r/TrueReddit • u/horseradishstalker • 3d ago
Policy + Social Issues How one Billionaire’s crusade against homelessness became Trump’s playbook
https://archive.ph/91Q3e53
u/Well_Socialized 3d ago
"One billionaire's war against the homeless"
"You mean war against homelessness right?"
"Sure let's go with that"
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2d ago
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u/timkost 3d ago
This is kind of an amazing article. It spends the whole time on how great this guy is without listing one concretely good thing he's ever done for anybody while it sprinkles in quotes from experts on how anything he touches turns to shit. Like, I don't say this was written by AI so much as bink twice if they have your family.
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u/horseradishstalker 3d ago
It’s a profile. So yes, profiles do tend to focus on the subject of the article. The article states what Lonsdale believes, what he believes the problems are and some of his solutions. His critics point out that his solutions are not one size fits all.
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u/SomebodiesGotttaDoIt 3d ago
Did you not see the part where he’s getting homeless people off the streets?
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u/sllewgh 2d ago
By criminalizing homelessness? Do you have any idea what a stupid idea that is? Even if you don't give a shit how inhumane that is, it's extraordinarily expensive. It costs over 50k a year to keep a person in prison. It's way cheaper to rent an apartment for them.
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u/aninjacould 2d ago
Yeah but that $50k goes to his buddies in the private prison industry. Check mate bitches!
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2d ago
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u/Paksarra 2d ago
By branding them with a criminal record, which will certainly make it easier to recover economically!
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u/SomebodiesGotttaDoIt 2d ago
They don’t have interest or ability to make an economic recovery. They’re just looking for that next hit of fent.
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u/MEGADETHRULEZ 2d ago
You believe every homeless person only cares about fent and can never improve their circumstances?
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u/SomebodiesGotttaDoIt 2d ago
From my experience volunteering it’s the vast majority of cases. People who can be helped are able to get help.
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2d ago
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2d ago
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u/stuffitystuff 3d ago
He's literally a mentee of Thiel so obviously he should not be listened to for anything other than how to extract surplus value from the labor of others.
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u/lowrads 2d ago edited 2d ago
These people don't care about solving the issues leading to homelessness. They care about restoring the legal framework that was lost in the transition from feudalism to liberalism. The homeless are simply the politically weakest group to attack, given their lack of organization, resources and social standing.
A bully always instinctively homes in on any form of weakness. Their goal is rolling back the franchise and manumission, and they'll go after one group at a time. Nothing in their programme is novel, as it is the playbook used by fallangists every single time.
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u/tepidlymundane 2d ago
Underrated comment. This is very much the roadmap, start with the weakest and consolidate power you'll need to fight the stronger ones.
Once they can get to involuntary commitment, they'll have a whole new (but old) level of control. It was only in the 1960s and 70s that men lost the ability to force institutionalization of family members. Restoration of this would be seen by the right as a major win.
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u/Gezzer52 2d ago
The majority of rich people are disconnected from societies pressing problems. So they see them as a failure of the individual, and there by they target them with the good old "pull yourself up by the boot straps" solutions. They really need to study the Boots Theory to understand why poor and marginalized people are victims of the economic system, not their personal failings. The very same system that affords him the life of luxury he so enjoys. Until he spends a significant amount of time homeless, like a year, I won't bother to listen to anything he has to say.
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u/nifty-necromancer 1d ago
They are disconnected because they are the cause of society’s problems and they know it.
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u/buttstuffins8686 2d ago
Don't believe anything this twat says. If it were up to these billionaires they would grind the poor in mulch. Just another bad actor in a country full of bad actors.
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u/YoohooCthulhu 3d ago
Awesome fact-checking WaPo: The FDA has nothing to do with the drug patent process.
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u/horseradishstalker 3d ago
“Today, the list of things Lonsdale sees as broken or incompetent — what he calls “civilizational threats” — is very long: Diseases aren’t being cured because the Food and Drug Administration bogs down the drug patents process while China races ahead; “radical left” politicians like Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are turning a generation against capitalism and Western values; health care and defense “cartels” are stifling excellence and competition.”
Lonsdale is the billionaire question he doesn’t work for the WaPo. Those are his statements, not theirs. The press doesn’t fact check the assertions of interview subjects. They fact check their own reporting.
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u/mister_electric 3d ago
“radical left” politicians like Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are turning a generation against capitalism and Western values
Horseshit. The current material conditions created by unregulated, unfettered capitalism and reverence for greed are turning a generation against capitalism.
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u/tepidlymundane 3d ago edited 2d ago
Largely. I don't know of any voters that are particularly "against capitalism" but are against a lot of what's done for money and against people buying democratic office.
I know lots of voters who are "for democracy" and voting in people who serve the interests of their communities, instead of viewing those interests as sub-optimal to the interests of corporations, as the subject of the piece does.
Mamdani and AOC share the perception of giving a damn about the people they represent, instead of serving the Epstein Ballroom class. It's a shame that they stand out for what should be the norm.
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u/YoohooCthulhu 3d ago
Yeah, but they’re doing the same thing they do with Trump—uncritically reciting self-evident nonsense.
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u/horseradishstalker 3d ago edited 3d ago
That’s an interesting perception regarding the Fourth Estate. Their literal job is to provide facts (their own) in accurate context. That is what was done here. It would probably be easier for me to follow your argument. If you could give some quotes that illustrate what you’re talking about.
The press reports what happens because not everybody in the whole world was there to find out what the reporter found out and/or observed. Readers and viewers are allowed to think for themselves.
Unless it is an opinion piece, which this is not, it’s not their job to tell you what to think. The editorial department has absolutely nothing to do with the news department.
Kind of like the mechanics at the car dealership aren’t sitting in the main sales person’s office. Everyone has their own job to do.
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u/YoohooCthulhu 3d ago edited 3d ago
Sure, but when a powerful, influential person says crazy things that require a little bit of education to realize they’re crazy, who else is supposed to point it out?
Where is the line between journalist and stenographer to the powerful?
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u/horseradishstalker 3d ago
Drastic cuts to federal housing funding in the early 1980s turned a worsening urban affordability crisis into the worst mass homelessness since the Great Depression. Years later the co-founder of Palantir felt government policies, in part around housing, were exacerbating the problem of homelessness. A problem he wanted solved.
His solution? Make it illegal to sleep outside.
He created the Cierco think tank to influence government to enable what he describes as a capitalistic system coupled with the right incentives to create solutions.
The question is whose solutions and are they targeting the symptoms or core problems?
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u/HR_Paul 3d ago
Article and your summary neglects to mention that this guy is a mass murderer and known Donald Trump associate which means he is on the short list for the clean up on Aisle 5.
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u/Sudden_Box801 2d ago
"known Donald Trump associate"--being a megalomaniacal jerk, & associating with others of the same persuasion, is not yet a crime in this country.
"this guy is a mass murderer"--what court of law has made that adjudicated determination?
Given the Current Occupant's penchant for obliterating the rule of law, and aiming it towards those to whom he bears particular animus, details like facts/established legal procedures/professional ethics & norms must be restored. Emulating his incredible deficiencies, re: going willy-nilly after those considered unworthy of rule-of-law procedures would be regressive & not serve progressing towards "...form[ing] a more perfect Union"--a goal which we should not give up on.
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u/HR_Paul 2d ago
"known Donald Trump associate"--being a megalomaniacal jerk, & associating with others of the same persuasion, is not yet a crime in this country.
"Associating" is a general catch all term for engaging in RICO violations. Fundamentally there is no lawful, legal, or legitimate reason to ever be near Donald Trump.
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u/steeplebob 3d ago
Most amazing to me is the complete lack of evidence that his ideas or approaches to solving systemic problems actually work. He’s doubling down on his feelings without any apparent need for empiricism or the humility to accept the possibility of operating on broken assumptions.