Is me creating an opportunity for someone to commit a crime constitute my doing something bad to the commons or is it on the actual criminals?
It’s on both.
The rest of it, about shoplifting, seems hard to connect, as no one is advocating doing something illegal.
The shoplifting comparison has nothing to do with whether shoplifting is illegal. The point of the comparison is that you can endlessly speculate that something really has a positive effect by imagining some scenario where it does. I am able to imagine such a positive effect for shoplifting, but it would not convince you that shoplifting is positive. I’m not going to be convinced that homelessness is positive by you imagining some scenario where it is.
If I guess I am contributing more than I am taking by my level of noise then is this okay?
My answer to this is the same as for the similar question about shoplifting: I would expect that if homelessness or shoplifting had a positive effect, stores and governments would act as though it does. You personally cannot become “okay” on your own—you don’t get to decide that your shoplifting is actually contributing more to tourist publicity than it harms the stores, and you don’t get to decide that your homelessness creates a positive contribution.
“Is me creating an opportunity for someone to commit a crime constitute my doing something bad to the commons or is it on the actual criminals?”
“It’s on both”
These situations seem to be very extreme, but I have this less dark example: Say I go swimming in a place where the lifeguard can’t see me. Is it my fault I drowned or the lifeguards? The lifeguard is supposed to watch everyone… but I put myself in that situation in the first place. (After typing this out I realized it’s still pretty dark, oh well)
“Of course, you can argue “if they didn’t want homeless people using them, they shouldn’t provide them for free to homeless people”. The consequence of this attitude, at large, is why we can’t have nice things.” - (This was in the second-from-the-top comment in this chain)
Another extreme situation. Here’s a similar but softer one which seems positive... Airplane tickets to Las Vegas are often much cheaper than tickets to literally anywhere else. That’s because Las Vegas bets that people will be attracted to the cheap tickets and go to Las Vegas, then proceed to spend tons of money at the casinos. My family doesn’t go to these casinos, we just travel to Vegas because we have friends nearby. We’re benefiting but not contributing.
My point is that I noticed that some of the situations Jiao Bu’s been in can be rewritten to get the other person to react differently. Maybe that’s just me, though.
Say I go swimming in a place where the lifeguard can’t see me. Is it my fault I drowned or the lifeguards?
The issue is not whose fault it is for the crime, but whose fault it is for the using up the extra resources to prevent the crime, which is not an issue in the lifeguard example. And that itself is a specific case of “how much more than average do you have to use the commons before you can be blamed for overusing the commons”. Which is partly a matter of degree and depends on things like how much you use it, what people’s expectations are, what reasonable expectations are, and what the intentions are of the people providing the resources.
My family doesn’t go to these casinos, we just travel to Vegas because we have friends nearby. We’re benefiting but not contributing.
I’ve done that myself (for busses to Atlantic City). Since the owner can change the price freely, and can change it incrementally or for specific customers, I’d generally not consider it to be overusing the commons if there is a price. In the case of loss-leader trips, it’s also very hard to overuse the trips anyway, as opposed to just using them more than average—you probably couldn’t use more than one trip every couple of days.
If stores in Taiwan charged for use of bathrooms, and the government rented out spaces for homeless on the ground, and charged a “homeless stay tax” which covers the costs of police and such, I would agree that it would be okay to go homeless and use them at the given prices. (If there is a two tier price where the homeless are charged more, the homeless tourist would have to pay the homeless tier price, and not cheat even if it isn’t enforced well.)
It’s on both.
The shoplifting comparison has nothing to do with whether shoplifting is illegal. The point of the comparison is that you can endlessly speculate that something really has a positive effect by imagining some scenario where it does. I am able to imagine such a positive effect for shoplifting, but it would not convince you that shoplifting is positive. I’m not going to be convinced that homelessness is positive by you imagining some scenario where it is.
My answer to this is the same as for the similar question about shoplifting: I would expect that if homelessness or shoplifting had a positive effect, stores and governments would act as though it does. You personally cannot become “okay” on your own—you don’t get to decide that your shoplifting is actually contributing more to tourist publicity than it harms the stores, and you don’t get to decide that your homelessness creates a positive contribution.
“Is me creating an opportunity for someone to commit a crime constitute my doing something bad to the commons or is it on the actual criminals?”
“It’s on both”
These situations seem to be very extreme, but I have this less dark example: Say I go swimming in a place where the lifeguard can’t see me. Is it my fault I drowned or the lifeguards? The lifeguard is supposed to watch everyone… but I put myself in that situation in the first place. (After typing this out I realized it’s still pretty dark, oh well)
“Of course, you can argue “if they didn’t want homeless people using them, they shouldn’t provide them for free to homeless people”. The consequence of this attitude, at large, is why we can’t have nice things.”
- (This was in the second-from-the-top comment in this chain)
Another extreme situation. Here’s a similar but softer one which seems positive...
Airplane tickets to Las Vegas are often much cheaper than tickets to literally anywhere else. That’s because Las Vegas bets that people will be attracted to the cheap tickets and go to Las Vegas, then proceed to spend tons of money at the casinos. My family doesn’t go to these casinos, we just travel to Vegas because we have friends nearby. We’re benefiting but not contributing.
My point is that I noticed that some of the situations Jiao Bu’s been in can be rewritten to get the other person to react differently. Maybe that’s just me, though.
The issue is not whose fault it is for the crime, but whose fault it is for the using up the extra resources to prevent the crime, which is not an issue in the lifeguard example. And that itself is a specific case of “how much more than average do you have to use the commons before you can be blamed for overusing the commons”. Which is partly a matter of degree and depends on things like how much you use it, what people’s expectations are, what reasonable expectations are, and what the intentions are of the people providing the resources.
I’ve done that myself (for busses to Atlantic City). Since the owner can change the price freely, and can change it incrementally or for specific customers, I’d generally not consider it to be overusing the commons if there is a price. In the case of loss-leader trips, it’s also very hard to overuse the trips anyway, as opposed to just using them more than average—you probably couldn’t use more than one trip every couple of days.
If stores in Taiwan charged for use of bathrooms, and the government rented out spaces for homeless on the ground, and charged a “homeless stay tax” which covers the costs of police and such, I would agree that it would be okay to go homeless and use them at the given prices. (If there is a two tier price where the homeless are charged more, the homeless tourist would have to pay the homeless tier price, and not cheat even if it isn’t enforced well.)