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I do not know how San Francisco might solve its many other problems, but homelessness is just a game theory problem gone bad. To solve it, one does not need emp

I do not know how San Francisco might solve its many other problems, but homelessness is just a game theory problem gone bad. To solve it, one does not need empathy, or pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps paternalism. We don't need a return to 1980s style mental-illness-warehousing, or for people to be less greedy. No municipality can fix this problem, regardless of the local politics, because to be the first city to solve it would mean that they'd find out they have so many more homeless people in the coming weeks and months. The homeless aren't stupid, and they aren't chained to the ground where ever it is they have to be right now. If they heard of a magical place where homelessness was solved, they'd hitchhike there, or panhandle for a bus ticket, or if no other options just hoof it the whole way. Suddenly, this city finds out that they allocated the funding for 100% of their homelessness needs... but now they have twice as many. Five times as many. Is there even an upper limit? And cities and townships everywhere else are getting bright ideas like that they can be rid of their homeless too, if they're willing to splurge on a bus ticket for them. If you were mayor of this city, the city where you could get the bill passed to fix homelessness, would you do it? It must be in the back of your mind that any attempt to fix it will result in this embarrassing calamity. Whether you are Democrat or Republican (or anything else). Maybe it'd be better to just not bother. And so you don't. If you're on the left, you pretend to be really empathetic, if on the right you just give a really stern speech about how everyone needs to take care of themselves. Then you let it go. This remains true, no matter what the details are for your fix for homelessness. There might even be many possible fixes, but none of them can be tried (and if some unclever local politician does try, they'll just end up making it look like it failed when it does backfire). The solution is quite simple, cheap, boring, and unobjectionable to anyone who might hear it. But being those things, it also elicits a reaction of "how could it be so, people have been trying to solve this for years!". If anyone can find me a city manager or city council or mayor who'd listen for 15 minutes, they could be a hero that goes down in the history books.

function_seven 4y ago
> The solution is quite simple, cheap, boring, and unobjectionable to anyone who might hear it. What is it? Genuinely curious, because I’ve done the same thought experiment as you about how little control individual cities have.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 4y ago
  The adoption of a particular policy that costs practically nothing. A census of homeless in the city that first adopts it. The only thing this needs to accomplish is to fairly define which homeless that city has a moral responsibility for and to make it clear why it doesn't have a moral responsibility to others. Nearby cities would, over time, adopt similar policies defensively. Eventually, almost all of the homeless are divvied up (more or less) in proportion to the size and resources of the municipalities throughout the mainland. With no city government having to figure out how to solve homelessness for the entire nation, I'm not sure what they'll come up with. The problem will be financially tractable and with 10,000 or more out there, at least a few will start to solve it for real. All that's needed is a framework so that they aren't forced to choose between never being able to solve it for fear that solving it increases their population of homeless by x50 or just ignoring it. It's not rocket science. The truth is though, none of you deserve it. All the horrible things that happen, humanity deserves. And more. You can't figure these things out because you're fundamentally flawed, and may not even be an intelligent species in any meaningful sense of the term. Vote me down some more, I love it.
  - hamandcheese 4y ago
    To summarize, your solution is: - count the homeless - ask them real nicely to stay put - ??? - homelessness is solved
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 4y ago
      Why would they need to stay put? Freedom of movement is a fundamental human right. But if they want help, then there is a place (or maybe several) that they have deep enough connections to that its government is the one that is obligated to help. Everyone agrees that this government is the one with the obligations. Do you always have such bad takes?
      - hamandcheese 4y ago
        Because if freedom of movement exists then there will always be the first-mover problem for cities wanting to solve homelessness. How does a census help address that? Spoiler: cities already do count their homeless. That hasn't solved anything.
bagacrap 4y ago
Well that was anticlimactic

function_seven 4y ago

> The solution is quite simple, cheap, boring, and unobjectionable to anyone who might hear it. What is it? Genuinely curious, because I’ve done the same thought experiment as you about how little control individual cities have.

NoMoreNicksLeft 4y ago
The adoption of a particular policy that costs practically nothing. A census of homeless in the city that first adopts it. The only thing this needs to accomplish is to fairly define which homeless that city has a moral responsibility for and to make it clear why it doesn't have a moral responsibility to others. Nearby cities would, over time, adopt similar policies defensively. Eventually, almost all of the homeless are divvied up (more or less) in proportion to the size and resources of the municipalities throughout the mainland. With no city government having to figure out how to solve homelessness for the entire nation, I'm not sure what they'll come up with. The problem will be financially tractable and with 10,000 or more out there, at least a few will start to solve it for real. All that's needed is a framework so that they aren't forced to choose between never being able to solve it for fear that solving it increases their population of homeless by x50 or just ignoring it. It's not rocket science. The truth is though, none of you deserve it. All the horrible things that happen, humanity deserves. And more. You can't figure these things out because you're fundamentally flawed, and may not even be an intelligent species in any meaningful sense of the term. Vote me down some more, I love it.
- hamandcheese 4y ago
  To summarize, your solution is: - count the homeless - ask them real nicely to stay put - ??? - homelessness is solved
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 4y ago
    Why would they need to stay put? Freedom of movement is a fundamental human right. But if they want help, then there is a place (or maybe several) that they have deep enough connections to that its government is the one that is obligated to help. Everyone agrees that this government is the one with the obligations. Do you always have such bad takes?
    - hamandcheese 4y ago
      Because if freedom of movement exists then there will always be the first-mover problem for cities wanting to solve homelessness. How does a census help address that? Spoiler: cities already do count their homeless. That hasn't solved anything.

bagacrap 4y ago

Well that was anticlimactic