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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   38341 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024

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I think that Scott's latest article on how to defeat homelessness, was an okay steelman argument for the liberal policies with regards to the issue. At least, it's completely in line with the arguments I hear regarding my city's issues. There are a couple of things missing, though.

  1. People don't become psychotic out of nowhere. Years of unrestricted drug use does that to a person. And no, I don't want the continuation of the war on drugs, but I'm convinced that without somehow removing the drugs from the equation it's infinitely harder to approach a solution.
  2. Why do other countries don't have this problem? It's multifaceted, for sure - Finland and Japan use the "housing first" system Scott suggests and achieve great results, but I'll highlight one factor that I don't see anyone talking about in the first world: shame. In some societies like China or Turkey it's shameful to have a relative who is homeless. It's largely a cultural thing, but ultimately having relatives care about the homeless is a cheaper solution than building endless fields of Soviet blocks and intentionally creating ghettos that require policing. Is it possible to change a culture? How exactly is the western culture different? This is much harder to answer, but if we are talking about an ideal world with ideal outcomes, I'd prefer the community that experiences the issue to directly handle the issue.

I saw a homeless beggar in China once. Two cops were standing over him asking him to go away. Their tone was kind and they didn't put a hand on him. But, when a beggar bothers people police show up and put a stop to it.

I suppose I live in a high trust part of the US then because aggressive panhandling generally got a stern talk as well.

I once saw a crazed homeless guy getting madder and madder. He was enraged in some sort of psychotic fit and was wildly gesturing and lunging at people but then pulling back. A woman ran over to a cop in his car and said that homeless guy was going to attack someone. The cop said he was going to circle around a bit and would check back later. He then drove away. I don't suppose he really intended to come back to check on the situation.

So let's say I live in a less high trust sort of region. It was a real novelty to go to China and see two cops block some guy's attempt to beg.

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