Techno Demonology 1: The politics of designed artifacts

[morality_play]

turkishb left a comment in my recent cautionary tale about political centrism in the US, directing me to the work of an author that has inspired me to articulate some thoughts on technology, politics, the relationship between morality and design, and a critical failure of market libertarianism. The explanation is necessarily complex, and will meander

Comments

[morality_play]

"You points are very sound, but we differ in perceptions."

Great! Now let's find out whose perceptions are correct.

"I, for instance, see the people jogging through the parks with their MP3 players and evian water as taxpayers. This means they've spent money to have that park and those benches built. The same cannot be said for the homeless people."

We should start by correcting this matter of record. It would not be factually correct to declare that homeless people have not contributed to financing public facilities, unless we could verify that they had _never been_ taxpayers at any point in their histories. This would be an extraordinary claim to demonstrate, as it would require us to verify that the homeless population consisted of a kind of reproductively isolated community. One where subjects were _born into_ destitution, and sustained the homeless population through completely internal breeding, completely and discreetly isolated from moneyed, taxed populations from birth to death. The reality of course, is that our homeless population is comprised principally of people formerly and intermittently employed, suffering the effects of job contraction and soaring costs in real estate. And they shift in and out of homelessness as their financial situation permits. The Urban Institute's data estimates approximately 3.5 million Americans experience "episodes of homelessness" each year, with about a quarter of that figure being children. The average duration of these transitional periods is six months. Further, the US Council of Mayors data confirms that 41% of homeless in the US consist of families with one or more dependent children. That's an increase of 7% since 2000, making this demographic one of the fastest growing homeless populations in the country.

But even the requirement of demonstrating a claim as extraordinary as your assumption of "reproductive isolation" would be too generous, since it would still leave broader assumptions you make unchecked. For instance, your assumption that any _currently homeless_ population doesn't pay taxes _during the duration_ of their homelessness. This is an enthusiastic libertarian narrative you're promulgating, where the homeless are vividly imagined as "shiftless layabouts." But this is wildly at variance with matters of public record. If you were to appraise your position completely rationally, you'd need to inquire about what percentage of homeless in the US are currently employed. The reality naturally varies from city to city in the US, with 45% of total homeless in Denver employed at least part time, and increasing to 60% employment for homeless adult males in Cincinnati. Nationally, the percentage of the homeless population that is employed at least part time hovers at around 28%.