Poor and Homelessness

[Valjean]

Thanks for the tip. I don't think it'll change my appreciation for modern civilization, though.

Nor should it. More likely it'll increase your appreciation for the variety and ingenuity of the many cultures of the world.

 

[Left Coast]

Yet they often don't make life easier, and are often resisted by natives. Hunter-gatherers usually have way more free time than civilized peoples, and their subsistence activities are not toil.
Something as simple as giving a primitive a modern, steel axe, to replace his crude, stone axe, has been known to completely disrupt a society.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm in favor of giving people autonomy to make their own choices.

I'm not arguing/advocating anything, and I'm not criticizing your lifestyle. I'm just stating facts.
It was the agricultural revolution that necessitated technological advance by creating needs that didn't exist previously. The people didn't choose to advance, they had to advance.

I doubt it was that straightforward, or that the transition was uniform across all parts of the world. I'm betting it was a combination of choice (farming has advantages over hunting and gathering) and environmental pressures. But I'm happy to read up more on it.

Me, I'm forced to swim in the pond I was raised in. I'm thoroughly enculturated into a western, civilized lifestyle. Transplanted to a mud hut, I'd have a hard time learning the skills, attitudes, &c. necessary to thrive in a hunter-gatherer culture.
That doesn't change the fact that the average hunter-gatherer would usually score higher on happiness and mental health indices than the average American.

And I wouldn't be surprised by that at all. I noted something similar when I was a Christian and we went on mission trips to Mexico. Despite poverty and squalor that people lived in, they were often surprisingly happy. My guess is that when those conditions are all you've ever known, you adapt and find inner happiness apart from your material possessions. And there's something we in developed countries could surely learn from that. I'd still rather give people economic freedom to make different choices if they want, though.

 

[The Hammer]

you adapt and find inner happiness apart from your material possessions.

This has been my point.

What we think we need, we don't.

Because all that truly matters is our happiness.

 

[Left Coast]

This has been my point.

What we think we need, we don't.

Because all that truly matters is our happiness.

If it makes you happy to completely separate yourself from modern technology and society, go for it.

 

[Valjean]

I will continue to advocate for the relative luxuries I enjoy to be enjoyed by others. If they're exposed to them and don't want them, that's fine. From what I've seen though, most folks in poorer countries welcome our support, money, and technology to improve their lives.

Yes: In poorer counties, but not in primitive cultures. Most people in poorer countries have been raised with western values, attitudes and lifestyles, but with little money or power. I'm talking about a whole different culture, not an impoverished demographic.
The 'poorer country' people cannot meet their needs or wants, and are not happy with their lot in life. They covet money, goods and technology.

The primitive culture people are meeting their needs and wants, and are happy with their lot in life. They covet nothing.
In fact, if you give some modern knick-knack to a hunter-gatherer, he'll usually examine it with great interest, pass it around, and seem quite impressed, but leave it behind when he moves on to his next campsite. It's a curiosity, but if he doesn't need it, he's unlikely to want it.

And I'm just pointing out the reality that when you lift your head from a textbook and see how people actually live their daily lives, it's pretty clear that these people are living lives that most of us would never adopt if given a choice. They literally live in the dirt, lack education, lack modern medicine, lack social mobility...the list goes on. And if they'd been given a choice from early childhood, I doubt most of them would choose that life either. Just like us.

The "textbooks" were written by ethnographers actually living and participating with the peoples they were documenting, so I wouldn't dismiss their findings out-of-hand. They were 'seeing how people actually lived their daily lives'.

I agree that most of us would never adopt these lives. We wouldn't be happy or fit in. But the converse is also true.

"Living in dirt" seems a little harsh, but a daily bath is a value we learned in our particular culture. Others might feel no need for it. Some tribes would find it just as unpleasant if they were cut off from the red ochre paste they coat themselves with in the morning.
Lack of education? Tribal peoples learn the knowledge and skills needed for their particular lifestyle. They differ, culture to culture. They'd no doubt consider us abysmally ignorant should we move in next door.
Modern medicine? True, they don't have it, but neither do they miss it.
Social mobility? There is none in most hunter-gatherer cultures. Everyone's equal. Status derives from useful skills, age, personality, &c.

 

[Valjean]

I'm talking about the ability to pave one's own path in life. What career options do they have? How likely is it that they can achieve success that their parents didn't? How much money do they make? Do they own vehicles that enable them to travel long distances?

Career options? There are no careers. A Hadza strives to be a Hadza, A Jivaro strives to be a Jivaro. An Inupiat strives to be an Inupiat. There is no social mobility for them to miss.
"Achieving success" merely means to be a good member of the band or tribe.
Traveling long distances is not something most primitives would desire

You keep judging other cultures' needs and desires by our own, civilized metric. The metric doesn't apply. They'd likely find our lifestyles baffling or terrifying, from their point of view, also.

Yes, you'd make a terrible !Kung. A !Kung would make a terrible westerner. Neither would be happy with what the other had to offer.

 

[Valjean]

Lots of things in life aren't literal needs for life that we still regard as positive goods in the world. People survived Auschwitz. That doesn't mean those conditions are morally acceptable or remotely desirable.

I'm well aware electricity isn't a literal "need" of survival. To suggest it doesn't demonstrably make people's lives easier is simply absurd.

I think the point is: they don't feel our wants, either.

 

[Valjean]

Your argument seems to be that conditions are acceptable if they allow people to survive. My point is that my goal for my own life is not just survival. And my experience of other people is similar. People don't just want to survive. They want more than that.

Conditions are acceptable if people are happy, healthy, and have their needs and wants satisfied.

 

[Left Coast]

Yes: In poorer counties, but not in primitive cultures. Most people in poorer countries have been raised with western values, attitudes and lifestyles, but with little money or power.

This is an inaccurate gloss, if we're going to be particular. People in poorer, non-Western countries are not "raised with western values, attitudes, and lifestyles." There is increased cross-over with the West, but they are hardly Western in the way you or I are.

"Living in dirt" seems a little harsh, but a daily bath is a value we learned in our particular culture. Others might feel no need for it. Some tribes would find it just as unpleasant if they were cut off from the red ochre paste they coat themselves with in the morning.

Again, I'm a fan of giving people an option.

Lack of education

? Tribal peoples learn the knowledge and skills needed for their particular lifestyle. They differ, culture to culture. They'd no doubt consider us abysmally ignorant should we move in next door.

Cmon now. The average Westerner knows vastly more about the world than someone in an indigenous tribe with no formal education. They have practical skills we likely don't, bht thats a different thing and I think you know that. If you don't value formal education, I don't really know what to say to you.

Modern medicine? True, they don't have it, but neither do they miss it.

Because they dont know any differently and have never had access to such things.

Social mobility? There is none in most hunter-gatherer cultures. Everyone's equal. Status derives from useful skills, age, personality, &c.

That's my point. The ability to increase one's own autonomy is a good, at least to me. Perhaps you don't think so.

 

[Left Coast]

Career options? There are no careers. A Hadza strives to be a Hadza, A Jivaro strives to be a Jivaro. An Inupiat strives to be an Inupiat. There is no social mobility for them to miss.

Precisely. This reminds me of the book The Giver. People who have never seen color have no idea what they are missing in never seeing it. If you tell people they only have one option of how they are to live their lives, and don't even tell them other options are available, it doesn't cross their mind.

I'm a fan of empowering people to make informed choices about how to live their lives.

"Achieving success" merely means to be a good member of the band or tribe.
Traveling long distances is not something most primitives would desire

You keep judging other cultures' needs and desires by our own, civilized metric. The metric doesn't apply. They'd likely find our lifestyles baffling or terrifying, from their point of view, also.

I'd like to let them make that choice. Why is that so problematic to you?

 

[Valjean]

When would you estimate that would have been?

@The Hammer estimates there was no poverty in pre-agrarian culture.

I would suggest that there were no poor in pre-agrarian societies because they simply didn't survive.

I wasn't going back quite that far. Fifty or sixty years ago was a pretty prosperous time..... unless you chanced to be of the African persuasion, of course.

 

[MikeF]

I wasn't going back quite that far. Fifty or sixty years ago was a pretty prosperous time..... unless you chanced to be of the African persuasion, of course.

I see what you are saying now, but it seems naïve to look at that small window of time and say, "We need to keep doing what we did to get to that point". Economies are cyclical and not stagnant. It is impossible to say let's leave everything just as it is right now (when at a high point) and the economy will simply stay that way.

Think about what led to the post-war boom. We had massive mobilization (employment) for a world war, massive spin-up in industrial capacity to fight that war, attrition in the future workforce due to war casualties, and then a cold war to maintain high military personnel levels and capital investment, rebuilding assisting the rebuilding of Europe and Japan, and then a post depression consumerism with incredible demand for housing, cars, appliances, etc.

But once that demand falls, when everyone has two cars, 3 tvs, kitchen full of appliances, cold war ends and the military is downsized, that post-war boom can no longer be sustained.

In addition, there was a baby boom, a population spike that would help keep demand high for several decades after, but that was also not sustainable.

Last change would be globalization. Once markets opened up to cheap labor available around the world, production fled overseas, creating even more pressure on employment.

Is it your recommendation that we engage in constant war, maintain high birthrate, employ an isolationist economic strategy, and make everyone buy new cars and appliances every 3-4 years to keep up demand? That's what would be required to reestablish your post-war economy, don't you think?

 

[amorphous_constellation]

I love the way the Havamal starts, when it talks about feeding this cold traveler that came down from mountains. That's an incredible way to start a tract of wisdom. That said, the theme of the nomad occurs in the bible, and it was theme of Siddhartha, a the novel on buddhism we read in high school. I'm pretty sure that the archetype of the 'ascetic hermit,' or 'traveler,' or 'isolated spiritualist,' seems to receive fairly universal recognition as connecting to a holier mode. The hermit is higher a number in the tarot than is the pope, and others

I think that maybe what happens, is that religion, which often says to do good to the poor, and says that the poor have a holier mode of life, is that religion is often on a collision course path with politics and culture. The latter domains often have the objective of material gain, and growth.

In the tarot, the hermit looks backward (to the left) at the rest of the other humans. He watches them from a mountain. Contrast his clothing with that of the emperor, or the chariot: he is not a rich man. I feel that his eyes are locked with that of the pope: the pope looking to the right, and the hermit to the left, right at the pope. Their eyes are locked, they are in a moral contest. The pope represents not the 'actual pope' necessarily, but he represents a certain kind of spiritual leader, and the hermit represents another

It's hard to say more until I know more

 

[The Hammer]

I love the way the Havamal starts, when it talks about feeding this cold traveler that came down from mountains. That's an incredible way to start a tract of wisdom. That said, the theme of the nomad occurs in the bible, and it was theme of Siddhartha, a the novel on buddhism we read in high school. I'm pretty sure that the archetype of the 'ascetic hermit,' or 'traveler,' or 'isolated spiritualist,' seems to receive fairly universal recognition as connecting to a holier mode. The hermit is higher a number in the tarot than is the pope, and others

I think that maybe what happens, is that religion, which often says to do good to the poor, and says that the poor have a holier mode of life, is that religion is often on a collision course path with politics and culture. The latter domains often have the objective of material gain, and growth.

In the tarot, the hermit looks backward (to the left) at the rest of the other humans. He watches them from a mountain. Contrast his clothing with that of the emperor, or the chariot: he is not a rich man. I feel that his eyes are locked with that of the pope: the pope looking to the right, and the hermit to the left, right at the pope. Their eyes are locked, they are in a moral contest. The pope represents not the 'actual pope' necessarily, but he represents a certain kind of spiritual leader, and the hermit represents another

It's hard to say more until I know more

Makes sense to me. I've always resonated with the Hermit archetype myself.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

It's an overwhelming problem that no one person can resolve. So I think we need to enter the question with great humility. We can only do what we can, and that without sacrificing our own lives and well-being except in some extreme instances. There is no one way, or one rule, or one solution.

So, I actually read a lot of books on homelessness, and the sociology of it, and I follow youtube channels by nomads. I also watch a lot of politics. I read a recent article from portland before logging on, about how they want to further constrict homeless camps to certain zones. I hear that this kind of thing keeps happening everywhere, especially out west, where the camps are supposedly very common.

I guess my feeling is, that the constriction may not ultimately work: my hunch is that all of those homeless people out west are just going to grow in number - and that they are going there, from all the states.

One political topic you never hear about, is the concept of land reform. I stumbled on one nomad youtuber who actually made a couple ten minute videos on this, and I was startled that I had never heard about it before. It also seems to ring a chord with my own intuition, in that there is something about private property, or property rights in general, that is rigidly unbalanced in america. When you are born, you have no right to land. But does that make sense?

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Career options? There are no careers. A Hadza strives to be a Hadza, A Jivaro strives to be a Jivaro. An Inupiat strives to be an Inupiat. There is no social mobility for them to miss.
"Achieving success" merely means to be a good member of the band or tribe.
Traveling long distances is not something most primitives would desire

I'll have to read the rest of what you guys were talking about, as your point is intriguing.

The point I would infer, from your point, is the converse nature of what it can mean to be an american westerner. A nomad, a person who is nomadic culturally, is counter-intuitively (to us) born with a right to land: to camp on the land, to travel the whole earth. He is born with a rather instantaneous mapping of purpose, and perhaps social utility.

An american westerner, however, is presupposed as the blankest of all slates, and presupposed, in the fulfillment of his purpose, to not only create purpose anew, but to meet modern cultural norms and rules. To adhere to laws with many subsections, and to navigate a vast amount of paperwork, and to buy or rent property, as to opposed to being born with it. Lo and behold: a culture, a society with no such things as paperwork, and perhaps little notion of private property as we understand it: is it possible?

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Because they dont know any differently and have never had access to such things.

We, the capitalist western destroyers of the amazon, who might be turning plant-species rich areas, which may have worked as medicine if they weren't eliminated, into farmland, to feed growth. Whose tap water smells funny, and where one receives warning letters in the mail from the utility company about water quality. Where air pollution can be smelled when one takes a walk, and whose diet consists of processed food of all kinds

 

[amorphous_constellation]

These are people who live in tiny huts in the dirt with no running water or electricity and rub sticks together to make fire. Literally.

Sorry, you're not going to convince me that they live a higher quality of life than we do in the West. It's not even close.

Joe rogan with guest Jordan Jonas, on siberian nomads. Says the ones that had their culture changed to be urbanized, started to have problems with alcoholism. The ones that stuck with the herding, seemed to live a life of adventure

 

[PureX]

So, I actually read a lot of books on homelessness, and the sociology of it, and I follow youtube channels by nomads. I also watch a lot of politics. I read a recent article from portland before logging on, about how they want to further constrict homeless camps to certain zones. I hear that this kind of thing keeps happening everywhere, especially out west, where the camps are supposedly very common.

I guess my feeling is, that the constriction may not ultimately work: my hunch is that all of those homeless people out west are just going to grow in number - and that they are going there, from all the states.

One political topic you never hear about, is the concept of land reform. I stumbled on one nomad youtuber who actually made a couple ten minute videos on this, and I was startled that I had never heard about it before. It also seems to ring a chord with my own intuition, in that there is something about private property, or property rights in general, that is rigidly unbalanced in america. When you are born, you have no right to land. But does that make sense?

The wealthy own and control everything that matters in this country. And they is using that control to make everyone else work for them; to make them even more wealthy and powerful. It's been going on in this country (and all over the world) for a very long time, but because there are so many of us, and because humans have developed some universal appreciation for the ideals or equality and compassion, this gross, ever-present exploitation is slowly becoming more apparent to people as a problem. And some of those people are choosing not to participate, while others are simply being barred from the system because the system finds them useless to it's profit-the-rich, goal. But not participating in such an overwhelmingly totalitarian system is difficult. And so far the only ways people have been able to do it is by finding areas with warm dry weather and little or no police harassment where they can set up encampments and create their own societies away from the 'greed machine' that the rest of us all live in.

These encampments are growing because the 'greed machine' has become more and more powerful and effective over the last 40 years, and has been able to successfully weed out and lock out more and more citizens that are deemed useless to it's cause. You happened to be looking at homeless camps, but that's just the most extreme tip of the iceberg, so to speak. There are whole communities all across this country with people living in broken down and falling down homes, far below the poverty level. Many thousands of them. Also wracked by alcohol, drugs, crime, and near total social neglect, the same as in the homeless encampments. It's shocking the number of nearly dead towns all across the United States populated by unemployed and mostly unemployable citizens that have been locked out of the 'greed machine's' socioeconomic obsession with profit. The only reason those people are not being allowed to just die in their filth is because as a culture we cannot yet see ourselves as being that cruel. But the greed machine is working on that. And the republican party has made a mantra of blaming the poor for being poor, and therefor deserving of whatever befalls them. While constantly cutting funding for any aid to them.

The really stunning thing is how well this 'greed machine' hides in plain sight while it exploits everything and everyone, including you and I, and we never see it! It's like the weather, or gravity, to us. So ever-present that it's invisible.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

It's been going on in this country (and all over the world) for a very long time,

See, I don't know if that's exactly true. What have you read about other countries, in terms of land division? In Mexico for example, you might not have as much economic opportunity, but if one's family has a bit of land, does the ownership of it at least exist more firmly in the hands of the owners? Is the government after you for property tax, and to get hooked up to what they consider essential utilities?

Like for example, I could buy a little plot of land in america, with no house perhaps. But if I were to live on it with a tent or a trailer, without hooking myself up to the grid, or to water, then it seems like american society might have a huge issue with that, perhaps on some basis that I'm either not 'paying in' enough, or it's not good to them aesthetically.

So what about other countries, in this world. It can't possibly all be the same. Like in some of those countries that I saw Anthony Bourdain travel in, out toward Southeast Asia. Well it kind of seems like a large tax structure / utility operation did not really move into such places, perhaps, and so that seems to free the common populace to get a closer relationship to the land, on some level.

So maybe also, then, it might not even really be totally about the 'rich,' to some extent, and not to challenge your whole point - but in part it might be about the material structure. The material structure contains us all. They may not want you living in a tent on a piece of land, in part because that doesn't pay for the 'material structure' that is the school, or the road, or the military, or government. See what I mean?

As for your point 'very long time,' I'm not even so sure about that. In my reading of the gospels, I actually think the poor masses seemed to have more rights in the 1st century than they might have now, in our homeless epidemic. And it also seems like the apostles had less trouble crossing borders in that section of the ancient world, than people seem to have now. But of course, the roman world also had actual frontiers, at that time.