Just more of the same from his class. Wants everyone to believe in a meritocracy, because that means he's rely great, and the people whose lifeblood he drained to get where he is aren't victims - they're just inferior. They wouldn't be where they are if they were superior like him.
Probably a guillotine wouldn't even work on him, he's so superior. Hypothetically.
A billionaire is the equivalent of a person sitting in a cafeteria who bought every piece of food in the restaurant kitchen and doesn't want to share any of it with the thousand people sitting around him even though he'll never be able to eat all the food they bought.
Owning and controlling so much wealth that you'll never be able to enjoy everything you have in a lifetime isn't a success or a sign of intelligence .... it's a mental illness. Especially when all that wealth and control could mean the life or death of thousands or millions of people everywhere.
There are exceptions. Warren Buffet (as an example) has given away a large fraction of his wealth, and pledged/planned to give 99% of it over his lifetime (he is 94). It's a sane strategy to let his shares appreciate and “maximize” his charity.
For a billionaire, he lives modestly and speaks reasonably. He has a sanely sized house. His kids are getting an inheritance, but not a stupidly large one.
Look, I want to tax the shit out of billionaires too, I just object to blanket labeling any group as mentally ill. You know, like Musk did in OP's post.
Yeah fuck that. Even if warren buffet lives up to the leftist wet dream of what billionaires should do, we need legislation, and if we don't get it, heads should fucking roll. Billionaires should not exist, full stop. You cannot work that hard, they have not and will not work that hard. Stop thinking like these parasites have any empathy. They will cash you out for 50 cents. Cash them out for far more.
You're like the guy in the cafeteria who stands at the far end of the billionaire's table and tell everyone in the cafeteria that the billionaire will donate and give away his sandwiches when he leaves and that he isn't that bad because he only eats a bit of the food and saves the rest because he will give it away soon.
^Not being contrarian but wanna place a bet how damn poorly this is gonna do - no nuance for billionaires (understandable but ears can still be better open than closed)
Depressing fact: Most of the homeless people you see acting all crazy and talking to themselves all the time behaved normally when they started being homeless. It's spending years in complete isolation, being constantly ignored by everyone around you and having no one to talk to that makes you act like this.
To add into that, most homeless are just normal people that fell on hard times, you won't see them cause they don't want to be a bother. You see the crazies because... Well they're crazy. Gigantic assholes like musk assume that since you see crazy homeless people wandering outside, then obviously ALL homeless people are crazy violent lunatics. He is the smartest person in the world after all.
Having both been homeless for a year (as in, on the streets, migrating from shelter to shelter) and also having worked for a homeless shelter system...
Yeah, most homeless either live in their cars, or couch surf, or jump from motel to motel... until their car gets repo'd, or their hosts kick them out, or they run out of money for motels.
Then, they're on the streets, like I was.
A couple years of that, even if you totally stay away from hard drugs as I did, is more traumatizing than what most soldiers go through, with the exception of an actual, repeated, stop loss style front line combat deployment where they're regularly in actual combat.
You see your friends die in your hands or right in front of you from an OD or a drive by or a mugging, you never know who you can trust, you know you may always, at any time, be assaulted or dispossesed, lose all your ids and bank cards, know that now you're sleeping outside in a blizzard tonight because you can't limp back to th shelter in time to make curfew, can't call for help because your phone was broken or stolen.
All the while, every 'normal' person just thinks you are disgusting, literally will not even look at you, much less speak to you.
I am astoundingly lucky I lasted a year. I have PTSD now, recurring night terrors, and I am still doing PT to recover from getting regularly assaulted and walking about 2000 miles in one year... its a miracle I wasn't stabbed, and I was maybe 100 feet away from eating lead in a drive by.
Took me a solid year of not being homeless to ... just be able to have an in person conversation with anyone, without having an anxiety attack, deescalation strategy and escape route pre planned.
Women on the street have it even worse.
I remember going into a trap house at one point to get one out. I will not explain to you what they had done to her.
People forget that not every homeless person is just someone temporarily down on their luck. Iirc that $20b figure is just housing the homeless, which doesn't fix things for people who are mentally ill, drug addicts, or both, and that's like 60-80% of the chronically homeless.
It's a massively complex issue with no simple fix.
You're right, a 100% fix of the problem is not simple or easy. But there's a whole lot of low-hanging fruit that we can tackle to make huge strides.
While drugs and/or mental illness may be involved in a high percentage of the chronically homeless, the chronically homeless only account for somewhere between 1/5 and 1/3 of all homeless. So housing the other homeless would still take care of the needs of ~80% of all homeless, give or take. Get single-payer healthcare up and running to prevent more people from ending up in those situations, and change from a retributive justice system to one that cares about rehabilitation, and suddenly we've got a society that actually cares about people, and would cost less to run while we're at it.
But, with a functioning safety net, people won't feel like they have no other choice but to work a shit job for shit wages, and the oligarchs can't have that.
i would add that housing-first approaches increase the likelihood that mental health and substance use treatment even work long term.
hard to wanna get sober when you're being harassed by police or other people. hard to stay sane when you're barely surviving and putting drugs on top to cope.
right now, many people experiencing homelessness and severe mental illness/addiction are hospitalized for a few days or a week and then they go back to the street. which doesn't do much except get an individual out of immediate crisis. many will repeat this pattern over and over until incarceration or death.
Not sure about now, but there was a time period where he owned no properties and lived in the houses of friends. Staying in someone's fourth home is not a hardship, but technically he didn't have a home.
I don't believe it, and even if it's true it wasn't out of necessity. he probably found it convenient to mooch off people like he always does one way or another as a lifelong parasite. he was born into immense wealth. literally the only thing he's ever done is buy companies. that's his entire career.
Not unusual for addicts to displace blame onto the people around them in order to justify their addictions.
The difference between Musk, Thiel, et al and your average American junkie is simply their line of credit. They can keep taking experimental intoxicants, safe in the knowledge their friends will loan them another $2M the next time they wrap their McLauren around a stop sign.
What do you want to do, give them a house? -- because we closed down all the asylums. That's where we used to house them. I'd rather give mentally healthy people the houses.
Yeah, sure looks like you're doing GREAT. You only have the highest deaths from drugs under age 25 among your population, you can start the "We're #1!" chant now...I guess...
Only Sweden and Ireland pass you in the overall drug deaths per population. You SURE are proud!
Then it's clear you're not actually reading any of the conversation here. Maybe go back and read the topic at hand, come back when you've got a good grasp on it.
This topic isn't about housing, it's about housing specifically for the maladapted, psychotic, drug addicts, etc. Many here are arguing that giving them a house would make them ALL BETTER and turn them into functioning, productive members of society...
Well we need to think ahead a little bit. We can't take a mentally ill person right off the street and stick them in a colonial revival and expect them to maintain with the upkeep.
Alright I'll bite, even if Hairplug Himmler is right (and let's be perfectly clear, he's not).
Why wouldn't we as Americans want to help our fellow citizens overcome drug use, treat mental illness, and help rehabilitation efforts on their behalf?
ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE "VIOLENT" and "on the street". Wouldn't we want to help them get off the streets?
Wouldn't that make us safer, happier, healthier, and dare I say... Great Again? Wouldn't that protect citizens and police officers alike at a lower cost than incarceration?
(Spoiler alert it would, but there's no private for profit companies offering this service).
Wouldn't these people become tax payers? Employees contributing to society? Become future homebuyers and start a family?
These empathy lacking neo-fascist clowns can't stop punching down to those less fortunate (while claiming the lords name in vain) and I can't wait for the day we get the opportunity to match their empathy as they head to prison (preferably one in El Salvador).
Why wouldn’t we as Americans want to help our fellow citizens overcome drug use, treat mental illness, and help rehabilitation efforts on their behalf?
It's kind of a two-part question, that.
Do we want to spend the money to get fellow citizens off drugs and treat their mental illnesses?
That's a pretty easy question if you have a soul: Yes.
If those fellow citizens refuse any and all help because they have a fundamental mistrust of the system. What do we do?
That's the more difficult question. Forcing them to get treatment breaches their human rights and only stokes further mistrust in the system. Leaving them just leaves them open to exploitation and doesn't make their lives better.
Homes are easy, it's all the support that comes with it that's difficult, especially if the person you're trying to help either refuses to engage or actively fights you every step of the way.
Absolutely, and thank you for your reply. Learning and expansion of ideas and thoughts only comes from good conversation and discourse. That's what makes this such a complex and difficult issue.
There is an inevitability of homelessness in a country is unavoidable, yes. Just like the inevitable need for criminal justice programs to detain, deter, and rehabilitate those who break the law.
No argument from me on the facts, there WILL be homelessness and crime in any society.
(This is for my sunshine and rainbows friend up top also).
Finland currently has a homelessness rate of .06% (2023) of their population. So let's say that's the baseline when you give people a fair shot, benefits, and treat them with care, and the remaining of those people that won't take help when offered.
The United States has a rate THREE times that at .19% homelessness. Despite having a GDP output, 83 times as large as the US.
Since I went to public school, percentages make me woozy so let's put it in whole numbers.
636,500 fellow citizens are homeless in the US (.19%).
If we adopted Finland's (already proved 35+ year plan) we could get that down to 201,000 over time. Heck if it takes 35 years as well, at least we're helping them.
That's 435,500 fellow citizens (Or a city the size of Cincinnati) that are sleeping on the street tonight, so that ONE MAN Elon Musk can pay less taxes.
Fellow Americans, until we vote these billionaires out of office and tax them (oh I don't know, at least as much as you and I pay) we are either ignoring the issue or complicit and I for one don't want to be either.
TL;DR: This is just one example why we should lift up those below us, and not be pessimistic about our fellow man.
Most of our homeless want a fair shot, mental health counseling, and rehabilitation.
We need to advocate for them and help them just like if we were reading this sleeping on the street.
No arguments from me about giving them somewhere to live and the healthcare they need. If you have any kind of soul, that's the least you can do. In an ideal world, there should be enough service to cover 100% of the homeless population (plus some buffer to cover any sudden increase) whether they take it or not. The question I have is do you have the right to force them to take it?
That's a good and thoughtful question, with no easy answer.
My opinion is I don't believe you can force someone to receive help, but you can incentivise them through rehabilitation, job training, counseling and housing.
At the end of the day, we need to respect their rights and not infringe on them. If they don't want help, then they are part of the .06% that chooses homelessness.
Wouldn't these people become tax payers? Employees contributing to society? Become future homebuyers and start a family?
The very smallest of small percent of them would. Most drug addicts never make it out of poverty because they've done something to also give them a criminal record and typically can't hold down a job.
You're almost there, and I sincerely value your input. Let's go on this journey together...
What if we treated them like human beings in need of care and rehabilitation instead of criminals who can't "hold down a job"?
Why do they not make it out of poverty?
Is it because they can't afford to? Why is that?
Is it because they can't afford to make ends meet on a minimum wage job? Can't find affordable housing? Can't pay for child care, counseling, health care, or rehab?
What if we helped them get rid of their addiction and didn't jail them for it?
If we're going to write off an entire vulnerable demographic of society, we as the functional members have an obligation to ensure that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are available to all. Not just those who can afford it.
Many other first world countries do this successfully already, the problem with our country comes down to the money being made keeping these people locked up and incarcerated.
Look up Norway, Finland, Sweden and their response to crime and rehabilitation. It works, if you focus on helping people instead of helping profits.
Imagine a world where those in need got the billions of dollars in tax payer subsidies that Elon Musk gets?
Dude. What are you doing this for? No shit it's not a check this box and all problems are solved situation. IF ITS NOT PERFECT, NO ONE CAN DO ANYTHING.
One step at a time, and the first step is to have a little fucking empathy.
The first step is to have a little dose of reality. The world isn't sunshine and lollipops, and the proposed solutions just end up creating slum-housing and spreading the problem around. I've seen it put into effect before with horrible outcomes. The path to hell is paved with good intentions and all...
How does telling you the truth about the homeless population benefit me in any way, shape, or form?
You haven't passed the bar to call me "selfish". Sure, I might be an asshole, but this isn't one of those times either. The reality is that we can't help everyone, and some people aren't saveable. You can't point to Sweden or Finland as answers either, because they have the highest per-capita drug deaths of other euro nations.
The ol' we can't save everyone so why save anyone argument
It's obvious reading comprehension isn't your strong suit. You must have missed the point where I said housing should first go to people without these deficits. You know...like 6 posts ago...
You've sat there and put words in my mouth, made strawman arguments, ad hominem attacks against me...
Do you know how to debate a point at all? Because you're failing at every step of the way...
My dose of reality is realizing that other countries have already solved this problem. This isn't a closed book test.
We as a country are actively putting the needs of Elon Musk over the needs of 435,000 people sleeping on the streets at night.
Your quote is actually brilliant, because the other interpretation is when people HAVE intention to do something but do nothing. That's exactly what I'm arguing against, doing nothing.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"
It's like the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't explain empathy and compassion to him on the Internet.
If billionaires firing average citizens and restricting our benefits/rights to enrich themselves isn't evil? What is?
If cutting cancer research for cancer patients while pretending to care about a single cancer survivor isn't evil? What is?
If illegally detaining and deporting US citizens and immigrants without due process and ignoring the rule of law so they can be tortured? What is?
If MILLIONS of people around the globe dying of disease to give the richest man in the world a tax break isn't evil? What is?
If you actively are the richest man in the world and you wake up every day with enough money to end childhood poverty, diseases, and illness and you actively choose not to? If that isn't evil, what is?
Curious to see what your definition of evil is, and how quickly you will move the goal post when we get there?
Make it make sense to me, take all the time you need.
What are you talking about? This is a post about the homeless littering the streets, not any of the bullshit you espouse here. And I'm not arguing for any of the shit you listed either. So your entire argument is a strawman, full stop.
I don't gotta take ANY time because you're all off in left field talking about something else OTHER than the conversation we're having ENTIRELY.
You've lost sight of what this conversation was about, and have gone off on some wild-ass rant about all the other things you're mad about. Maybe go back about 4-6 posts and RE-READ, with an attention to understanding what we're talking about instead of reading with the intention of rebuttal and then rejoin the conversation. I get that you're mad about what's happening to the world right now, we all are. We don't need to be giving "homeless" (read: Drug Addicts, Severely Mentally ill, People who are mal-adapted to society) housing. We need to be getting them medical care, locking them up in asylums to keep them out of the general population without treating them like criminals (though many of them are), and getting them psychological help.
You've all missed the forest for the trees here, and it's sad because you only argue it because Musk said something and you HAVE to disagree with it. Doesn't matter what it is, you MUST, because instead of looking at what he's saying, all you care about is making sure that you disagree with him. You can disagree with him as a person, and he can still be right occasionally (a broken clock is right twice a day). In this case, he's right. But your solution (giving them housing) is short-sighted, immature, naive and has had no long-term thought put into it at all.
Go live in a place with a homeless population. Go try and help them. Many aren't capable of being helped. And the only people who think like you do, are people who haven't experienced it.
Whether someone is a drug addict with severe mental illness is irrelevant to whether they're homeless or not.
Do they have somewhere to live that has a permanent address? No? Then they're homeless and need help.
Obviously there's a bit of nuance with things like ProxyAddress where homeless people can have permanent addresses but still be homeless, but the gist of my point is the same! Do they have a home or not?
I can’t speak for Elon (and will not defend him) but Kyle (from Secular Talk) is dramatically underestimating the problem by tossing out the $20 billion figure. You can’t just throw a bunch of money at a person with severe mental illnesses and addictions and just expect them to be okay.
The state of California has spent over $24 billion on homelessness since 2019 yet the number of homeless people in the state has grown by 20%. Obviously they aren’t spending the money wisely in a manner that would maximize reduction of homelessness, but Kyle didn’t specify how the money should be spent either. Perhaps that’s actually the hard problem: how do you spend the money in the way that would be most effective?
Gonna need you to define "that" in "that money.” If you mean government programs, much of those were defunded back in the Reagan admin. While institutions back then did need broad changes, their removal without a suitable replacement vastly increased the homelessness issue.
Weird how he’s lying again. I’ve been there, and I can promise this fuckwit that not having a roof or food in the middle of winter in a city where the stoplights literally freeze is not some kind of illusion. That being prodded away from a public bench in sub-zero temperatures so you can shamble a few blocks whilst the sleep in your eyes freezes, over and over for weeks, so you can’t get more than an hour sleep at a time for months, isn’t the holiday he thinks it is.
Jesus christ, I bob my head to the surface for this? It’s like he’s not even trying to be relatable now.
the US in total is a right-wing place that thinks that "hard work" is the way of life, and anybody who doesn't adhere to that is a "drug-addict" or a psychopath.
Projection is the process of displacing one’s feelings onto a different person, animal, or object. The term is most commonly used to describe defensive projection—attributing one’s own unacceptable urges to another.
Psychology Today is another corpo shit hole that avoids paying taxes in the US. Article writers are verified in the loosest sense of the word. Please take psychology today with a grain of salt when used as a resource.
its malignant forms, it is a defense mechanism in which the ego defends itself against disowned and highly negative parts of the self by denying their existence in themselves and attributing them to others, breeding misunderstanding and causing interpersonal damage.
Also I'm not sure why I should care that psychology today does not pay taxes in your country when your country is putting tarrifs on every other country in the world.
I'd say destroying USAID is the one good thing they did. Long term mind you. I won't deny the short term effects of such an instant cutoff to these programs.
But USAID is primarily used to disrupt the economic systems of nations that the US exploits for cheap labor.
I'd quote the revolutionary Thomas Sankara
Those who come with wheat, millet, corn or milk, they are not helping us. Those who really want to help us can give us ploughs, tractors, fertilizers, insecticides, watering cans, drills and dams. That is how we would define food aid.
The US primarily uses its food aid to disrupt these nations from being self sustainable and force their industry into a single crop that is most beneficial for US capitalist to export.
So, while the shorterm is bad. The disconnection of these exploitative relationships are good.
Obviously it would be better if these programs were slowly removed. But continuing them for the next 4 years would be worse then ending them drastically.
Also, mind you, I don't think Trump even realizes why these programs exist to benefit the US exploitation of the third world. I think he sees them simply as "foreign aid". So his own ignorance of them actually ends up destroying an important part of US Imperialism by mistake.
Removing the exploitative relationships that the US has with third world countries in the form of "foreign aid" is good. It's just that (1) Trump actually thinks these benefit these nations. Which they do not. And (2) the well intentioned liberals thinks the same as Trump does. So we end up with this weird state where both are wrong but the policy is actually good long term.
Again, there will absolutely be problems as these dependencies are cut of so quickly. But no more than the continued exploitation in the long term would result in.
At Thomas Sankara said. These direct food injections are not helpful. They are a way that capitalist use to direct the economy of third world nations towards dependency on America Imperialism. Ending them is good for these nations. Even if there are struggles when they end.
Self determination and self sustainability have been robbed from these nations by USAID for decades.
@LeninOnAPrayer
No. Its a genocide.
Ending so much funds so abruptly is criminal.
Millions are starving right now.
Thousands of people will die of Malaria and aids. Thousands of children will get polio and will be crippled for life.
That's a disaster
I think you missed the entire point of my comment if you don't think I acknowledge that. Two things can be true at once.
There are also other nations like the EU and China that are assisting these countries. As well as private charities working to compensate for this lack of immediate aid.
USAID is not meant to help these nations. It is meant to control their crops by injecting massive amounts of cheep foods, grown in the US, to destroy their local markets for growing crops that country would need to be self sustainable.
It forces the farmers in these countries to only grow sugarcane, bananas, or other crops that cannot be grown in the US. Forcing a reliance on USAID and ensuring the most profitable crops are grown for Capitalist.
One of the talking points in South Africa goes like this:
The "homeless" black people that live in corrugated metal slums all have mansions that were stolen from white people and given to them by the government when apartheid ended.
They choose to live in slums to work in the cities, and go back to their mansions when they're not working. Alternatively, they don't live at their mansions because they are too lazy/dumb to actually take care of the property.
Hahaha that's gold. It's kind of hard for me to accept anybody really believes that. Feels like some disingenuous conviction there or deliberately not examining the statement because they know on at least one level it's too completely illogical to be true but then again there are some people who've had such serious distortions to their reasoning over time that they're not even lying anymore when they claim to believe this stuff.
Several times in the US I've been told that people flying a sign are actually rich from all the money they are given. Totally absurd but people believe it. Mansions they don't live in is on another level though
'but if they aren't hungry and homeless where will their motivation to become professionals and have children come from?' they are actually this fucking stupid.
Respect to Kyle. Dude started off in the Atheist channel days of YouTube and didn't fall down the gamer gate MRA pipeline like most of them did. That was such a right wing cash grab that so many channels grifted towards.
Then he continued with good left adjacent commentary on most issues and stayed true to his moral compass. Didn't fall for the right wing narratives that TYT and other similar channels had during post COVID. He stayed consistent and didn't grift to the right for a bigger audience.
I disagree with a bit of what he has said over the years. I disagree with him on a lot of "big picture" stuff. But absolute respect to his consistency. I'm pretty sure he's still entirely user funded still (no sponsors etc).
It's refreshing to have watched him on and off for a decade and hes been consistently on the correct side of issues. Its rare to see out of a political commentator.
Been watching him off and on for a decade now, it is nice to see how consistent he's stayed, and you're right he is entirely user funded and takes great pride in it.
Yep. Glad to hear that's still true. It's so nice to see. A complete opposite of a lot of people that I use to love. Ethan Klein being the worst and most recent example.
Remember, they are saying what would need to be true to justify what they plan to do. This should be read as Elon declaring intent to put homeless people in camps.
I'm surprised he chose to express his point in this manner. Unless this is an expression of humanity from Mr Musk that we're so otherwise unaccustomed to that it's hard to recognise, then I assume he wants to persuade people to have less empathy or sympathy for homeless people, not more. This statement, taken at face value would seem to suggest that contrary to what some may think, homeless people are facing significant challenges not of their own making that have contributed directly to their circumstances.
Coming from someone who has never experienced it, nor has anyone in his family history. That is what needs to change in every billionaires life. Make them homeless foa few years and see how they handle it
I remember awhile ago there was some grifter YouTube channel that was posting "Homeless to $100k" videos.
Like even in their made up scenario the first thing they do is ask a friend for a place to stay and some cash.
Like, that's literally the hardest step and they just act like it's so simple to the point of not even addressing it.
Most of the difference between people that end up in the final stage of homelessness and people that got back on their feet is the support systems that are available to them.
Which is why people that work to end homelessness do a lot of work focusing on keeping people from even getting to that last stage of homelessness in the first place. It's much easier for our society to provide safetynets long before anyone ends up on the street addicted to drugs.
Even taking his bullshit argument at face value, he thinks the best solution for these violent drug addicts is to leave them out of the street? Who is the audience here? If you literally think they are all violent, why is leaving them free to roam around the right solution?
I know it's all about money and grandstanding on his part but this definitely seems like some under-the-influence kind of deep thoughts.
There's two types of homeless people. Temporary or chronically. The percentage of chronically homeless who are drug addicts, severely mentally ill, or both (self medication) is around 60-80 (this can vary largely by area).
That's not to say that drug addicts and severely mentally ill people don't need help, but it's like people want to pretend that they don't exist because they make addressing the homeless issue way more complicated, because at a certain point you have to talk about involuntarily committing people to mental asylums.
I work serving the homeless. We spent $10 billion for one year during COVID just to include all of the students who didn't already get free school meals to have it during that time. Unless you're only providing cots and Porto-johns, that number might work as an annual figure, until inflation hits, or the numbers go up because once you offer free housing, more people will try to become eligible.
Sounds to me like you're the one talking out your ass.
Then present your data. Hell, publish your data. If you know better than the experts at HUD, and can prove it, it should be quite the boon to your career.
But you’re not wrong that band-aids for systemic problems are much more expensive than solving them.
Ah, that could very well be true, we really printed a lot of money during Covid. In Canada the government is already buying 50% of all mortgage bonds, inflating the debt people can take in order to juice home prices.
These numbers are extremely unsubstantiated. If you think giving someone $40k will permanently save them from homelessness I have a bridge to sell you.
Similarly, it costs many billions more to fund our half-assed healthcare system than it would be to simply give people healthcare. Dealing with problems in a way that only attacks the symptoms is far more expensive and wasteful.
But it has been proven that guaranteeing housing is both cheaper and produces superior results.
If you can provide six months of housing, food and support then a person could start earning for themselves. You don't have to provide a lifetime of help for $40,000
You can't possibly believe that everyone begging for money is not actually homeless. If I take your comment more charitably, you think some percentage of people begging are faking homelessness. How can they possibly own a home on the pittance given to them begging?
To be fair, that is kinda nonsense. Germany and austria, for example have a lot of support networks for people in need, we even have entire networks dedicated to supporting homeless people, so nobody has to be homeless here - yet we do have a lot of them. For some people, homelessness is almost a choice more than an involuntary decision.
Obviously, idk how this would be in america, but I don't think it would be a lot different.
Elon Musk and his companies, particularly Tesla and SpaceX, have received at least $38 billion in government funding through contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits, according to a Washington Post analysis.
I would say that Musk is a product of government largese better spent on direct aid and public infrastructure improvements.
The $38B should not have been his money to spend to begin with.
having been homeless…
the fuck is he talking about and who the fuck does he think he's fooling
Himself and his other techbro friends that couch surfed for a while, aka violent drug addicts with severe mental health issues.
Just more of the same from his class. Wants everyone to believe in a meritocracy, because that means he's rely great, and the people whose lifeblood he drained to get where he is aren't victims - they're just inferior. They wouldn't be where they are if they were superior like him.
Probably a guillotine wouldn't even work on him, he's so superior. Hypothetically.
A billionaire is the equivalent of a person sitting in a cafeteria who bought every piece of food in the restaurant kitchen and doesn't want to share any of it with the thousand people sitting around him even though he'll never be able to eat all the food they bought.
Owning and controlling so much wealth that you'll never be able to enjoy everything you have in a lifetime isn't a success or a sign of intelligence .... it's a mental illness. Especially when all that wealth and control could mean the life or death of thousands or millions of people everywhere.
There are exceptions. Warren Buffet (as an example) has given away a large fraction of his wealth, and pledged/planned to give 99% of it over his lifetime (he is 94). It's a sane strategy to let his shares appreciate and “maximize” his charity.
For a billionaire, he lives modestly and speaks reasonably. He has a sanely sized house. His kids are getting an inheritance, but not a stupidly large one.
Look, I want to tax the shit out of billionaires too, I just object to blanket labeling any group as mentally ill. You know, like Musk did in OP's post.
Yeah fuck that. Even if warren buffet lives up to the leftist wet dream of what billionaires should do, we need legislation, and if we don't get it, heads should fucking roll. Billionaires should not exist, full stop. You cannot work that hard, they have not and will not work that hard. Stop thinking like these parasites have any empathy. They will cash you out for 50 cents. Cash them out for far more.
You're like the guy in the cafeteria who stands at the far end of the billionaire's table and tell everyone in the cafeteria that the billionaire will donate and give away his sandwiches when he leaves and that he isn't that bad because he only eats a bit of the food and saves the rest because he will give it away soon.
^Not being contrarian but wanna place a bet how damn poorly this is gonna do - no nuance for billionaires (understandable but ears can still be better open than closed)
If he just keeps donating what he's been donating, it will be fine.
Again, he is quite an exception.
Ostensibly a halfway decent exception!
Initially, I believed my prediction mistaken, but now I see as expected:
So when's he gonna hit that 99% pledge? He's 94 fucking years old, he better give the rest of it away tomorrow.
Depressing fact: Most of the homeless people you see acting all crazy and talking to themselves all the time behaved normally when they started being homeless. It's spending years in complete isolation, being constantly ignored by everyone around you and having no one to talk to that makes you act like this.
I wouldn’t jump to that though. Most working homeless live out of a car or couch surf, while not doing that.
To add into that, most homeless are just normal people that fell on hard times, you won't see them cause they don't want to be a bother. You see the crazies because... Well they're crazy. Gigantic assholes like musk assume that since you see crazy homeless people wandering outside, then obviously ALL homeless people are crazy violent lunatics. He is the smartest person in the world after all.
Having both been homeless for a year (as in, on the streets, migrating from shelter to shelter) and also having worked for a homeless shelter system...
Yeah, most homeless either live in their cars, or couch surf, or jump from motel to motel... until their car gets repo'd, or their hosts kick them out, or they run out of money for motels.
Then, they're on the streets, like I was.
A couple years of that, even if you totally stay away from hard drugs as I did, is more traumatizing than what most soldiers go through, with the exception of an actual, repeated, stop loss style front line combat deployment where they're regularly in actual combat.
You see your friends die in your hands or right in front of you from an OD or a drive by or a mugging, you never know who you can trust, you know you may always, at any time, be assaulted or dispossesed, lose all your ids and bank cards, know that now you're sleeping outside in a blizzard tonight because you can't limp back to th shelter in time to make curfew, can't call for help because your phone was broken or stolen.
All the while, every 'normal' person just thinks you are disgusting, literally will not even look at you, much less speak to you.
I am astoundingly lucky I lasted a year. I have PTSD now, recurring night terrors, and I am still doing PT to recover from getting regularly assaulted and walking about 2000 miles in one year... its a miracle I wasn't stabbed, and I was maybe 100 feet away from eating lead in a drive by.
Took me a solid year of not being homeless to ... just be able to have an in person conversation with anyone, without having an anxiety attack, deescalation strategy and escape route pre planned.
Women on the street have it even worse.
I remember going into a trap house at one point to get one out. I will not explain to you what they had done to her.
I mean, yeah - it's that AND the meth.
And heroin, and severe mental illness.
People forget that not every homeless person is just someone temporarily down on their luck. Iirc that $20b figure is just housing the homeless, which doesn't fix things for people who are mentally ill, drug addicts, or both, and that's like 60-80% of the chronically homeless.
It's a massively complex issue with no simple fix.
You're right, a 100% fix of the problem is not simple or easy. But there's a whole lot of low-hanging fruit that we can tackle to make huge strides.
While drugs and/or mental illness may be involved in a high percentage of the chronically homeless, the chronically homeless only account for somewhere between 1/5 and 1/3 of all homeless. So housing the other homeless would still take care of the needs of ~80% of all homeless, give or take. Get single-payer healthcare up and running to prevent more people from ending up in those situations, and change from a retributive justice system to one that cares about rehabilitation, and suddenly we've got a society that actually cares about people, and would cost less to run while we're at it.
But, with a functioning safety net, people won't feel like they have no other choice but to work a shit job for shit wages, and the oligarchs can't have that.
i would add that housing-first approaches increase the likelihood that mental health and substance use treatment even work long term.
hard to wanna get sober when you're being harassed by police or other people. hard to stay sane when you're barely surviving and putting drugs on top to cope.
right now, many people experiencing homelessness and severe mental illness/addiction are hospitalized for a few days or a week and then they go back to the street. which doesn't do much except get an individual out of immediate crisis. many will repeat this pattern over and over until incarceration or death.
Elon’s very familiar with the condition of homeless drug addicts.
where does he even get that idea? i never heard people refer to Elon as homeless.
Not sure what you mean.
Edit: I'm dumb. The joke is that Elon is a drug addict. Hit me a few minutes later.
It's a joke. He's implying that Elon is a violent drug addict with severe mental illness. Which is, of course, true.
Thanks. Got it just in time to edit my comment and then see your reply. I'm a dummy.
Not sure about now, but there was a time period where he owned no properties and lived in the houses of friends. Staying in someone's fourth home is not a hardship, but technically he didn't have a home.
I don't believe it, and even if it's true it wasn't out of necessity. he probably found it convenient to mooch off people like he always does one way or another as a lifelong parasite. he was born into immense wealth. literally the only thing he's ever done is buy companies. that's his entire career.
It's amazing that a man who does enough ket to bring down a racehorse even dares to use the phrase "drug addict" as an insult.
Not unusual for addicts to displace blame onto the people around them in order to justify their addictions.
The difference between Musk, Thiel, et al and your average American junkie is simply their line of credit. They can keep taking experimental intoxicants, safe in the knowledge their friends will loan them another $2M the next time they wrap their McLauren around a stop sign.
So the mentally ill deserve to be left to rot in the streets? Why else have a social safety net, if not for them?
What do you want to do, give them a house? -- because we closed down all the asylums. That's where we used to house them. I'd rather give mentally healthy people the houses.
Free apartments work for about 80% of people and can be cheaper than hospital/jail!
(And to be specific about that minority of folks, they are not able to pick up after themselves etc.)
CC: @[email protected] :)
That's what we do in Finland and it's been working great so far
https://www.euronews.com/2023/03/16/why-are-so-many-young-finns-dying-from-drug-abuse
Yeah, sure looks like you're doing GREAT. You only have the highest deaths from drugs under age 25 among your population, you can start the "We're #1!" chant now...I guess...
Only Sweden and Ireland pass you in the overall drug deaths per population. You SURE are proud!
Yeah that's not great but I don't see what that has to do with housing
Then it's clear you're not actually reading any of the conversation here. Maybe go back and read the topic at hand, come back when you've got a good grasp on it.
This topic isn't about housing, it's about housing specifically for the maladapted, psychotic, drug addicts, etc. Many here are arguing that giving them a house would make them ALL BETTER and turn them into functioning, productive members of society...
Well we need to think ahead a little bit. We can't take a mentally ill person right off the street and stick them in a colonial revival and expect them to maintain with the upkeep.
TIL Elon Musk is homeless.
Wild claim, considering Musk is one of the most violent drug addicts who has ever lived.
He is so fucking incoherent from all the ketamine it isn't funny.
I wonder what we should call a violent drug addict, convicted of inciting insurrection, living in housing paid for by the public ?
He's a violent drug addict, way more dangerous and destructive than any homeless person could be.
Alright I'll bite, even if Hairplug Himmler is right (and let's be perfectly clear, he's not).
Why wouldn't we as Americans want to help our fellow citizens overcome drug use, treat mental illness, and help rehabilitation efforts on their behalf?
ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE "VIOLENT" and "on the street". Wouldn't we want to help them get off the streets?
Wouldn't that make us safer, happier, healthier, and dare I say... Great Again? Wouldn't that protect citizens and police officers alike at a lower cost than incarceration? (Spoiler alert it would, but there's no private for profit companies offering this service).
Wouldn't these people become tax payers? Employees contributing to society? Become future homebuyers and start a family?
These empathy lacking neo-fascist clowns can't stop punching down to those less fortunate (while claiming the lords name in vain) and I can't wait for the day we get the opportunity to match their empathy as they head to prison (preferably one in El Salvador).
It's kind of a two-part question, that.
That's a pretty easy question if you have a soul: Yes.
That's the more difficult question. Forcing them to get treatment breaches their human rights and only stokes further mistrust in the system. Leaving them just leaves them open to exploitation and doesn't make their lives better.
Homes are easy, it's all the support that comes with it that's difficult, especially if the person you're trying to help either refuses to engage or actively fights you every step of the way.
Absolutely, and thank you for your reply. Learning and expansion of ideas and thoughts only comes from good conversation and discourse. That's what makes this such a complex and difficult issue.
There is an inevitability of homelessness in a country is unavoidable, yes. Just like the inevitable need for criminal justice programs to detain, deter, and rehabilitate those who break the law.
No argument from me on the facts, there WILL be homelessness and crime in any society. (This is for my sunshine and rainbows friend up top also).
So let's figure out how much that SHOULD be:
https://www.greaterchange.co.uk/post/which-country-handles-homelessness-the-best
Finland currently has a homelessness rate of .06% (2023) of their population. So let's say that's the baseline when you give people a fair shot, benefits, and treat them with care, and the remaining of those people that won't take help when offered.
The United States has a rate THREE times that at .19% homelessness. Despite having a GDP output, 83 times as large as the US.
Since I went to public school, percentages make me woozy so let's put it in whole numbers.
636,500 fellow citizens are homeless in the US (.19%).
If we adopted Finland's (already proved 35+ year plan) we could get that down to 201,000 over time. Heck if it takes 35 years as well, at least we're helping them.
That's 435,500 fellow citizens (Or a city the size of Cincinnati) that are sleeping on the street tonight, so that ONE MAN Elon Musk can pay less taxes.
Fellow Americans, until we vote these billionaires out of office and tax them (oh I don't know, at least as much as you and I pay) we are either ignoring the issue or complicit and I for one don't want to be either.
TL;DR: This is just one example why we should lift up those below us, and not be pessimistic about our fellow man.
Most of our homeless want a fair shot, mental health counseling, and rehabilitation.
We need to advocate for them and help them just like if we were reading this sleeping on the street.
No arguments from me about giving them somewhere to live and the healthcare they need. If you have any kind of soul, that's the least you can do. In an ideal world, there should be enough service to cover 100% of the homeless population (plus some buffer to cover any sudden increase) whether they take it or not. The question I have is do you have the right to force them to take it?
That's a good and thoughtful question, with no easy answer.
My opinion is I don't believe you can force someone to receive help, but you can incentivise them through rehabilitation, job training, counseling and housing.
At the end of the day, we need to respect their rights and not infringe on them. If they don't want help, then they are part of the .06% that chooses homelessness.
If they are violent and on the streets won't that boost sales of vehicles with "rock proof" windows? like the one that muskrat is trying to sell?
Think of the economy, think of the consumer demand for items to defend themselves with.
The very smallest of small percent of them would. Most drug addicts never make it out of poverty because they've done something to also give them a criminal record and typically can't hold down a job.
You're almost there, and I sincerely value your input. Let's go on this journey together...
What if we treated them like human beings in need of care and rehabilitation instead of criminals who can't "hold down a job"?
Why do they not make it out of poverty?
Is it because they can't afford to? Why is that?
Is it because they can't afford to make ends meet on a minimum wage job? Can't find affordable housing? Can't pay for child care, counseling, health care, or rehab?
What if we helped them get rid of their addiction and didn't jail them for it?
If we're going to write off an entire vulnerable demographic of society, we as the functional members have an obligation to ensure that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are available to all. Not just those who can afford it.
Many other first world countries do this successfully already, the problem with our country comes down to the money being made keeping these people locked up and incarcerated.
Look up Norway, Finland, Sweden and their response to crime and rehabilitation. It works, if you focus on helping people instead of helping profits.
Imagine a world where those in need got the billions of dollars in tax payer subsidies that Elon Musk gets?
Dude. What are you doing this for? No shit it's not a check this box and all problems are solved situation. IF ITS NOT PERFECT, NO ONE CAN DO ANYTHING.
One step at a time, and the first step is to have a little fucking empathy.
The first step is to have a little dose of reality. The world isn't sunshine and lollipops, and the proposed solutions just end up creating slum-housing and spreading the problem around. I've seen it put into effect before with horrible outcomes. The path to hell is paved with good intentions and all...
You're not a realist. You are just a selfish asshole.
How does telling you the truth about the homeless population benefit me in any way, shape, or form?
You haven't passed the bar to call me "selfish". Sure, I might be an asshole, but this isn't one of those times either. The reality is that we can't help everyone, and some people aren't saveable. You can't point to Sweden or Finland as answers either, because they have the highest per-capita drug deaths of other euro nations.
The ol' we can't save everyone so why save anyone argument. Bold strategy cotton.
Also, since we're talking about drug deaths do you know what county has the highest IN THE WORLD?
The United States, so yeah if we can copy Finland's homework and reduce our homeless by 435k, why wouldn't we?
Oh that's right the guy on the Internet gate keeping who can call him a selfish asshole says it might not work.
P.S. Finland had 253 people die of drug overdoses in 2023 with a population of 5.5 million.
(4.6 deaths per 100,000 people)
The US had 105,000 people die of drug overdoses in 2023 with a population of 335 million.
(31.3 deaths per 100,000 people)
It's obvious reading comprehension isn't your strong suit. You must have missed the point where I said housing should first go to people without these deficits. You know...like 6 posts ago...
You've sat there and put words in my mouth, made strawman arguments, ad hominem attacks against me...
Do you know how to debate a point at all? Because you're failing at every step of the way...
Reality? As if the problem is not spread around already. HeLpInG ThESe pEoPle WoUlD bE WoRSe.
Just say what you really think instead of dancing around it. Maybe then someone can have a conversation with you that will actually make a difference.
My dose of reality is realizing that other countries have already solved this problem. This isn't a closed book test.
We as a country are actively putting the needs of Elon Musk over the needs of 435,000 people sleeping on the streets at night.
Your quote is actually brilliant, because the other interpretation is when people HAVE intention to do something but do nothing. That's exactly what I'm arguing against, doing nothing.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"
This phrase relates to the active resistance of people doing evil things. Holy crap you can't even get your retort to make any sense.
It's like the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't explain empathy and compassion to him on the Internet.
If billionaires firing average citizens and restricting our benefits/rights to enrich themselves isn't evil? What is?
If cutting cancer research for cancer patients while pretending to care about a single cancer survivor isn't evil? What is?
If illegally detaining and deporting US citizens and immigrants without due process and ignoring the rule of law so they can be tortured? What is?
If MILLIONS of people around the globe dying of disease to give the richest man in the world a tax break isn't evil? What is?
If you actively are the richest man in the world and you wake up every day with enough money to end childhood poverty, diseases, and illness and you actively choose not to? If that isn't evil, what is?
Curious to see what your definition of evil is, and how quickly you will move the goal post when we get there?
Make it make sense to me, take all the time you need.
What are you talking about? This is a post about the homeless littering the streets, not any of the bullshit you espouse here. And I'm not arguing for any of the shit you listed either. So your entire argument is a strawman, full stop.
I don't gotta take ANY time because you're all off in left field talking about something else OTHER than the conversation we're having ENTIRELY.
You've lost sight of what this conversation was about, and have gone off on some wild-ass rant about all the other things you're mad about. Maybe go back about 4-6 posts and RE-READ, with an attention to understanding what we're talking about instead of reading with the intention of rebuttal and then rejoin the conversation. I get that you're mad about what's happening to the world right now, we all are. We don't need to be giving "homeless" (read: Drug Addicts, Severely Mentally ill, People who are mal-adapted to society) housing. We need to be getting them medical care, locking them up in asylums to keep them out of the general population without treating them like criminals (though many of them are), and getting them psychological help.
You've all missed the forest for the trees here, and it's sad because you only argue it because Musk said something and you HAVE to disagree with it. Doesn't matter what it is, you MUST, because instead of looking at what he's saying, all you care about is making sure that you disagree with him. You can disagree with him as a person, and he can still be right occasionally (a broken clock is right twice a day). In this case, he's right. But your solution (giving them housing) is short-sighted, immature, naive and has had no long-term thought put into it at all.
Go live in a place with a homeless population. Go try and help them. Many aren't capable of being helped. And the only people who think like you do, are people who haven't experienced it.
Whether someone is a drug addict with severe mental illness is irrelevant to whether they're homeless or not.
Do they have somewhere to live that has a permanent address? No? Then they're homeless and need help.
Obviously there's a bit of nuance with things like ProxyAddress where homeless people can have permanent addresses but still be homeless, but the gist of my point is the same! Do they have a home or not?
Let's say, for sake of argument, that Elon is correct. Should we not be helping people with severe mental illness?
He is a literal NAZI! So he wants mentaly ill to suffer for losing the gene lottery!
I can’t speak for Elon (and will not defend him) but Kyle (from Secular Talk) is dramatically underestimating the problem by tossing out the $20 billion figure. You can’t just throw a bunch of money at a person with severe mental illnesses and addictions and just expect them to be okay.
The state of California has spent over $24 billion on homelessness since 2019 yet the number of homeless people in the state has grown by 20%. Obviously they aren’t spending the money wisely in a manner that would maximize reduction of homelessness, but Kyle didn’t specify how the money should be spent either. Perhaps that’s actually the hard problem: how do you spend the money in the way that would be most effective?
Wait weren't they doing that already?
If not, where was all that money going?
Gonna need you to define "that" in "that money.” If you mean government programs, much of those were defunded back in the Reagan admin. While institutions back then did need broad changes, their removal without a suitable replacement vastly increased the homelessness issue.
The word Elon is a propaganda word it is a lie. It is actually Felon, which is a violent drug addict with mental illness.
So those people you're talking about, Elon... They have homes? No? Then homelessness isn't a lie, you gigantic sack of human waste.
Not allowing billionaires to exist would end homelessness
tax the rich!
Homeless: without a home.
Weird how he’s lying again. I’ve been there, and I can promise this fuckwit that not having a roof or food in the middle of winter in a city where the stoplights literally freeze is not some kind of illusion. That being prodded away from a public bench in sub-zero temperatures so you can shamble a few blocks whilst the sleep in your eyes freezes, over and over for weeks, so you can’t get more than an hour sleep at a time for months, isn’t the holiday he thinks it is.
Jesus christ, I bob my head to the surface for this? It’s like he’s not even trying to be relatable now.
Liquidate Musk
the US in total is a right-wing place that thinks that "hard work" is the way of life, and anybody who doesn't adhere to that is a "drug-addict" or a psychopath.
Which is wildly ironic because billionaires don’t actually work.
*working and grifting
where grifting essentially means forcing your subordinates to work harder
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/projection
Psychology Today is another corpo shit hole that avoids paying taxes in the US. Article writers are verified in the loosest sense of the word. Please take psychology today with a grain of salt when used as a resource.
Ok.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
Better?
Also I'm not sure why I should care that psychology today does not pay taxes in your country when your country is putting tarrifs on every other country in the world.
Also half of all homeless people are foster kids who aged out of the system. They don't have a family to fall back on.
@Confidant6198
"secular talk" is wrong here.
Musk is an absolute psychopath without any empathy. He doesn't need any excuse to sleep at night knowing all the harm he did to the world.
By destroying USAID, this devil just threw millions of people into starvation.
I'd say destroying USAID is the one good thing they did. Long term mind you. I won't deny the short term effects of such an instant cutoff to these programs.
But USAID is primarily used to disrupt the economic systems of nations that the US exploits for cheap labor.
I'd quote the revolutionary Thomas Sankara
The US primarily uses its food aid to disrupt these nations from being self sustainable and force their industry into a single crop that is most beneficial for US capitalist to export.
So, while the shorterm is bad. The disconnection of these exploitative relationships are good.
Obviously it would be better if these programs were slowly removed. But continuing them for the next 4 years would be worse then ending them drastically.
Also, mind you, I don't think Trump even realizes why these programs exist to benefit the US exploitation of the third world. I think he sees them simply as "foreign aid". So his own ignorance of them actually ends up destroying an important part of US Imperialism by mistake.
Removing the exploitative relationships that the US has with third world countries in the form of "foreign aid" is good. It's just that (1) Trump actually thinks these benefit these nations. Which they do not. And (2) the well intentioned liberals thinks the same as Trump does. So we end up with this weird state where both are wrong but the policy is actually good long term.
Again, there will absolutely be problems as these dependencies are cut of so quickly. But no more than the continued exploitation in the long term would result in.
At Thomas Sankara said. These direct food injections are not helpful. They are a way that capitalist use to direct the economy of third world nations towards dependency on America Imperialism. Ending them is good for these nations. Even if there are struggles when they end.
Self determination and self sustainability have been robbed from these nations by USAID for decades.
@LeninOnAPrayer
No. Its a genocide.
Ending so much funds so abruptly is criminal.
Millions are starving right now.
Thousands of people will die of Malaria and aids. Thousands of children will get polio and will be crippled for life.
That's a disaster
I think you missed the entire point of my comment if you don't think I acknowledge that. Two things can be true at once.
There are also other nations like the EU and China that are assisting these countries. As well as private charities working to compensate for this lack of immediate aid.
USAID is not meant to help these nations. It is meant to control their crops by injecting massive amounts of cheep foods, grown in the US, to destroy their local markets for growing crops that country would need to be self sustainable.
It forces the farmers in these countries to only grow sugarcane, bananas, or other crops that cannot be grown in the US. Forcing a reliance on USAID and ensuring the most profitable crops are grown for Capitalist.
What do you know that HUD doesn’t?
https://aah-inc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/whomeless.pdf
Read the rest of the comment. They weren't talking about the $20bn number being wrong.
Right, it was mostly irrelevant. Also a person who doesn’t understand the role of USAID.
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/02/08/742401/aiding-chaos-usaid-role-engineering-regime-change-social-unrest-worldwide
One of the talking points in South Africa goes like this:
The "homeless" black people that live in corrugated metal slums all have mansions that were stolen from white people and given to them by the government when apartheid ended.
They choose to live in slums to work in the cities, and go back to their mansions when they're not working. Alternatively, they don't live at their mansions because they are too lazy/dumb to actually take care of the property.
Hahaha that's gold. It's kind of hard for me to accept anybody really believes that. Feels like some disingenuous conviction there or deliberately not examining the statement because they know on at least one level it's too completely illogical to be true but then again there are some people who've had such serious distortions to their reasoning over time that they're not even lying anymore when they claim to believe this stuff.
Several times in the US I've been told that people flying a sign are actually rich from all the money they are given. Totally absurd but people believe it. Mansions they don't live in is on another level though
Why does "violent drug addicts with severe mental illness" mean somehow they shouldn't be helped anyways?
Compulsive lying and Ketamine abuse are the only things Elon knows anything about.
'but if they aren't hungry and homeless where will their motivation to become professionals and have children come from?' they are actually this fucking stupid.
He's just getting ahead of all that homelessness he and his orange friend are about to institute.
Remind me: why do we want mentally-ill drug addicts on our streets again?
In most cases, the word “genius” is a lie. It’s usually a propaganda word for egomaniacal, ketamine-addicted sociopaths.
Respect to Kyle. Dude started off in the Atheist channel days of YouTube and didn't fall down the gamer gate MRA pipeline like most of them did. That was such a right wing cash grab that so many channels grifted towards.
Then he continued with good left adjacent commentary on most issues and stayed true to his moral compass. Didn't fall for the right wing narratives that TYT and other similar channels had during post COVID. He stayed consistent and didn't grift to the right for a bigger audience.
I disagree with a bit of what he has said over the years. I disagree with him on a lot of "big picture" stuff. But absolute respect to his consistency. I'm pretty sure he's still entirely user funded still (no sponsors etc).
It's refreshing to have watched him on and off for a decade and hes been consistently on the correct side of issues. Its rare to see out of a political commentator.
Been watching him off and on for a decade now, it is nice to see how consistent he's stayed, and you're right he is entirely user funded and takes great pride in it.
Yep. Glad to hear that's still true. It's so nice to see. A complete opposite of a lot of people that I use to love. Ethan Klein being the worst and most recent example.
Remember, they are saying what would need to be true to justify what they plan to do. This should be read as Elon declaring intent to put homeless people in camps.
I'm surprised he chose to express his point in this manner. Unless this is an expression of humanity from Mr Musk that we're so otherwise unaccustomed to that it's hard to recognise, then I assume he wants to persuade people to have less empathy or sympathy for homeless people, not more. This statement, taken at face value would seem to suggest that contrary to what some may think, homeless people are facing significant challenges not of their own making that have contributed directly to their circumstances.
I'm going to guess that's not how he meant it
Coming from someone who has never experienced it, nor has anyone in his family history. That is what needs to change in every billionaires life. Make them homeless foa few years and see how they handle it
Sadly they can't experience it. Not really.
I remember awhile ago there was some grifter YouTube channel that was posting "Homeless to $100k" videos.
Like even in their made up scenario the first thing they do is ask a friend for a place to stay and some cash.
Like, that's literally the hardest step and they just act like it's so simple to the point of not even addressing it.
Most of the difference between people that end up in the final stage of homelessness and people that got back on their feet is the support systems that are available to them.
Which is why people that work to end homelessness do a lot of work focusing on keeping people from even getting to that last stage of homelessness in the first place. It's much easier for our society to provide safetynets long before anyone ends up on the street addicted to drugs.
Well, times change as often as minds do, so I like to think anything can happen to anyone any time
take it from him
Even taking his bullshit argument at face value, he thinks the best solution for these violent drug addicts is to leave them out of the street? Who is the audience here? If you literally think they are all violent, why is leaving them free to roam around the right solution?
I know it's all about money and grandstanding on his part but this definitely seems like some under-the-influence kind of deep thoughts.
his post is factually incorrect, of course.
https://adcare.com/addiction-demographics/homeless-population/
"homeless" is a term used to describe someone who does not live inside a domicile, 40-60% of all homeless people have and hold down jobs.
There's two types of homeless people. Temporary or chronically. The percentage of chronically homeless who are drug addicts, severely mentally ill, or both (self medication) is around 60-80 (this can vary largely by area).
That's not to say that drug addicts and severely mentally ill people don't need help, but it's like people want to pretend that they don't exist because they make addressing the homeless issue way more complicated, because at a certain point you have to talk about involuntarily committing people to mental asylums.
Elon spouts BS all the time, but $20 billion to end homelessness is some of the biggest bullshit I've ever heard.
You should have some sympathy for Musk, since apparently you also like to talk out of your ass without looking into it.
https://aah-inc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/whomeless.pdf
I work serving the homeless. We spent $10 billion for one year during COVID just to include all of the students who didn't already get free school meals to have it during that time. Unless you're only providing cots and Porto-johns, that number might work as an annual figure, until inflation hits, or the numbers go up because once you offer free housing, more people will try to become eligible.
Sounds to me like you're the one talking out your ass.
Then present your data. Hell, publish your data. If you know better than the experts at HUD, and can prove it, it should be quite the boon to your career.
But you’re not wrong that band-aids for systemic problems are much more expensive than solving them.
Most free housing doesnt allow drugs, which is the main problem homeless people have with living in them.
Then you have the general maintenance issues, fire risk, nimbyism. Is it really that simple?
You’re perpetuating capitalist propaganda. Most homeless people do not have a drug problem. At least half of homeless people in the US are employed.
It’s not a drug problem. It’s an unaffordable housing problem.
Ah, that could very well be true, we really printed a lot of money during Covid. In Canada the government is already buying 50% of all mortgage bonds, inflating the debt people can take in order to juice home prices.
These numbers are extremely unsubstantiated. If you think giving someone $40k will permanently save them from homelessness I have a bridge to sell you.
Let’s see your study. What do you know that HUD experts don’t?
People also said you can’t solve homelessness by giving them homes, and Finland did it with ease.
For example, California spent over $24 billion over a period of five years and didn't even make a dent.
Homelessness is not a simple problem you can just throw money at. People will consistently fall through the societal cracks.
Yes, California’s half-assed efforts have been rife with fraud and waste.
https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/04/california-homelessness-spending
Similarly, it costs many billions more to fund our half-assed healthcare system than it would be to simply give people healthcare. Dealing with problems in a way that only attacks the symptoms is far more expensive and wasteful.
But it has been proven that guaranteeing housing is both cheaper and produces superior results.
https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/look-finlands-housing-first-initiative
If you can provide six months of housing, food and support then a person could start earning for themselves. You don't have to provide a lifetime of help for $40,000
Bet Elon he can't beat homelessness with 19 billions.
Bro will do it just to prove you wrong
Says the homeless illegal.immigrant from a apartheid
Homelessness is never a lie. Beggars, however, do sometimes game the system trying to get easy money. They are not nor ever have been homeless
You can't possibly believe that everyone begging for money is not actually homeless. If I take your comment more charitably, you think some percentage of people begging are faking homelessness. How can they possibly own a home on the pittance given to them begging?
To be fair, that is kinda nonsense. Germany and austria, for example have a lot of support networks for people in need, we even have entire networks dedicated to supporting homeless people, so nobody has to be homeless here - yet we do have a lot of them. For some people, homelessness is almost a choice more than an involuntary decision.
Obviously, idk how this would be in america, but I don't think it would be a lot different.
You're getting the hang of it - there are no morally good billionaires!
Isn't it funny how this joker thinks we'll stand up for Bill "Lifelong Massive Dickhead" Gates?
I would say that Musk is a product of government largese better spent on direct aid and public infrastructure improvements.
The $38B should not have been his money to spend to begin with.
It's a service paid in exchange for labor. The government likely has many others services being paid that can also be used for that end
Imagine confusing public services and cronyism like this. I bet you think the "Bitcoin reserve" Trump is making is a service, too