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San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

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Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that literally happened there would be ructions. And those two groups are not that dissimilar. > Georgists (including myself) tend to see anything less than open borders as deeply immoral. Large numbers of Nigerians moved to Dublin. Robbery, fraud, violence shot up immediately and the CSO (gov stats) shows they are mostly not working and are recipients of state aid. I used to believe in open borders once until I s…

You are doing nothing to argue that closed borders are moral, just that implementing open borders has caused problems in some cases. Similar arguments were made against dismantling the institution of slavery, and they were just as incoherent at addressing the root moral evil.

That's because Mr Sharkley, I am not against people mingling but people clashing. Pushing for open borders is a basic denial of human nature.

I think the denizens of this website would get along because regardless of race or class our cultural values are similar. Culture reduced to a single person is a personality, and ours are quite similar. And this is a very recent development yet the distinctions between different groups of people online are well defined. When I first met a large group of computer geeks in person, it was like coming home from a distant journey.

I agree that geographical boundaries are somewhat arbitrary but I don't agree that the idea of borders themselves are immoral. They seem more like a natural and organic adaption to the world. Birds of a feather flock together. That is what open borders proponents are up against, they are lumpers in the eternal battle between the lumpers and splitters.

> Similar arguments were made against dismantling the institution of slavery

I didn't make an argument that some people are intrinsically disposed to being slaves so I'm not sure what similarity you are seeing, perhaps you could develop that into a comparative explanation since I do not see it.

> You are doing nothing to argue that closed borders are moral,

I made no such claim. It is you who made a claim about morality and borders. You are the one who would be required in a classical debate to give up a rhetorical explanation for the motion.

> just that implementing open borders has caused problems in some cases.

That is indeed my claim. I think many countries are similar enough that an exchange of citizens would not lead to significant disruptions. The states of California and Texas are quite different but I presume they wouldn't kill each other. However should 500 years pass I would be much less confident about that statement because the differences may be too stark by then.

A exaggerated version of this is North Korea and South Korea. Two countries, with a common language, genetics, yet in less than fifty years the differences have become profound. In another fifty years they may be irreconcilable.

There is no real reason to believe all groups are destined to become one people, which is what most open borders proponents I've met do believe. The borders mostly exist because of politics, it was never geography or ability to commute with transports that caused splitting.

I think we're dealing with something that organically happens with group dynamics, like how a village behaves differently to an urban metropolis, and I don't think open borders people have explanations for these dynamics.

What I do know is that historically large population movements of different peoples are a prelude to war. They always have been and I see no reason why they won't be once more.

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#82
post #2

> the former accountant ended up outdoors after a divorce and a brain tumor. Sounds like our current resource allocation system here in the US is working great! Seems like a totally sensible reason for a human being to be forced to live without basic shelter. They obviously have no useful skills to provide society so let's just throw them away. What a time to be alive!

You could also read it as a societal trouble that family didn't look after her.

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when people in Virginia decide they want to move to California? Georgists (including myself) tend to see anything less than open borders as deeply immoral.

I want to ask you something else. Your name sounds Irish actually. Have you ever lived in an areas with a large foreign population? Do you have any experience of those cultures apart from the television and holidaying. You have to understand this is nothing to do with individuals. This is about groups and they don't behave like individuals somehow. I've worked with a chap from the Congo, model citizen. Also a South A…

> These are their cultural values!

There are horrible cultures in the world; I agree.

> That means borders

NOPE

This merely traps people where these bad cultures are, and this in my mind is the great immorality. You cannot tell a person "you live in a failed place, but you stuck there forever in poverty, and because of the luck of where I am born, I am entitled to greater things."

You allow for a free movement of people, you will perhaps see a transient spreading of some worse cultures, but in a free marketplace of ideas, they will not remain ascendent-- barbarities and oppression simply aren't very effective. Loss-aversion is no way to build a community.

> and if you don't allow borders on the outside of a country then they develop themselves on the inside of a country. Look at the USA, they have gated communities because there exist predominately minority group areas with high crime rates.

Very true, which is why Georgists pull for a Land Value Tax, which would do much to end this segregation.

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are doing nothing to argue that closed borders are moral, just that implementing open borders has caused problems in some cases. Similar arguments were made against dismantling the institution of slavery, and they were just as incoherent at addressing the root moral evil.

That's because Mr Sharkley, I am not against people mingling but people clashing. Pushing for open borders is a basic denial of human nature. I think the denizens of this website would get along because regardless of race or class our cultural values are similar. Culture reduced to a single person is a personality, and ours are quite similar. And this is a very recent development yet the distinctions between differen…

> What I do know is that historically large population movements of different peoples are a prelude to war. They always have been and I see no reason why they won't be once more.

I agree more with the concept that strong borders are the prelude to war. To quote H.G. Wells:

> It was just this dignity of government which the crude Darwinism and the Kiplingism of the later Victorian years were destroying. Competition and survival were accepted as the basal facts of life. “War is the natural state of nations,” said a popular London men’s weekly the other day, with an air of repeating something universally known. “Peace is only the interval of rest and preparation between wars.” In accordance with such ideas the growing boy was exhorted to be “loyal” to his school and contemptuous of other schools, “loyal” to his class against other classes, “loyal” to his nation and contemptuous and fierce towards other nations, “loyal” to the English-speaking peoples and contemptuous and hostile to the German or French-speaking. His instinct for brotherhood was narrowed and debased. The universal brotherhood of mankind was laughed to scorn. All life was bickering, he was taught; and yet the whole course of history has shown that the bickering nations perish, and that the alliances and coalescences of peoples and nations ensure the life they comprehend.

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#85
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Residential segregation is the large scale observable effect of small biases. http://ncase.me/polygons . To end residential segregation is to either end the biases themselves or the freedom to express them. Either approach is rather distopian, with strong reverberations in the worst abuses of the Soviet regime.

What? Eliminating ass-backwards zoning laws that enforce 'aesthetic character' is a Soviet dystopia? How? And here I always thought that the best example of a Soviet dystopia in housing was the row after row of cookie-cutter prefab Krushevkas [1]. That and the constant lack of housing. In fact, restrictions on aesthetics, driveway sizes, etc, only exacerbate the problem. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHdFd2RKRS…

Look at the data. How many cities around the world have an utopian mix of people, where millionaires live next to homeless tent encampments and [insert ethnicity here] live mixed with [insert another ethnicity here].

The uniform cities I can think of are Soviet cities. Soviets worked hard to Harrison Bergeron their populations, and also to eliminate any shred of social cohesion other than the prescribed love for the Party. And even in Soviet cities, the Party leaders live in their own nice segregated neighborhoods, far removed from the Krushevaks the forcibly uniformized rest of the population is forced to inhabit.

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just classism rather than racism.

When most of the lower class in a certain area in the US is non-white, they're both the same thing.

No, they really aren't. If I told you I don't like clowns, would you accuse me of being sexist against men, because most clowns are men?

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#87

There are a lot of building codes that are incredibly stupid. For things like this (homebuilding) where the competition is heavy and consumers have a choice (within a spending limit), I feel only the most bare of safety requirements should be law. All other standards related to efficiency, "above-and-beyond" safety and design considerations should be met and advertised via certifications. Almost every zoning law prob…

If I had to guess, it's also liability derived from the close proximity of houses in urban setting. The home owner might be cavalier about fire safety or noise containment, but his neighbor might have a strong opinion about those, the strength of the opinion being directly proportional to the proximity of two dwellings.

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#88
post #41

Honest question: Do any class or all classes of people (citizens, legal immigrants, illegal immigrants, refugees, criminals, teachers, disabled, adults, children, or any other type of people) have a right to a home or some other minimum level of shelter? Seems like discussion on homelessness would be slightly easier if we started from first principles or at least some place where there is closer to a consensus.

This right is present twice (once as an article on housing, another as a right to own property) in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Note that "right" implies that you cannot be denied something arbitrarily, it doesn't mean someone somewhere will go out of their way to supply you with that.

Think of it as a call option - you have an undeniable right to exercise it under the terms of contract, but it doesn't mean the brokerage or anyone else have to finance this transaction in case you're low on funds.

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#89
post #3
post #2

> the former accountant ended up outdoors after a divorce and a brain tumor. Sounds like our current resource allocation system here in the US is working great! Seems like a totally sensible reason for a human being to be forced to live without basic shelter. They obviously have no useful skills to provide society so let's just throw them away. What a time to be alive!

It is truly sad that in by far the richest country in the world, and ostensibly the best, millions of people are living this way. Why on earth Americans are not fixing America, I have no idea.

> by far the richest country in the world

Based on what criteria? You can tell who the richest person in the world is by subtracting his liabilities from his assets and arriving at a large number. US budget liabilities exceeded US budget revenues for quite a bit now.

Re: San Jose: New law would make city first to allow “tiny homes” for homeless

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human... """ The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris. The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of what many people believe to be the rights to which all human bei…

Most of the right do not recognize the UN as a moral authority. I view the UN generally as 'not even wrong'. With leftist propaganda, it is not what they say that matters. It is what they leave out . They come up with things that sound to me like this: "Everybody has the right to a chocolate bar, because chocolate bars are delicious and everybody ought to have one" Then I think 'Well, that sounds like a nice thing' b…

All I can say is, I hope you don't mind if I go ahead and build the cornucopia machine?

I don't give a wet slap about ideology, left or right or anything else, but I do think everyone should have as much chocolate as they want. Bathe in it, why not?

If no one stops me there will be floating castles and highways to the stars. ;-P

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