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I don't think homes will help on their own. A more comprehensive system is needed. You get a place to stay and a living wage, even for doing absolutely nothing

I don't think homes will help on their own. A more comprehensive system is needed. You get a place to stay and a living wage, even for doing absolutely nothing. Because otherwise, how are you going to recover? The second part that I think is really important is that we should look at this large country and do these things in places where there is space. Once can easily imagine a stretch of land north of Palmdale, CA where we can build hundreds of cheap houses connected to a couple of warehouses where we can treat people and where we can provide some sort of busywork for them. And yes, we'd be overpaying them. That's fine. But I think it's unreasonable for Los Angeles to try and get housing in this overheated market. It doesn't make sense, you're paying so much for so little.

kerkeslager 3y ago
I'm mostly on board with what you're saying, but I'm not sure why the busywork component is necessary. If the concern is that they'll be bored if unoccupied, there are other activities that are more therapeutic. If the concern is that they won't be able to build self-esteem without a sense of purpose, then having them do purposeless work is just trying to "trick" them into feeling self-esteem, and most people won't be fooled. I suspect the underlying thing here is a fundamental problem in our society, which is that we believe people only have worth if they can provide some sort of tangible resources or service through work, and that's fundamentally wrong. First off, the richest and most valued people in our society don't work and aren't providing value, they just profit off of other people's work. And looking at the arc of technological progress, there has been less and less need for human labor--at some point human labor will be unnecessary as the machines are able to operate themselves. At that point, I hope we aren't forcing everyone to perform busy work so we can justify letting those who own the machines live in lavish excess while everyone else lives in squalor; I'd hope we would all benefit from technology and be able to live lives of leisure.

kerkeslager 3y ago

I'm mostly on board with what you're saying, but I'm not sure why the busywork component is necessary. If the concern is that they'll be bored if unoccupied, there are other activities that are more therapeutic. If the concern is that they won't be able to build self-esteem without a sense of purpose, then having them do purposeless work is just trying to "trick" them into feeling self-esteem, and most people won't be fooled. I suspect the underlying thing here is a fundamental problem in our society, which is that we believe people only have worth if they can provide some sort of tangible resources or service through work, and that's fundamentally wrong. First off, the richest and most valued people in our society don't work and aren't providing value, they just profit off of other people's work. And looking at the arc of technological progress, there has been less and less need for human labor--at some point human labor will be unnecessary as the machines are able to operate themselves. At that point, I hope we aren't forcing everyone to perform busy work so we can justify letting those who own the machines live in lavish excess while everyone else lives in squalor; I'd hope we would all benefit from technology and be able to live lives of leisure.