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Comment by virmundi | Hacker News Reader

I sympathize and agree with your general points. I do wonder about the general idea that there is nothing you can do. People can get bus fare for $1 [1]. They can scrounge money from people they know or total strangers to get more. They can move, even as a transient to a larger city. They can get housing in the new city with public support. They can live in shelters overnight until the support comes through. They can get jobs within walking distance in the city. They can do all of this on their own or with a little help from their fellow humans. Humanity has done this for thousands of years.

Would I want to do any of that? No. Would I if necessary. Yes.

1 - https://us.megabus.com/

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I get the impression you are talking from an abstract understanding of all these options. Have you ever tried moving to a new city and accessing public housing? In most cities there's a closed waiting list. Or even buying a $1 bus fare? (A while back, for my own curiosity, I ran a webscraping tool that collected the current fare data on boltbus to track how often the advertised $1 fares actually showed up - I think it turned out to be approximately one trip every couple months. I don't know if megabus offers them more frequently.)

Aside from the dubious reality of the support you describe, for someone with no economic capital, it's a big risk to move away from whatever social capital you may have. Social capital gives you access to job referrals, loans, couch space, bartering favors, social recommendations as replacement for a nice reliable job as surety when looking for a roommate, a vastly improved safety net and, it is increasingly recognized, mental and emotional health benefits.

tldr: people have been freezing to death for lack of resources for thousands of years too.

In my city, you can use the bus system and still lose hours each day getting around. And try moving as a transient with young children. Or other family who needs you. Or as a rehabbing drug addict.

I also suspect that moving to a new location and throwing yourself at the mercy of the locals worked a lot better when there were fewer people.

(Warning: unsupported speculation follows.)

The more crowded our environment gets, the more we feel that helping someone in need is someone else’s problem, and the less likely it is that the random person who might be able to lend you a room, for example, feels confident the community will back them up if you turn out to be trouble.

The kind of charity you need as a transient is harder to come by at an individual level than it used to be. You’re more reliant on institutions, and that’s a thin safety net to rely on to throw yourself across the country.

> The more crowded our environment gets, the more we feel that helping someone in need is someone else’s problem

This reminded me of the Murder of Kitty Genovese, AKA the Bystander Effect. However, I just looked it up, and it sounds like recently researchers have questioned the validity of the original story, claiming that NYT exaggerated the number of witnesses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese

> They can get jobs within walking distance in the city.

In which fantasy world do people in poverty just regularly find jobs in the city within walking distance of their magical free house in the city?

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