's not. Unlike, say, Physics, they want to think something social like that is simple to understand or whatever. It's really not. I wonder if our love affair with science that works in a (relatively) simple, deterministic problem space might have stunted our ability to realize the complexity we're swimming in. I think it would be hilarious if by jumping out of the frying pan that is religion, we've ended up in the fire of another delusional ideology. > My answer to something "between the sidewalk and a condo" is updating the concept of the SRO and bringing them back. We've torn down about a million of them in the US in recent decades. Agree, but I think it may be useful to set aside some cycles for considering associated phenomena: why can so few people understand that cost of solutions is a super big deal? I agree that things like SROs are rarely discussed...but why is this the case? Why can smart people not realize the significance in this scenario (cost control is taken very, very seriously during implementation design elsewhere)? Or more generically: what is it about the mind that causes it to execute computation so differently depending on the topic of discussion, and why can so few people recognize this phenomenon (why does the mind refuse to examine itself)? > Yet another reason to not want to pay people merely to "be smart." Solid solutions typically come from the margins and from people directly impacted by the pain points enough that they have skin in the game and can't just walk away, no matter how much they might wish they could. Yup....yet we continue to do the opposite of what is obviously smart. > Health care and medical care are not the same thing. There is vast room for improvement in non-medical health care which has tremendous potential to alleviate some of the stressors on modern medical systems while improving quality of life and reducing costs. Agree, but the end result remains: our super duper "free" medical system is falling apart. > I'm an optimist whose father fought in the front lines of two wars -- including WW2 -- and was decorated both times. Humans have faced potentially world-ending crises before and risen to the occasion. I see no reason why it can't be done again. I worry that we are (currently) not adequately the same as we used to be. It's true that the laws of physics don't stop us, but there certainly seems to be some kind of force(s) in play that render us incapable of getting out of the trap we've maneuvered ourselves into, and seem intent on staying in (shitposting on the internet about the members of your ideological outgroups may seem like doing something positive, but I suspect it is not actually). > I've studied what we (in the US) did for WW2 and I don't see any reason we can't do a lot of those things again. We raised Victory Gardens. We made work spaces female-friendly with on-site daycare and such. We converted all our efforts to solving the problem and it got solved and the prosperity of the 50s and 60s was rooted in what we did during the war. Simplistically: Step 1: set a goal. Step 2: achieve that goal. Not working? Add Step 0: be actually serious, stop communicating in the form of truthy but not actually true statements, like we do with great success in science, engineering, etc. > We did a whole lot and I get tired of trying to repeat it. It's the kind of thing you can write entire books about and still miss stuff and a comment on a forum never does it justice and is exhausting to write. I wonder: are internet forums the peak of human communication? Perhaps we haven't maxed out what is possible.
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  (Sorry for the animosity, I'm angry at the system, not you.) I'm sort of amused and wondering if some detail failed to communicate effectively. I've had a class on Homelessness and Public Policy as part of pursuing an unfinished Bachelor's in Environmental Resource Management with a Concentration in Housing as part of a plan to eventually get a Master's in Urban Planning. I've studied housing issues for years, both formally and informally, and I spent years homeless and I'm pretty happy with where I am on the topic and with my efforts to find a path forward. Nonetheless, it remains challenging to try to effectively communicate with other people who don't have the background knowledge I have and be adequately succinct while effectively making a point. You need to master the lingo and figure out how to side-step language that just causes conversations to go pointlessly sideways and get nowhere and it's still actually hard work to do that. I spend less time these days trying to talk at internet strangers on public forums (about housing issues/homelessness) and more time trying to flesh out Project: SRO. I think in the long run, that's a more effective use of my time that has some hope of accomplishing something, someday.
  - mistermann 4y ago
    Well I wish you luck, it is a good cause.

mistermann 4y ago

> Homelessness is a complex topic. It's hard to wrap one's brain around it. Trying to adequately analyze a complex topic and then effectively communicate about it with people who haven't studied it the way you have for years is actually, like, hard. Reading, writing, and arithmetic also used to be hard, until we started teaching people how to do it. Perhaps thinking is similar? (Sorry for the animosity, I'm angry at the system, not you.) > People want to think it's not. Unlike, say, Physics, they want to think something social like that is simple to understand or whatever. It's really not. I wonder if our love affair with science that works in a (relatively) simple, deterministic problem space might have stunted our ability to realize the complexity we're swimming in. I think it would be hilarious if by jumping out of the frying pan that is religion, we've ended up in the fire of another delusional ideology. > My answer to something "between the sidewalk and a condo" is updating the concept of the SRO and bringing them back. We've torn down about a million of them in the US in recent decades. Agree, but I think it may be useful to set aside some cycles for considering associated phenomena: why can so few people understand that cost of solutions is a super big deal? I agree that things like SROs are rarely discussed...but why is this the case? Why can smart people not realize the significance in this scenario (cost control is taken very, very seriously during implementation design elsewhere)? Or more generically: what is it about the mind that causes it to execute computation so differently depending on the topic of discussion, and why can so few people recognize this phenomenon (why does the mind refuse to examine itself)? > Yet another reason to not want to pay people merely to "be smart." Solid solutions typically come from the margins and from people directly impacted by the pain points enough that they have skin in the game and can't just walk away, no matter how much they might wish they could. Yup....yet we continue to do the opposite of what is obviously smart. > Health care and medical care are not the same thing. There is vast room for improvement in non-medical health care which has tremendous potential to alleviate some of the stressors on modern medical systems while improving quality of life and reducing costs. Agree, but the end result remains: our super duper "free" medical system is falling apart. > I'm an optimist whose father fought in the front lines of two wars -- including WW2 -- and was decorated both times. Humans have faced potentially world-ending crises before and risen to the occasion. I see no reason why it can't be done again. I worry that we are (currently) not adequately the same as we used to be. It's true that the laws of physics don't stop us, but there certainly seems to be some kind of force(s) in play that render us incapable of getting out of the trap we've maneuvered ourselves into, and seem intent on staying in (shitposting on the internet about the members of your ideological outgroups may seem like doing something positive, but I suspect it is not actually). > I've studied what we (in the US) did for WW2 and I don't see any reason we can't do a lot of those things again. We raised Victory Gardens. We made work spaces female-friendly with on-site daycare and such. We converted all our efforts to solving the problem and it got solved and the prosperity of the 50s and 60s was rooted in what we did during the war. Simplistically: Step 1: set a goal. Step 2: achieve that goal. Not working? Add Step 0: be actually serious, stop communicating in the form of truthy but not actually true statements, like we do with great success in science, engineering, etc. > We did a whole lot and I get tired of trying to repeat it. It's the kind of thing you can write entire books about and still miss stuff and a comment on a forum never does it justice and is exhausting to write. I wonder: are internet forums the peak of human communication? Perhaps we haven't maxed out what is possible.

DoreenMichele 4y ago
(Sorry for the animosity, I'm angry at the system, not you.) I'm sort of amused and wondering if some detail failed to communicate effectively. I've had a class on Homelessness and Public Policy as part of pursuing an unfinished Bachelor's in Environmental Resource Management with a Concentration in Housing as part of a plan to eventually get a Master's in Urban Planning. I've studied housing issues for years, both formally and informally, and I spent years homeless and I'm pretty happy with where I am on the topic and with my efforts to find a path forward. Nonetheless, it remains challenging to try to effectively communicate with other people who don't have the background knowledge I have and be adequately succinct while effectively making a point. You need to master the lingo and figure out how to side-step language that just causes conversations to go pointlessly sideways and get nowhere and it's still actually hard work to do that. I spend less time these days trying to talk at internet strangers on public forums (about housing issues/homelessness) and more time trying to flesh out Project: SRO. I think in the long run, that's a more effective use of my time that has some hope of accomplishing something, someday.
- mistermann 4y ago
  Well I wish you luck, it is a good cause.