[xp84]

If you believe we can just fix poverty and drug addiction with some government program, I have a bridge to sell you. So far, no one has, anywhere in the world.

Many people (and once they get themselves addicted to something bad, that rises to "most") are just terrible and care only about their own short-term gain. They'd do any amount of destruction to others for some small temporary profit or fix.

[gacgacgac]

If you think most people "are just terrible", I think you've let cynicism corrupt your thinking, and I don't think we're going to get very far by talking.

I believe the opposite -- people fundamentally want to help each other, and we've structurally set up our society to force people out of that mode and into a competitive mode. Read "A Paradise Built in Hell", when push comes to shove, communities care for each other.

If we covered everyone's basic food, housing, education, and medical needs, I guarantee you'd see crime and addiction plummet.

[SoftTalker]

We do this. We have programs for all those things. Anyone who is willing to go through the "process" can get free or reduced housing, food, and medical care. Education through 12th grade has always been free.

I think the GP was talking about addicts and those who for other reasons refuse to go through the "process" to get help. They are content living a life of begging, petty crime, getting high, and rejecting any help that comes with expectations of changing problematic behaviors.

[xp84]

> most people "are just terrible",

Read my comment again. Many = more than a few people. Nowhere near most people. Most people are great.

However, yes, most addicts who are in the grips of addiction - not in treatment or recovery - I stand by that.

> If we covered everyone's basic food, housing, education, and medical needs, I guarantee you'd see crime and addiction plummet.

We don't agree on this point. Addiction itself is a huge barrier to the people who need help getting help, and a huge barrier to that help making any medium or long-term difference. We do not have a reliable way to fix addiction.

I admit I can't prove this, but I think it's more common that addiction causes complete collapse of everything else (job, housing, and relationships) than the other way around ("Gee, I lost my job, home, and my family and friends abandoned me -- I guess I'll just take up an expensive substance addiction").

Addiction can fixed by either:

1. An incredibly dedicated solo effort, hitting rock bottom and somehow having the personal strength left -- in a body and mind damaged by poison -- to fight it off through sheer force of will, or

2. An incredibly resource-intensive labor of love: Many people coming together to intervene, to help the addict through the most horrible experience of their life (withdrawal), and to monitor them, ideally indefinitely.

The extreme addicts I'm talking about are the ones who have generally driven their families and friends away by their behavior (frequently by lying and stealing to get money for drugs, basically proving too many times that they can't be trusted.) There aren't ever going to be enough government-funded 'surrogate friends' to help every addict in the absence of them having their own support system, which limits them to Option 1, which is wildly difficult and uncommon to happen or succeed.

[konmok]

The USA opioid epidemic was caused by gross government negligence and corruption. Is it really a stretch to think that a policy solution could have prevented the majority of the harm? And do you really think there wouldn't be enough food and shelter to go around, if the government decided to get serious about poverty relief?

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

The government policy might have caused it, but a reversal of the policy might never fix it. The real world is like that, unfortunately.

Besides, it's not the policy you're thinking of anyway, that causes this specific problem. This specific problem (theft for scrapyard sales) is primarily caused by piss tests. If people supposedly would suck cock for a hit of crack, then they'll also scrub toilets at minimum wage for crack too. But piss tests short circuit that. Here's the problem: the government doesn't mandate pre-employment piss tests. So they can't fix it easily. It would be far harder to convince legislators to prohibit them than it would to convince them to legalize drugs. There is a corporate culture that has gone on nearly 50 years now that has normalized piss tests, and they are true believers in it. They would lobby against prohibiting the tests.

But, even if all that could be done (very doubtful), we've also taught crackheads and tweakers to steal copper wire and whatever else not nailed down. We've taught them to do this for 50 years. Multiple generations of junkies and dope fiends have done this, passing down the knowledge (or what passes for that) of how to steal to feed a drug habit. They aren't going back to scrubbing toilets, even if they would have done that way back if only they hadn't been forced to stop.

>And do you really think there wouldn't be enough food and shelter to go around, if the government decided to get serious about poverty relief?

I think that even without the government getting serious about poverty relief, housing prices are insane and there's not enough to go around. And my grocery bill's not exactly nothing, either. And all for what, even if it did work the way you think it would, I'd get to pay for that welfare so this guy's radio station wasn't held hostage by Rudy's desperate need for bathtub meth? No thanks.

[Halian]

Portugal