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Comment by yasp | Hacker News Reader

An organization saying X doesn't make X true.

Perhaps OP meant to write "According to the UN, having a roof over ones head is a basic human right."

"We" as evolved social animals have pretty universally come to the agreement that humans should have a few basic necessities, such as food, water, shelter, (and less agreed but equally important) personal safety.

I could ask if you continuing to live is your human right.

I'm not sure there's any absolute decree that everyone can agree on that says you deserve to live. However, we evolved people tend to assume that every human deserves to continue living (at least until our differences become too great, at which time we sometimes just kill each other).

Therefore, your demand for proof that having shelter is a human right is bunk.

OK, and here I was thinking that human rights were premised on a philosophical basis. Thank you for clarifying that they are merely a political matter.

Just because he said it in this way doesn't mean you can't think for yourself and realize that it also has a philosophical basis. You are a human. You are capable of your own independent thoughts and conclusions which are as valid as other people's. If you can yourself find ethical reasons to give humans a place to live by default, and I'm sure you can, (because suffering = bad, no home = suffering, true for every human) you just created a philosophical reason for why it might be valid to consider it a human right.

The same philosophical chain of reasoning would lead to government provided boyfriends and girlfriends, so I'm not sure about this line of argument.

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