> The lame social media posts from fellow tech workers about how things "should" be regulated gets tiresome. The real solution is to simply not work for them.
If you’re calling something a “real solution” it should have at least some chance of actually happening and solving the problem. Strong regulation from the government against union busting is both possible and effective (look at what FDR did if you want an example). Wishing individuals would live up to your standards of ethical behavior when they have no reason to (and may have personal/family reasons that make them feel they need the paycheck) will not ever change anything.
Yeah, 20 seconds per day in school vs a constant bombardment of the opposite from every media and cultural institution the average young adult would ever be exposed to. It is very much out of vogue to be nationalistic.
Israel's enemies attempted two wars of annihilation against it before there were any settlements, unless you consider the existence of a Jewish state within the 1948 armistice lines a "settler colony" (which admittedly some do).
? Israel continues to build and operate settlement colonies in the West Bank in internationally recognized Palestinian land. I’m not sure how you can get around calling it a settler colony without some impressive mental backflips
I'm not sure what you mean. Even if one agrees that Israel "builds and operates settlement colonies" how does that make Israel a settler colony? But perhaps you consider Tel Aviv a settlement?
I don’t think anyone denies that Israel is building settlements in internationally recognized Palestinian and Syrian land. They don’t hide it, there’s a lot of very recent news online about it e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/world/middleeast/israel-s...
Yes, I know what the "international community" thinks about that. I'm asking why that makes Israel a settler colony, as you claimed. Do you consider Tel Aviv a "settlement", for example?
Perhaps it's a simple misunderstanding around terminology. I certainly wouldn't say that Britain at the height of empire was a "settler colony". I would reserve that description for the colonies themselves, i.e. those settlements outside Britain itself! Likewise I wouldn't describe Israel as a "settler colony" simply because it has (perceived) colonies outside its borders. I would only say that if I believe that Israel had no right to exist within any borders. But perhaps that's not what you meant and I just misunderstood you.
"Therefore it would be necessary to carry on colonization against the will of the Palestinian Arabs,...Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population – an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy."
--Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Iron Wall, (We and the Arabs) (1923)
For once there's something to really harshly critique and attack Israel about that isn't "It's a Jewish state in a neighborhood of unreconstructed Arab nationalists who don't want to admit they invaded Jewish land." And of course, no, you can't just let us attack the actual bad things Israel really did do. You have to change the goddamn topic to "Jew state bad."
Where did you get that from? I wrote two specific criticisms which are quite different from your characterizations, maybe you should reread the comment?
What do you mean by settler colony and what are you suggesting exactly - Israel should dismantle itself and send away its citizens to whoever will be willing to take them?
You can google settler colony. I’m not suggesting anything in this comment other than that settler colonies with apartheid policies tend to be unstable throughout history.
But since you asked, I don’t think citizens of Israel should have to leave, I would advocate for Israel to do something similar to South Africa when they ended their apartheid policies
Are you asking which country enables Israel to continue to violate international law in the longest occupation in modern history (the West Bank)? That would be the US, who gives them $4 billion dollars each year and prevents them from being sanctioned at the UN
The goal of US foreign policy has never been to improve the lives of people anywhere outside the US. A sibling comment points out that one of our closest allies in the Middle East is Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy that publicly beheads dissidents and has incredibly sexist laws, yet the US does nothing, and we see nothing like the neo Cold War coverage that Xinjiang produces. The US will remain an ally of Saudi Arabia because that is beneficial to the interests of the US, not the people subject to the Saudi regime.
If you think I’m a cynic or conspiracy theorist, take a look at what the US has done in other countries since WW2, in many cases overthrowing democratically elected governments in favor of US friendly regimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r.... This is what the US has always done to other countries, expecting them to care about morals or improving anyone’s lives is missing their goal completely (and taking their propaganda at face value).
Whatever the goal of confrontation with China is, improving human rights is the least likely possibility.
I don't disagree substantially, and I don't think you're a "conspiracy theorist", however I must say that you and many others seem to be reading into my question what I did not mean. I'm not asserting that the US has had positive impact, I'm asking whether or not they should have a positive impact despite internal issues still existing. Does that make sense?
Yeah I see your point. I think what I and others are saying is that given the US’s 70+ year track record at serving their own interests at the detriment of foreign people, there is no reason for them to completely change their goals with no reason. The US defense apparatus doesn’t exist to be a moral good or improve the lives of foreigners, it exists to serve the interests of wealthy Americans. The professed moral goals are propaganda and will always be false - they’ve had these justifications for every action they’ve taken from supporting death squads to installing dictators to topple democracies
> The only reason I see expenses really causing massive debt is if you choose to accept/request medical procedures you can't pay for
Have you ever been to a US hospital? They don’t have a menu where you browse treatments and prices. You get your treatment and then later on you get a massive bill
That’s all putting aside the fact that a society allowing people to suffer from treatable illnesses is completely unnecessary and cruel considering that providing free care to everyone is something many countries do successfully
That's false. America has probably the most advanced healthcare in the world. Almost every new treatment is invented and made available there. Other countries don't provide that cutting edge stuff for free, they simply don't provide it at all. I live in New Zealand which has free healthcare but we sometimes hear about people pressuring the government to pay for some expensive new drug, or a dying person using crowdfunding to pay for what the government won't, or complaining they have to spend their own money flying to America for private treatment because no doctor in New Zealand is capable of that special thing. But those are the exceptions that get into the news. Mostly people just die when it's too expensive. Our standard for "treatable illnesses" is lower than the reality of what technology can do.
At the extreme end of diminishing returns, I'd guess that most deaths of elderly people in hospital are preventable because machines to perform the function of failed heart, lungs, kidneys, GI tract, etc. exist. But it's expensive, and countries with socialized healthcare don't pay for it for everyone because they don't have infinite money. My dad died this way when his lungs filled with fluid while in hospital.
Excuse me. It was this "a society allowing people to suffer from treatable illnesses is completely unnecessary and cruel considering that providing free care to everyone is something many countries do successfully"
I'm saying no country provides free healthcare for all treatable illnesses. And not providing it is necessary because the cost would be too great.
1) that is a political news piece (not anything rigorous) written in Canada for Canada that is breathless about victory in Finland, and where the primary source appears to be the primary political activist for the policies in Finland. Aka, good luck getting a solid idea of real trade offs or problems. When you read it there is almost no actual data. Where the head political advocate for the policy provides some data, it shows progress, but as quoted, not victory or a solution, see
“ A lot of progress has been made. We now have the lowest number of homeless. Our present government has decided that the rest of the homeless should be halved within the next four years and completely end by 2027”
So we’d need 5 years before even the most gang busters assessment could say if it was solved or not. And it seems to be because it was decided, not because that is what projections show will happen? So if the last 10% don’t co-operate, then what?
2) Finland has only 5.5 million people in a massive land area, and one of the lowest population densities in the world. They also are remarkably ethnically consistent. They also have a incredibly hostile climate that will strongly discourage (or outright kill in the first month of winter) anyone who is unsheltered homeless. They also have socialized medicine. They are also very wealthy because of natural resources which almost no other country has.
For comparison, the San Francisco Bay Area discussed earlier on it’s own has approximately 50% larger population than all of Finland all on it’s own in only 5% of the land area, and none of those other factors helping (add scare quotes depending on the factor).
That is pretty much the definition of a ‘toy population’ in this case, and even they aren’t saying it’s actually solved in that case yet, just that it totally will be at some point in the future.
While I think SF advocates have stopped trying to claim victory is possible or they’ll have it under control at some point in the future, there was a time that is what they said too.
1) Cleary the policy is massively successful and the trends are pointing towards it being solved in the next few years. I don’t read Finnish so I can’t provide a better source, but you could probably find one looking online if you don’t like the Guardian
2) Low population density seems like something that would make solving homelessness harder, not easier, as you seem to suggest. I don’t see how ethnic homogeneity has anything to do with this but I’d be interested in hearing why you think it does. I agree that a strong social safety net helps a lot with this problem and we need it in the US also. Your assertion that a smaller population makes the problem easier doesn’t make sense. Less housing needs to be built but the Finnish government also has much fewer resources than the US.
Well, clearly the person and government in charge of getting it started thinks it is massively successful? I don’t have data to contradict or support otherwise, but lots of folks in those positions say things are great when they don’t look good on the ground.
Regarding your other questions - Smaller populations are much easier to work with, and organizations that are working with them are easier to manage to a high quality. Socio-Religo-Ethno consistent groups also tend to be aligned more consistently on cultural values and behaviors among individuals, which allows doing interventions or even understanding patterns of problems is easier and more doable. There is also less ‘us vs them’ and more ‘we’ involved. So fewer diametrically opposed factions, less infighting, less corruption of core social infrastructure, less jockeying for position vs other factions required. The set of stakeholders is fundamentally lower and easier to deal with. For a counter example, see Lebanon, Bosnia-Herzegovina, etc.
Low population density is also a huge help with any sort of homelessness issue because there is little to no pressure on housing availability. If someone previously owned a house and lived there, as long as it didn’t burn down, buying out any loan (going to be a smaller amount) is just as effective as anything else probably because 1) it’s not going to be a huge amount of money, 2) there won’t be as much moral hazard as there would be in a less cohesive and higher density location as it’s less money, and the neighbors all know you and there is an incentive to not abuse it, 3) no one is moving in to just take a house and then doing whatever with no connection to the land or the area or the culture before hand.
And also since it’s a smaller population, your overall number of folks being involved is much smaller, and there are fewer really problematic outliers.
Also because of the smaller population, more homogenous groups, and stronger ethnic identity, it’s not as likely someone is going to be able to even start throwing wrenches in the works for whatever disingenuous reason like happens here in the cities very often. Judges would just go ‘what are you doing, get out’ if someone tries.
Here, it would tie the agencies involved or property owners up for years or decades.
Does that answer your question?
It’s also why New Zealand was able to stop Covid coming in (for awhile) and others couldn’t, that and a lot of ocean. There was strong buy-in across the population, and a consistent set of values folks could agree on and feel like they were working together with others on.
I can’t really tell if you’re saying it’s not possible to solve homelessness by giving people homes or if doing that is politically difficult. I would agree very much that it’s politically difficult to do, but a solution being politically difficult doesn’t make the problem unsolved. Especially considering there are governments that have acted to solve the problem in this way and seen positive results. Im not talking about what policies are easy to get passed, I’m saying there’s no reason what Finland did couldn’t be repeated in a larger country with vastly more resources other than lack of political will.
“Government involvement” is not a boogeyman that makes everything bad. The UK government is very involved in the NHS. The NHS provides completely free care and gets better public health outcomes than the US with less spending. The source of the problems in US healthcare is parasitic insurance companies that add inefficiencies and siphon resources at every step, and provide no value to people compared to an NHS-type system
If you’re calling something a “real solution” it should have at least some chance of actually happening and solving the problem. Strong regulation from the government against union busting is both possible and effective (look at what FDR did if you want an example). Wishing individuals would live up to your standards of ethical behavior when they have no reason to (and may have personal/family reasons that make them feel they need the paycheck) will not ever change anything.