romafirst3

there is no welfare trap.

I totally agree on principle but for those who are stuck in a transactional mindset (conservative/libertarian etc) I would argue that paying for housing and welfare for poor people is just good business sense. Crime is incredibly expensive and when pushed to the edge people disconnected from society are more likely to both need to perform crime to survive but also have nothing to lose from performing criminal acts. If you take care of people's basic needs with a safety net you actually enable them to contribute to society (economically and culturally) and it is a couple of order of magnitudes cheaper than criminalizing them. And guess what, people still desire to earn more money, so they still have plenty of drive to better themselves, they just aren't completely fucked if they fall on hard times.

The article title is just a hyperbolic statement about something. Blocking the path to a family is just another hyperbolic statement that is patently untrue.

But in all seriousness in response to your question, why respond at all, the answer I would argue is it is super important to respond. If you don't respond you leave exaggerated statements unchallenged and then people just ingest them without using any critical thinking. There are tons of examples of it happening in the US news media and it does change people's perspectives of what is happening in the world. If left unchallenged a casual reader would just assume that the sky was falling down in Ireland which couldnt' be further from the truth.

Or perhaps it is just as useful because it tells you where you need to and can improve.

Are they walling up vaginas? Because that’s the path to having a family.

Article is paywalled but seems to just be a hyperbolic headline in the style of US papers talking about foreign countries.

The social contract has not been completely ruptured. I checked last week.

What are you talking about ?

The only failings I see with the Irish model is they don’t go far enough in some areas.

I’d like to see the healthcare system expanded for example.

Per captia they are extremely wealthy. Have free education including third level. No student debt. Are extremely educated. Very low crime (including a tiny murder rate). Very low homelessness (although pressure has increased on the system in the last few years because of refugees from Ukraine and asylum seekers - but I’m happy they are helping people and I think most Irish people are too).

They frequently rank highest on happiness measures and the fact that they worry about how young people feel about their future and are willing to make policy changes to accommodate them is a sign of strength not weakness.

Also caring for the less fortunate is a huge positive not a negative.

weird take.

This makes sense cause the public official doesn't have an expectation of privacy when they are performing their official duties. That makes sense. Nothing they should be doing when they are conversing with a member of the public should be private to them (unless it is private to the person they are talking to - and if it's private to someone else then they probably shouldn't be sharing it with the person recording).

So, some countries have protections for squatting.

Squatting is legal.

In the USA property rights are very strong. Read the article I posted earlier. Basically in Amsterdam a lot of companies were colluding to keep apartments empty which inflated the price. In response people were legally allowed to squat the apartments provided they were unoccupied.

This fixes the problem of empty apartments.

Comparing the rights of squatters in the USA to the rights of squatters in other countries is a non-starter. I'm saying if citizens in the USA had the same rights to squat as they had in the Netherlands in the 70's and 80's the problem would be fixed.

It’s not protected at all though, we both know that.

So would you endorse it legally? It was the solution to the crisis in Netherlands. You used to tell the local police station that you were occupying the house.

Empty units stopped being a thing.

So if we are happy with criminality to “sidestep regulation” how would you feel about squatting vacant homes?

Netherlands had this problem in the 60s and the solution came in the form of a squatting movement.

I feel in the US people are ok with corporations committing crimes but not humans. Weird seeing as the humans are the ones without a home and the corporations are just trying to get rich.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting_in_the_Netherlands

Interesting breakdown. 1/3 are retired or students, I wonder how many people moving in to California are not working? This article also seems to say that the majority of people leaving the state earn below average income and don't have a college degree, so it seems like California has become too expensive for them perhaps? Again I'm not 100% sure it's a sign of economic malaise, people leave when it gets too expensive. There has been a dip in California population since covid (https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/population-ex...) which makes sense with what I've experience anecdotally with people I know who've ditched SF for NY (and elsewhere). Definitely SF seems to be on the decline. The people I know didn't leave because of some kind of "failed state" vibe though, they left cause SF was going too right wing for them.

Yea actually I think you did. I know you are just trolling but the callousness and ignorance of your comment did annoy me. It's such a brain dead lack of an argument that it just irritated me.

My feeling about the outflows to other warm southern states is that old retirees on fixed incomes tend to move to places where they can get value for the equity in their Californian homes. Often they buy multi family homes in these new states and can house their (now adult) kids who move with them. I don’t see it as a source of economic malaise more a way for them to cash out of the property market in California.

That’s actually a really common misconception. A lot of unhoused people in LA have one or more jobs. One survey I saw put that number over 65%.

I live in LA and I'm not sure this article is about California. Seems like a grab bag of regurgitated nonsense.

I run a business and let me tell you there is no unemployment here, it's hard to retain employees.

There is no outflow of migration as far as I can see, housing is extremely scarce.

In fact one of the only reasons I would leave is because housing is cheaper elsewhere.

California is doing so well, that me and many other people are paying a huge premium to live here.

Also SF isn't California, it's a small part of the state.

you honestly think there is some masterplan? I love a good conspiracy theory but that is nuts.

Nobody has a made a plan so it hasn't been long planned. Shit is just happening and we as a society, a culture and a race are adapting to it like we've always done.

Cars get into wrecks all the time :) Seriously though we just normalise it. If there is a car accident on your street everyone is awake. How about cop cars and ambulances racing by sirens blaring at all hours. People blast horns way louder than anyone will shout.

So this is a real problem especially in hot climates like the US can be. My advice would be slow down your cycling speed to your appointment. I found myself having to keep reminding myself to slow down because my natural cycling speed generates a sheen of sweat. Of course you can open up on the way home.

This strategy along with suitable clothes will help for moderate climates. If you are heading out into 95 and up weather there will be sweat though.

I’ve also had the benefit of a shower at work which really changed the game, but that is a luxury.

Wayfair is absolute trash.

Pictures look good but it always disappoints. It’s the one online furniture store I will never buy from again.

This is super cool

Language plus infrastructure for revolutionizing how backends are built. By making the language aware and responsible for the infrastructure it’s possible to proactively solve a lot of accidental complexity.

By that logic everyone in a car should wear a helmet in case of an accident. Head trauma is a real danger in car accidents. Wearing a helmet in your car will help with any head trauma. Why don't car drivers wear a helmet?

It’s definitely not even close to bring solved either. I haven’t seen a single code generator that works (100% of the time) for anything more than a very simple one or two liner.

It is a very important bit and might be how we all code in the future.

You clearly don’t watch a lot of other countries anthems being sung.

Really?

Even the concept that there are shithole countries is extremely dumb.

I think you’ll find in those other shit hole countries people are (strangely enough) just as patriotic to their fabulous country.

That should tell you something about patriotism and living in a shithole country.

Why even stand up?