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Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

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Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#91

Post by analyst74 »

regis wrote: post #44

One thing that I think is missing from these discussions about the homeless in SF is: many of these people do not want to be rent-paying members of society and even if there was housing for them, some might still prefer their current lifestyle. Many people still view that lifestyle choice as unacceptable because it challenges the typical goals of someone working hard for a 'better' life. I don't think the question sh…

This is a very reasonable and logical arguments over this sensitive issue.

It's not about if someone wants to be homeless, if there is a simple choice between shelter and homeless, people will always prefer shelter. But if the choice is between working hard with a shelter, and live carefree and homeless, the answer will not be so clear.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#92

Post by WalterSear »

beat wrote: post #23
glesica wrote: post #18

I think that when people say "hard problems" they mean "problems that almost certainly have solutions if you are willing to put in the effort". Poverty on the other hand is a much, much harder problem than that. In fact, no one quite knows how to solve it in a general way (there are things that seem to work in certain contexts but not in others, many special case half-solutions). And on top of that, there probably is…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee The solution is simple. You simply give every adult citizen enough money every year to insure that they can afford food, shelter, and other basic needs. Give it to everyone, rich or poor, same amount. BAM! No more poverty, except in self-inflicted cases (drug addiction, for example), or things like severe and very expensive illness (which are covered by other means)…

That's not the problem. Making people agree to it is the problem.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#93

Post by [deleted] »

spartango wrote: post #77
madaxe wrote: post #9

"Last night, someone told me “In California, there isn’t a conflict between being a Capitalist, and a Liberal”, with a wry grin on his face." Of course there isn't. Liberalism in its purest form (as espoused by Hayek, say) is, in effect, free market capitalism with a light but universally applicable (no "special cases", as those lead to totalitarianism) set of regulations to prevent bad actors (e.g. hey, let's put he…

Honestly, who cares what it's called and how it falls into other categories? I think by fighting over what terms to use, we're missing the forest for the trees. In living in the SV sandbox/bubble, it seems we forget about some of our global compassion. Nobody says we need to be 100% charitable in our actions, or follow some strict socialist regimen, but I think it's useful to acknowledge that we do overlook some of t…

[deleted]

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#94

Post by WalterSear »

ajross wrote: post #31
bluedino wrote: post #8

Not everyone can create, whether it's a website or designing the next iPhone. Very few people can. Those people that do are rewarded very well. Besides, if we were all trying to cure hunger or house the homeless who would be creating all the fancy computers we use every day? And why blame 'programmers', there are plenty of doctors, lawyers, and financial workers in SF that have to 'step over' the homeless every day o…

Curing hunger and housing the homeless doesn't, the last time I checked, require creativity or programming talent. Growing food and constructing buildings are what we geeks like to call "mature technology", and thus not something we concern ourselves with except at the margins where changes in efficiency have economic impact.

Growing food and constructing buildings won't solve the problem either. We have plenty of both already.

Motivating the self-absorbed, indolent masses to legislate away homelessness is the problem.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#95

Post by run4yourlives »

VMG wrote: post #64
beat wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee The solution is simple. You simply give every adult citizen enough money every year to insure that they can afford food, shelter, and other basic needs. Give it to everyone, rich or poor, same amount. BAM! No more poverty, except in self-inflicted cases (drug addiction, for example), or things like severe and very expensive illness (which are covered by other means)…

> The solution is simple. You simply give every adult citizen enough money every year to insure that they can afford food, shelter, and other basic needs. Give it to everyone, rich or poor, same amount. BAM! You left out the part where the money comes from. Your idea is fine and dandy, but I doubt you are currently implementing it yourself by spending your own money. The idea depends on everybody being forced to pay.…

>Distributing money indiscriminately devalues work and effort.

This is a poor understanding of the concept. The idea behind a Basic Income Guarantee is that it is received equally by every citizen in the country. It's an idea linked to Negative Income Tax and other like proposals, and shares support of many with a more libertarian/economically conservative bent.

In most areas of North America where Basic Income experiments have occurred, the overall workforce does decline, but in very specific ways: mainly with single mothers and teenagers. Mothers choosing to stay at home with their children, and teenagers graduating high school are more positive impacts on the society at large than the greater retention of wealth by the highly motivated.

Wealth can only be created in societies, and therefore the overall health of a society should be of paramount concern to those interested in creating wealth. While I do not advocate for many socialist principles, a certain baseline ensures the society remains sustainable in the long term, thus allowing its members to grow wealth.

Both too much (Communism, socialist Europe) and too little (Argentina, Venezuala, the US) will lead to inevitable social collapse and the reduction of wealth (or the ability to create more) for all.

You do not live in a self created bubble.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#96

Post by ajross »

josephhardin wrote: post #80
ajross wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now, I'm sure this is a difficult thing to measure, and there's lots of room for legitimate argument. Nonetheless Wikipedia tells me that 248 Londoners "sleep rough each night", where 3-5000 of San Francisco's homeless population "refuse shelter". That's a full order of magnitude difference even ignoring the fact that London's population is several times that of SF. And again, it gets to the safety net argument. It's…

248? In Helsinki I think I saw more than that passed out on a single tram ride. Helsinki had far more homeless than any big US city I've ever been to(at the very least they were far more visible). I also had more negative experiences with aggressive homeless there than I have had here. I forget the tram line, but it was the one that goes from University of Helsinki to Tooloo.

I've never been to Helsinki. But perhaps the lesson there is that Finland too has much to learn from the UK safety net, and not that the US doesn't have a problem.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#98

Post by misc_closet »

santu11 wrote: post #21

Are we creating the right kind of "WEALTH"? This should be a question people (who are doing startups) should ask themselves. IMHO, that is why socialist Governments providing education, healthcare, roads and security sound popular to some people. All these are part of wealth that are provided to citizens at low prices. But in a capitalistic economy, it is left to individuals (entrepreneurs) to provide this services a…

When the poor have no money they can't pay entrepreneurs.

When the super-rich have all the money, the super-rich drive up the cost of living. The middle class then must directly serve the interests of the rich in order to get enough profit to afford the higher cost of living.

It quickly becomes uneconomical to sell anything to poor people.

It's a poverty spiral. Uneducated families just get more uneducated without state intervention. Rich families just get richer, driving up cost of living, cornering markets to destroy the free market, and making the poor families poorer in comparison.

When are we going to wake up from this Randian dystopia we're creating??

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#99

Post by run4yourlives »

VMG wrote: post #79
jiggy2011 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those same arguments could be made against welfare to an extent. The advantage of this system is that it would be simpler and therefor cheaper to administer and possibly harder to game.

The fundamental problem is separating the cheaters from those who really deserve help. In a system where the individual can decide where to put the money, everybody can decide who is deserving of help. If you mandate wealth redistribution, you need to create a complex ruleset that decides who is eligible. The rules are established by the ineffective and opaque processes of politics and government. The resulting syste…

There is no redistribution. Everyone is entitled to the same benefit, just like they are entitled to fire protection.

Over a certain amount of income earned however, the benefit becomes negligible.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#100

Post by ippisl »

downandout wrote: post #19

This speaks to a larger problem: The world simply doesn't need many of the people born into it. Parents in the US have children for recreational purposes - child birth rates do not fluctuate with the demand for labor. These kids grow up, and many of them wind up sleeping on the streets of their chosen city or more commonly just barely living paycheck-to-paycheck, because there is no societal need for them. This bears…

But long term , those kids, who will face the huge struggle ,will be those who'll change the system and make history.

So let them be.

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