site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

13
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Putting them in these communities would harm them a great deal

Not if it's designed to let the Cat-1s live a facsimile of normal life but with the support system they lack on the outside. AIUI, the primary problem Cat-1s experience is a loop of helplessness: without a home, they can't find work; without work they can't find a home. You need a city-like environment in which they can operate freely with support long enough to get back on their feet and/or develop work skills if they lack them. They would not be incarcerated like or with the more dysfunctional levels. They would live amongst the professionals who operate the carcereal parts of the system.

Cat-1s aren't usually that badly off, mentally speaking. It's mostly folks who used to have jobs (and some still do), and could still hold down a job if they could find something appropriate. They can work, they can pay bills, they can pay rent, they can maintain a home, but they're low on social and economic capital and finally slipped through a crack. The current system works decently well for them, but it could always be made better, especially by increasing the availability of cheaper (crappier) housing.

Your categories use "psychotic", but there's a large range of potential mental problems that can cause (or result from) homelessness (or excessive drug use). And sometimes someone who looks like Cat-1 is actually suffering from some untreated mental problem that finally got too nasty for their coping mechanisms to deal with, causing them to lose their job and get kicked out of their home. Those are the ones that need special support like you suggest, but they're not really what you refer to as Cat-1, or are only superficially Cat-1.

Where I think a lot of other solutions fail is that they are only aimed at 1 type of homeless person and there is no coordination with the services that address the other types of homeless people. In my model, there is coordination so that misidentifications of type can be transferred to the appropriate wing within the all-encompassing system.

It also, importantly, removes all of the homeless individuals from mainstream society until they are fit to rejoin it. For the Cat-1s, it would be voluntary, but presumably if they are genuinely Cat-1 this is exactly the absent support that they are looking for.