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Comment by xpe | Hacker News Reader

> The people parking these RVs aren't following the rules, why should the people they're dumping their sewage and trash onto follow them?

If you embrace only a purely strategic point of view, sure, choose from the palatable tools available to achieve your ends.

But most people have some kind of moral and ethical code, imperfect as it may be. The golden rule is nearly universal across various moral belief systems.

Be careful: if you only consider the purely strategic point of view you may find yourself as the primary casualty. Living without a moral code is perhaps the most self-defeating decision you can make.

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>But most people have some kind of moral and ethical code, imperfect as it may be. The golden rule is nearly universal across various moral belief systems.

I find that the people who espouse these views are usually insulated from the effects of them. Have you ever had a homeless camp near your residence? How close? How would you feel about your wife/daughter/mother being home alone near a homeless camp?

I'd love to be charitable and kind, but people have to protect themselves as well. Bringing a bunch of mentally ill drug users near your residence is a recipe for disaster. It should not be seen as some moral issue that we need to solve individually--the government and police should be able to resolve this on their own, especially considering the funding pumping into law enforcement and homeless funds. I think the big problem is we just keep creating more unaccountable programs and services instead of just giving people an SRO and a social worker. We're doing the dumbest possible thing because everyone wants to get a cut. Every other developed country has basically solved this--we could just copy a working model instead of dumping more and more money into hare-brained ideas every year that never work.

Regarding the applicability of the golden rule and exceptions, please see this nearby comment : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32311750

> Have you ever had a homeless camp near your residence? How close? How would you feel about your wife/daughter/mother being home alone near a homeless camp?

About my most recent experience in the East Bay (near San Francisco)... I lived (a) about 0.5 miles from a homeless person who lived in a truck; (b) about 1 mile from an industrial area with dozens of parked campers, (c) about 1.5 miles from a small tent encampment (maybe 10? tents), (d) and about 2 miles from a larger one (maybe 20?). In this experience, I did not personally feel threatened, nor did I hear accounts of them being violent or particularly troublesome.

But I get your point. I have been close to camps where I feel unsafe, and I would not recommend spending time nearby.

>>But most people have some kind of moral and ethical code, imperfect as it may be. The golden rule is nearly universal across various moral belief systems.

> I find that the people who espouse these views are usually insulated from the effects of them.

Would you give an example or two from your experience?

The alternative is simply that it's ethical to not follow laws against someone who isn't following laws, in proportion at the very least. Direct self defense is the simplest example, this is another - both are placing illegal objects in the parking area...

Understood. The ideas you mention overlap considerably with the notion of the moral sphere as explained by Robert Kane at the University of Texas at Austin. His books and audiobooks are very accessible and well done.

To summarize, when acting within the moral sphere (which Kane defines as the situation where people are acting in a way that respects other people's rights), we should act to maintain it.

But when it breaks down, we do the best we can to restore it, which might mean acting less ideally toward the people causing breakdown.

Dr. Kane has a website with some writings. Here is a related article: http://www.roberthilarykane.com/4-moral-sphere-breaking-and-...

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