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Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

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Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#81

I find it interesting that Airbnb has banned many conservative people and groups from using their service but readily make room for Afghan refugees. These discriminatory practices are always wrapped in virtuous justifications but are never applied to the other political side. And how does this move make sense when they could be doing the same for homeless people already in America and elsewhere, who are clearly depri…

Please don't take HN threads into political flamewar. It's not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#82

I find it interesting that Airbnb has banned many conservative people and groups from using their service but readily make room for Afghan refugees. These discriminatory practices are always wrapped in virtuous justifications but are never applied to the other political side. And how does this move make sense when they could be doing the same for homeless people already in America and elsewhere, who are clearly depri…

[flagged]

Please don't take HN threads further into political flamewar. It's not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#83
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the latter is a policy of the other political party. Can you give an example? I'm honestly stumped trying to think of one concrete policy initiative put forward on this topic.

random result: >As part of President Joe Biden's new infrastructure plan, he unveiled nearly $5 billion in new grants to state and local governments for rental assistance and the development of affordable housing. In doing so, he aims to get 130,000 homeless people into homes. https://www.newsweek.com/once-homeless-now-im-multi-milliona...

Surprised this is downvoted when it was exactly what the OP was asking for. Good job orange website.

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#84

This is one of those things where lots of people, though judging from the thread maybe not as many as I'd expected here, will applaud. A wealthy, successful, American company is "stepping up" in a humanitarian crisis caused by the United States' misguided (to put it mildly) aspirations for a country that ultimately had little interest in western-style governance. And so it goes, these Afghan refugees will enter into…

> I don't really have a point other than to say that resettling refugees isn't as simple as "oh just give them a place to sleep and some cash and the rest will take care of itself", like it's via osmosis or something that they inculcate the values and culture of the new "home" they find themselves in. This isn't software you can install, it's much harder than that.

Everyone understands that, including the Airbnb people. I don't think there's actually anybody mistaking the context as you're suggesting. Over a million poor immigrants - most of them de facto refugees trying to escape from very dangerous third world poverty in Latin America - enter the US every year with essentially nothing, looking to start a new life. Tens of millions of people from that context across the last 30 years alone. This is an old, understood, persistent process in the US.

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#85
post #79

This is one of those things where lots of people, though judging from the thread maybe not as many as I'd expected here, will applaud. A wealthy, successful, American company is "stepping up" in a humanitarian crisis caused by the United States' misguided (to put it mildly) aspirations for a country that ultimately had little interest in western-style governance. And so it goes, these Afghan refugees will enter into…

Genuine question: How did the United States cause the Taliban control of Afghanistan? The Taliban were in control before the US invasion following the 9/11 attacks. Although the US failed in training the Afghan military, it seems like the Taliban would be in control regardless. The alternative to occupation would be a more complete destruction of the country.

I don't think the parent comment is describing the humanitarian crisis going this far back, but the US is at least partially responsible for the pre-9/11 Taliban going back to the support of the Afghan mujahideen in the Cold War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_mujahideen#Relationship...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Taliban#Foreign_inf...

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#86

Would you prefer to stay in a hotel or a refugee shelter? That's what this campaign says to me at the gut level. Might be nice and altruistic, but it's kind of lousy brand marketing.

Hotel. I don't quite understand the point you're making.

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#87
post #79

This is one of those things where lots of people, though judging from the thread maybe not as many as I'd expected here, will applaud. A wealthy, successful, American company is "stepping up" in a humanitarian crisis caused by the United States' misguided (to put it mildly) aspirations for a country that ultimately had little interest in western-style governance. And so it goes, these Afghan refugees will enter into…

Genuine question: How did the United States cause the Taliban control of Afghanistan? The Taliban were in control before the US invasion following the 9/11 attacks. Although the US failed in training the Afghan military, it seems like the Taliban would be in control regardless. The alternative to occupation would be a more complete destruction of the country.

“The alternative to occupation would be a more complete destruction of the country.”

You seem to be conflating a theocratic regime being in charge with the bloodshed of war, or as you call it, occupation. A great many people died and were horribly injured throughout the 20 year war. But you think the wrong regime would have been a “more complete destruction?”

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#88

This is one of those things where lots of people, though judging from the thread maybe not as many as I'd expected here, will applaud. A wealthy, successful, American company is "stepping up" in a humanitarian crisis caused by the United States' misguided (to put it mildly) aspirations for a country that ultimately had little interest in western-style governance. And so it goes, these Afghan refugees will enter into…

> I don't really have a point other than to say that resettling refugees isn't as simple as "oh just give them a place to sleep and some cash and the rest will take care of itself", like it's via osmosis or something that they inculcate the values and culture of the new "home" they find themselves in. This isn't software you can install, it's much harder than that. Everyone understands that, including the Airbnb peop…

>This is an old, understood, persistent process in the US.

Which apparently failed quite dramatically for my interpreter since he still holds views that clash with the mean understanding of what's politically acceptable in the United States. Perhaps that's my fault. To that end, no I don't think everyone "understands" this.

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#89
post #79

This is one of those things where lots of people, though judging from the thread maybe not as many as I'd expected here, will applaud. A wealthy, successful, American company is "stepping up" in a humanitarian crisis caused by the United States' misguided (to put it mildly) aspirations for a country that ultimately had little interest in western-style governance. And so it goes, these Afghan refugees will enter into…

Genuine question: How did the United States cause the Taliban control of Afghanistan? The Taliban were in control before the US invasion following the 9/11 attacks. Although the US failed in training the Afghan military, it seems like the Taliban would be in control regardless. The alternative to occupation would be a more complete destruction of the country.

The US didn't. The anti-US propagandists will lie and claim the US created the Taliban in the process of supporting the Mujahideen against the Soviets, which is a stretched fiction. Back in reality, there were and are many powerful regional factions in Afghanistan, many disparate groups of Mujahideen. The Taliban came into existence long after the Soviets left Afghanistan.
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