4 ms·

Why is it critical? Is there a causation link between homelessness and treason?

wahnfrieden 1y ago
They're saying that having large numbers of a vulnerable and often disabled population on the brink of day to day survival is a national security risk because they are easily targeted and exploitable. You don't need to find a causal relation to treason specifically to understand. They may not even be aware of what they are involved in.
- moomin 1y ago
  You’re making a very good point here. We’ve always known that malign forces of various varieties will exploit the vulnerable in society, and we’ve definitely experimented with trying to imprison every last one of the vulnerable sucked into criminality. The War of Drugs has pretty definitively demonstrated this strategy doesn’t work. Poverty has been a national security issue for some time.
  - tehjoker 1y ago
    Just wait until you realize that the reason we have “national security” is because they are protecting a system that impoverishes americans and the world. North Korea is targeted because it is a socialist counter example. That’s a crime and it must be slandered. This is why this line of argumentation is at once true and will never be persuasive: the poverty is the point of our economic system. That’s what they’re protecting. If Americans were all relatively equal, the economic royalists would have no throne to sit on.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > North Korea is targeted because it is a socialist You've got to be kidding me. America has a Gini coefficient of about .42 [1]. The last time North Korea's was estimated, it was around .82. To to put that in perspective, the inequality gap between America and North Korea is well more than double that between America and the Netherlands. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_in... 2023
      - tehjoker 1y ago
        You should read up on the Korean War. Here’s an accessible resource: https://blowback.show/ https://blowback.show/ Did you really think anticommunism disappeared from American elites?
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > You should read up on the Korean War To learn that we went to war with North Korea because it's communist? No shit. We also did that with Russia, China, Vietnam and a good fraction of current NATO members, trade partners and allies. > Did you really think anticommunism disappeared from American elites? Elites? Most Americans have unfavourable views of communism [1]. But you didn't say communism. You said socialism. And it's a bit ridiculous to argue (a) North Korea is run as a socialist economy or (b) that we have a beef with Pyongyang, today, because of how it runs its economy. [1] https://victimsofcommunism.org/annual-poll/2020-annual-poll/ https://victimsofcommunism.org/annual-poll/2020-annual-poll/
        FooBarWidget 1y ago
        I don't have a beef in this discussion but I just want to point out that if you want to quote a source, then quoting Victims of Communism may not be your best move. They label all WW2 Nazi casualties by the Soviets as "victims of communism" so not exactly an objective and truthful source.
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > quoting Victims of Communism may not be your best move I’m citing the YouGov poll they commissioned, but fair enough.
    - WorldPeas 1y ago
      it is kind of befuddling that they had a working system that gave people the marginal quantity to not rebel and even that was too much for them. Even then don't carry water for NK as some sort of utopia. America is (as clickbaity as I feel saying this) more communist at its worst than NK ever was.
      - tehjoker 1y ago
        We are capitalist. The fact that you doubt this means you are misinformed on basic facts.
        astrange 1y ago
        America's homeless population is because of America's land use policy, which is pretty communist. Or rather, it runs on "economic democracy" - no matter how much money you have, you can't do what you want with your land unless all your neighbors agree with it enough to change the local zoning policy. Which means you can't build low-cost multi-family housing on it.
        throwaway7783 1y ago
        That's democracy and not communism?
        GauntletWizard 1y ago
        It doesn't work, so it must not be communism.
        rangestransform 1y ago
        A charitable interpretation is that it is a form of democratic control of wealth (neighbours decide what you do with your land) rather than individual control of wealth (building however many stories you want on your own land), and democratic control of wealth is definitely closer to communism than individual control of wealth
    - hollerith 1y ago
      It's so sad that that the US is such a poor country and that its leaders refuse to learn from North Korea on how to become richer
      - tehjoker 1y ago
        The US has attacked North Korea constantly economically and killed 20% of its population in the 1950s. It economically supported South Korea. You are complaining about the results of this attack. In the 1970s the DPRK was economically outpacing the south and the US stepped up support to prevent capitalism from looking like shit.
        hollerith 1y ago
        The US did support SK, e.g., by giving it "most favorable nation" trading status, but NK had supporters, too, in the USSR and China. >In the 1970s the DPRK was economically outpacing the south -- according to statistics published by the DPRK.
        tehjoker 1y ago
        The USSR no longer exists and China has only recently become strong enough to offer similar kinds of supports (which doesn't mean that it does in fact do so). China was an agrarian society until basically the past 25-35 years.
    - nkrisc 1y ago
      I’d rather be poor in the US, than rich in North Korea. And I wouldn’t wish “poor in the US” on my enemies.
- WorldPeas 1y ago
  exactly. It doesn't help that homeless individuals are usually disproportionately suffering from mental illness. In a more industrial economy they would fit the basic requirements for industrial production jobs, not saying that they are fulfilling, but now that the economy is centered around knowledge/service work, their disenfranchisement has increased greatly the bandwidth of the school to prison pipeline and schemes like this. They have no reason to respect the American social contract because so far it's gotten them nothing, and in many cases like this, they are entirely unfamiliar with the stakes of the game as they stand now, as they are more concerned with the basic realities of their next meal and warmth. Her great move from the midwest(well I guess that used to be the west right) to the southwest indicates that not only was she likely adrift as many people are now, but open to anything that would keep her normed to the people she saw on her screens.
- xboxnolifes 1y ago
  It's not even something that's unknown. There's a reason bad debts can get you denied a security clearance.
  - tbrownaw 1y ago
    I thought that was more about blackmail potential.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - CobaltFire 1y ago
      Not in the slightest. Its both about your decision making in getting to that point, and about what you might do to get out from under those debts. Exactly the issue we see in this situation.
- red-iron-pine 1y ago
  > national security risk because they are easily targeted and exploitable. same reason FBI agents generally paid paid alright, and why federal government clearances take a strongly negative view of bankruptcy and poor financial management. now it's writ-large across the population. yet more improvements brought to you by technology.
e_i_pi_2 1y ago
OP does address why it's critical: > Not that we need to re-litigate that homelessness as a national security issue Without this it's easy to think that this was just a bad actor we could have caught, instead of just a symptom of a deeper issue not being addressed I'd be more surprised if there isn't a causal link between homelessness and making bad choices - I don't think it's really disputed that there's a causal link between homelessness and crime in general.
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  Amusingly, a significant fraction of people will read what you wrote as a causal link in a particular direction and agree with it. And a different fraction of people will read it as the link going in the other direction and also agree.
  - e_i_pi_2 1y ago
    I'd hope that it's not a significant fraction that would get it backwards haha but just to clarify - homelessness/poverty will cause people (on average) to make worse decisions and lower cognitive ability, but making bad decisions or having a lower cognitive ability is not a cause of homelessness/poverty, at least from a statistical causality perspective on a population, individual cases will of course be different
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> Why is it critical? The root cause was desperation, not greed. Doesn't change the effects of the action. And should be more or less legally irrelevant. But it does impact, in my view, the moral judgement they deserve.
- joe_the_user 1y ago
  And should be more or less legally irrelevant. But it does impact, in my view, the moral judgement they deserve. I suppose, if moral judgements and legality have no relation, sure. But what does that imply.
  - cobbzilla 1y ago
    We try to have moral laws but it’s impossible because morality is slippery. This is why we have judges and juries. Also, laws are not moral merely because they exist. Plenty of unjust and immoral laws on the books just depends who you ask.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > if moral judgements and legality have no relation, sure. But what does that imply Something akin to moral hazard [1]. I should also clarify that I meant legally irrelevant to conviction. It's absolutely relevant to sentencing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard

They're saying that having large numbers of a vulnerable and often disabled population on the brink of day to day survival is a national security risk because they are easily targeted and exploitable. You don't need to find a causal relation to treason specifically to understand. They may not even be aware of what they are involved in.

moomin 1y ago
You’re making a very good point here. We’ve always known that malign forces of various varieties will exploit the vulnerable in society, and we’ve definitely experimented with trying to imprison every last one of the vulnerable sucked into criminality. The War of Drugs has pretty definitively demonstrated this strategy doesn’t work. Poverty has been a national security issue for some time.
- tehjoker 1y ago
  Just wait until you realize that the reason we have “national security” is because they are protecting a system that impoverishes americans and the world. North Korea is targeted because it is a socialist counter example. That’s a crime and it must be slandered. This is why this line of argumentation is at once true and will never be persuasive: the poverty is the point of our economic system. That’s what they’re protecting. If Americans were all relatively equal, the economic royalists would have no throne to sit on.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > North Korea is targeted because it is a socialist You've got to be kidding me. America has a Gini coefficient of about .42 [1]. The last time North Korea's was estimated, it was around .82. To to put that in perspective, the inequality gap between America and North Korea is well more than double that between America and the Netherlands. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_in... 2023
    - tehjoker 1y ago
      You should read up on the Korean War. Here’s an accessible resource: https://blowback.show/ https://blowback.show/ Did you really think anticommunism disappeared from American elites?
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > You should read up on the Korean War To learn that we went to war with North Korea because it's communist? No shit. We also did that with Russia, China, Vietnam and a good fraction of current NATO members, trade partners and allies. > Did you really think anticommunism disappeared from American elites? Elites? Most Americans have unfavourable views of communism [1]. But you didn't say communism. You said socialism. And it's a bit ridiculous to argue (a) North Korea is run as a socialist economy or (b) that we have a beef with Pyongyang, today, because of how it runs its economy. [1] https://victimsofcommunism.org/annual-poll/2020-annual-poll/ https://victimsofcommunism.org/annual-poll/2020-annual-poll/
        FooBarWidget 1y ago
        I don't have a beef in this discussion but I just want to point out that if you want to quote a source, then quoting Victims of Communism may not be your best move. They label all WW2 Nazi casualties by the Soviets as "victims of communism" so not exactly an objective and truthful source.
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > quoting Victims of Communism may not be your best move I’m citing the YouGov poll they commissioned, but fair enough.
  - WorldPeas 1y ago
    it is kind of befuddling that they had a working system that gave people the marginal quantity to not rebel and even that was too much for them. Even then don't carry water for NK as some sort of utopia. America is (as clickbaity as I feel saying this) more communist at its worst than NK ever was.
    - tehjoker 1y ago
      We are capitalist. The fact that you doubt this means you are misinformed on basic facts.
      - astrange 1y ago
        America's homeless population is because of America's land use policy, which is pretty communist. Or rather, it runs on "economic democracy" - no matter how much money you have, you can't do what you want with your land unless all your neighbors agree with it enough to change the local zoning policy. Which means you can't build low-cost multi-family housing on it.
        throwaway7783 1y ago
        That's democracy and not communism?
        GauntletWizard 1y ago
        It doesn't work, so it must not be communism.
        rangestransform 1y ago
        A charitable interpretation is that it is a form of democratic control of wealth (neighbours decide what you do with your land) rather than individual control of wealth (building however many stories you want on your own land), and democratic control of wealth is definitely closer to communism than individual control of wealth
  - hollerith 1y ago
    It's so sad that that the US is such a poor country and that its leaders refuse to learn from North Korea on how to become richer
    - tehjoker 1y ago
      The US has attacked North Korea constantly economically and killed 20% of its population in the 1950s. It economically supported South Korea. You are complaining about the results of this attack. In the 1970s the DPRK was economically outpacing the south and the US stepped up support to prevent capitalism from looking like shit.
      - hollerith 1y ago
        The US did support SK, e.g., by giving it "most favorable nation" trading status, but NK had supporters, too, in the USSR and China. >In the 1970s the DPRK was economically outpacing the south -- according to statistics published by the DPRK.
        tehjoker 1y ago
        The USSR no longer exists and China has only recently become strong enough to offer similar kinds of supports (which doesn't mean that it does in fact do so). China was an agrarian society until basically the past 25-35 years.
  - nkrisc 1y ago
    I’d rather be poor in the US, than rich in North Korea. And I wouldn’t wish “poor in the US” on my enemies.
WorldPeas 1y ago
exactly. It doesn't help that homeless individuals are usually disproportionately suffering from mental illness. In a more industrial economy they would fit the basic requirements for industrial production jobs, not saying that they are fulfilling, but now that the economy is centered around knowledge/service work, their disenfranchisement has increased greatly the bandwidth of the school to prison pipeline and schemes like this. They have no reason to respect the American social contract because so far it's gotten them nothing, and in many cases like this, they are entirely unfamiliar with the stakes of the game as they stand now, as they are more concerned with the basic realities of their next meal and warmth. Her great move from the midwest(well I guess that used to be the west right) to the southwest indicates that not only was she likely adrift as many people are now, but open to anything that would keep her normed to the people she saw on her screens.
xboxnolifes 1y ago
It's not even something that's unknown. There's a reason bad debts can get you denied a security clearance.
- tbrownaw 1y ago
  I thought that was more about blackmail potential.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - CobaltFire 1y ago
    Not in the slightest. Its both about your decision making in getting to that point, and about what you might do to get out from under those debts. Exactly the issue we see in this situation.
red-iron-pine 1y ago
> national security risk because they are easily targeted and exploitable. same reason FBI agents generally paid paid alright, and why federal government clearances take a strongly negative view of bankruptcy and poor financial management. now it's writ-large across the population. yet more improvements brought to you by technology.

e_i_pi_2 1y ago

OP does address why it's critical: > Not that we need to re-litigate that homelessness as a national security issue Without this it's easy to think that this was just a bad actor we could have caught, instead of just a symptom of a deeper issue not being addressed I'd be more surprised if there isn't a causal link between homelessness and making bad choices - I don't think it's really disputed that there's a causal link between homelessness and crime in general.

fc417fc802 1y ago
Amusingly, a significant fraction of people will read what you wrote as a causal link in a particular direction and agree with it. And a different fraction of people will read it as the link going in the other direction and also agree.
- e_i_pi_2 1y ago
  I'd hope that it's not a significant fraction that would get it backwards haha but just to clarify - homelessness/poverty will cause people (on average) to make worse decisions and lower cognitive ability, but making bad decisions or having a lower cognitive ability is not a cause of homelessness/poverty, at least from a statistical causality perspective on a population, individual cases will of course be different

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> Why is it critical? The root cause was desperation, not greed. Doesn't change the effects of the action. And should be more or less legally irrelevant. But it does impact, in my view, the moral judgement they deserve.

joe_the_user 1y ago
And should be more or less legally irrelevant. But it does impact, in my view, the moral judgement they deserve. I suppose, if moral judgements and legality have no relation, sure. But what does that imply.
- cobbzilla 1y ago
  We try to have moral laws but it’s impossible because morality is slippery. This is why we have judges and juries. Also, laws are not moral merely because they exist. Plenty of unjust and immoral laws on the books just depends who you ask.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > if moral judgements and legality have no relation, sure. But what does that imply Something akin to moral hazard [1]. I should also clarify that I meant legally irrelevant to conviction. It's absolutely relevant to sentencing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard