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Comment by somesortofthing | Hacker News Reader

This article seems like a major failure of both imagination and empathy. Paying homeless people $20 a day to be wifi hotspots or paying people's bills on the condition that they become vegan helps in the moment, but these solutions are actively harmful in the long term if practiced as a default response to the problems they ostensibly address. Such "solutions" calcify in people's minds, and provide a convenient excuse to not execute the kinds of large, systemic shifts that a complete solution necessarily entails. These things are so repulsive to the general public because regular people, on some level, understand that everyone has an unconditional right to the safety and dignity that homelessness and living without water or medicine is incompatible with.

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You're making two claims here that I think are interesting:

1) PETA paying someone's water bills (or SXSW paying homeless folks) is harmful in the long term, because it makes society fixing the overall issue less likely.

2) That harm is greater then the harm of their water being cut off (or not having that $20).

To the first, I'd say we're clearly not solving these issues whether or not we let PETA pay water bills. To the second, I suspect having running water today matters to people a lot more than some theoretical fix in x years.

I think these claims go against the way progress normally happens, organizations arising to distribute money to fix problems in the short term often are a precursor of a larger legislative fix.

If nobody is trying to fix a problem, nobody organizing around fixing a problem, why would the system think the problem was at all important?

Perfect is the enemy of good. Sure, giving a homeless person $20 doesn’t solve homelessness but it does a lot more good than dreaming about utopian systemic shifts that are never going to happen.

By this logic, we would still be hung for treason for hunting in the king's woods. Systemic shifts can and do happen.

It is actually a pretty good idea of paying homeless (or beggars) to be Wi-Fi hotspots.

Good enough is also the enemy of better. Feels like you are getting caught up in some version of the repugnant conclusion.

"repulsive to the general public because regular people, on some level, understand that everyone has an unconditional right to the safety and dignity"

I want to point out a couple errors in your statement.

1. The correct verb to use is "feel", rather than "understand". "Understand" can only refer to an objective fact that can be verified, proven, etc.

2. While some "regular people" (including myself) share your views, it is not all of them, and not even an overwhelming majority of them. In fact, I suspect it's only a minority, perhaps a tiny minority of people worldwide who actually agree with you (and me). So perhaps a better way to say it, "repulsive to me and others who share my beliefs because we...".

These may seem like small things, but actually writing the way you do make your statements sound like a religious tract (kinda like "Human beings understand that God's will is absolute"). I doubt that was your intent.

People generally do have the right to safety, but it's not "unconditional", because there are other values such as personal freedom. We compromise between those conflicting values. If I drive a car, I create SOME risk that I run you over. I'm not allowed to drive intoxicated, or without a driver's license, or above certain speed limit, because we find that level of risk unacceptable. But if I drive perfectly sober, within the speed limit etc., I STILL put you at SOME level of risk. I could still lose control over the wheel and smash into a passerby. Statistically speaking, we know it will happen for every million car rides or so. But we consider this level of risk acceptable. The margin is low enough for me to exercise my freedom. So yes, your safety matters, but not unconditionally. It matters to a certain - arbitrary - extent. At least that's the social consensus.

It doesn't help anyone's edification to make up your own definition of common words.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/understand

Definition of understand

1a : to grasp the meaning of

b : to grasp the reasonableness of

c : to have thorough or technical acquaintance with or expertness in the practice of

d : to be thoroughly familiar with the character and propensities of

Your proposed corrections actually turn the claim on its head. If you want to argue against it, then you should actually argue and not hide behind semantics.

> these solutions are actively harmful in the long term if practiced as a default response to the problems they ostensibly address. Such "solutions" calcify in people's minds, and provide a convenient excuse to not execute the kinds of large, systemic shifts that a complete solution necessarily entails

Is there any evidence this is the case, or is this just a thought experiment?

Yah. Making the homeless jump through hoops is negative to the dignity of everyone involved-- both the homeless person and the people interacting with them to get wifi.

On the other hand, the experiment design that was mentioned: we need to do a lot more like this. Randomize some people jumping the waitlist and then compare them to people in the same position in the waitlist that you didn't let jump the line. That way we can objectively measure what programs produce the best outcomes and deserve the most resources.

Big Brothers Big Sisters was convincingly able to show the efficacy of their programs with a variant of this experiment design, which IMO puts them a whole lot ahead of most other charities.

That's a lot of speculation and assertion confidently claimed as fact.

FYI - If you read the comment section of the article, there are a number of interesting side discussions about this exact thing, along with various arguments on both sides .

Yes I think we fear a slippery slope. We don't want to go there, we prefer the status quo. The article suggests short term solutions but do not delve into the long term consequences of those solutions.

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