this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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The portion contained in the reply you were responding to.
You were asking for sources in response to a specific reply, sources that included only housing and not accompanying mental health support.
i was just saying that the reply you responded to mentioned "housing-first" not "housing-only", so it seemed like you were asking for sources for something that was never mentioned ( in that reply ).
But i'll respond to your reply , point by point.
It does not, it posits that mental health support will help a greater proportion of people, there is no must in there.
So i'll concede that this person does seem a bit confused, given that they seem to be arguing the same point as the person they were responding to in what seems to be a fairly hostile manner.
But they still seem to be championing a housing-first approach.
Those two statements aren't mutually exclusive.
One is a proposed solution, the other is a somewhat pointless statement, but it's not contradictory.
I'm not sure how you're getting from "I think these two things would solve the problem " to "Only thing one is required, thing two is useless and possibly detrimental to the goal".
Confusion or misunderstanding probably.
This where we disagree and the communication broke down. Let’s look at the whole context, starting with the original comment that started the reply chain:
Along with the reply which I claim states mental health assistance must accompany housing assistance:
Logically, this is a proposition which attempts to be a counterpoint to another logical argument. The original logical argument is that the solution to homelessness is to provide houses. The counterpoint is that providing houses is not enough of a solution, and that in order to actually solve the problems that homeless people face, they must also receive the other assistances listed.
ETA: Actually, if you’re familiar with Boolean algebra, all three of these arguments are well-defined logical functions that can be written out. The second argument is a tautology stating if the first argument is true, then adding additional assistance (or functions in a logical expression) will continue to be true so long as those additional assistances are beneficial. The third argument simply accuses the second argument of being false and uses flawed logic to “prove” it, because their theoretical person who is struggling with a mental illness but has a house does not satisfy the truth table for the “if” portion of the second argument. In other words, the theoretical person is not receiving the necessary aid that is proposed by the second argument and therefore by the logic of the second argument, assuming the argument is true, then that person is not be helped enough and cannot be adequately represented by that system
It seems we do disagree because even in this reply you provide no justification for assigning a must to an argument that is provided as a should.
Agreed.
Though technically™, and for a very literal definition of homelessness, that is correct.
The arguments that followed look like they are providing counterarguments using a less literal definition, like "modern day homelessness and the causes thereof"
Agreed, emphasis on the not enough, meaning, still partially enough.
This is where our interpretations differ.
I'm reading this as :
They were providing a possible suggestion to increase the effectiveness of the solution, that's not a must that's a should also
Less of a "It won't work at all without this" vs "yeah, ok, but we should also do this as well"
I'll concede it is a very strong should but it's not close enough to a must to come to "So, if giving both mental health assistance as well as housing assistance is antithetical to housing-first research" as a conclusion.
I am familiar with it, boolean algebra doesn't help if the values you are using are faulty.
At this point, I’ll stress I’m not arguing for or against any of the points raised in the actual discussion, my original reply consisted of: "housing-first” doesn’t mean “housing only"
The only thing i've been doing is taking the examples you've provided (and in the original case, the request you made) and pointed out where they seem to rely on faulty interpretations or information not provided.
So you’re telling me that this first reply does not state “I can tell you with a straight face that the solution homeless is something other than providing houses. The solution is to provide houses AND assistance”
Or you’re telling me that “The solution is to provide houses AND assistance” means “providing a house without providing assistance solves the problem” ETA: which then implies that this reply states “I can tell you with a straight that the solution to homelessness is something other than providing houses. Providing houses is sufficient.”
Granted, I did say “not enough” I should have clearly stated that “not enough” is equivalent to “not at all”. Keep in mind this is a generalized statement, so in order for it to be true it must be true across the entire domain. Our domain is homeless people, therefore if adequately helping some but not all homeless people is accomplished then “solving the homeless problem” has not been accomplished; the only thing that accomplishes this goal is to put every person in a home, and the second argument implies that the first one will inevitably cause some of those who do not receive mental health assistance to go homeless again therefore failing to put every person in a home.
If the first argument is true, that putting people into homes solves the homeless problem, then it is also true that putting people into homes and adequately assisting them also solves the homeless problem. The third argument finally states that the second is false because putting people into homes without help is adequate, as they are in a home. This fails to satisfy the predicate of the second argument, making it an invalid counterpoint. If the predicate is not true, the argument cannot be evaluated therefore the counterpoint is invalid. However, if the predicate of the third argument is true then the second argument is invalid. Hence, I asked for sources.
If you're going to use a quote as a supporting argument at least include the whole quote or it seems like you're purposely missing out the parts that don't support your argument.
the whole reply is:
The second part adds context to the first, which changes it from a
"The solution is to provide houses AND assistance”
to a
"A more comprehensive (though not complete) solution is to provide houses AND assistance”
See above
Somewhat agreed, though that’s is dependant on the criteria for true, but let's go with this for now.
Let me break this one down:
You're conflating “solving the homeless problem” and "put every person in a home"
That first argument was never provided as you've written it, nobody was arguing a housing-only solution as a complete solution.
Putting aside that , again, i wasn't arguing any of those actual points (though i can engage on that if you want to start a separate thread)
That's a load bearing initial if and it's load is resting on a specific interpretation of "solves the homeless problem"
I'm not arguing your algebraic logic here, at a glance it seems fine.
I'm arguing your interpretation of the context.
No one was arguing that housing is the full solution in and of itself, so asking for sources to prove a position not taken doesn't make sense.
(there was one person who seems to be confusedly arguing for housing+ against someone who was also arguing housing+, for some reason)
As i said, boolean algebra only works if the values are correct to start with.
Your argument ignores something significant:
What can they do? The question they are answering is:
(As a logical statement: The solution to homelessness is to provide free housing)
I read the first reply as
“I can [seriously say with a straight face that the solution to homelessness is something other than providing free housing]…” where I can is a shortening of rephrasing the question. If the predicate is that their argument is that the solution is not providing housing, it is something other than free housing, then it wouldn’t make any sense for them to say that they can make this claim. If they believed that providing free housing would solve the problem, but not adequately, then they cannot in fact say that free housing would not solve the problem. Therefore,
“The solution to homelessness, in place of the suggested solution, is to provide a combination of [forms of assistance] and free housing” emphasis mine.
Your suggestion reads as follows:
“I can [seriously say with a straight face that the solution to homelessness is something other than providing free housing]. Providing free housing solves the problem, but a more comprehensive solution is to provide free housing and assistance.”
In what way does it make sense to assume that someone would immediately contradict themself? How can one “say something with a straight face” a la “The solution is something other than providing free housing” and immediately say “Providing free housing solves the problem…” unless “saying something with a straight face” means “to say something I do not believe”
I appreciate your emotional disconnectedness from this debate, by the way. While my initial comment was meant to be tongue in cheek, this has been a good exercise in reading between the lines of written words. However silly and benign this has become lol
I'm not ignoring that part of the statement I’m taking it in the context of the whole reply.
There is no assumption on my part, it's in the reply.
If they were two completely separate statements made at different times i might also consider them to be at odds (it would probably depend on the context) but as they are contiguous I’m reading it as a statement followed by a clarification.
I agree they probably would have been better understood by merging the two together.
Yeah, between the lines took me a really long time to get reasonable at, these interactions help me get better at working through my understanding(or lack thereof)
Well, we’re both assuming the intent behind the words used. I’m assuming they did not contradict themselves, because their meaning was “my solution is different”. You are assuming that they contradicted themselves because their meaning was “my solution is better”
As i said in my previously replies , there was no assumption of contradiction.
The two statements in that reply add up to a different position that if you just take the first statement on it's own.
Not a contradiction, an addition/clarification.
But this is the most salient point:
Many people were pushing for a housing only being a suboptimal solution
No-one at any point was pushing for a housing-only solution (after that first reply of course, which for some reason has a lot of votes)
Any argument based on someone else having done so, will be flawed.
You didn’t refute how I explained your interpretation of their sentence, even said it would have made more sense if structured like that. I pointed out that this interpretation requires them to contradict themself. You said it’s right there in their reply. If “it” isn’t the contradiction, then what is “it? What is your interpretation of what they said? Did they contradict themself?
Basically my point is: you are arguing that their message has a contradiction in it. You are arguing that they both stated that they believe or otherwise “can say with a straight face” that a housing only solution does not solve the homelessness problem, and that they believe it can solve the housing solution but not as well as adding assistance. That is a contradiction.
You are ignoring their use of the words ‘combination’ and ‘and’, interpreting their statement as an ‘or’ logically where ‘housing only’ OR ‘housing only with assistance works’. They literally said assistance and housing, with emphasis on and. You turned that and into an or by conflating their reasoning for their position as a clarification of what they meant.
Their logical argument has the predicate(reasoning): Some people without the extra assistance will not fully benefit.
And their hypothesis, argument, or logical statement is: Housing AND assistance is what will solve homelessness.
At no point did they say that housing without assistance could in anyway sufficiently solve homelessness, not in any way that would follow in a logical argument.
In any case, everyone is making assumptions here. It’s literally the basis of communication and it’s not a negative thing. You must assume certain things about what a person says in order to communicate. You must assume that they are saying things they believe unless there is a reason not to. You must assume that they are using words in the way that you understand, or otherwise you must come to a conclusion about the meaning of those words in order for communication to be effective. Assumptions aren’t a bad thing, just don’t assume bad things.
I didn't realise i was supposed to be refuting it, but here it is:
Should be
The second half of the reply is modifier to the first (i previously said addition/clarification, modifier is better)
I'm not, and i quote:
Not really.
Though i see what you mean about it not matching exactly what was said.
I'm counting the refutation of the original Housing Only premise as a partial argument for the implication of a Housing + [1..*] solution.
Partly taking in to account the variety of additional things suggested as implying an etc. rather than things being a finite list because the first part and second part have different numbers of additional things listed.
I can see how that might just be my specific interpretation though.
I think what i've done here is read "assistance" as an undefined length list of additional things including the ones specified, rather than just the defined list provided.
My bad.
I would take all assumptions to be neutral until proven, if i start applying morality to assumptions it might interfere with my ability to verify those assumptions. That goes for both "good" and "bad".