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The way I see it (my background is Austrian economics), the poor and the homeless are people who cannot afford to live in a city. City-living isn't a right, it'

The way I see it (my background is Austrian economics), the poor and the homeless are people who cannot afford to live in a city. City-living isn't a right, it's for those who can afford it. No one is owed anything for not having enough money to live in a city. That means in general I am against helping the poor and the homeless stay in the city, since the point of city is to be a wealth-creation center, not a welfare experiment. You say you have been homeless. I'd like to ask you what you think of my idea: instead of giving the homeless shelter in the city, and having them drain resources from people who produce wealth, meanwhile not producing anything, why not give them a cheap house in a small farmland with some chicken or turkey, rabbits, a vegetable garden, etc? That way we solve many problems. 1. the poor are now productive, they produce their own food instead and don't need to drain other people's resources to have food and shelter; 2. they are far from the city, which won't encourage laziness by sending people a message that they can't try and game the system by getting help while still living in the city as a non-producer; 3. it will teach these poor people good work ethics and how work is necessary for everyone to survive, and that they can't just rely on the fact that other people work. I'd say that besides the farm life, they should have good public libraries nearby in case they want to learn something in order to be able to later join the city life again, this time as a productive member. Am I being inhumane for trying to make producers out of every human being, and for thinking even the disabled can help pick fruit from bushes or wash them or otherwise contribute in a communal farm setting? Would you be for a program to send the poor and the homeless to farms and basically instate a rule where you can't live in a place you can't afford?

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
The idea that the poor are just too stupid to know how to work is insulting. And 'transporting' folks is what they did to criminals in Britain in the bad old days (usually to Australia). The point of a city isn't anything like what is suggested. Its a place where a lot of people gathered to live. Some got squeezed out as prices and the job situation changed rapidly. Blaming them is pointless. I don't think this plan will get much traction.
- bmelton 11y ago
  > The idea that the poor are just too stupid to know how to work is insulting. I read it twice, and I didn't see anywhere in which planfaster suggested that the poor were stupid. Either I'm missing it, or you're reading in to something that isn't there. > Some got squeezed out as prices and the job situation changed rapidly. Blaming them is pointless. I agree that the point of cities is inaccurate, but the problem isn't that they've been squeezed out, it's that they don't have homes, but are otherwise still there. Perhaps I'm just being pedantic here, but squeezed out implies that they aren't there any more, and in the case of city homeless, they generally are. That said, you've completely ignored the point of the post. Utah has had success in giving away vacant homes to their homeless, with the qualifier that if you're getting a free home, you don't also necessarily get to pick its location. Comparing it to penal colonies is a straw man, but regardless, the question is whether or not a homeless person in NYC would accept a free home, perhaps slightly upstate. If not, why not? There are currently more vacant homes across America than there are homeless persons, and it's not infeasible to suggest that if adverse possession were slightly restructured, we could completely solve the problem of involuntary homelessness within a decade, though of course any such solution will introduce new problems as well.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Poor are stupid: #3 Transporting as straw man: #2 Vacant homes across America are there, because there are no jobs there. Many of the homeless in the city may have actually come from those empty houses, abandoned with their upside-down mortgages and no jobs, hoping to find work.
- planfaster 11y ago
  > The idea that the poor are just too stupid to know how to work is insulting. If you think that is insulting, try getting your ideas attacked through a straw-man argument - that's even worse. What most poor people do not understand, however, is that in order for them to live off welfare, somebody else is personally sacrificing their own efforts, labor, life, money that could be saved for their kids, just to pay for some guy who not only has no skills to help society in building wealth, but has a strong enough sense of entitlement to demand that someone help them survive while they get to pick where to live. I want to help all the poor, but being mathematically literate I know this can only work if we put these poor people in a situation where instead of takers, they be producers. > The point of a city isn't anything like what is suggested. Its a place where a lot of people gathered to live. You are over-simplifying it to the point of being ahistorical. No, actually cities came about because farmers increasingly wanted to take their chances at being entrepreneurs or employees in an industrial setting. So if you fail at your chance of making it in the city, then you should go back to a farm. Sounds logical to me. That way everyone can keep trying to make it in the city without being a burden on anyone else. > And 'transporting' folks is what they did to criminals in Britain in the bad old days (usually to Australia). This reads like an emotional sophism to make me feel bad about giving the poor food and shelter that they can actually pay for themselves. Again, think back to our recent past pre Industrial age (1850 and before). Most people were farmers. That's the default. Living in the city, where you can't produce your own food and have to rely on other people's services (which costs money) is not the default. If everyone in the country can never be poorer than owning a small self-sufficient farm where one can live by oneself without needing money, then can you better point at the part of this plan that makes you be against it? I honestly see no problems here, not even an inkling of disrespect towards the poor.
jbooth 11y ago
I'm sorry, are you proposing literally serfdom?
- planfaster 11y ago
  I don't know, you tell me. If you receive a plot of farmland that you can live off of without any other citizen's help, and you don't owe anyone anything for having received that plot of farmland, then are you a serf? Plus, after living in that farmland for a while, whenever you think you have the skills to be employed in the city, you are free to try again. But it would be illegal to be homeless in the city, so that if it doesn't work out, you'd have to go back to the farmland you own. Is that serfdom? The answer is no, and contrary to your question, you are not really sorry you asked, you are just doing this coy exaggeration routine that people who aren't interested in engaging in argument but still want to poo-poo it do.
  - pavel_lishin 11y ago
    I like this idea of receiving free property - real estate, housing, animals, etc. - all for the low, low price of not renewing my lease at the end of the year and quitting my job to tinker on a farm during springtime, before getting another job, paying someone else to make sure my chickens don't die.
buro9 11y ago
> You say you have been homeless. I'd like to ask you what you think of my idea: instead of giving the homeless shelter in the city, and having them drain resources from people who produce wealth, meanwhile not producing anything, why not give them a cheap house in a small farmland with some chicken or turkey, rabbits, a vegetable garden, etc? I have been homeless, it's not something I just say. I disagree with your entire post. It's based on this false assumption, "the point of city is to be a wealth-creation center, not a welfare experiment". Definition of a city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City "A city is a large and permanent human settlement.[1][2] Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town in general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law." Nothing in there mentioned wealth, or welfare. Remove that personal bias/motive from your proposal and your proposal very quickly falls apart. That is before one would progress to the more offensive part of your argument: That those with money and wealth have more right to live in a city than those without. That those who work in lower paid industries have less of a right than those in higher paid industries. It seems horribly convenient as a concept, that you could put the poor and homeless on buses and drive them out of your sight.
- planfaster 11y ago
  > I have been homeless, it's not something I just say. I can't verify it, so I can't say "you have been homeless" or I'd be lying about having evidence of something I don't. So I used the reported speech version, "you say you have been homeless". It was not meant as an attack, nor to be ironic, nor anything like that. > I disagree with your entire post. It's based on this false assumption, "the point of city is to be a wealth-creation center, not a welfare experiment". Wrong. You could have argued that you disagree with my being against helping the poor and homeless stay in the city, as that was the only part of the post predicated on the premise that cities are wealth-creation centers. Which they de facto have been historically (regardless of intent or word definitions). In other words, all wealth produced has mostly come from cities as opposed to farms. Therefore, cities are wealth-creation centers, de facto. > Definition of a city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City Definition of "de facto" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_facto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_facto "in fact, in reality, in actual existence, force, or possession, as a matter of fact" > Nothing in there mentioned wealth, or welfare. Remove that personal bias/motive from your proposal and your proposal very quickly falls apart. And yet all the wealth in the world came overwhelmingly from cities, which makes them de facto wealth-creation centers. And it's a premise, not a "proposal". And the premise is correct, and your definitional refutation is a non-sequitur to it. I am arguing about what cities end up effecting in reality, and you're showing me something someone wrote on a website. If you're not going to address my arguments, you shouldn't reply to me, you should post under your own thread branch. > That is before one would progress to the more offensive part of your argument: That those with money and wealth have more right to live in a city than those without. That those who work in lower paid industries have less of a right than those in higher paid industries. Offense is in the eye of the beholder, it is not inherent to topics or arguments. If you hadn't brought your ego to this conversation, you would not have been offended. I haven't, and I'm not. I also never mentioned rights, and I have no idea what you mean by it, since you seem to be using that word in a gradual sense ("more right"... "less of a right") when to me it is a binary thing (you either have a right or you don't). But if you want me to rephrase what I said to use the word "rights", I can do it: everyone has the right to live in a city, but no one has the right to demand that others pay for them to do so. So if you have the skills it takes to live in a city (a place where you can't grow your own food and have to rely on money to use services to provide you with what would otherwise be free in your plot of farmland) and you want to, you can, because you have that right. But if you want to, and you can't afford to because you don't have the skills to substitute for manual labor, then you still have the right to live in the city, but at the moment you are unable to because you can't support yourself, and you don't have the right to demand others to pay for your expenses. Is this clear enough now? > It seems horribly convenient as a concept, that you could put the poor and homeless on buses and drive them out of your sight. The point is not to drive them out of my sight. It seems you are mischaracterizing what I am saying to make me look bad. Don't do that, it's not an argument. Even if the farm is next to my house, the point is to give the poor a way to be independent so they don't have to rely on other people's money to survive. The point is not to "drive them out of my sight", it is to teach them to fish, to be self-sufficient, and not to be dependent on others giving them fish.
bweitzman 11y ago
You make it sound like living off the land with a small farm is a particularly easy thing to do, and I don't think that's true, especially for someone with no experience with that lifestyle. I can't imagine that a person who is unable to keep a home or job in the city due to mental or physical health issues would be able to sustain themselves on a farm. Though I suppose rurality could help with drug and alcohol addictions by limiting access, you can't just pick people up and move them like that.
- planfaster 11y ago
  > Though I suppose rurality could help with drug and alcohol addictions by limiting access, you can't just pick people up and move them like that. When we are the ones offering to help, then absolutely we can pick people up and move them if they wish to be helped. We are free to set our conditions and they are free to reject them. Right now, for instance, some poor people are tested for drugs in order to qualify for government housing. At some point someone argued, I'm sure, "you can't just pick people up and test them like that", but then someome smarter rebutted "of course we can, we are the ones offering to help, so we get to set the terms". And indeed, that is right. Do I have the right to demand that you help me monetarily in exactly the way I choose to? If so, please start paying my rent and sending me at least $2k monthly. Of course I don't have the right to set the terms of your helping me. One would have to be silly to defend such an idea. And so, because those doing the help get to set the terms, we should tell poor people that they will be granted a farm and that it will be theirs forever to grow food and live independently on, unless they want to depend on other people by moving into the city and exchanging their skilled labor for the services they need to substitute for the plot they can't till when they're in the city. This is just reality, I'm just explaining it slowly like that because the current welfare state and credit-happy society warps reality so much that people forget that they need to be able to afford the things they want. Regarding picking up and moving them out, we do that all the time right now. Cops pick people out and move them from places where they might be, for instance, peacefully smoking marijuana, a victimless crime. So we already do this for the silliest reason possible, burning tiny grass and inhaling its smoke. Wow. And you are berating me for wanting to pick people and move them, not because they've burnt tiny grass as is being done currently thousands of times per week, no, not for that, but for, wait for it, wanting to give them a farm! C'mon, you can't be seriously arguing this. Not to mention, no one will be picked up and transported unless they commit a crime such as trespassing. They can still rely on friends, family and acquantainces to stay over, and when they run out of all options they can still return home to their farmland they own by themselves, out of their own will, without being escorted by police. All they have to do is not trespass (which would include not living on the streets as those would be private property as they are in many cities in the US). > I can't imagine that a person who is unable to keep a home or job in the city due to mental or physical health issues would be able to sustain themselves on a farm. The people who can do no work whatsoever in a farm will have to be taken care of by people who care about them. This will encourage everyone to make as many friends as possible and to help each other out as much as possible (helping each other out is the currency of friendships and it can even partially be the currency of communities). Those who can do just a little work can work together with others, or maybe with their friends or acquaintances they make within their farmer neighbors. Farms produce for more than one person so it will not be any problem if a farm needs to sustain more people than people working on it, provided those working on it agree to help the others.
nekopa 11y ago
Regarding your first premise, specifically the poor. If I live in a city, and work, but my work only pays enough for me to be poor, you are saying I should be shipped out to the country and given a farm? Under Austrian economics, how would your plan pan out? If the city removed all the poor people, who would do the work they were doing? Does Austrian economics believe that suddenly the wealthy, or rather the people who can afford to live in the city will suddenly pay increased wages to people wash dished, clean streets, do people's laundry etc.? I could see it might work if as you say, its illegal to stay in the city unless you make a certain amount, therefore making it illegal to pay less than a living wage. Is 'minimum wage' covered under Austrian economics? Would it be set higher for more expensive cities? Or would the wealthy just keep the status quo by busing in people from the mandatory farms and still paying them shitty wages? Also, do you think that people would be able to learn enough from public libraries to become a 'producer' as you say? Not everyone is an autodidact. Lastly, what would you do about someone like me? I was homeless and jobless in Hawaii for 6 months because of bureaucratic reasons (I am a US citizen who lived abroad for all my life, and when I moved to the US I had no Social Security Number, therefore couldn't work legally until one had been assigned to me) I have been homeless a few times, but I have never once had to claim welfare of any type. Would your system have me picked up by the cops for breaking the law and shipped to 40 acres with a mule to til the earth until I have learned the error of my ways, and good work ethics? Or would a system that tried to treat the root causes of poverty instead of symptoms be more effective? Instead of small farms and deportation of the poor how about livable minimum wages? Instead of good libraries, how about free university education? Instead of making producers of every human being, what about addressing the people who benefit off the production of tens of thousands of people, yet give little back to the system that allows them to do this? I ask this straight forwardly, as I do not know Austrian economics. But while I wait your reply, I shall look it up online and see what it is all about.
- planfaster 11y ago
  > Regarding your first premise, specifically the poor. If I live in a city, and work, but my work only pays enough for me to be poor, you are saying I should be shipped out to the country and given a farm? Since we're speaking in terms of Austrian Economics, now is the time to say this whole thing is based on property rights. So the ultimate point of this is, that if you don't have money to pay to live in the city, or if you don't have a friend who will spot you or whatever, then you can't just be in the city and homeless, because you'd be trespassing someone else's property. This is the key idea. You can't be homeless because you'd be a trespasser. So you either have to fund your stay yourself, or get voluntary help (from friends, family, etc) in order to be housed. > Under Austrian economics, how would your plan pan out? If the city removed all the poor people, who would do the work they were doing? Does Austrian economics believe that suddenly the wealthy, or rather the people who can afford to live in the city will suddenly pay increased wages to people wash dished, clean streets, do people's laundry etc.? The city is not removing poor people. You are misconstruing what I said. If someone is found trespassing private property, and it is found they are doing so because they are destitute, then they will be asked to go back to their farmland, or face punishment for trespassing (which no one would choose). Austrian Economics says that the market will have to find a way to fund what it needs to do while being able to pay its workforce what they need to live within an acceptable distance of where they need to be to do their work. This will be solve in a myriad of ways, too many to count really - each company will find their own solution and some companies might converge to a locally optimal solution. But it's not up to any planner, you or I, to tell the market how they should solve their problem of funding their human resources. They will know that if they don't pay someone enough, they might not be able to live within the area they need to be around to do their job. So you will get a sort of self-fulfilling maintenance of a wage floor automatically from competition. > I could see it might work if as you say, its illegal to stay in the city unless you make a certain amount, therefore making it illegal to pay less than a living wage. Is 'minimum wage' covered under Austrian economics? Would it be set higher for more expensive cities? Or would the wealthy just keep the status quo by busing in people from the mandatory farms and still paying them shitty wages? Close. Indeed it would be illegal to trespass, which would mean you either can pay for where you are living, or you are authorized by the owner who pays for that place, to stay there. With regards to minimum wage, I addressed this above. With regards to busing people in for "shitty wages", any offer a city person makes to a farmer is voluntary and the farmer is not compelled to accept it, seeing that they don't need to accept it for them to be able to have food and shelter. > Also, do you think that people would be able to learn enough from public libraries to become a 'producer' as you say? Not everyone is an autodidact. Yes, I believe they would. Long-term prisoners learn the law of their cases when they can't afford a lawyer or when no one will pick their case up. Where there is an incentive there will be a drive. > Lastly, what would you do about someone like me? I was homeless and jobless in Hawaii for 6 months because of bureaucratic reasons (I am a US citizen who lived abroad for all my life, and when I moved to the US I had no Social Security Number, therefore couldn't work legally until one had been assigned to me) I have been homeless a few times, but I have never once had to claim welfare of any type. If you have authorization from some property owner to stay at their place, you could do that. Otherwise if you have no money to pay for a place to stay, and you know no one who will provide you with a place to stay, then obviously that means that by force of circumstance you can't stay because you can't afford to. > Would your system have me picked up by the cops for breaking the law and shipped to 40 acres with a mule to til the earth until I have learned the error of my ways, and good work ethics? Only if you break the law. You don't have to break the law. If you leave as soon as you lose your job and can tell you're not likely to find another, or as soon as you run out of savings, then you won't be trespassing and therefore will be able to willingly return to your farmland by yourself. > Or would a system that tried to treat the root causes of poverty instead of symptoms be more effective? Indeed it would, which is why I am proposing one to replace the current system that treats the symptoms of being poor, since all it does is give men fish (welfare benefits) instead of teaching them how to fish (how to work for themselves and not have to rely on other people's money). The symptom of poverty is not having money, and this is all that the State tries to fix, namely by giving poor people money. That is treating the symptoms. The root cause of poverty is not being able to provide for oneself. This system I am proposing would treat the root cause of poverty by giving poor people a way to provide for themselves, namely by giving them a farm. Do you understand it now? > Instead of small farms and deportation of the poor how about livable minimum wages? Instead of gas guzzling cars, how about flying unicorns? Small farms and transportation (no one said "deportation" but you, right now, sneakily trying to build a straw-man) exist in the real world, they can be defined in detail, I can draw small farms and transportations, and even take pictures of them to prove they exist, whereas whatever "livable minimum wages" is or means, it doesn't enjoy the same benefits - it can't be defined in detail, you can't draw it or take a picture of one to show me what this is, and you can't prove they exist. It's just a rhetorical term. It's not something real, like a farm or a bus. > Instead of good libraries, how about free university education? Instead of reading books, how about free live narrations? Well, that's because you can't find a way to convince narrators to work for free without pointing a gun to their heads. Same goes for free university education, there's no way to get professors to work for free without pointing a gun to their heads. Unless you are suggesting pointing a gun to everyone's heads and extorting everyone to pay for those professors, but if I thought you were suggesting that, I'd have to assume you are some sort of psychopath, what with wanting to exert violent influence over so many people. Books and libraries exist and they are a solved problem - we know how to put books in libraries and make them available to people. What we don't know is how to force someone to provide a service for free without impinging on their rights, and you just showed it. > Instead of making producers of every human being, what about addressing the people who benefit off the production of tens of thousands of people, yet give little back to the system that allows them to do this? The system that allows people to benefit so much without giving back is crony capitalism, which is exactly what I am proposing we eliminate. The Federal Reserve themselves has admitted that they have widened the wealth gap. So now you have a named target to hate: Federal Reserve. Join the club. > I ask this straight forwardly, as I do not know Austrian economics. But while I wait your reply, I shall look it up online and see what it is all about. Let me know how it goes!
elipsey 11y ago
Surely you don't believe that subsistence farming is the maximally productive occupation for every homeless person! I agree that living in a city is not a “human right”. While, problems 1, 2, and 3 are apparently the most important poverty related problems from your point of view (perhaps because you don't want to pay for them), it's not clear that they are the most important problems causing poverty or homelessness in cities. For example, I have had many years of education, but I have sometimes been unemployed. Without the ability to move or retrain I would have been homeless, but not because I was completely uneducated, or unwilling to work, or unable to learn new skills. I'm sure you recognize that the labor market is dynamic and not perfectly liquid. Either you unnecessarily assume that the homeless must all be un-, or under-employed because they have no education at all, or prefer to "game the system" rather than work, which is not evidenced, or you don't care that most of them could be more productive in some occupation other then subsistence farming, which is not efficient. Only if all poverty were cause by ignorance, stupidity, or sloth, would subsistence agriculture be the most productive conceivable use for the labor of all homeless people. This could be true of a few homeless or poor people, but certainly not all. Supposing that we care only for efficiency, and not a bit for human dignity or other peoples' happiness, wouldn't you and I still be better off if we chose to retrain or relocate people so that their skills offered some competitive advantage, rather than remove them entirely from the economy?
theworstshill 11y ago
Did you get your background in austrian economics from 4chan university? Cause thats what it sounds like, heck you overtrolled me.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

The idea that the poor are just too stupid to know how to work is insulting. And 'transporting' folks is what they did to criminals in Britain in the bad old days (usually to Australia). The point of a city isn't anything like what is suggested. Its a place where a lot of people gathered to live. Some got squeezed out as prices and the job situation changed rapidly. Blaming them is pointless. I don't think this plan will get much traction.

bmelton 11y ago
> The idea that the poor are just too stupid to know how to work is insulting. I read it twice, and I didn't see anywhere in which planfaster suggested that the poor were stupid. Either I'm missing it, or you're reading in to something that isn't there. > Some got squeezed out as prices and the job situation changed rapidly. Blaming them is pointless. I agree that the point of cities is inaccurate, but the problem isn't that they've been squeezed out, it's that they don't have homes, but are otherwise still there. Perhaps I'm just being pedantic here, but squeezed out implies that they aren't there any more, and in the case of city homeless, they generally are. That said, you've completely ignored the point of the post. Utah has had success in giving away vacant homes to their homeless, with the qualifier that if you're getting a free home, you don't also necessarily get to pick its location. Comparing it to penal colonies is a straw man, but regardless, the question is whether or not a homeless person in NYC would accept a free home, perhaps slightly upstate. If not, why not? There are currently more vacant homes across America than there are homeless persons, and it's not infeasible to suggest that if adverse possession were slightly restructured, we could completely solve the problem of involuntary homelessness within a decade, though of course any such solution will introduce new problems as well.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Poor are stupid: #3 Transporting as straw man: #2 Vacant homes across America are there, because there are no jobs there. Many of the homeless in the city may have actually come from those empty houses, abandoned with their upside-down mortgages and no jobs, hoping to find work.
planfaster 11y ago
> The idea that the poor are just too stupid to know how to work is insulting. If you think that is insulting, try getting your ideas attacked through a straw-man argument - that's even worse. What most poor people do not understand, however, is that in order for them to live off welfare, somebody else is personally sacrificing their own efforts, labor, life, money that could be saved for their kids, just to pay for some guy who not only has no skills to help society in building wealth, but has a strong enough sense of entitlement to demand that someone help them survive while they get to pick where to live. I want to help all the poor, but being mathematically literate I know this can only work if we put these poor people in a situation where instead of takers, they be producers. > The point of a city isn't anything like what is suggested. Its a place where a lot of people gathered to live. You are over-simplifying it to the point of being ahistorical. No, actually cities came about because farmers increasingly wanted to take their chances at being entrepreneurs or employees in an industrial setting. So if you fail at your chance of making it in the city, then you should go back to a farm. Sounds logical to me. That way everyone can keep trying to make it in the city without being a burden on anyone else. > And 'transporting' folks is what they did to criminals in Britain in the bad old days (usually to Australia). This reads like an emotional sophism to make me feel bad about giving the poor food and shelter that they can actually pay for themselves. Again, think back to our recent past pre Industrial age (1850 and before). Most people were farmers. That's the default. Living in the city, where you can't produce your own food and have to rely on other people's services (which costs money) is not the default. If everyone in the country can never be poorer than owning a small self-sufficient farm where one can live by oneself without needing money, then can you better point at the part of this plan that makes you be against it? I honestly see no problems here, not even an inkling of disrespect towards the poor.

jbooth 11y ago

I'm sorry, are you proposing literally serfdom?

planfaster 11y ago
I don't know, you tell me. If you receive a plot of farmland that you can live off of without any other citizen's help, and you don't owe anyone anything for having received that plot of farmland, then are you a serf? Plus, after living in that farmland for a while, whenever you think you have the skills to be employed in the city, you are free to try again. But it would be illegal to be homeless in the city, so that if it doesn't work out, you'd have to go back to the farmland you own. Is that serfdom? The answer is no, and contrary to your question, you are not really sorry you asked, you are just doing this coy exaggeration routine that people who aren't interested in engaging in argument but still want to poo-poo it do.
- pavel_lishin 11y ago
  I like this idea of receiving free property - real estate, housing, animals, etc. - all for the low, low price of not renewing my lease at the end of the year and quitting my job to tinker on a farm during springtime, before getting another job, paying someone else to make sure my chickens don't die.

buro9 11y ago

> You say you have been homeless. I'd like to ask you what you think of my idea: instead of giving the homeless shelter in the city, and having them drain resources from people who produce wealth, meanwhile not producing anything, why not give them a cheap house in a small farmland with some chicken or turkey, rabbits, a vegetable garden, etc? I have been homeless, it's not something I just say. I disagree with your entire post. It's based on this false assumption, "the point of city is to be a wealth-creation center, not a welfare experiment". Definition of a city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City "A city is a large and permanent human settlement.[1][2] Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town in general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law." Nothing in there mentioned wealth, or welfare. Remove that personal bias/motive from your proposal and your proposal very quickly falls apart. That is before one would progress to the more offensive part of your argument: That those with money and wealth have more right to live in a city than those without. That those who work in lower paid industries have less of a right than those in higher paid industries. It seems horribly convenient as a concept, that you could put the poor and homeless on buses and drive them out of your sight.

planfaster 11y ago
> I have been homeless, it's not something I just say. I can't verify it, so I can't say "you have been homeless" or I'd be lying about having evidence of something I don't. So I used the reported speech version, "you say you have been homeless". It was not meant as an attack, nor to be ironic, nor anything like that. > I disagree with your entire post. It's based on this false assumption, "the point of city is to be a wealth-creation center, not a welfare experiment". Wrong. You could have argued that you disagree with my being against helping the poor and homeless stay in the city, as that was the only part of the post predicated on the premise that cities are wealth-creation centers. Which they de facto have been historically (regardless of intent or word definitions). In other words, all wealth produced has mostly come from cities as opposed to farms. Therefore, cities are wealth-creation centers, de facto. > Definition of a city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City Definition of "de facto" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_facto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_facto "in fact, in reality, in actual existence, force, or possession, as a matter of fact" > Nothing in there mentioned wealth, or welfare. Remove that personal bias/motive from your proposal and your proposal very quickly falls apart. And yet all the wealth in the world came overwhelmingly from cities, which makes them de facto wealth-creation centers. And it's a premise, not a "proposal". And the premise is correct, and your definitional refutation is a non-sequitur to it. I am arguing about what cities end up effecting in reality, and you're showing me something someone wrote on a website. If you're not going to address my arguments, you shouldn't reply to me, you should post under your own thread branch. > That is before one would progress to the more offensive part of your argument: That those with money and wealth have more right to live in a city than those without. That those who work in lower paid industries have less of a right than those in higher paid industries. Offense is in the eye of the beholder, it is not inherent to topics or arguments. If you hadn't brought your ego to this conversation, you would not have been offended. I haven't, and I'm not. I also never mentioned rights, and I have no idea what you mean by it, since you seem to be using that word in a gradual sense ("more right"... "less of a right") when to me it is a binary thing (you either have a right or you don't). But if you want me to rephrase what I said to use the word "rights", I can do it: everyone has the right to live in a city, but no one has the right to demand that others pay for them to do so. So if you have the skills it takes to live in a city (a place where you can't grow your own food and have to rely on money to use services to provide you with what would otherwise be free in your plot of farmland) and you want to, you can, because you have that right. But if you want to, and you can't afford to because you don't have the skills to substitute for manual labor, then you still have the right to live in the city, but at the moment you are unable to because you can't support yourself, and you don't have the right to demand others to pay for your expenses. Is this clear enough now? > It seems horribly convenient as a concept, that you could put the poor and homeless on buses and drive them out of your sight. The point is not to drive them out of my sight. It seems you are mischaracterizing what I am saying to make me look bad. Don't do that, it's not an argument. Even if the farm is next to my house, the point is to give the poor a way to be independent so they don't have to rely on other people's money to survive. The point is not to "drive them out of my sight", it is to teach them to fish, to be self-sufficient, and not to be dependent on others giving them fish.

bweitzman 11y ago

You make it sound like living off the land with a small farm is a particularly easy thing to do, and I don't think that's true, especially for someone with no experience with that lifestyle. I can't imagine that a person who is unable to keep a home or job in the city due to mental or physical health issues would be able to sustain themselves on a farm. Though I suppose rurality could help with drug and alcohol addictions by limiting access, you can't just pick people up and move them like that.

planfaster 11y ago
> Though I suppose rurality could help with drug and alcohol addictions by limiting access, you can't just pick people up and move them like that. When we are the ones offering to help, then absolutely we can pick people up and move them if they wish to be helped. We are free to set our conditions and they are free to reject them. Right now, for instance, some poor people are tested for drugs in order to qualify for government housing. At some point someone argued, I'm sure, "you can't just pick people up and test them like that", but then someome smarter rebutted "of course we can, we are the ones offering to help, so we get to set the terms". And indeed, that is right. Do I have the right to demand that you help me monetarily in exactly the way I choose to? If so, please start paying my rent and sending me at least $2k monthly. Of course I don't have the right to set the terms of your helping me. One would have to be silly to defend such an idea. And so, because those doing the help get to set the terms, we should tell poor people that they will be granted a farm and that it will be theirs forever to grow food and live independently on, unless they want to depend on other people by moving into the city and exchanging their skilled labor for the services they need to substitute for the plot they can't till when they're in the city. This is just reality, I'm just explaining it slowly like that because the current welfare state and credit-happy society warps reality so much that people forget that they need to be able to afford the things they want. Regarding picking up and moving them out, we do that all the time right now. Cops pick people out and move them from places where they might be, for instance, peacefully smoking marijuana, a victimless crime. So we already do this for the silliest reason possible, burning tiny grass and inhaling its smoke. Wow. And you are berating me for wanting to pick people and move them, not because they've burnt tiny grass as is being done currently thousands of times per week, no, not for that, but for, wait for it, wanting to give them a farm! C'mon, you can't be seriously arguing this. Not to mention, no one will be picked up and transported unless they commit a crime such as trespassing. They can still rely on friends, family and acquantainces to stay over, and when they run out of all options they can still return home to their farmland they own by themselves, out of their own will, without being escorted by police. All they have to do is not trespass (which would include not living on the streets as those would be private property as they are in many cities in the US). > I can't imagine that a person who is unable to keep a home or job in the city due to mental or physical health issues would be able to sustain themselves on a farm. The people who can do no work whatsoever in a farm will have to be taken care of by people who care about them. This will encourage everyone to make as many friends as possible and to help each other out as much as possible (helping each other out is the currency of friendships and it can even partially be the currency of communities). Those who can do just a little work can work together with others, or maybe with their friends or acquaintances they make within their farmer neighbors. Farms produce for more than one person so it will not be any problem if a farm needs to sustain more people than people working on it, provided those working on it agree to help the others.

nekopa 11y ago

Regarding your first premise, specifically the poor. If I live in a city, and work, but my work only pays enough for me to be poor, you are saying I should be shipped out to the country and given a farm? Under Austrian economics, how would your plan pan out? If the city removed all the poor people, who would do the work they were doing? Does Austrian economics believe that suddenly the wealthy, or rather the people who can afford to live in the city will suddenly pay increased wages to people wash dished, clean streets, do people's laundry etc.? I could see it might work if as you say, its illegal to stay in the city unless you make a certain amount, therefore making it illegal to pay less than a living wage. Is 'minimum wage' covered under Austrian economics? Would it be set higher for more expensive cities? Or would the wealthy just keep the status quo by busing in people from the mandatory farms and still paying them shitty wages? Also, do you think that people would be able to learn enough from public libraries to become a 'producer' as you say? Not everyone is an autodidact. Lastly, what would you do about someone like me? I was homeless and jobless in Hawaii for 6 months because of bureaucratic reasons (I am a US citizen who lived abroad for all my life, and when I moved to the US I had no Social Security Number, therefore couldn't work legally until one had been assigned to me) I have been homeless a few times, but I have never once had to claim welfare of any type. Would your system have me picked up by the cops for breaking the law and shipped to 40 acres with a mule to til the earth until I have learned the error of my ways, and good work ethics? Or would a system that tried to treat the root causes of poverty instead of symptoms be more effective? Instead of small farms and deportation of the poor how about livable minimum wages? Instead of good libraries, how about free university education? Instead of making producers of every human being, what about addressing the people who benefit off the production of tens of thousands of people, yet give little back to the system that allows them to do this? I ask this straight forwardly, as I do not know Austrian economics. But while I wait your reply, I shall look it up online and see what it is all about.

planfaster 11y ago
> Regarding your first premise, specifically the poor. If I live in a city, and work, but my work only pays enough for me to be poor, you are saying I should be shipped out to the country and given a farm? Since we're speaking in terms of Austrian Economics, now is the time to say this whole thing is based on property rights. So the ultimate point of this is, that if you don't have money to pay to live in the city, or if you don't have a friend who will spot you or whatever, then you can't just be in the city and homeless, because you'd be trespassing someone else's property. This is the key idea. You can't be homeless because you'd be a trespasser. So you either have to fund your stay yourself, or get voluntary help (from friends, family, etc) in order to be housed. > Under Austrian economics, how would your plan pan out? If the city removed all the poor people, who would do the work they were doing? Does Austrian economics believe that suddenly the wealthy, or rather the people who can afford to live in the city will suddenly pay increased wages to people wash dished, clean streets, do people's laundry etc.? The city is not removing poor people. You are misconstruing what I said. If someone is found trespassing private property, and it is found they are doing so because they are destitute, then they will be asked to go back to their farmland, or face punishment for trespassing (which no one would choose). Austrian Economics says that the market will have to find a way to fund what it needs to do while being able to pay its workforce what they need to live within an acceptable distance of where they need to be to do their work. This will be solve in a myriad of ways, too many to count really - each company will find their own solution and some companies might converge to a locally optimal solution. But it's not up to any planner, you or I, to tell the market how they should solve their problem of funding their human resources. They will know that if they don't pay someone enough, they might not be able to live within the area they need to be around to do their job. So you will get a sort of self-fulfilling maintenance of a wage floor automatically from competition. > I could see it might work if as you say, its illegal to stay in the city unless you make a certain amount, therefore making it illegal to pay less than a living wage. Is 'minimum wage' covered under Austrian economics? Would it be set higher for more expensive cities? Or would the wealthy just keep the status quo by busing in people from the mandatory farms and still paying them shitty wages? Close. Indeed it would be illegal to trespass, which would mean you either can pay for where you are living, or you are authorized by the owner who pays for that place, to stay there. With regards to minimum wage, I addressed this above. With regards to busing people in for "shitty wages", any offer a city person makes to a farmer is voluntary and the farmer is not compelled to accept it, seeing that they don't need to accept it for them to be able to have food and shelter. > Also, do you think that people would be able to learn enough from public libraries to become a 'producer' as you say? Not everyone is an autodidact. Yes, I believe they would. Long-term prisoners learn the law of their cases when they can't afford a lawyer or when no one will pick their case up. Where there is an incentive there will be a drive. > Lastly, what would you do about someone like me? I was homeless and jobless in Hawaii for 6 months because of bureaucratic reasons (I am a US citizen who lived abroad for all my life, and when I moved to the US I had no Social Security Number, therefore couldn't work legally until one had been assigned to me) I have been homeless a few times, but I have never once had to claim welfare of any type. If you have authorization from some property owner to stay at their place, you could do that. Otherwise if you have no money to pay for a place to stay, and you know no one who will provide you with a place to stay, then obviously that means that by force of circumstance you can't stay because you can't afford to. > Would your system have me picked up by the cops for breaking the law and shipped to 40 acres with a mule to til the earth until I have learned the error of my ways, and good work ethics? Only if you break the law. You don't have to break the law. If you leave as soon as you lose your job and can tell you're not likely to find another, or as soon as you run out of savings, then you won't be trespassing and therefore will be able to willingly return to your farmland by yourself. > Or would a system that tried to treat the root causes of poverty instead of symptoms be more effective? Indeed it would, which is why I am proposing one to replace the current system that treats the symptoms of being poor, since all it does is give men fish (welfare benefits) instead of teaching them how to fish (how to work for themselves and not have to rely on other people's money). The symptom of poverty is not having money, and this is all that the State tries to fix, namely by giving poor people money. That is treating the symptoms. The root cause of poverty is not being able to provide for oneself. This system I am proposing would treat the root cause of poverty by giving poor people a way to provide for themselves, namely by giving them a farm. Do you understand it now? > Instead of small farms and deportation of the poor how about livable minimum wages? Instead of gas guzzling cars, how about flying unicorns? Small farms and transportation (no one said "deportation" but you, right now, sneakily trying to build a straw-man) exist in the real world, they can be defined in detail, I can draw small farms and transportations, and even take pictures of them to prove they exist, whereas whatever "livable minimum wages" is or means, it doesn't enjoy the same benefits - it can't be defined in detail, you can't draw it or take a picture of one to show me what this is, and you can't prove they exist. It's just a rhetorical term. It's not something real, like a farm or a bus. > Instead of good libraries, how about free university education? Instead of reading books, how about free live narrations? Well, that's because you can't find a way to convince narrators to work for free without pointing a gun to their heads. Same goes for free university education, there's no way to get professors to work for free without pointing a gun to their heads. Unless you are suggesting pointing a gun to everyone's heads and extorting everyone to pay for those professors, but if I thought you were suggesting that, I'd have to assume you are some sort of psychopath, what with wanting to exert violent influence over so many people. Books and libraries exist and they are a solved problem - we know how to put books in libraries and make them available to people. What we don't know is how to force someone to provide a service for free without impinging on their rights, and you just showed it. > Instead of making producers of every human being, what about addressing the people who benefit off the production of tens of thousands of people, yet give little back to the system that allows them to do this? The system that allows people to benefit so much without giving back is crony capitalism, which is exactly what I am proposing we eliminate. The Federal Reserve themselves has admitted that they have widened the wealth gap. So now you have a named target to hate: Federal Reserve. Join the club. > I ask this straight forwardly, as I do not know Austrian economics. But while I wait your reply, I shall look it up online and see what it is all about. Let me know how it goes!

elipsey 11y ago

Surely you don't believe that subsistence farming is the maximally productive occupation for every homeless person! I agree that living in a city is not a “human right”. While, problems 1, 2, and 3 are apparently the most important poverty related problems from your point of view (perhaps because you don't want to pay for them), it's not clear that they are the most important problems causing poverty or homelessness in cities. For example, I have had many years of education, but I have sometimes been unemployed. Without the ability to move or retrain I would have been homeless, but not because I was completely uneducated, or unwilling to work, or unable to learn new skills. I'm sure you recognize that the labor market is dynamic and not perfectly liquid. Either you unnecessarily assume that the homeless must all be un-, or under-employed because they have no education at all, or prefer to "game the system" rather than work, which is not evidenced, or you don't care that most of them could be more productive in some occupation other then subsistence farming, which is not efficient. Only if all poverty were cause by ignorance, stupidity, or sloth, would subsistence agriculture be the most productive conceivable use for the labor of all homeless people. This could be true of a few homeless or poor people, but certainly not all. Supposing that we care only for efficiency, and not a bit for human dignity or other peoples' happiness, wouldn't you and I still be better off if we chose to retrain or relocate people so that their skills offered some competitive advantage, rather than remove them entirely from the economy?

theworstshill 11y ago

Did you get your background in austrian economics from 4chan university? Cause thats what it sounds like, heck you overtrolled me.