Good on you for being a decent person.

I was wondering what to make of this video, was it based on any sort of real phenomenon or was it more of a "South Park" social criticism that had zero comprehension of what it was belittling. Yeah, there have always been trust fund kids who go Bohemian (oh look, Urban Dictionary just taught me the term "trustafarian"), but I can just as easily imagine kids who can no longer endure living with parents who may be well-off but are also intolerable assholes (most obvious case being gay kids whose parents would not accept them).

I do like that there is a kindly underbelly to the scarred and hideous beast that is PoeTV. A few people here have spoken to the value in letting a person share their roof and/or having been the person who needed a roof, and at least from what I've seen, that's about the most financially viable way to give the other person a hand up. Little incremental cost to you since you're already paying rent and utilities, and the other person can at least have a safe environment for working out a next step.

(Worst mistake I ever made was trying to give money to people to help them cover rent and utilities; it's a real easy way to get sucked into debt that takes you years to recover from. And worse, the other person may have prospered not at all from your efforts, especially if they were crap with money to begin with and had worked themselves into a hole. To people like that, a sadder and wiser Bort would say: I will buy you bus tickets to wherever you can be safe, and that includes my place if you've got no better options.)

I found this from self-proclaimed oogles on the internet sharing and laughing about it. Perhaps you're being way too serious, dudes.

It looks to me like this video was made by crusties, for crusties.

Yeah, I can see oogles laughing about this the same way as I laugh at Portlandia: I'm being made fun of. I get it. One that hit close to home was this kid who was canvassing and the woman says "I'll need to think about it" so his parents show up scolding the poor woman. That and every philosophy major joke ever. So I do have a sense of humor, but this does perpetuate the stereotype that all oogles do is coldlamp. It is kind of funny that, when you think about it a pack of Mavericks and a Steele Reserve comes to about 5 bucks, but I'd kick those kids out of the house if they were just doing that all day. Most I've known are, like me, figuring out a new path in life. If I was still married or had a kid, you better believe I'd take that job at the shittiest place in the world, and spend an hour's wage every morning on public transportation. But when you're free you're free. I'd be lying when I didn't notice their iPhone 5s and macbook airs, vs. my shitphone and shit laptop.

Fuck off, I'm not watching the Fisher fucking King. Fuck you for even suggesting it, dickhead.

When I was homeless, I went out of my way to shave, shower regularly, wear clean clothes and avoid any societal clues as to my situation. I slept in a Wal-Mart parking lot, did my cleaning at a Love's and my internet at Starbucks. Nobody knew my situation because I didn't want them to know.

...it's almost like being homeless wasn't a fun adventure for you. You should have gotten some dreads. Oh! and patches! lots of patches!

I say the same thing about Ramadan. An empty stomach is an empty stomach. In late June / early July 2015, I hope you all remember to give a muslim a sandwich and a Coke.

Mulsims are allowed to eat and drink during Ramadan, just not during daylight hours. Still, it would be nice to offer your Muslim friends a sandwich and a coke, as long as it is nighttime.

It's also worth pointing out that religious fasting is done in much shorter bursts than voluntary homelessness. Religious fasters will rarely have more than a sixteen hour period in which they cannot eat or drink. The voluntary homeless may go for weeks, months, even years without a roof over their heads, and even if it is technically possible for them to give up and go home, logistical concerns can make the return a long and difficult one. If your parents have a house in the Berkshires, and you're freezing your ass off in a Detroit train yard, you're looking at a few days minimum before you can get back home, assuming you wanted to.

A better comparison than a Muslim, might be to a mountain climber. There may be a really nice lodge waiting for you, somewhere at the foot of the mountain, but if you're halfway up to the summit, you've still got a long way back down.

Actually, they can book a flight and call a cab to the airport in a single app through their smartphone and charge it to their Poverty Tourist VISA Platinum Card. There is no mountain with technology, it is pretty fabulous.

I endorse this lifestyle because once people realize they're being used as a theme park that is also killing them and wasting their brief and only lifespan, they will have plenty of targets within strangling distance.

I did a lot of soul searching over this topic for two days, and I have found my limit to my ability to understand certain reasons for compassion. I have great compassion for the powerless, but the powerful who pretend to be powerless while being part of the problem is beyond my ability. I am not capable as an animal of being that gullible.

Religious fasting has a point, and that is an important distinction.

But you still have to wait for the cab. You still have to get the airport. And you need a charge on your smartphone, which won't always be available, even if you were smart and planned ahead. It can be tempting to play Angry Birds , when it's late at night, and you've got nothing but a pup-tent and a bottle of Kraken. But Angry Birds eats your battery charge, and once that's gone, you're alone again, until morning when you can recharge at Dunkin Donuts or the library.

And meme, what would you say about the Buddha? The Buddha was a crustafarian. He was an IRL prince, for chrissakes! Are you claiming that the Buddha was an asshole?

There's a push among megachurch fundies right now to do a 21 day water only fast as a response to what they feel is the failure of modern Lenten fasting.

That was such a weak troll I feel good that you couldn't come up with anywhere approaching a defense of these people.

Yes, the Buddha was an asshole and he eventually came around to realizing his poverty tourist life was bullshit and that poverty tourism was bullshit.

My response wasn't aimed at you, cog, you slipped that one in there while I was typin'.

You guys sure care a lot about my feelings. I'm touched to have become your own.

But would the Buddha have come to that realization, were it not for his time spent amongst the ascetics? The Buddha's crustpunk phase was a very important time in his development as a teacher and as a human being; if he'd come poeTV and listened to you, he probably would have stayed with his wife and been a good father, rather than embracing his true potential and founding one of world's greatest spiritual traditions.

Consider also the following: Gandhi. Diogenes. Che Guevara. St Francis. Wavy Gravy. Thoreau (sort of; he was more like the poser who buys a modest studio apartment in SoHo and then acts like he's a street kid). All of these people could have easily lived in wealth and comfort, yet they chose not to, voluntarily forsaking their material advantages. History is full of ascetics who could have easily lived amongst the ruling class, in the manner expected of them. Hippies, beatniks, Romantics, bohemians. Crustpunks are nothing new.

You are not an ascetic if you're walking around with a credit card, a computer, and a smart phone. Come on, you're not even trying.

When these fuckers have nothing but a begging bowl, like the Buddha, or live naked in a barrel with nothing, like Diogenes, or are targeted by an empire, like Ghandi, or give a shit about anything, like St. Francis, or... okay, yeah, Thoreaux is also contemptible. Good example. Che Guevara doesn't even approach the same universe as poverty tourism.

Hippies became Reaganite scum. Beatniks created all of two people worth knowing about. Romantics were rich fucks who always lived like rich fucks. Bohemians are raised in various cultures that get called "Bohemian." Like with Thoreaux, people who voluntarily called themselves that were also worthless wannabes.

What's the deal with people harping on about smartphones? Smartphones are pretty damn cheap these days. Whenever you hear people complaining about the "undeserving homeless", they always bring up smartphones as an example of the "decadence" of modern homeless people. Smartphones cost, what? Eighty bucks a month? Maybe as low as twenty, depending on your plan? When you're not spending money on rent or utilities or car payments or what have you, owning a smartphone isn't really that big a deal. Hell, many traditional i.e. non-crusty homeless people spend that much money *each week* on booze and drugs alone! Not to mention how handy smartphones are - *especially* for the homeless. Being able to access maps, call shelters, check Craigslist, and just have something to fucking do all day besides stare at an alleyway wall? These days, you'd be insane to be homeless and NOT buy a smartphone. Oh, and don't even get me started on credit cards. When you're in danger of getting rolled for five bucks, it can really help to have your cash stored in the bank and off your person. Do you bring big wads of cash with you whenever you go for a stroll through the local ghetto? No? Well, imagine strolling through there 24/7. Plastic money, yo, that's what you want.

What exactly do you think homeless people's lives should look like?! Should they all be living in shopping carts, eating cats and ranting about Nam? Otherwise, oooo, sorry, not homeless enough. Get more pathetic and then maybe I'll be assed enough to care.

Strawman, it's not about the phone, it's about the access to the fuckloads of money they pretend they don't have.

Strawman, crusties aren't homeless people, they're trust fund babies LARPing like they're homeless, stop exploiting the actual homeless on behalf of terrible people. It's like saying King Richard was unfairly maligned because of what your D&D character did once he got hold of 2nd edition Englandlanion.

Anyway, this is all academic. There is a great many questions about whether or not Ghandi, Thoreaux, and Guevara were real figures or not, they may have been made up to tell stories.

And to answer your question, I don't think there should be homeless people, because people should have homes.

>.Strawman, it's not about the phone, it's about the access to the fuckloads of money they pretend they don't have.

And I'm telling you that having a phone is not an indicator of wealth. You bring up all these things - phones, credit cards, computers - as if they are proof that a homeless person has money. They are not, as I have pointed out to you. If it's about the money, then make it about the money; the phone has nothing to do with it.

And speaking of money, how exactly do you know they even have money at all? Which homeless people, in particular, do you know who've got tons of easily-accessible cash just sitting around somewhere? Is this another one of those apocryphal "Hobo with a Lambo" stories? (swear to God, dude, friend of a friend said some panhandler was driving a BUGATTI!) Because even crusties from wealthy families do not necessarily have ready access to their parents' cash. Orcs, for example, seems to come from a financially solvent family, yet from what I understand, she has neither contact nor support from her parents. Maybe you don't know too many rich families, but rich parents don't always give tons of cash to their kids, especially if their kids have pissed them off badly enough, like by going feral and living in a punk rock traincar instead of going to Harvard like daddy wanted.


Anyway, I think at this point it would be helpful for you to define your terms, since you seem to have a rather bizarre perspective on homelessness. When you say "crusty", what precisely do you mean? Specifically, are you referring to people who sleep *on the streets*, or are you referring to people who spend time on the streets, but have a long-term residence of their own which they go back to every night? I will have further questions for you, but this one should be dealt with first.

Also, I'm glad you think Che was a mythical figure. I have long suspected this, too. As you read his various memoirs, it becomes clear that no actual, living human being could have been as hilariously incompetent as that guy was. My own personal theory is that Che was invented by the CIA, in order to discredit all trustafarian Commie-sympathizers and assure the American people that freedom would prevail over Marxist-Leninism. Another theory is that he was invented much later, sometime during the 1980s perhaps, by Reaganauts looking to sell t-shirts to dumb college kids who weren't buying enough ALF gear.

>>I don't think there should be homeless people, because people should have homes.

Well, I think we can all agree that people should have the *opportunity* to have homes, if they would like one. But that's not really what we're talking about here, is it? We're talking about people who are *voluntarily* homeless. People who could have homes, but choose not to.

The real question is: do you think people should have homes *whether they want them or not*?

My god, I hope you're trolling.

I worry about your capacity to see a human being as something beyond your ten thousand word wall of illogical downward spirals. You seem to have a sharp disconnect where human suffering will never overcome your sense of personal discomfort. It's depressing.

Two simple questions, meme. One, can you define your terms? And two, do you think people should have homes whether they want them or not? If so, why?

Normally, I'd also add a third question at this point, asking you to please specify what precisely you found to be illogical about my posts. But frankly, I've known you too long to expect an answer. Sometimes it seems as if, to you, words like "logic" (or even "trolling"!) are simply magic talismans; stock phrases to be invoked whenever you feel backed against a wall, regardless of their true linguistic meaning.

But you don't have to feel backed against a wall, meme! Not yet, at any rate. Right now, I simply want to better understand your position. What do you think, and why do you think it?

Not sure I'd consider Wavy Gravy on the line of Diogenes or St. Francis.

Meant to be a reply, maybe.

The stars heard you.