[me_me_me]

> I live in LA, and I don't own a car, and many people that live on the street don't either. Does that mean that it's valid to label us both as "carless"?

Yes, that's the exact definition of not possessing a car. The circumstances might be different and reasoning for not having one too, but if both were asked do you own a car the answer is the same.

[SkyBelow]

Would the definition be based on possessing or owning? What if one does possess a place they choose not to use (run away teen)? What about being able to stay in a place but only for a short term?

I know a guy who recently sold his old house and bought a new one, but because of some confusion, ended up not having a home for two weeks. It would seem odd to call him homeless.

[_jal]

If you're not involved in adversarial contract authoring, I don't get the appeal of the "what about this edge case" game.

> Would the definition be based on possessing or owning?

Given that nobody calls people renting apartments homeless, I think this self-answers.

In any case, voluntarily being temporarily in a situation wherein one does not own property in not commonly confused with living on the street for reasons I believe to be fairly obvious. It has to do with that word "voluntarily".

[SkyBelow]

>If you're not involved in adversarial contract authoring, I don't get the appeal of the "what about this edge case" game.

My mind often goes to the boundary cases because that is where the real differences occur at.

For social issues in general, I've seen enough cases of people stretching definitions and using selective definitions that are enough against the norm that the end statement made is purposefully misleading. You might say it is adversarial advertisement authoring.

[maxharris]

It might be a useful concept in a limited, technical sense. In a political context, it is an anti-concept because it replaces a correct conceptual understanding with one that doesn't map to reality.

After all, the primary purpose of conceptualization is to give us humans a way to deal with vast complexity of the world. We can only hang onto 3-5 things (maybe seven if you're a genius) in a single mental frame, and we are utterly lost without that. People let their conceptual faculties get hacked all the time by ideologies and manipulative intellectuals! Don't let that happen to you! (I'm maxharris9 on twitter, and my DMs are open. If you want to know more about this just send me a message!)