Basically, we’d be better off if the government had done nothing. Seems like that happens a lot.
The remarkable part is the people who still defend the measures as for-the-poor's-own-good.
That is a good point.
Tent cities are preferable to poorly built dangerous masonry.
The next HN comment immediately talked about how that building is a slum.
You literally cannot see the residents inside. It's impossible to tell. It's the same building but now somehow it was ruining the character of the neighborhood. Strange.
What modern Westerners seem entirely unwilling to acknowledge or accept is that if you require by decree that all accommodations look like middle-class accommodations, then you'll absolutely be able to get rid of all those worse accommodations, but you won't have done anything to address the reasons they existed in the first place.
What exactly do you mean when you say "as nice as middle-class apartments"? Are you talking about how nice the carpeting and hardwood flooring is? How nice the building looks from the outside? How likely the roof is to leak or collapse? How safe the electrical wiring and fire suppression systems are?
In the West that's exactly what we've done. We've said, sorry, no, you can't provide housing that looks like that, so the operators of those establishments said, OK, then, I won't. And now those men sleep on the street.
We seem to think that we can demand of proprietors whatever we want and they'll have no choice but to comply. But it's simply not true. At some threshold they'll just shut down. And then I guess we can celebrate the elimination of "substandard" housing and declare ourselves morally cleansed.
Secondly, I think it's a false dichotomy in practice. I find it very hard to believe that basic safety codes alone cause the difference between SRO-style buildings and "luxury" or even "middle-class" apartments. What percentage of that $800k was spent on the GFCI outlets in the kitchen?
So, yes, I agree with you. Surely there must be some limit. But what's optimal?
In CA, it's my firm belief that people have a tad too much power over the minutae of government operations. What did we even elect people for if we are going to try to solve everything with referendums and protests?
Which issues, pray tell, are best governed by local control and which are best governed by top-down, remote decision makers?
Is it really tyrannical to, say, elect officials to act on our behalf and consider long-term impacts and x-order effects?
Because to me that just sounds a little more "republic" and a little less "direct democracy".
- We don't want the minority enforcing on the majority
- We don't want a plurality or even a majority enforcing on a minority under certain circumstances
So, for instance, even if 300 million Americans think "sfe22 should be stripped of their assets and have it given to us 300 million" that's not going to happen. Yes, that is 'tyrannical' of you to have such power but it is so nonetheless.