[RobertRies]

"You honestly, really think all those people just sat down one day and decided to be homesless Because they’d be coddled?!"

Strictly speaking this is simply a straw man via oversimplification (as is nearly the entirety of this post and the others I've seen from bbor in this thread)...

But I've seen this _variety_ of straw man so often that I want to break it out into a specific fallacy on its own.

Not sure what to call it but the "Oh, so you think X decided one day just Y?"

"Oh so you think Elizabeth Holmes just sat down one day and decided _I'm going to scam billions out of investors and risk lives and pretend I made a blood testing machine_"?

"Who sees this advertisement for Tide and just decides _I'm going to buy Tide because I saw this advertisement?"

"Oh so you think I listen to Andrew Tate one day and now suddenly I'm abusing women?"

"Oh, so you think I'm going to do heroin one time and suddenly I'm going to be homeless and addicted?"

No. We're the culmination of dozens, hundreds, thousands of behaviors (with genetic and environmental influences) that create a trend.

So, err, I'll entertain your bad-faith rhetorical question and answer: no, nobody thinks anyone "sat down one day and decided to be homesless [sic] because they'd be coddled." San Francisco (on behalf of the voters, you and I) have created thousands of tiny incentive structures that maximizes the pain people experiencing homelessness, drug addiction, and mental illness, while simultaneously maximizing the negative impact to the housed, because you believe everyone who is housed deserves to be the victim of assaults, burglaries and all the other fun because they aren't supporting your policies.

Let me guess: housing-first? Certainly their drug addictions and mental illnesses will instantly vanish with a free house in the most expensive real-estate in the country? Anything short of this, well, they can stay on the street and find comfort in stealing things to fund their heroin/fentanyl self-medication.

[bbor]

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond :) Always appreciate a dialogue.

  the others I've seen from bbor in this thread

I think we can both agree that using the word "bbor" in the context of this conversation is kinda funny.

  fallacy

"Figure of speech"

  Oh so you think I listen to Andrew Tate one day and now suddenly I'm abusing women?

Probably?

  thousands of tiny incentive structures

Like... feeding them? Giving them shelter so they're less likely to die of exposure, and because people hate when they sleep within sight?

  you believe everyone who is housed deserves to be the victim of assaults... because they aren't supporting your policies.

You literally spent the last 75% of your comment talking about the Strawman Fallacy and then...

To be explicit here: Ok, you win, no one decides to be homeless in literally one single moment, all of life is the culmination of decisions and life events, totally agree with you. The rest of my comment was about how fucking awful it is to be homeless. Which you would agree, no? I cited some insane statistic elsewhere here about them being almost 20 times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime, and 9 times more likely to be sexually assaulted.

I guess you don't have to work if you live on the streets, but I can't believe anyone would argue that they're "coddled". The only reason people would prefer homelessness is if they've been beaten down by the system to ridiculous degree, e.g. felons; what are they supposed to do after serving their time, considering it's way harder to find housing or employment in an economy that's already brutally hard? [1][2][3][4][5] From there, consider people who have suffered abuse, drug addiction, mental health issues, and just plain shit luck. Do they deserve whatever psychotic/violent shit "be tougher on the homeless" implies?

This is really the gist of it: what should we do?

Yes, my plan is housing first, on top of fixing our insane, unprecedented level of inequality (except for the Gilded Age, which hopefully we agree was a Very Very Bad Time). I think the idea expressed above that we just need to... beat them up more..? and that will fix the problem is heartless beyond belief. Curious to hear your thoughts!

1. https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-household-d...

  Average revolving credit card balance, 2022    $5,910
  Average personal loan debt, 2022          $18,255

2. Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts: https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

3. Home prices are rising faster than wages: https://usafacts.org/data-projects/housing-vs-wages

4. 42% of Gen Z Diagnosed with a mental health condition: https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/survey-42-of-gen-z-diagnos...

5. Wealth inequality in the United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite...

  Reich states that 95% of economic gains following the economic recovery which began in 2009 went to the top 1% of Americans
  During the COVID-19 pandemic, the wealth held by billionaires in the U.S. increased by 70%... "the steepest increase in global billionaires’ share of wealth on record."
  As of late 2022... 735 billionaires collectively possessed more wealth than the bottom half of U.S. households ($4.5 trillion and $4.1 trillion respectively). *The top 1% held a total of $43.45 trillion*.

[RobertRies]

It's not a figure of speech. It's a very deliberate attempt at deeply mischaracterizing the position in an attempt to make it appear absurd. "Oh yeah, that's right, who would ever wake up one day and decide to be homeless? What an idiot who would think that!" That's not how it works. You think you're being funny. You can't keep it together enough here to even genuinely engage. In case anyone else is reading, no, one exposure to Andrew Tate's toxicity is not what causes one to become misogynistic. It's an entire society and repeated exposure to his ideas, and ideas like his that cause it. It is not one exposure to a Tide advertisement that makes somebody sit down and say, "hey I should go buy Tide because of this advertisement!"

Not like feeding them and giving them shelter. Remember, you don't want to give shelter. You, and your ilk, the vocal faction of SF politics, will accept nothing short of housing first.

I obviously believe it is awful to be homeless. You say I straw manned you - tell me, am I wrong? Do you support anything short of housing first?

If, say, the voting public doesn't want to give everyone 1000sqft in the heart of San Francisco, but is in favor of sheltering and forced drug rehabilitation and mental health facilities coupled with enforcing laws. You're telling me that you would not prefer the current state?

My thoughts are your (presumed) preference of status que over a compromise that doesn't cause maximum suffering for all is the worst of all worlds. You're the "Bernie or Bust"er of the unhoused. You're the person who would rather have Trump than Biden, if you can't have Bernie.

"Well, if I can't give everyone a free house in San Francisco, and change the distribution of wealth, I'd rather people suffer and die in the streets (via decriminalizing everything, and being anti-shelter), because then at least the taxpayers will also suffer the consequences of it, and then maybe things will change."