• PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    You say that, but have you seen the enormous homeless camps in Los Angeles and San Francisco? We’re talking about thousands of people without sanitation, clean water, shelter, food or even the ability to wash themselves or their clothes. It’s really bad and probably on par with 10th century Europe as far as living conditions, although many of these people are worse off because they lack the ability to take care of themselves and many of them are drug addicts.

    • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, that’s bad, and I imagine if bubonic plague broke out in that one area it could be devastating. It’s not the norm across any large portion of society so we won’t see a larger outbreak of it.

      That’s not to say those people don’t matter. It’s a systemic failure of the highest order that people aren’t housed and don’t have access to healthcare, it’s just they don’t create the conditions for a pandemic of that kind. We understand the disease vector now and we have largely eliminated it.

    • schroedingershat@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Having these people be homeless in awful conditions is entirely a choice made by the wealthy californians. One that can be remedied in months if the harm to their health becomes larger than the utility of being able to use them as a political pawn. They can also be supplied antibiotics and flea/rodent control tools for a few dollars per capita.