The Rembis Report and Other Fascinating Topics - Volume CVII

Plight of the Unbound - Part V

Author

Mike Rembis
July 16, 2023

This newsletter is the fifth of six weekly editions in a series about homelessness, vagrancy, nomadic lifestyle, human emigration, and definitions of freedom.

When I was a little kid I visited DisneyWorld in 1972. They had been opened less than a year. Disneyland had already been operating in California for years with all the same rides, but I didn’t know anything about that. I thought this was the whole thing - and it was the greatest place there ever was. It was touted as the happiest place on Earth. Why would they say it if it were not true?

I was smitten. I fell in love with DisneyWorld and went there over and over when I was a teenager and young adult. I, like many others who kept going again and again, could not get enough of Disney magic. It wasn’t about the cartoon characters. I preferred Looney Tunes much better. The food was good, but there were plenty other restaurants you didn’t have to pay admission to get to. The rides were all pretty simple, but loads of fun, and once you went on each one a dozen times and still knew what to expect - you knew what to expect, but you stood in line anyway. Because it was DisneyWorld, and you were sort of addicted.

For anyone with a Disney addiction it is tough to pinpoint the single best thing you like about the place. But I know my weak spot.

Tomorrowland.

Right from the start I thought it was the coolest thing. A taste of the future. A look at what the world would be like one day. I haven’t been there in many, many years, but back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, Tomorrowland offered a number of rides besides the indoor roller coaster, Space Mountain. To get to them all you could ride the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover, a magnetized rail system using minimal electricity instead of gas or diesel. It slows down enough to hop on or off at designated stops, but never really stops.

When I first saw it I thought it was amazing. As I kept riding the PeopleMover and the monorail to get from the parking lots to the Magic Kingdom, I thought that the whole world would soon adopt Walt Disney’s vision of mass transit. That monorails would cross the country and PeopleMovers would be integrated into urban areas.

There was a model it rode past that showed you what cities could be with PeopleMovers all around and monorails coursing through. There would be cars, and they would run on magnetized roads, too, and have sensors that stopped them from crashing. There were people talking on video phones. Wireless communications of all sorts and three dimensional entertainment looked like it was on the way. Walt Disney was a genius.

And now, we have all of these things. But nobody has created a city or country that puts all of these things together in one place into a viable infrastructure for the good of all. I imagine that Doha, Qatar may be a contender, but I have not been there.

I often wondered why Tomorrowland never came to life. The model city looked so clean and elegant. The gadgets and buildings were works of art that functioned perfectly. That was what I saw.

What I did not see was how the sausage gets made. You have to grind through a lot of people to get anywhere close to Utopia. To get all the plastic you need for everything, you still need to pump and refine oil. To get all of the rare earth elements to create magnets and nuclear power plants you must mine the earth. To harvest enough of all of those things you need a lot of people. To employ lots and lots of people you need to keep the cost down. And to keep costs down you must take advantage of the impoverished.

That is the trickle down effect of capitalism. I am not saying it is right or wrong, I am just saying that’s how it is. When it is not capitalism taking advantage of the poor, it is military regimes, drug cartels, and dictators who know that if they share too much wealth, they will lose power.

The economic systems in place force the impoverished to stay poor.

While Walt Disney had great ideas, the one thing his vision did not convey was that poverty was necessary for Tomorrowland to thrive. Not everyone can live in utopia. Somebody has to stay outside and get the raw materials for it to exist.

Disney’s Tomorrowland never materialized outside of his theme parks. However, cities and roads and railways were built and built and built. Progress never stopped. The sausage grinder remained constant.

While the world trudged forward in every way imaginable, far in the background, poverty never diminished, and grew all over the world. Many try to get out of it. Some succeed. Every struggle is a story unto itself.

I turn back to Tomorrowland to find the answer. But the answer is not in plain sight. Just like Newton’s third law of physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction; For every success story there is an equivalent tale of woe. It would be depressing to discover that a plastic toy, which brings pleasure to some child in Tomorrowland, was forged through pollutants that sickened an entire town and harmed a huge ecosystem. But there is no need to point fingers.

People are free to leave. Most anyone does not have to stay where they are, unless they are prisoners or slaves. Autonomy is the greatest thing about being alive. Being able to choose to go someplace else. To pick up and change your locale.

When impoverished people do so, many times their struggle leads them to a different place, but not a better place. So, if we turn to Tomorrowland and ask one of the most powerful computers we have devised what we should do, what would it suggest?

I made a statement about homelessness to ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) to find out what it would say. Without any other prompting in the chat session I wrote:

I was hoping to find a solution to the homeless crisis throughout the world.

In mere seconds ChatGPT gave me the following answer. It has not been edited.

The issue of homelessness is indeed a complex and challenging problem that affects many individuals and communities worldwide. While I can provide some general information and suggestions, it's important to note that finding a comprehensive solution requires the collaboration and efforts of various stakeholders, including governments, non-profit organizations, and the community as a whole. Here are a few potential avenues to address homelessness:

  1. Affordable Housing: Increasing the availability of affordable housing is crucial. Governments can invest in subsidized housing programs and collaborate with developers and organizations to create more affordable housing options.

  2. Supportive Services: Providing comprehensive support services, including mental health care, addiction treatment, job training, and counseling, can help individuals experiencing homelessness reintegrate into society successfully.

  3. Preventive Measures: Implementing preventive measures such as eviction prevention programs, rent subsidies, and financial assistance can help vulnerable individuals and families avoid homelessness in the first place.

  4. Collaboration and Partnerships: Foster collaboration among government agencies, non-profit organizations, businesses, and the community to pool resources, knowledge, and expertise to address homelessness collectively.

  5. Addressing Root Causes: Tackling the root causes of homelessness, such as poverty, unemployment, affordable healthcare, and education, can have a long-term impact on reducing homelessness.

  6. Public Awareness and Support: Raising public awareness about homelessness and advocating for compassionate and evidence-based policies can help generate support and resources for homeless individuals.

It's worth noting that the specific strategies and solutions will vary depending on the region, as the causes and circumstances surrounding homelessness can differ. Local initiatives and tailor-made approaches are often effective in addressing the unique challenges faced by each community.

It felt like almost everything I have pointed out in my last four reports. The artificial intelligence did not offer a simple cookie cutter answer. It weighed out everything and said that a computer can’t solve this. It will take a bounty of human effort and compassion with years of dedicated effort by many people.

The Artificial Intelligence also did not mention eliminating homelessness, only reducing it.

Maybe that is why solving homelessness is impossible. Getting everyone on the same page, worldwide, to care about everyone who needs help, is unnatural. It is not something everyone will do. And if you can’t get everyone in the world to care, nothing substantial will happen.

So, a lot of people are on their own, as they were to begin with, and they need to keep looking out for themselves. Besides those seeking a place to land and find stability, there is also a population among the homeless who do not identify as refugees. They are loners. They understand their autonomy and relish their freedom.

Hermetic lifestyle is a choice that few understand. Solitude is not for everyone.

Please visit me again next week as I conclude this series with a closer look at those who make up this segment of society, how they fit in (or refuse to), and options to address homelessness that you may have not considered.

Thanks for reading.

If you are new to the Rembis Report and would like to read any of the previous issues, PLEASE CLICK HERE to access the archives. To read it from the beginning, PLEASE GET A COPY of The Rembis Report: An Observation.