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Comment by adewinter | Hacker News Reader

I feel sad that so many posters here (and people I know in real life) seem to have such a myopic obsession with the idea that (homeless) people might use literally _any_ amount of money on Alcohol or other substances.

What is the deal with this? Do you judge your peers for using any of their money on alcohol/drugs? Why do you think that you are fit to judge how someone living a terribly hard life should spend their money on relief? Why does it matter? If I'm homeless and struggling and you give me $500, and I use $12 for a six pack of beer to celebrate... am I bad person suddenly? And where's the line? Two six packs? What about if I buy something else frivolous say a t-shirt for $30 when I could have gotten it at Target for $15, would you like to be the moral police on that purchase as well?

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There is a gathering of homeless outside my apartment I donate money to. They spend their money on alcohol and cigarettes...

and to top up their phones, bus passes, calling cards, snacks, water, coffee, lunch and dinner. Just normal things that any one of us would do with a bit of money.

I like to imagine this in my head:

What if we were stuck on a spaceship with 100 other humans? There’s a lot to maintain on a spaceship to keep it operating so we all don’t die.

What if there was a contingent of 10 people on this ship who refused to help with the operations of the ship? They decide to hole up in the cargo bay, doing nothing but feeding their own desires from the replicators.

90 other people bust their balls to keep the ship running - long hours, deferring pleasure until the work is done, earning everything they work for.

Now multiply the size of that ship by 70,000,000 and you have Earth.

This is a pretty apples and oranges comparison. Suppose it takes 30 people to maintain the ship. 70 people are working on it, mostly doing administrative work that makes them feel important. 10 people decided to fuck off and form a band, but honestly we kinda like them. 10 people developed space sickness and are useless. 5 people snuck on board accidently and got shot into space and nobody really liked them anyway. And the final 5 keep talking about their start-up, whatever the hell that means.

We'd jettison them, but we kinda want at least 70 people to run the ship and we have supplies for 100 people that honestly just burn sometimes.

Your additions still fit my premise; that we should all be contributing to the “spaceship”.

As it relates to one of the other comments - the homeless people outside his apartment do not, in any way, contribute to the spaceship. They must be provided for constantly. That’s why people take issue with vagrancy, there’s no contribution back after they have taken.

So in the past some people took solutions to this problem to the extreme because they'd decided a certain set were "surplus to requirements". Obviously you're not advocating for that. Given that we are historically piss poor at correctly deciding who "is not contributing" and, actually, the "ship" still appears to be running (and if it isn't I strongly doubt it's because of the vagrancy of a few) is it really an issue whether a few don't actually do work/contribute?

I agree with this generally. One thing to consider is how, specifically in the case of homeless with addiction issues, how the distribution of larger amounts of money affects violent and non-violent crime within the homeless population. Especially in relation to profoundly addictive/dangerous illegal drugs. Seems like there’s pretty large opportunity for exploitation by drug dealers and opportunists, if you know the most vulnerable in your community who are already excluded from the legal system have received an influx of cash. Perhaps this only works with other changes to policy in tandem.

I don’t know enough about the issue to predict if this potential risk is significant, or outweighs the substantial benefits.

Anecdotal of course, but I've spoken to many people currently living in poverty who are firmly against measures like this because they worry people will freeload.

I'm sure it comes down to the news cycle, the American dream (I'm reminded of Wright's/Steinbeck's "temporarily embarrassed millionaires"), personal politics and upbringing, but at the end of the day it feels like crabs in a bucket.

I try pointing to single mothers working two jobs, or the disenfranchised, or the honest hardworking people who are just unlucky, or even a mirror, but it never seems to stick. I'd love suggestions on a better argument.

Humans have evolved to judge others’ morality for good reasons, because those decisions often have externalized effects. In this case, homeless people addicted to drugs and alcohol aren’t just hurting themselves, they create risks to those around them, are often aggressive and violent, etc. Public interventions to help the homeless aren’t purely altruistic, but seek to reduce those negative effects on society. In that latter context, it matters how that money gets used. If it is used to just feed an existing addiction, then that doesn’t accomplish the goal of reducing the burden homeless people place on the local community.

I think these concerns are overstated, because in practice most homeless people are just people who need a little extra help, not addicts who need intensive intervention. But the concern about how the money gets used isn’t illegitimate.

Does the equation change for you if the person has children without basic needs met?

It's also worth asking - is this obsession with nanny-ing the less fortunate worth the cost? Even if say some x% of folks do spend y% of a UBI on booze and hookers - is the cost of preventing them from doing so worth the added cost of setting up a bureaucracy to monitor and police and prevent them from doing so?

Exactly, that's the other main thrust of my argument too.

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