5mo ago

The park in my parent's neighborhood got rid of all the benches

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Rather than just help them (which is cheaper btw) they take services away from everyone in an attempt to make their area shitty enough they'll go somewhere else...
Completely ignoring that they're making it shitty for the people they want to keep too, which makes people want to leave and depressed selling prices, which can easily lead to a panic and flight from an area destroying the community.
Even from a purely selfish capitalistic perspective, it's best to just have a fucking safety net. Beyond all the ethical reasons we should, there's not a single logical reason not to fucking help people.
- The problem is that businesses see it as a way to drive customers into their stores where they can then demand they either buy something or leave. This is end stage capitalism bullshit where they're trying to wring blood from a stone.
- But have you considered that maybe my good and just God has given me a mission to make everyone else suffer?
  I'm sure it's written somewhere in the bible. Idk I've never read it.
  
  Neither have most Christians.
- Yeah, but Republican voters want to hurt people who aren't like them. How will your proposal help them do that??
- No? Have a safety net? The more that die, the more theoretical wealth becomes available to them. Even if it's homeless.
  It reaches the same goal for them. That's why it's selfish and capitalistic, it works. It just sacrifices everything that isn't I. It's that doomer mentality, of why bother helping. world's dog shit, so be dog shit.
  Live your life one of two ways, how the world wants or how you want the world to be.
  I want this world to be better, so I do what I can to make it how I wish it was. Trying to quit a weed addiction, so I do small shit like not litter butts, or pick up garbage I think might be cool, help animals in danger, do something when you can.
  Just talk. Capitalists however profit from any social benefits because they're pathetic cowards that need daddy's wallets until they're decrepit middle age men.
  Ps. This is just something that makes me feel special and I don't have many friends. The other day on the train an old black guy and an old white guy were talking about how the world is ass. There hasn't been a good president since George Washington, not the time to enlist cause what are we fighting for. I was tired, but eventually asked why is now the wrong time if tomorrow is worse. There's never a good time, because you aren't trying. Anyways, an EVEN older black man standing next to me says, something about back in his day even hoodrats tried to help. Everyone was quite.
- The problem is that when you do help people, more people keep showing up who want help too. There's a good reason why a couple hundred thousand migrants have come to NYC (where I live) and that isn't because there's no "fucking safety net". Frankly, I want less of a safety net here so that these people leave and the rest of the country has to do its share. I feel absolutely no guilt saying that I want either those benches a person can't lie down on or no benches at all in the public areas I go to.
  There are help-the-homeless-even-more advocates in NYC so I'm not saying everyone is a hypocrite, but I expect that the overlap between "complains about measures to deter homeless people" and "lives in a neighborhood with a lot of homeless people" is small.
  
  The problem is that when you do help people, more people keep showing up who want help too.
  Which is why if it happens on a federal level, then people don't congregate in the few places that aren't as worse as possible.
  If we handle it on a city or even state level, then people spit out by the worst states will always migrate, subsidizing the cost of the policies for those shitty states. And providing the incentive to be as cruel as possible.
  That's the thing with the logic against it, you end up arguing that it should be done on a federal level and agreeing with the person you're arguing with.
  Always worth the time for a reply tho. Hopefully it sticks.
  
  I agree that it should happen on a federal level, although I don't think it will as long as cities like New York and San Francisco are paying for it. I'm arguing against people who think that New York and San Francisco shouldn't be creating any public areas that aren't for homeless people.
  
  There's always some place that's worse. What you're arguing for here is a race to the bottom, where everyone tries to be worse than their neighbours in order to get the undesirables to go there instead.
  In essentially "the tragedy of the commons" but in an opposite sense. If everyone gets worse in an attempt to get rid of "undesirables", you just end up with everywhere being worse, and the "undesirables" still being around. What we need is for everyone to build safety nets together. That might actually improve the situation.
  
  We need a system that does not rely on threats of homelessness to motivate people.
  As it is there will always be undesirables, even if the have/get to move the goalposts.
  
  I recognize that this is a tragedy-of-the-commons scenario (although if everywhere is worse then at least people will stop coming from other countries to be homeless in the USA) but local action can't prevent the race. It can only determine winners and losers.
  
  Nobody is coming to the US to be homeless. That's not a thing.
  We're shitty enough to our own citizens to make plenty of our own folk homeless.
  You are closer to living on the street than you realize.
  
  Nobody is coming to the US to be homeless. That’s not a thing.
  They don't intend to stay homeless permanently, but they come with no money and use the social services available to homeless people.
  We’re shitty enough to our own citizens to make plenty of our own folk homeless.
  There are many hard-working poor people who experience temporary housing insecurity, but they're not the ones living on the street long-term. The ones who are usually have serious mental problems that make becoming a productive member of even the most generous society very unlikely. (They'll also often refuse to go to a shelter because they won't be allowed to do drugs there.)
  You are closer to living on the street than you realize.
  My family was poor when I was a child, although government assistance made it possible for us to pay for a place to live. (Note that I am not opposed to all government assistance.) We were close to homelessness then, and I really don't want to end up in that situation again so I have taken many precautions. I have enough savings to live on for a long time. If I lose those, I have six people (mostly relatives) who would let me live with them for as long as I needed to. If they don't, I have four more who would let me live with them for a few weeks. I think I could only become homeless if I got addicted to drugs or developed a mental illness that made me unbearable to be around. That's not impossible but it is unlikely.
  
  I think I could only become homeless if I got addicted to drugs or developed a mental illness that made me unbearable to be around. That’s not impossible but it is unlikely.
  Please say this is self-deprecating irony.
  
  It's funny that my views are apparently extremely unpopular around here because they seem fairly mainstream IRL even among my friends who are all going to vote for Harris. I don't think I would offend anyone by saying something similar at a group dinner (though some people might disagree) but I would be a little more circumspect and feel out the audience first if there were people I didn't know. Different bubbles, I suppose...
  
  From what I'm reading it seems like you think helping people is a bad thing.
  
  I don't think helping people is a bad thing. I'm generally in favor of a relatively high level of help (I vote for centrist Democrats, not Republicans) but I think that sometimes it is justified and appropriate to help less rather than more.
  
  Spoken like a true centrist.
  
  The answer to the mentally ill homeless problem is not enshittification of cities, it’s the creation of high quality government run long term care facilities with approprate action taken against those who abuse the residents in these facilities.
  Which is helping more. It will also be cheaper than enshittification in the long run. But you liberals will never understand that sometimes you have to actually spend money on social programs instead of running to the right whenever the republicans say boo.
  All your arguments are running to the right. Reagan would have been proud.
  
  You're pathetic. I hope that if you ever need help, you never get it either. Absolutely pitiful.
  
  "Pitiful" implies that people would have sympathy for me. I think the word "despicable" might better express what you intend.
  
  No, pitiful is exactly what I intend. I feel very bad for people like you.
  
  I say this the respect you are due. Fuck you.
  
  Do you know how much your government spends on helping private companies, instead?
  
  I'm not in favor of that either (with a few exceptions related to national security).
  
  Oh god forbid we create a society where thousands of people don’t need help!

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