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Comment by kranke155 | Hacker News Reader

Incarceration would be nuts.

For what exactly? And unstable homeless person threatening people on the street?

Harassing people and living on the street is already crime. Camping in public, public nuisance, loitering, obstructing sidewalk, etc.

I have come to the conclusion that until I am part of the landed gentry, the erratic homeless are a positive impact on my life. They may be a nuisance and cost me a stolen package here and there but when the “let them eat cake” types move into the neighborhood is when I get priced out. That is to say like inflammation is a symptom of something being wrong in the body, their plight is emblematic of the struggle that affects everybody but the upper crusts of society. You can try to treat the symptom in either case but there are much deeper structural problems.

Do you also think we should get rid of sealed sewers and keeping the roads intact in order to bring down property prices?

Maybe this is a sign of deeper structural issues and we shouldn't regress as a civilization but rather fix what the actual problems are.

I’m not saying that we need to regress further as a society. I was merely providing a counterpoint to the argument that the homeless need to have their agency stripped because they’re a negative value to “productive” society.

Their negative value isn't to productivity, but to your personal safety and quality of life, and frankly their safety and quality of life too. Accepting that people who cannot look after themselves need to be looked after by the community rather than left outside to die, I personally feel, should not be a controversial position.

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