Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#451

Post by refurb » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 10:54 PM UTC

watertom wrote: post #450

The homeless issue is, IMHO, a mental health crisis. We as a society didn't want to pay for the freeloading mental health patients, so now we have the homeless. In 1955 there were 560,000 patients in all mental hospitals across the united states, private, public and government. In 2010 there were 43,000 psychiatric beds in the United States, or about 14 beds per 100,000 people—the same ratio as in 1850 In 1950 there…

It’s not about not wanting to pay, it’s about the changing attitude towards institutionalizing people, in particularly when it’s involuntary. Around the 1970-80s there was a big push to move mental patients out of institutions and into the community. It was viewed as more “humane”.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#452

Post by refurb » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 10:55 PM UTC

capdeck wrote: post #160

CodeSheikh wrote: post #130

I dont't care if this is a PR stint to ward of recent criticism Bezos is getting from Bernie et al but if this fund goes and actually help and make a real life impact on the lives of homeless people, then I am fine and I will hold back my criticism of Amazon. I mean clearly I have not done enough to mitigate homelessness in this country who am I to question others motives trying to solve the same problem?

Looks like this was cheaper than upping the salaries of warehouse workers to get them off food stamps and provide healthcare. For Bezos this is just another calculation, nothing more.

I don’t get the concern around people using govt assistance when they have a low paying job.

Would it have been better if those jobs were never created and those same people were on full welfare payments?

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#453

Post by p1necone » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 10:57 PM UTC

natalyarostova wrote: post #437

Jedd wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... but you can't blame Jeff Bezos for UK legislation. Ahh, the old 'unless it's specifically and explicitly denied, regardless of moral or ethical considerations, let alone acting contra to the spirit of the law, then it's okay' defence. Your misdirection is correct - Jeff Bezos is not responsible for UK legislation - however how Jeff Bezos instructs his vendors and employees to act is very much his responsibility…

If you want to optimize systems, you should expect people to operate with self-interest with respect to the law. Attributing moral blame for self-interested parties not donating money to be within the spirit of the law is unreasonable.

No it's fucking not.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#454

Post by ben_w » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 11:04 PM UTC

flyinglizard wrote: post #438

jonahhorowitz wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but they fought the headcount tax in Seattle, and they're actively seeking a low-tax jurisdiction for HQ2.

Shouldn’t Amazon shareholders expect the company to look for low tax jurisdictions to operate from? Is there a morality issue that I’m not seeing?

Yes, there is. Societies — as we know how to make them — break down if everyone figures out how to avoid paying their way.

If a hacker gets root, they’re just using the rules of the system, finding a loophole they can exploit… taxes and laws are systems that can be exploited, but even in the cases where I find them bad (and I have plenty of broad examples of things I don’t like), I think it’s worse to let people get away with exploiting weaknesses in the system.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#455

Post by xamuel » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 11:10 PM UTC

asdkhadsj wrote: post #444

xamuel wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were Bezos, I'd do a lot more for charity. That said, you're making the fallacy of thinking like money is a natural resource we dig up from the ground or something, that Bezos is hoarding. No. Money is just an abstraction of barters and favors owed. Suppose Bezos pays a surgeon $100k to treat a patient. Well, the surgeon could have done it for free. So if Bezos didn't pay the surgeon, who is responsible for the…

That's an interesting viewpoint. Though, I view it more as; if you're starving and I have 10 apples, should I give you an apple? Why shouldn't someone else? Should the surgeon really do the work for free when 100k to him means a lot; but 100k to Bezos is meaningfully less? By the same token, if there's someone in front of me who needs help and I can help them with 5 cents? 5 cents is nothing to me, I'd do it in a hea…

No-one eats money. Money is just how we notate that we owe each other stuff. The surgeon can operate on the patient but decides not to, because the patient is a stranger. Bezos says "Please help that patient". The surgeon says "I know you! You convinced a bunch of vendors to send physical products to me and my loved ones. Therefore, I'll help the patient if you insist."

The above dialog is unfamiliar because it gets abstracted away by money, but if money works correctly, then that's what it really means for Bezos to pay the surgeon $100k to treat the patient.

Imagine I know how to fish. I go and teach one million people how to fish. I charge them $1 each, which they gladly pay because they consider the skill worth more than $1. Now I have $1M. I hoard it. Am I greedy? By no means! It's a paradox: you think I'm greedy because I'm hoarding that $1M, but actually I have the $1M because I provided so much value!

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#456

Post by gnusci » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 11:14 PM UTC

jimnotgym wrote: post #419

Bezos can keep his donations, I just want Amazon to pay tax like any other business would in the UK, pay employees NI like any other business in the UK, and pay minimum wage like any other business in the UK. It shouldn't be up to the billionaires to choose where to spend money that should be in the hands of national governments and workers. This article for instance shows homeless Amazon warehouse workers living in…

Maybe they are also contributing to the budget for:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/13/uks-mass-surveillance-regi...

So it is a political trade-off, but it looks horrible and unacceptable to us.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#457

Post by CydeWeys » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 11:14 PM UTC

village-idiot wrote: post #297

fjsolwmv wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in a car is homeless.

Homeless, but not shelterless. Worse than apartment, better than a tent.

I'd rather live in a tent than in a car. Fortunately tents are relatively cheap, so if you have a car you can probably also afford a tent to sleep in.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#458

Post by zjaffee » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 11:20 PM UTC

jonahhorowitz wrote: post #434

artursapek wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They pay the tax they are legally obligated to. You can't expect any business to pay a penny more than that. It's on the lawmakers to remove the loopholes (which they and their friends probably exploit as well, so good luck with that...)

Yes, but they fought the headcount tax in Seattle, and they're actively seeking a low-tax jurisdiction for HQ2.

As they were almost certainly legally obligated too, the problem is individuals still vote in officials who bend to the whim of businesses instead of individuals.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#459

Post by stephengillie » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 11:25 PM UTC

ithilglin909 wrote: post #287

zapita wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe there’s more than one problem worth addressing in Seattle?

Agreed, there are many problems worth solving in Seattle, but some are more clearly urgent public health problems than others.

The world's largest drill keeps getting stuck in the cars buried beneath the city.

Northwest Harvest's food bank lost their lease on Cherry Street, but there's still a soup kitchen under the overpass, supporting the unofficial Cherry Street Tent City.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#460

Post by emodendroket » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 11:28 PM UTC

chillacy wrote: post #427

emodendroket wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the government taking things by force, or by the implied threat of force, is bad, then taxation is bad, and if you don't have any kind of taxation you don't have a government in any meaningful sense.

I think taxes are a bit better because you're also agreeing to pay your own money (vs only taking other people's money only as the original commenter said). I had a different reading of "taking other people's money by force" as meaning specifically voting to tax a minority group more just because you can. This is based on the GP comment being "We should tax billionaires out of existence" as opposed to "taxes are immo…

That isn't taxing a "minority group." It's just progressive taxation, an idea almost everyone accepts to some extent. "Taxing billionaires out of existence" could be achieved simply by increasing marginal tax rates.