[JoeAltmaier]

The idea that the poor are just too stupid to know how to work is insulting. And 'transporting' folks is what they did to criminals in Britain in the bad old days (usually to Australia).

The point of a city isn't anything like what is suggested. Its a place where a lot of people gathered to live. Some got squeezed out as prices and the job situation changed rapidly. Blaming them is pointless.

I don't think this plan will get much traction.

[bmelton]

> The idea that the poor are just too stupid to know how to work is insulting.

I read it twice, and I didn't see anywhere in which planfaster suggested that the poor were stupid. Either I'm missing it, or you're reading in to something that isn't there.

> Some got squeezed out as prices and the job situation changed rapidly. Blaming them is pointless.

I agree that the point of cities is inaccurate, but the problem isn't that they've been squeezed out, it's that they don't have homes, but are otherwise still there. Perhaps I'm just being pedantic here, but squeezed out implies that they aren't there any more, and in the case of city homeless, they generally are.

That said, you've completely ignored the point of the post. Utah has had success in giving away vacant homes to their homeless, with the qualifier that if you're getting a free home, you don't also necessarily get to pick its location. Comparing it to penal colonies is a straw man, but regardless, the question is whether or not a homeless person in NYC would accept a free home, perhaps slightly upstate. If not, why not? There are currently more vacant homes across America than there are homeless persons, and it's not infeasible to suggest that if adverse possession were slightly restructured, we could completely solve the problem of involuntary homelessness within a decade, though of course any such solution will introduce new problems as well.

[JoeAltmaier]

Poor are stupid: #3

Transporting as straw man: #2

Vacant homes across America are there, because there are no jobs there. Many of the homeless in the city may have actually come from those empty houses, abandoned with their upside-down mortgages and no jobs, hoping to find work.

[planfaster]

> The idea that the poor are just too stupid to know how to work is insulting.

If you think that is insulting, try getting your ideas attacked through a straw-man argument - that's even worse. What most poor people do not understand, however, is that in order for them to live off welfare, somebody else is personally sacrificing their own efforts, labor, life, money that could be saved for their kids, just to pay for some guy who not only has no skills to help society in building wealth, but has a strong enough sense of entitlement to demand that someone help them survive while they get to pick where to live. I want to help all the poor, but being mathematically literate I know this can only work if we put these poor people in a situation where instead of takers, they be producers.

> The point of a city isn't anything like what is suggested. Its a place where a lot of people gathered to live.

You are over-simplifying it to the point of being ahistorical. No, actually cities came about because farmers increasingly wanted to take their chances at being entrepreneurs or employees in an industrial setting. So if you fail at your chance of making it in the city, then you should go back to a farm. Sounds logical to me. That way everyone can keep trying to make it in the city without being a burden on anyone else.

> And 'transporting' folks is what they did to criminals in Britain in the bad old days (usually to Australia).

This reads like an emotional sophism to make me feel bad about giving the poor food and shelter that they can actually pay for themselves. Again, think back to our recent past pre Industrial age (1850 and before). Most people were farmers. That's the default. Living in the city, where you can't produce your own food and have to rely on other people's services (which costs money) is not the default. If everyone in the country can never be poorer than owning a small self-sufficient farm where one can live by oneself without needing money, then can you better point at the part of this plan that makes you be against it? I honestly see no problems here, not even an inkling of disrespect towards the poor.