- cross-posted to:
- latestagecapitalism@lemmygrad.ml
- cross-posted to:
- latestagecapitalism@lemmygrad.ml
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/28140949
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having been homeless…
the fuck is he talking about and who the fuck does he think he’s fooling
Himself and his other techbro friends that couch surfed for a while, aka violent drug addicts with severe mental health issues.
Just more of the same from his class. Wants everyone to believe in a meritocracy, because that means he’s rely great, and the people whose lifeblood he drained to get where he is aren’t victims - they’re just inferior. They wouldn’t be where they are if they were superior like him.
Probably a guillotine wouldn’t even work on him, he’s so superior. Hypothetically.
A billionaire is the equivalent of a person sitting in a cafeteria who bought every piece of food in the restaurant kitchen and doesn’t want to share any of it with the thousand people sitting around him even though he’ll never be able to eat all the food they bought.
Owning and controlling so much wealth that you’ll never be able to enjoy everything you have in a lifetime isn’t a success or a sign of intelligence … it’s a mental illness. Especially when all that wealth and control could mean the life or death of thousands or millions of people everywhere.
There are exceptions. Warren Buffet (as an example) has given away a large fraction of his wealth, and pledged/planned to give 99% of it over his lifetime (he is 94). It’s a sane strategy to let his shares appreciate and “maximize” his charity.
For a billionaire, he lives modestly and speaks reasonably. He has a sanely sized house. His kids are getting an inheritance, but not a stupidly large one.
Look, I want to tax the shit out of billionaires too, I just object to blanket labeling any group as mentally ill. You know, like Musk did in OP’s post.
Yeah fuck that. Even if warren buffet lives up to the leftist wet dream of what billionaires should do, we need legislation, and if we don’t get it, heads should fucking roll. Billionaires should not exist, full stop. You cannot work that hard, they have not and will not work that hard. Stop thinking like these parasites have any empathy. They will cash you out for 50 cents. Cash them out for far more.
You’re like the guy in the cafeteria who stands at the far end of the billionaire’s table and tell everyone in the cafeteria that the billionaire will donate and give away his sandwiches when he leaves and that he isn’t that bad because he only eats a bit of the food and saves the rest because he will give it away soon.
^Not being contrarian but wanna place a bet how damn poorly this is gonna do - no nuance for billionaires (understandable but ears can still be better open than closed)
If he just keeps donating what he’s been donating, it will be fine.
Again, he is quite an exception.
So when’s he gonna hit that 99% pledge? He’s 94 fucking years old, he better give the rest of it away tomorrow.
Ostensibly a halfway decent exception!
Initially, I believed my prediction mistaken, but now I see as expected:
+ 9 / - 11
Depressing fact: Most of the homeless people you see acting all crazy and talking to themselves all the time behaved normally when they started being homeless. It’s spending years in complete isolation, being constantly ignored by everyone around you and having no one to talk to that makes you act like this.
I wouldn’t jump to that though. Most working homeless live out of a car or couch surf, while not doing that.
To add into that, most homeless are just normal people that fell on hard times, you won’t see them cause they don’t want to be a bother. You see the crazies because… Well they’re crazy. Gigantic assholes like musk assume that since you see crazy homeless people wandering outside, then obviously ALL homeless people are crazy violent lunatics. He is the smartest person in the world after all.
Having both been homeless for a year (as in, on the streets, migrating from shelter to shelter) and also having worked for a homeless shelter system…
Yeah, most homeless either live in their cars, or couch surf, or jump from motel to motel… until their car gets repo’d, or their hosts kick them out, or they run out of money for motels.
Then, they’re on the streets, like I was.
A couple years of that, even if you totally stay away from hard drugs as I did, is more traumatizing than what most soldiers go through, with the exception of an actual, repeated, stop loss style front line combat deployment where they’re regularly in actual combat.
You see your friends die in your hands or right in front of you from an OD or a drive by or a mugging, you never know who you can trust, you know you may always, at any time, be assaulted or dispossesed, lose all your ids and bank cards, know that now you’re sleeping outside in a blizzard tonight because you can’t limp back to th shelter in time to make curfew, can’t call for help because your phone was broken or stolen.
All the while, every ‘normal’ person just thinks you are disgusting, literally will not even look at you, much less speak to you.
I am astoundingly lucky I lasted a year. I have PTSD now, recurring night terrors, and I am still doing PT to recover from getting regularly assaulted and walking about 2000 miles in one year… its a miracle I wasn’t stabbed, and I was maybe 100 feet away from eating lead in a drive by.
Took me a solid year of not being homeless to … just be able to have an in person conversation with anyone, without having an anxiety attack, deescalation strategy and escape route pre planned.
Women on the street have it even worse.
I remember going into a trap house at one point to get one out. I will not explain to you what they had done to her.
It’s spending years in complete isolation, being constantly ignored by everyone around you and having no one to talk to that makes you act like this.
I mean, yeah - it’s that AND the meth.
And heroin, and severe mental illness.
People forget that not every homeless person is just someone temporarily down on their luck. Iirc that $20b figure is just housing the homeless, which doesn’t fix things for people who are mentally ill, drug addicts, or both, and that’s like 60-80% of the chronically homeless.
It’s a massively complex issue with no simple fix.
You’re right, a 100% fix of the problem is not simple or easy. But there’s a whole lot of low-hanging fruit that we can tackle to make huge strides.
While drugs and/or mental illness may be involved in a high percentage of the chronically homeless, the chronically homeless only account for somewhere between 1/5 and 1/3 of all homeless. So housing the other homeless would still take care of the needs of ~80% of all homeless, give or take. Get single-payer healthcare up and running to prevent more people from ending up in those situations, and change from a retributive justice system to one that cares about rehabilitation, and suddenly we’ve got a society that actually cares about people, and would cost less to run while we’re at it.
But, with a functioning safety net, people won’t feel like they have no other choice but to work a shit job for shit wages, and the oligarchs can’t have that.
i would add that housing-first approaches increase the likelihood that mental health and substance use treatment even work long term.
hard to wanna get sober when you’re being harassed by police or other people. hard to stay sane when you’re barely surviving and putting drugs on top to cope.
right now, many people experiencing homelessness and severe mental illness/addiction are hospitalized for a few days or a week and then they go back to the street. which doesn’t do much except get an individual out of immediate crisis. many will repeat this pattern over and over until incarceration or death.
Elon’s very familiar with the condition of homeless drug addicts.
where does he even get that idea? i never heard people refer to Elon as homeless.
Not sure what you mean.
Edit: I’m dumb. The joke is that Elon is a drug addict. Hit me a few minutes later.
It’s a joke. He’s implying that Elon is a violent drug addict with severe mental illness. Which is, of course, true.
Thanks. Got it just in time to edit my comment and then see your reply. I’m a dummy.
Not sure about now, but there was a time period where he owned no properties and lived in the houses of friends. Staying in someone’s fourth home is not a hardship, but technically he didn’t have a home.
I don’t believe it, and even if it’s true it wasn’t out of necessity. he probably found it convenient to mooch off people like he always does one way or another as a lifelong parasite. he was born into immense wealth. literally the only thing he’s ever done is buy companies. that’s his entire career.
It’s amazing that a man who does enough ket to bring down a racehorse even dares to use the phrase “drug addict” as an insult.
Not unusual for addicts to displace blame onto the people around them in order to justify their addictions.
The difference between Musk, Thiel, et al and your average American junkie is simply their line of credit. They can keep taking experimental intoxicants, safe in the knowledge their friends will loan them another $2M the next time they wrap their McLauren around a stop sign.
So the mentally ill deserve to be left to rot in the streets? Why else have a social safety net, if not for them?
What do you want to do, give them a house? – because we closed down all the asylums. That’s where we used to house them. I’d rather give mentally healthy people the houses.
Free apartments work for about 80% of people and can be cheaper than hospital/jail!
(And to be specific about that minority of folks, they are not able to pick up after themselves etc.)
CC: @_druid@sh.itjust.works :)
That’s what we do in Finland and it’s been working great so far
https://www.euronews.com/2023/03/16/why-are-so-many-young-finns-dying-from-drug-abuse
Yeah, sure looks like you’re doing GREAT. You only have the highest deaths from drugs under age 25 among your population, you can start the “We’re #1!” chant now…I guess…
Only Sweden and Ireland pass you in the overall drug deaths per population. You SURE are proud!
Yeah that’s not great but I don’t see what that has to do with housing
Then it’s clear you’re not actually reading any of the conversation here. Maybe go back and read the topic at hand, come back when you’ve got a good grasp on it.
This topic isn’t about housing, it’s about housing specifically for the maladapted, psychotic, drug addicts, etc. Many here are arguing that giving them a house would make them ALL BETTER and turn them into functioning, productive members of society…
Well we need to think ahead a little bit. We can’t take a mentally ill person right off the street and stick them in a colonial revival and expect them to maintain with the upkeep.
TIL Elon Musk is homeless.
Wild claim, considering Musk is one of the most violent drug addicts who has ever lived.
He is so fucking incoherent from all the ketamine it isn’t funny.
I wonder what we should call a violent drug addict, convicted of inciting insurrection, living in housing paid for by the public ?
He’s a violent drug addict, way more dangerous and destructive than any homeless person could be.
Alright I’ll bite, even if Hairplug Himmler is right (and let’s be perfectly clear, he’s not).
Why wouldn’t we as Americans want to help our fellow citizens overcome drug use, treat mental illness, and help rehabilitation efforts on their behalf?
ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE “VIOLENT” and “on the street”. Wouldn’t we want to help them get off the streets?
Wouldn’t that make us safer, happier, healthier, and dare I say… Great Again? Wouldn’t that protect citizens and police officers alike at a lower cost than incarceration? (Spoiler alert it would, but there’s no private for profit companies offering this service).
Wouldn’t these people become tax payers? Employees contributing to society? Become future homebuyers and start a family?
These empathy lacking neo-fascist clowns can’t stop punching down to those less fortunate (while claiming the lords name in vain) and I can’t wait for the day we get the opportunity to match their empathy as they head to prison (preferably one in El Salvador).
Why wouldn’t we as Americans want to help our fellow citizens overcome drug use, treat mental illness, and help rehabilitation efforts on their behalf?
It’s kind of a two-part question, that.
- Do we want to spend the money to get fellow citizens off drugs and treat their mental illnesses?
That’s a pretty easy question if you have a soul: Yes.
- If those fellow citizens refuse any and all help because they have a fundamental mistrust of the system. What do we do?
That’s the more difficult question. Forcing them to get treatment breaches their human rights and only stokes further mistrust in the system. Leaving them just leaves them open to exploitation and doesn’t make their lives better.
Homes are easy, it’s all the support that comes with it that’s difficult, especially if the person you’re trying to help either refuses to engage or actively fights you every step of the way.
Absolutely, and thank you for your reply. Learning and expansion of ideas and thoughts only comes from good conversation and discourse. That’s what makes this such a complex and difficult issue.
There is an inevitability of homelessness in a country is unavoidable, yes. Just like the inevitable need for criminal justice programs to detain, deter, and rehabilitate those who break the law.
No argument from me on the facts, there WILL be homelessness and crime in any society. (This is for my sunshine and rainbows friend up top also).
So let’s figure out how much that SHOULD be:
https://www.greaterchange.co.uk/post/which-country-handles-homelessness-the-best
Finland currently has a homelessness rate of .06% (2023) of their population. So let’s say that’s the baseline when you give people a fair shot, benefits, and treat them with care, and the remaining of those people that won’t take help when offered.
The United States has a rate THREE times that at .19% homelessness. Despite having a GDP output, 83 times as large as the US.
Since I went to public school, percentages make me woozy so let’s put it in whole numbers.
636,500 fellow citizens are homeless in the US (.19%).
If we adopted Finland’s (already proved 35+ year plan) we could get that down to 201,000 over time. Heck if it takes 35 years as well, at least we’re helping them.
That’s 435,500 fellow citizens (Or a city the size of Cincinnati) that are sleeping on the street tonight, so that ONE MAN Elon Musk can pay less taxes.
Fellow Americans, until we vote these billionaires out of office and tax them (oh I don’t know, at least as much as you and I pay) we are either ignoring the issue or complicit and I for one don’t want to be either.
TL;DR: This is just one example why we should lift up those below us, and not be pessimistic about our fellow man.
Most of our homeless want a fair shot, mental health counseling, and rehabilitation.
We need to advocate for them and help them just like if we were reading this sleeping on the street.
No arguments from me about giving them somewhere to live and the healthcare they need. If you have any kind of soul, that’s the least you can do. In an ideal world, there should be enough service to cover 100% of the homeless population (plus some buffer to cover any sudden increase) whether they take it or not. The question I have is do you have the right to force them to take it?
That’s a good and thoughtful question, with no easy answer.
My opinion is I don’t believe you can force someone to receive help, but you can incentivise them through rehabilitation, job training, counseling and housing.
At the end of the day, we need to respect their rights and not infringe on them. If they don’t want help, then they are part of the .06% that chooses homelessness.
If they are violent and on the streets won’t that boost sales of vehicles with “rock proof” windows? like the one that muskrat is trying to sell?
Think of the economy, think of the consumer demand for items to defend themselves with.
Wouldn’t these people become tax payers? Employees contributing to society? Become future homebuyers and start a family?
The very smallest of small percent of them would. Most drug addicts never make it out of poverty because they’ve done something to also give them a criminal record and typically can’t hold down a job.
You’re almost there, and I sincerely value your input. Let’s go on this journey together…
What if we treated them like human beings in need of care and rehabilitation instead of criminals who can’t “hold down a job”?
Why do they not make it out of poverty?
Is it because they can’t afford to? Why is that?
Is it because they can’t afford to make ends meet on a minimum wage job? Can’t find affordable housing? Can’t pay for child care, counseling, health care, or rehab?
What if we helped them get rid of their addiction and didn’t jail them for it?
If we’re going to write off an entire vulnerable demographic of society, we as the functional members have an obligation to ensure that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are available to all. Not just those who can afford it.
Many other first world countries do this successfully already, the problem with our country comes down to the money being made keeping these people locked up and incarcerated.
Look up Norway, Finland, Sweden and their response to crime and rehabilitation. It works, if you focus on helping people instead of helping profits.
Imagine a world where those in need got the billions of dollars in tax payer subsidies that Elon Musk gets?
Dude. What are you doing this for? No shit it’s not a check this box and all problems are solved situation. IF ITS NOT PERFECT, NO ONE CAN DO ANYTHING.
One step at a time, and the first step is to have a little fucking empathy.
The first step is to have a little dose of reality. The world isn’t sunshine and lollipops, and the proposed solutions just end up creating slum-housing and spreading the problem around. I’ve seen it put into effect before with horrible outcomes. The path to hell is paved with good intentions and all…
Reality? As if the problem is not spread around already. HeLpInG ThESe pEoPle WoUlD bE WoRSe.
Just say what you really think instead of dancing around it. Maybe then someone can have a conversation with you that will actually make a difference.
You’re not a realist. You are just a selfish asshole.
How does telling you the truth about the homeless population benefit me in any way, shape, or form?
You haven’t passed the bar to call me “selfish”. Sure, I might be an asshole, but this isn’t one of those times either. The reality is that we can’t help everyone, and some people aren’t saveable. You can’t point to Sweden or Finland as answers either, because they have the highest per-capita drug deaths of other euro nations.
The ol’ we can’t save everyone so why save anyone argument. Bold strategy cotton.
Also, since we’re talking about drug deaths do you know what county has the highest IN THE WORLD?
The United States, so yeah if we can copy Finland’s homework and reduce our homeless by 435k, why wouldn’t we?
Oh that’s right the guy on the Internet gate keeping who can call him a selfish asshole says it might not work.
P.S. Finland had 253 people die of drug overdoses in 2023 with a population of 5.5 million.
(4.6 deaths per 100,000 people)
The US had 105,000 people die of drug overdoses in 2023 with a population of 335 million.
(31.3 deaths per 100,000 people)
The ol’ we can’t save everyone so why save anyone argument
It’s obvious reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit. You must have missed the point where I said housing should first go to people without these deficits. You know…like 6 posts ago…
You’ve sat there and put words in my mouth, made strawman arguments, ad hominem attacks against me…
Do you know how to debate a point at all? Because you’re failing at every step of the way…
My dose of reality is realizing that other countries have already solved this problem. This isn’t a closed book test.
We as a country are actively putting the needs of Elon Musk over the needs of 435,000 people sleeping on the streets at night.
Your quote is actually brilliant, because the other interpretation is when people HAVE intention to do something but do nothing. That’s exactly what I’m arguing against, doing nothing.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”
This phrase relates to the active resistance of people doing evil things. Holy crap you can’t even get your retort to make any sense.
It’s like the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t explain empathy and compassion to him on the Internet.
If billionaires firing average citizens and restricting our benefits/rights to enrich themselves isn’t evil? What is?
If cutting cancer research for cancer patients while pretending to care about a single cancer survivor isn’t evil? What is?
If illegally detaining and deporting US citizens and immigrants without due process and ignoring the rule of law so they can be tortured? What is?
If MILLIONS of people around the globe dying of disease to give the richest man in the world a tax break isn’t evil? What is?
If you actively are the richest man in the world and you wake up every day with enough money to end childhood poverty, diseases, and illness and you actively choose not to? If that isn’t evil, what is?
Curious to see what your definition of evil is, and how quickly you will move the goal post when we get there?
Make it make sense to me, take all the time you need.
What are you talking about? This is a post about the homeless littering the streets, not any of the bullshit you espouse here. And I’m not arguing for any of the shit you listed either. So your entire argument is a strawman, full stop.
I don’t gotta take ANY time because you’re all off in left field talking about something else OTHER than the conversation we’re having ENTIRELY.
You’ve lost sight of what this conversation was about, and have gone off on some wild-ass rant about all the other things you’re mad about. Maybe go back about 4-6 posts and RE-READ, with an attention to understanding what we’re talking about instead of reading with the intention of rebuttal and then rejoin the conversation. I get that you’re mad about what’s happening to the world right now, we all are. We don’t need to be giving “homeless” (read: Drug Addicts, Severely Mentally ill, People who are mal-adapted to society) housing. We need to be getting them medical care, locking them up in asylums to keep them out of the general population without treating them like criminals (though many of them are), and getting them psychological help.
You’ve all missed the forest for the trees here, and it’s sad because you only argue it because Musk said something and you HAVE to disagree with it. Doesn’t matter what it is, you MUST, because instead of looking at what he’s saying, all you care about is making sure that you disagree with him. You can disagree with him as a person, and he can still be right occasionally (a broken clock is right twice a day). In this case, he’s right. But your solution (giving them housing) is short-sighted, immature, naive and has had no long-term thought put into it at all.
Go live in a place with a homeless population. Go try and help them. Many aren’t capable of being helped. And the only people who think like you do, are people who haven’t experienced it.
Whether someone is a drug addict with severe mental illness is irrelevant to whether they’re homeless or not.
Do they have somewhere to live that has a permanent address? No? Then they’re homeless and need help.
Obviously there’s a bit of nuance with things like ProxyAddress where homeless people can have permanent addresses but still be homeless, but the gist of my point is the same! Do they have a home or not?
Let’s say, for sake of argument, that Elon is correct. Should we not be helping people with severe mental illness?
He is a literal NAZI! So he wants mentaly ill to suffer for losing the gene lottery!
I can’t speak for Elon (and will not defend him) but Kyle (from Secular Talk) is dramatically underestimating the problem by tossing out the $20 billion figure. You can’t just throw a bunch of money at a person with severe mental illnesses and addictions and just expect them to be okay.
The state of California has spent over $24 billion on homelessness since 2019 yet the number of homeless people in the state has grown by 20%. Obviously they aren’t spending the money wisely in a manner that would maximize reduction of homelessness, but Kyle didn’t specify how the money should be spent either. Perhaps that’s actually the hard problem: how do you spend the money in the way that would be most effective?
Wait weren’t they doing that already?
If not, where was all that money going?
Gonna need you to define “that” in "that money.” If you mean government programs, much of those were defunded back in the Reagan admin. While institutions back then did need broad changes, their removal without a suitable replacement vastly increased the homelessness issue.
So those people you’re talking about, Elon… They have homes? No? Then homelessness isn’t a lie, you gigantic sack of human waste.
The word Elon is a propaganda word it is a lie. It is actually Felon, which is a violent drug addict with mental illness.
