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We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

bbc.co.uk

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Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#141

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

ajb wrote: post #46
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy Christmas, folks! > please have some humanity about the homeless In the US, the homeless population exploded , in the 1980s, when they closed down all the mental institutions. Before that, there was a far less pervasive homeless population in urban areas. Being "on the spectrum," myself (but highly functional), I can attest to how easy it is for an autistic person's life to go sideways. Many autistic folks have…

Non-neurotypicals can receive bad treatment from neurotypicals. But, it's also a trap to start thinking that neurotypicals are 100% intolerant. The corollary of not knowing when they're offending people, is that they also don't know when they're receiving tolerance - which is actually a lot; although it's understandable that this is not obvious.

> The corollary of not knowing when [neurotypicals are] offending people, is that they also don't know when they're receiving tolerance

This assertion seemed to go unrecognized in the other replies; I really think it earns a moment of reflection.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#142

Post by squigz »

hkpack wrote: post #129

Since it is Christmas and we are talking about welcoming strangers in your house, I think we need to remember the story of the author of the most popular Christmas Carrol ("Carrol of the bells") - Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych. His family was hosting a stranger in their house for the night in 1921. Stranger said he has nowhere to go, so they allowed him to stay in the room with Leontovych himself. The stranger…

What is your intent in sharing this? Why do we need to remember this story? Do you - and others who are talking about how strangers might murder you and your family - really think that people don't consider that risk or something?

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#143

Post by pstuart »

moondowner wrote: post #60

> The homeless centre told them Ronnie needed an address to get a job, Rob said, but "to get an address, you need a job". > "That's the Catch 22 that loads of homeless people are in." Breaking this systemic barrier would make life easier on a lot of people.

The homeless centre should be able to be used as a home address for a job.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#144

Post by Arainach »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #103
DougN7 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the reaction is actually knee jerk/automatic before the upper brain(?)/concious tolerant/empathetic side can take control, is someone a jerk for having that primal response first. I consider myself very tolerant and empathetic and I do my damndest to be that way, but my wife says sometimes it’s not the first thing that shows. I’m trying as hard as I know how. Should I be condemned?

> Should I be condemned? You shouldn't be condemned, but as I wrote, people should stop the hypocrisy and virtue signalling of pretending to be so insanely tolerant if they have such a primal response.

It's not hypocrisy or virtue signaling if people are choosing to be tolerant.

If someone is standing near the train tracks and sees a train approaching a stalled car, they should be praised for choosing to run over and help even if their initial instinct is to get as far away as possible.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#145

Post by SpaceNoodled »

closewith wrote: post #27
lupusyndrby9 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that kind of a lesson learned though? Hitchhiking is illegal for a reason. We don’t let children run as freely outdoors . A lot of states are rewriting or adding exemptions to statutory limits on pressing charges and suing for certain crimes because they happened during a period of time where people assumed you could trust people more. Being cautious and distrustful of strangers with mental issues is a very pro…

Is hitchhiking illegal in the US?

Yes.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#146

Post by mmooss »

lupusyndrby9 wrote: post #20
everyone wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think that's a useful way of thinking.. A well known family member could also randomly kill you. Either one is extremely unlikely.

Isn’t that kind of a lesson learned though? Hitchhiking is illegal for a reason. We don’t let children run as freely outdoors . A lot of states are rewriting or adding exemptions to statutory limits on pressing charges and suing for certain crimes because they happened during a period of time where people assumed you could trust people more. Being cautious and distrustful of strangers with mental issues is a very pro…

> a lesson learned

It's certainly a perspective of many, but many others think it's wrong, that children should run freely (there's a whole movement around that), etc.

> please please also don’t forget that people are dangerous

IME from a life spent in cities has taught me that people - strangers, unhoused people, etc. - are great. Most will be happy to to help, have a pleasant conversation, etc. (Read Jane Jacobs who, iirc, examines it in detail.) Humans are social creatures - we don't live alone, we're made to socialize and live in groups.

You need to be a social creature too and read people a little. Obviously some people aren't in a mood to interact; don't be rude or an idiot (they'll probably ignore you). And there's risk to everything - you can die in an accident but still travel by car; you can catch diseases but you still leave your home.

Really, the exception I think I see at a higher rate is apparently wealthy people. Maybe they aren't accustomed to the need to help each other, but there seems to be a culture of anger toward those who might need some help today. Why don't they just support themselves like I do?

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#147

Post by squigz »

toenail wrote: post #84
donkey_brains wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, brilliant plan. Before governments there were no homeless. Maybe now we can have a for-profit corporation take care of homeless services to really squeeze all the efficiency out of the system. Just like they did for the prisons.

Right, before governments you could just build a hut anywhere you wanted.

Well... if you had the tools, and skills, and very likely some help, and the willpower to "just build a hut"

Also, how long ago was "before governments"?

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#148

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

card_zero wrote: post #117
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Overall, 76% of female murders and 56% of male murders were perpetrated by someone known to the victim.” > https://bjs.ojp.gov/female-murder-victims-and-victim-offende ... Lets say M is "being murdered" and A is "stranger in the house", "not A" is "person known to the victim in the house". The numbers you're quoting say that P(not A | M) is large, implying that P(A | M) is small. However, to make a decision on whe…

I don't think statistics are relevant at all. Suppose the stranger is wielding a kopesh, an ancient Egyptian sword. What we want to know is not "how many murderers use kopeshes?" (none of them), but "is this guy a murderer?", and that seems in line with what you're saying about statistics. However, the question "how many wielders of kopeshes are murderers?" is also irrelevant, and the answer is still none of them. Si…

Nothing that you said prevents one from discussing models and making estimates.

All you're saying is you don't like my model (presumably because you'd like more inputs to the estimation?). Ok. You might not like my model, but at my comment on conditional probabilities was correct. The person that I was responding to wasn't that.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#149

Post by lurk2 »

m4ck_ wrote: post #112
lurk2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In places without governments like Haiti you can raise a family in a relatively simple structure. The third world is not a model to emulate. Haiti is a failed state.

Might want to take a gander at the sentence before: >Where we can actually take the government out of the equation and actually help people: Zoning Fixing the fucked up zoning & other regs that force housing prices to only ever move in one direction is not the same as advocating for elimination of government or suggesting Haiti is something to aspire to. Insert any country where people live on a fraction of US minimu…

Haiti’s inability to enforce zoning laws is not something the developed world ought to strive to emulate. Haiti is an undesirable place to live precisely because it has no capacity to enforce rules and norms. The flow of migrants from Haiti to the developed world is unidirectional; no one is going the other way. No one who has any alternative is trying to move into these slums.

> As long as a house is primarily considered an investment, and not a just a structure to keep us safe from the elements and a place to raise a family, housing will only ever become more expensive and less available.

There is a sort of conspiracy to repress affordable housing, but it isn’t done primarily with property values in mind the way you’re alluding to. Most people dwell in houses; the equity is irrelevant to them until they actually sell it. High real estate prices are not an investment but a membership; they exclude undesirable residents. Most of those undesirable residents belong in psychiatric facilities, but until those facilities are reinstituted, this is the system we’re left with.

There are other factors at play (e.g. fire safety setbacks, American market expectactions favoring larger houses, etc.), but those are all far more pedestrian.

Basically everywhere on earth where an option exists, people prefer to live in autocentric suburbs or Manhattan-style megalopolises; both are expensive to construct and maintain. Slums are just an attempt to cut these costs at the expense of fire safety, sanitation, and structural integrity.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#150

Post by classichasclass »

toast0 wrote: post #105
phantasmish wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we were making a long move and temporarily without a stable address I looked into getting a PO Box and it seemed impossible without a real address. I ended up finding some kinda sketchy-feeling services aimed at people RV living, and not much else. I wasn’t able to find an official solution to the problem of “I need to receive mail but have no address” (there may be one, but in solid 60-90 minutes of searching I…

I'm not sure if you need an address to sign up for a private mailbox at places like UPS Stores. But a lot of people might receive mail at a friends' address with permission. But, you still need to have a friend or family with a stable address who is willing to help.

In the past this was pretty lax (I've had a long-term box at a Mail Boxes Etc. that then became a private mail boxes place that then became a UPS Store) and they didn't really care when I first opened it. Now there's a push for KYC also; we got a sheet the other day asking to verify our physical street address, something I never personally got in the years I've been there. Apparently new regulations or something, they said.
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