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The history of the end of poverty has just begun

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Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#431

Post by varnaud »

WalterBright wrote: post #148
noahtallen wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today, America's poor have a better quality of life than medieval kings. This can’t be true. Just look at the homelessness situation across the US. No shelter, no income, no sanitation. That is certainly worse quality of life than a king. You must starting your definition of poor quite a ways up the income scale. Maybe you could make make an argument for solidly middle class and above? Even then, there are even a l…

The homeless issue in the US is much more of a drug addiction and alcoholism problem than a down on one's luck problem. Something like 90% of the homeless are in that category. > Who needs plumbing when you have a servant to bring you whatever you want? I like hot showers. I bet you do, too. Besides, what do you think happens to kings when they get a toothache? No anesthetic, nothing to be done except an idiot with a…

The homeless issue is in the name. It's people without a home. The solution is to provide people with a place they can call home, like a house or an apartment.

Why focus on drugs? Do you believe that some people deserve to have no home if they have a drug problem?

With the security and comfort of having a home, becoming a productive member of society becomes much easier if that's what you care about.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#432

Post by southerntofu »

WalterBright wrote: post #402
southerntofu wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a fallacy at play here. Some kings died due to lack of knowledge how to treat them. In the US, poor people die from diseases we know how to treat but society refuses to treat them because they don't have money. Measuring the increase in possible outcomes is irrelevant if you don't take into considerable how accessible/affordable those outcomes are. It's just like if you said "but medieval kings didn't have sp…

There is no way that modern poor have worse health care than medieval kings, because those kings HAD NO HEALTH CARE, and in fact, what doctors they did have did harm to their luckless patients. For example, they would bleed a person to try to drain out what was making them sick. For another, they did not wash their hands or their instruments.

I'm not arguing otherwise. All i'm saying is you can't compare apple to oranges: it's fine if you can't walk on the moon. Except when every one else is doing it because it's become trivial and you're denied it because of your caste/class or social status.

That many Americans die due to illnesses we know how to treat for cheap for decades is unbelievable. And don't even get me started on long-term conditions, like insulin or HIV-medication prices skyrocketing for zero reason (well, there's one: profit) decades after their first commercialization.

In much of the world, the USA is (rightfully) derided for being so backwards when it comes to health care. I would even go so far as to argue that some traditional medicines (plants, kine/ostheo, acupuncture...) are/were far more advanced than the medical treatments available to poorer US citizens (i.e. none), but i'm not versed in medical sciences so don't take my word for it.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#433

Post by CryptoPunk »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #393
CryptoPunk wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A larger secondary market leads to more capital being available in the primary market that directly funds new construction that adds housing stock and renovation that prevents its depreciation. >>but actually vacant (e.g., most of London or Vancouver Island). Most of London and Vancouver Island are not vacant.

> A larger secondary market leads to more capital being available in the primary market that directly funds new construction that adds housing stock and renovation that prevents its depreciation. I don’t buy this. The speculators who make-up the secondary market are not the ones who make money by tearing down and building new properties. There’s no value added to these speculators and is akin to domain squatting. htt…

The higher the price, the more potential projects are cost-effective to move ahead on. The secondary market generating demand in the primary market is a universal property of all markets.

>>The speculators who make-up the secondary market are not the ones who make money by tearing down and building new properties.

The investors who tear down and build new properties are motivated entirely by the market price that a unit can fetch on the market, which is largely determined by the speculators in the secondary market.

>>Vacancy is a problem in most areas of Vancouver.

The article says the vacancy rate is 8.2% in Vancouver, which is a far cry from most houses.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#434

Post by southerntofu »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #376
southerntofu wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The percent of chronic homeless in the drug/substance abuse bucket is pretty high That's true, but correlation does not equal causation. Many rich people have drugs/mental issues, too. Some drugs are basically a social status symbol in some circles (cocaine, champagne and some other fancy alcohols, for example). Many people become homeless due to reasons unrelated to drugs. Once you're homeless, basic survival beco…

> Many people become homeless due to reasons unrelated to drugs. Once you're homeless, basic survival becomes an every day struggle and it's not hard to see how mind-altering substances can be very appealing in this situation. For some definition of “many” sure, but many become homeless because of drugs, driving their families to give up on them as they are not able to deal with their problems. Still some are indepen…

> For some definition of “many” sure

Good, then we agree chronic homelessness is not entirely due to drugs, as i often read on HN :)

> Alcoholism is another problem.

I think it's the same problem. Alcoholism is a drug addiction problem and can be just as bad as any other addiction. That some cultures believe alcohol to be tolerable/encourageable is irrelevant. Alcohol was historically weaponized against indigenous people (not only in the US) and to this day some revolutionary indigenous movements such as the zapatistas in Chiapas consider it this way. Much like crack cocaine was weaponized by CIA against black/brown communities in the US (to finance their counter-revolutionary covert wars in South America).

> people do fall into homelessness because they aren’t lucky enough to remain high functioning

Exactly, but drugs is far from the only reason to become non-functioning according to capitalist standards. Depression/burnout, physical health, workspace/job closure, and *many* other factors can lead to homelessness.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#435

Post by TulliusCicero »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #427
TulliusCicero wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infrastructure, jobs, coordination, state and local regulations, capital. The list goes on. Your comment is a particularly egregious example of, "I could do that in a weekend." Internet commenters tend to blithely assume hard things are easy.

I definitely couldnt do it in a weekend. But I have been wondering how new cities are born, like not a suburb beside an existing city, but the ones that are in the middle of "no where". And what would stop a few thousand people from having a mutual interest to start something in the middle of no where? Most of the jobs could be remote save for the ones that support the citizens themselves. maybe this would fail for t…

It would fail, or at least be hard, for the reasons I listed.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#436

Post by nobodyandproud »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #433
nobodyandproud wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A larger secondary market leads to more capital being available in the primary market that directly funds new construction that adds housing stock and renovation that prevents its depreciation. I don’t buy this. The speculators who make-up the secondary market are not the ones who make money by tearing down and building new properties. There’s no value added to these speculators and is akin to domain squatting. htt…

The higher the price, the more potential projects are cost-effective to move ahead on. The secondary market generating demand in the primary market is a universal property of all markets. >>The speculators who make-up the secondary market are not the ones who make money by tearing down and building new properties. The investors who tear down and build new properties are motivated entirely by the market price that a u…

> The investors who tear down and build new properties are motivated entirely by the market price that a unit can fetch on the market, which is largely determined by the speculators in the secondary market.

But how is this at all related to the secondary market speculators?

People who make a living by holding on to properties and flipping them on a price increase.

This only exacerbates the lack of supply.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#437

Post by kelseyfrog »

roenxi wrote: post #415
kelseyfrog wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any downsides of being connected you can think of?

Lots, obviously. It isn't utopia. But not being connected would make you impoverished. Like how monks might disconnect by taking a so-called vow of poverty. And people who voluntarily do that? Vanishingly rare.

It is interesting that it is obvious to you. Did you grow up in an unconnected region and then become connected later in life? How would your perspective change if that was true. Is this speculation or have you spoken to someone who had that story? I find it fascinating what facts are assumed by societies. That the current way of life is the best is a reoccurring theme amongst societies with very different conditions. To me it is more of a defense mechanism that rationalizes it more than anything else, but that's just my opinion.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#438

Post by kelseyfrog »

silverberry wrote: post #405
kelseyfrog wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be free of the spectacle of the modern world, what a delicious treat!

I don't think anybody is stopping you from living like a hermit in a cabin in the woods, right? But still, you don't.

I would very much like to be free of spectacle without having to live in the woods. What is it that makes society and spectacle inseparable in your mind? I like these questions because they directly address social assumptions.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#439

Post by guerrilla »

vecinu wrote: post #419
guerrilla wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should check out the interviews, hear it directly from the source.

I sympathize with the OP, the source is unreliable. In a similar vain, a lot of US residents do not believe the numbers China is pumping out in regards to COVID-19, just another example of how the source can be unreliable. Being homeless changes your attitude and perspective on life. It's unlikely these people can be truly honest with outsiders, especially strangers because then they don't receive any aid or help. Pe…

I think if you watched enough of the interviews, it'd shift your perspective. You're just begging the question at this point.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#440

Post by nobodyandproud »

selestify wrote: post #409
nobodyandproud wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are anti-vacancy laws easy to enforce? If I'm out of the country for a year, but I want to retain my rental because of the location am I out of luck? I feel that would cause more problems than it would solve.

That's a good question about the enforcement. You'd really only care about the most trafficked dense areas to live in, so gated communities should be less of an issue unless the whole city is made of urban sprawl neighborhoods. If it turns out to be hard to catch, the penalty should take into account the likelihood of getting caught, such that the expected reward from cheating is still negative. If you're out of the…

> If it turns out to be hard to catch, the penalty should take into account the likelihood of getting caught, such that the expected reward from cheating is still negative.

That already puts a red flag. How do parties prove/disprove vacancy?

Far better to discourage (not forbid, mind you) multi-ownership in the first place.

> If you're out of the country for an entire year and you want to keep your house empty during an housing crisis, you seem like exactly the kind of person this tax should be levied on. Either rent your home to someone else for the year, or pay the penalty for contributing to the housing crisis.

As long as it’s a penalty and not a forced eviction. If I’m taking a one-year sabbatical and then coming back it’s a bit much.

There’s a perverse set of incentives for a city/town to try and mark someone as “not residing”, which makes me question this vacancy approach even further.

It’s just ripe for abuse.

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