People whose misfortunes have exceeded the available safety net’s capacity.
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Replying to @vgr
Another thing they say is "If trauma didn't make you homeless, homelessness will make you traumatized." They constantly have to worry about violence, theft, rape, harassment by police, harassment by random bystanders, crazy drug addicts (even if they aren't one themselves), etc.
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The faceless are walking, human “normal accidents” in Perrow sense. Humans in complex systems where even the best safety nets can only save you from 1-2 misfortunes close together. 3 strikes and you fall through unless you have deep personal/family resources.
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Hmm. Normal accidents are a good frame, and point to why the social democrat project is doomed in a sufficiently advanced society. Every human in modern conditions is as complex as a nuclear reactor. “Normal” accidents (interacting unrelated misfortunes) are inevitable
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Every time you walk by a homeless person, try thinking “3 mile island/Chernobyl/Bhopal” not “there goes someone who made bad choices” or “oppressed” and see if your perceptions of them change
Not a moral heuristic, a perceptual one. Classifying phenomenon over assigning blame.
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“There, but for the grace of statistics go I”
This is a testable hypotheses btw. I suspect most uninsured-stricken had at least 2 relatively unrelated things go wrong close in time (like “lost job” + “diagnosed with cancer”)
Even weak people don’t usually go down to 1 punch.
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In case the analogy isn’t clear, I’m not saying safety nets have failed like nuclear reactors. I’m saying each fallen *individual* is like a nuclear reactor in meltdown.
Under modernity, humans are like nuclear reactors.
Chimpanzees are more like say bicycle grade complexity.
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Given how many things have to go right for a “normal” life to work, it’s astounding the homeless/faceless/uninsured-stricken population is so low (~0.2%, 17/10,000)
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Though I bet 10x are at high risk... perhaps 2%
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Those of us who are keeping it together are working far harder than we realize. Hence chronic stress as an endemic condition. Just below conscious awareness, you’re probably fighting the specter of meltdown (🤣) in a Cold War against the harsh conditions and risks of life
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You’re likely running your own Truman doctrine of containment of the four horsemen of the apocalypse: unemployment, uninsured events, acute illness, social abandonment. “Security” and “precarity” are words that mask entire universes.
Replying to
Yep. Hard endorse. The effort needed to be “safe” enough from the brink of precarity has inflated hugely.


