Handbook of Epictetus

The Handbook is short and sweet. 53 short segments, essentially paragraphs, on Stoic philosophy. The Handbook is a classic that is simple to read, bares rereading and random dipping into, and is thought inspiring.

37. If you undertake some role beyond your capacity, you both disgrace yourself by taking it and also thereby neglect the role that you were unable to take.

That's right, in ~100 A.D. Stoics got opportunity cost...

44. These statements are not valid inferences: "I am richer than you; therefore I am superior to you", or "I am more eloquent than you; therefore I am superior to you." But rather these are valid: "I am richer than you; therefore my property is superior to yours", or "I am more eloquent than you; therefore my speaking is superior to yours." But you are identical neither with your property nor with your speaking.

...and logic. People don't change much - the rich and the intelligent still often mistake their good fortune as reflections of their personal character [1].

The Handbook is elegant and compelling. As human character and traits have not changed since the time of the writing the Handbook is also timeless. The Stoics focused on character and on proper human focus, and therefore their work stands up today some 2000 years later.

Lowdown:
- at about $5 this clear, compact, compelling read is a steal

Notes:
[1] Academics are often simply people who can argue well - and not always because they are logical and well informed. As they often then make the invalid inference that they are thus superior they tend to get all moral on thou. Note that the immature argue in order to feel morally superior to their opponents (quite possibly due to evolutionary pressure - we are social animals, so pecking order is key, so building in a feeling of righteousness to help push forward in arguments in order to place the resources in it to win and get the dino-meat and cave-babe would be advantageous), without self reflection many/most do not move past this and likely do not even realize the danger. The deep feeling of not wanting to back down even when presented with arguments that make it clear one is clearly wrong is automatic (how many times have you found yourself continuing to argue well past the point that you should have given up?). Until one really confronts this feeling and persists in wanting to follow truth one cannot overcome this - with practice one can actually enjoy being proven wrong as you have just learned something new (the overcoming does not seem to be simply an artifact of aging, as many older people retain this undeveloped state). And by enjoy I don't mean a grudging post argument coming to accept the truth, but a "wow this is cool!" in the moment of the argument.

Kasparov: Life Lessons

Garry Kasparov's How Life Imitates Chess in a nutshell:

• review
• challenge resources
• confidence, or decisions delayed (then time crunch/stress)
• analysis of decisions & effect
• focus on results
• hard work
• self awareness & consistency: steady effort pays off
• experiment/push boundaries of capacity
• motivate yourself to push though
• small steady increments can lead to large gains (1 hr a day on activity X)
• worse type of mistake from habit - it makes you predictable
• "clock vs. board time" - number of steps to accomplish an objective...
• improve, swap or eliminate "bad pieces"
• spending time only useful if it will improve things
• imbalance: lack of symmetry that can be exploited for advantage
• accurate evaluation key: focus on each choice, prune poor choices, spend time considering good options
• don't over extend, don't ignore imbalances
• power of surprise strong: spend time thinking/learning to find new ideas
• break down your skills/performance - where strong? Weak? Enjoy? Shy away from?
• big branches on decision tree - forks with no way back. Spend careful time on these decisions.
• always valuable to ask - can I reverse course if the decision turns out poorly?
• if no benefit to making the decision now and no penalty in delaying, use time to improve your evaluation, gather information, examine other options
• err on side of intuition and optimism
• be aggressive with self-criticism
• take the initiative - self pressure
• complacency - lack of vigilance -> mistakes & missed opportunities: train yourself to want to improve even when things go right
• essential to have benchmarks to keep yourself alert
• create goals & standards - then keep raising them
• compete like you are an underdog
• find ways to maintain concentration & motivation - key to fighting complacency
• keep track of time - how much time a week doing irrelevant item X? target reducing this.
• lose as much as you can take (push yourself)
• if its been a while since you experienced the nervous thrill of trying something new, perhaps you've been avoiding challenge for too long
• the moment you believe you are entitled to something is the moment you are ripe to lose it to someone who is fighting harder
• pride in achievement mustn't distract from ultimate goals
• results are what matter in the end - concrete objectives and measure
• accept responsibility for results. Every decision made builds character and forms basis of future decisions.
• engaging with your weak points & drilling down so we understand them is best & fastest way to improve.
• good decisions: calculations, creativity, & desire for results.

The book is a pleasant and easy read. Traditional good advice, from a successful person and an interesting perspective. Well worth reading - most of us know this stuff, but it is always worth repeating for the positive reminder and push. The strength of the book is the concise and well presented overview of basic strategies for success, retold with an entertaining metaphor of "life~chess".

Programming - Basic

I earlier said that computers are the defining element of our society. As such, it is a basic requirement to know how to program - if you want to claim to be educated. Without this essential idea you simply are missing out on one of the biggest developments in history and the defining element of "us".

But I did not give any reference for those interested in trying to learn this essential skill.

Here is a basic book (no pun intended), and here is a online basic interpreter to try the examples in the book [-1].

I recommend the book as it really is an introduction [0], and it is written by a famous coder Chris Crawford (so it has contextual interest). As far as I can tell this is the best basic introduction to programming. Your kids can and should read this. You can and should read this. If you cried your way through your science requirements in high school/university, cursing the gods for their cruel ways, you can and should read this. The book is (1) free, (2) short, (3) opinionated [1]. It gets the basic ideas down.

Looking for a general introduction shows there really is not a good option out there for people - could it really be that an old text thrown up on the internet, and used with a free online interpreter, is the best option out there? This seems to be a glaring hole in the literature. Back in the day you could fire up your Apple ][ and run the ubiquitous BASIC before playing a rousing game of Oregon Trail. There is lots of stuff out there, but nothing (modern) that is dirt simple and limited and just there that gets across the basic points [2].

Skimming through this book, You should learn to program by Chris Crawford, was interesting and I sat down and read it more carefully after the initial skim: it is enjoyable (!!), and is surprisingly close to some of my thoughts [3]. The book appears to best fill the niche of actually teaching programming to true beginners [4]. You too should learn to program, and Chris will show you how - and he includes an appendix on how computers work, as well as sociological commentary on the programmer culture.

"Programming is like writing, woodworking, or photography. Anybody can do it. Doing it well, doing it like an expert – that takes a lot of work, a lot of experience, and a lot of talent. But anybody who can write a comprehensible paragraph can write a workable program. All it takes is a computer and some time." - Chris Crawford, Chapter 1

If you have ever taken a picture, wrote something, or made a simple wood project you know the pleasures that underlie these creations - we are built to act and create - and programming is yet one more form that you should explore to get some joy, learn about a key aspect of our society, and maybe find a new hobby or career [5].

Notes:
[-1] The interpreter linked above doesn't use line numbers, so some changes to the ancient "goto" examples in the book would be needed. This aspect of computers - evolution, versions, and changing infrastructure making things difficult is one of the characteristics of computing. Dealing with hacks is also a key skill - remember the "Y2K" problem? Get used to it, this is a painful yet important idea and learning to confront this is one of the "take home skills" you will get from programming - and these problems exist in all aspects of human tools and society. But to prevent complete initial frustration from being a barrier to entry use this one, I have not yet gone through the entire book with the interpreter but a random selection indicates things generally work (with one caveat: you must include line numbers to inform the interpreter).
[0] Computer books are "sold by the pound" and are often huge poorly written books. Learning to program can improve your communication, but it will not automagically do this - as a look at most computer books attest to: you have to want it to and work hard at it, but programming does offer a route to better thinking and communication.
[1] Thus interesting. And the author has informed and earned opinions.
[2] There is "SmallBasic" from MS that looks okay, though only for PC's right now - why not on the web? Google has a powerful system, which has a great book for people ready for the next step of working with code that actually does stuff, but I don't see a dead simple system there either. Back in "the day" the Apple ][ was in every class, now a browser is everywhere. What is needed is someone like MS or Google making SmallBasic online - a big player backing a simple tool in order to make it ubiquitous. If you are a Google employee make it so with your 20% time!
[3] Overlap in opinion and ideas is likely a key factor in us deciding on likely quality of a text, and thus worth investing time on. Of course if the overlap is too large you just wasted your time, as you likely don't learn much! If the overlap is too small you likely will discount the text, or you may not be ready for the text. You want some sweet spot of agreeing with some points, and being mystified by some on a first scanning read. People who just read stuff that reiterates and defends their beliefs are called fundamentalists.
[4] If you think about it the vast amount of material in a first year CS class is huge, and one gets a split of the class into (a) those who have been previously exposed to the basics and find the class easy to a bit challenging, and (b) those who are crushed by the course as they have so many new things to learn all while competing against people well ahead of them. People in group (b) should likely read this book as a pre-course exercise to give them context and the basic ideas.
[5] Career? Likely not, but maybe... I am not a carpenter despite loving the one and only project I ever did. But I still have fond memories of my little creation. Even if your dip into programming is just reading Chris' book and playing with an online interpreter while do you do, well you will gain from it. Life is experiential.

Stuff

People buy a lot of stuff. This stuff is substantiated in reality: it is made out of material. To create the stuff materials have to be obtained and then shaped - this takes energy (read: pollution - noise, visual, air, water, ...).

Most of the stuff we buy is garbage, and goes into the garbage quickly. Like junk food, junk stuff is not fulfilling - yet is amazingly popular and the quick hit of pleasure one seems to gain from junk fuels a cycle of more.

As we have seen with the latest economic downturn we don't know how to deal with creating what is valuable - we are urged to buy, to prop up industries, to get stuff. Our lives are predicated on making and buying and churning stuff. To save the environment we are urged to scape cars and buy new, slightly more fuel efficient ones. In everything we do we get stuff. Stuff, stuff, everywhere stuff. Anti-depressants are prescribed like candy - perhaps because people live their lives making useless stuff and buying junk, all at huge environmental and opportunity costs [1].

Why not less stuff?

There are a few observations on stuff that can help you reduce it:

(1) Quality, not quantity, matters (for most things). 20 pairs of crappy shoes, or a few good pairs?
(2) Verb not noun. You want to buy verbs, not nouns. The closer something is to an inert object (noun) the less you want it. Tools - that you use often (see (1)), and trips - that give you memories, are two examples of things where money is well spent. These things are very "verby". The closer something is to a verb the more useful, and thus worthwhile, it is. If the verbiness of a item is dominated in the buying process you are wasting time, money, life [2].

The gains you will get by focusing on verby stuff are legion: simplified and dejunked life, focus on significance and action, alignment with human nature, self respect, opportunity savings, financial savings.

Notes:
[1] The energy, time, material, and other resources that goes into making junk diverts the resources from other ends. You are in cog industry X. Your efforts could have gone into art, useful industry Y, or hitchhiking to Alaska. The money that you wasted on yet another overpriced latte doesn't sit too well as some process in the back of your brain is saying "bottom billion - dollar a day". You are diverting your life's focus into irrelevant junk, all while others who would love to eat and have 1/80th of your opportunity in order to create are dying. You don't need a pill, you need to change your behavior.
[2] You are also likely not realizing that the verbiness of the buying process is what is pleasant, not the buying itself. Humans gain pleasure from action, yet we don't seem to realize this and are fearful of performing actions - this may be behind many peoples "shopoholic" tendencies, a need to feel action and an unwillingness to take the "risk" of putting your ability on the line. But shopping to gain this pleasure is like crack to gain pleasure - it is empty and emptying in the long run.

Computers

What is our greatest achievement as a society? I don't mean our ancient roots that focus on democracy and individuals and limiting manipulative power while increasing personal (positive) power [0], no I mean us as in lately and what defines the biggest thing going right now.

Computers.

Computers have changed things, dramatically. Our society has fundamentally changed due to this, and will continue for some time [1].

The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.

- Voltaire

And we have built our greatest masterpiece - the internet - for porn, urban legends, and stupidity. But Voltaire is only partially correct. Sure, battles and fighting and other low brow stuff went on - but art and play and oratory also did. We can find lots of junk on the internet, lots of time wasters, lots of negative material - but like the Roman amphitheaters the structure itself is beautiful, and like all technologies use neutral [2]. I am amazed at the internet. There is so much constructive, and positive, and mind expanding, and interesting, and beautiful on the internet. And that is just one aspect of computers - the aspect that connects us to each other and our works.

Programming computers changes how you think - at its best it clarifies your thinking, changes your thinking, improves your communication, increases your ability (via tools you build), teaches you to check context more. Basically programming puts thinking into notation and makes it a tool, a tool to be used, perfected, analyzed, considered, honed. Writing improves your thinking and communicating, and so does programming [3] - perhaps because these practices are so closely linked to how we think [4] and as are both well suited to deliberate practice [5].

I had once thought that the bulk of the "and then what" of computers was over, we got cheap desktops and wired them up to chat: end of story, sure with some interesting epilogue but story arc climaxed. I no longer believe that. Richard Hamming would spend his Fridays thinking about how to use computers to change things in his work, and how computers are changing things in general [6]. We would all do well to do this. I now believe that computer science has taken the role that physics once held - the king of hard sciences. I say this as computer science is fundamental, growing, and deep. Godel's work and much else fits in to computer science, as does much of physics. People vote with their feet, and just like all [7] the smart people stopped going into philosophy a long, long time ago [8] I believe all the smart people are no longer going into physics. Yeah, there are smart people in physics but the smartest and most interesting go elsewhere. Where? This is an empirical question, but the deepest thinkers seem to fit into the category of computer science writ large [9].

One of the things that make humans so powerful is our ability to simulate in our brains (the future, possibilities, stories, ...). Computers are a tool we built that allows us to simulate outside our brains, and thus both study the simulation process itself in detail as well as extend and modify simulations we perform: we have taken one of the key attributes of humanity and extended it.

Computers are making us as a people. We are growing as individuals and as a society because of them. You are not what you could be if you have not learned the basics of programming [10] and the practical use of computers. We live in the computer era.

Notes:
[0] Though that is what make Western nations so awesome. You want to whine about our society? Go for it - that is your right, and we have also created the wealth that enables you to spend time doing this. Just don't take the little niggles at the corners too seriously: our society has many flaws, but it is amazing. The fact you - that you can - spend time whining about your pet peeve is a wonderful development.
[1] And then what? Is perhaps the greatest and most interesting question - we made computing machines, and then they were used for communications. The internet was not the goal, but it was the destination we discovered.
[2] The side effects and "and then what" are often complained about - take nuclear weapons as an example - but confronting the ideals, potential, and meaning is what drives our evolution as a society. Do you seriously think we are better off without the bomb? The bomb is neutral. Our reaction to the bomb has matured and developed us. The fact is we are smarter and more developed as a society due to the bomb. Now, how much has the bomb endangered us? Do we even know? What is the odds of drastic climate change? Of an asteroid slamming into earth? That someone will use many, many bombs repeatably on "us"? We don't even have a context to compare the world pre- and post- bomb: have we significantly increased the danger to ourselves? Have we lessened it? The fact we simply don't know suggests that perhaps we should not get too worked up.
[3] I find that students pre- and post- programming undergo a transformation in their ability to think. I don't mean pre- and post- programming class, as I have met people who have 1st year programming courses yet do not know about commenting code, debugging, and other aspects (apparently it is "too hard" to mark this stuff, so they skip it and just get you to submit code that is tested for (1) compiling and (2) giving answers), but pre- and post- programming practice. As in you want to learn programming and you try to learn it. But I digress.
[4] Being forms of symbolic manipulation for the purpose of crystallizing meaning.
[5] You have heard of deliberate practice - practice that is systematic, focused, and measurable. The measure is key - if you can't quickly see your results you can simply lock-in bad habits and incorrect assumptions.
[6] Hamming notes that a couple orders of magnitude of change modifies change from "by degree" to "by kind". If something is 100 cheaper this qualitatively changes everything, and all the old assumptions are gone. Computers routinely change things by orders of magnitude.
[7] Okay, not all, but basically all...
[8] At approximately the same time philosophy no longer equaled science and all other things; once we split from generalists to niches of disciplines the philosophers were left with all the boring and irrelevant stuff, and basically comment on the fruits and results of the productive disciplines and arts.
[9] I include cognitive science and linguistics here, as I believe computer science "writ large" is the study of possible processes.
[10] Everyone should learn to program. Everyone should learn to program. It does not matter if you never write a line of code post sitting down to work through a book. To be properly educated you must know the basic concept. I only have the very basics down, and have done very little programming - but I have grown a lot from my few exposures and will be looking to learn more.

MBA: The Modern Finishing School

What is a Masters of Business Administration all about? In a nutshell, the MBA is a finishing school.

Finishing for what you ask?

"Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid." -- Bertrand Russell

To "lead"; to tell others what to do. Why? As Mr. Russell points out - this is pleasant and highly paid, and the other option (to "follow") is unpleasant and lowly paid. This is not fully true of course - this is only true in command-and-control economies, e.g. the former Soviet Union or a large company. If you work in a command-and-control structure, you likely want to get your MBA. The MBA itself is essentially "speak and spell", i.e. how to communicate, combined with learning some knowledge of the levers of power within a standard command/control infrastructure. The degree itself appears fairly simple, fun, and gets you networked up and ready to rake in the big bucks.

However, for your right to boss people around and get compensation packages that are well above what your value is to the corporation (or other infrastructure [0]) you have to give up a few things: self respect, the ability to create, and the ability to speak your mind. Don't get me wrong - you can lose these things on the other end in a command/control situation also - but it seems that the commanders are worse off as they are giving up their character, the one thing we have control of in this short life of ours. Sure, you can have a terrible boss and feel the pressure to give up character as a minion, just to ease life in the moment, but there is still an option of not doing so.

Listen to an MBAer speak - have you ever heard such whitewashed PC drivel in your life? Listen to the MBA elite versus others and you will hear a huge difference - that difference is what we commonly call a "soul". The constraints on the MBA elite is essentially equivalent to the removal of your soul - you represent the corp, and you cannot speak the obvious truth, or, well, say almost anything interesting at all. This is not true of all MBA elites, but look around - it is the rare MBAer who speaks truth, or anything remotely approximating truth.

So you can't speak your mind. So what? Well, you are not creating either. That is what humans need to do to feel and enjoy life. Either this statement resonates with you, or not. If not, you might not yet be human [1]. Sure, some MBAers might actually lead and actively engage in creative efforts. Again, this appears a rarity.

Now for self respect - you can't create, you cannot speak. You are a slave, who voluntarily gives up your character in exchange for money. The respect for your degree depends on people not realizing that it is a glorified finishing school [2], and this respect is eroding in the current economic climate where people are outright angry that MBAers as a class appear to have looted money in a parasitic manner without providing value and good decisions in exchange for it.

For a long time it seemed that getting an MBA has a good deal, but could that be shifting now? If a society follows command-and-control for means of production, organization, and governing, then yes it does (at least financially). Aristocrats are needed in such a world. But in a society where creative work, craftsmanship, small companies, flattened hierarchies - "Whole New Mind" stuff - and other productive work can be done without inefficient and highly segmented and hierarchical structures characteristic of classic command-and-control.... well, what role does a MBA play there? There, in a creative world populated by makers respect and the few leading roles will go to those who have proven themselves were it counts - in creating and communication.

That world is not here just yet - but it may be poised to come. As computers make the boring paper shuffling "operating system" stuff of corporations more and more automatic we will see first a collapse of middle management [3], which will be accelerated by the need to save money paving the way for going through with this change [4], and then as the buffer layer between producers and commanders is thinned the top level will need to be able to actually display a soul and ability to retain respect and ability to lead. Those with MBAs now, or soon, will be able to reap the command-control gravy train for their careers, but we may be living in the end of the command-control economy.

The Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of the nature of command-and-control, the means of running corporations under this same approach may now be undergoing a similar fate: competition with more free, distributed, and creative entities (USA! USA! US... er, I mean, "the small and nimble business' guided by cheap and ingenious computing") that can now overcome, even surpass, the economy of scale in many situations is fierce. "Restructuring" is naturally occurring, and the current mess we are in may be in part be aggravated by the command-and-control nature still largely held by many large corporations, and in turn the hard times may accelerate and force the evolution [5].

There will always be a role for leaders, for people with charisma, for those with couth. But the MBA may not be the de facto route to this role any longer. The MBA is predicated on command-and-control, if we are lucky the evolution towards small, free, and creative will continue and move more and more out of computer science and arts into other areas [6]. Currently the public has some bad taste in their mouths regarding MBAers - judging the herd is difficult, but here structural changes seem to be ultimately leading to the conclusion that the MBA is irrelevant and a badge of shame and not one of honor that entitles one to (others) riches [7].

Lowdown:
- If you are thinking about getting an MBA think twice: is it actually what an uncritical glance says it is? Will you get what you want from it? The MBA depends on command-and-control working as it has in the past, there is reason to suspect this style of organization is and is going to continue to be shaken up.
- A stoic would say an MBAer is a sell out. Sure, those guys died out about 2000 years ago but they rocked and had some interesting things to say. Consider if an MBA actually gives you freedom, or not.
- We live in interesting times. It would be interesting to see if the death of the MBA as status symbol could be sped up by pointing out the emperor has no clothes: you went to finishing school?

Notes:
[0] The difference between a typical leader of a corporation and a typical politician is one of degree. No pun intended. As in everything, I'm speaking generalities here - there are a handful of politicians who are of high character and intelligence, as there are business leaders, but the question is one of the general class and environmental pressures.
[1] "Let us say I suggest you may be human. Your awareness may be powerful enough to control your instincts." - quote from Dune. The struggle to become free is a difficult one - we are borne among many who are enslaved to their natural animal instincts, and thus most of our social environment consists of non-humans in the Dune sense. In our society it is easy to grow and obtain the view that consumption is sufficient for a good life.
[2] An MBA means you are signaling that you want to "succeed" in the business world and that you pass a minimum threshold of IQ and work ethic and that you have, post MBA, proper manners. i.e. you will take certain actions, you will respond to certain incentives, you will behave in a certain way. You have been properly vetted and neutered.
[3] Middle management is basically the operating system of a company. You handle the basic processes, shuffle paper around, pass stuff up/down, make reports, distill information, etc. etc. etc. i.e. you can/should be replaced by a script.
[4] Traditionally we see this - every recession pushed out bloated middle management. But as the workers can be replaced by internal databases, Google engines, filters, wikis, etc. and other aspects outsourced to Indians with crisp accents, strong work ethic, and smaller paychecks we should see the re-inflating of the middle management become increasingly less. Has the computer - which can take care of so much of the logistics needed to run a company - replaced the middle manager, with only some time needed to finish the process?
[5] Bail out plans may be simply prolonging the agony - if some corps, say GM, were notorious for command-and-control failures sending them money to prop them up will prevent their evolution to the new standard processes required to survive. As a secondary significant forcing will soon be on us - the retirement of the boomers - it might be wise to let evolution happen quickly to better handle the shifts that will be occurring.
[6] Hey, if Apple can outsource the iPod what is to stop a small design shop from doing the same? Consumer hardware is cheap, as is clothing, software, jewelry - the list of places where design and the small can rule is large - the question is if the domain of the small is significantly increasing and what will remain limited to huge budgets.
[7] It will be interesting to see how MBA programs react to changes, if the public will be back on board with the MBA elite symbol soon, and if devolution from command-and-control happens relatively quickly or if the change drags on for decades.

Bottles and the Homeless

I remember as a kid collecting pop bottles when I needed some money. It was easy to do and was a ready source of cash. For some people this is their main source of income - a subset of the homeless.

One of the key ideas of economics is that incentives matter. This is a simple but deep idea. Incentives dictate outcomes more often than hopes, "what's right", or need.

Understanding homelessness is difficult [1]. There are not very good numbers available and our understanding of homelessness is murky. Homelessness began to rise in the early 1980's. Between the early 1970's and late 1980's the number of beds in U.S. mental hospitals was quartered. This "deinstitutionalisation" has been suspected to cause an increase in the number of homeless [2]. Bottle deposit was introduced roughly in the late 1970's and early 1980's in the United States. The coincidence of bottle deposit introduction and increase in the homeless is interesting. But is it meaningful?

Many factors influence homelessness. In the late 1960's and early 1970's renewal in American cities lead to old and inexpensive housing being replaced by more financially lucrative uses. Containerization and forklifts and other advances greatly reduce the need for casual labor and greater skills are required to find employment. Innovations in drug technology (crack, meth, etc.) reduces price and increases cost. Social welfare programs constantly change. Time frames for various forces are not crisp - for example deinstitutionalisation started as early as the 1940's. Alcohol and the homeless equate in the minds of many. The variety of potential influences, their overlap, the spread out implementation and diffusion of impacts all make understanding homelessness difficult.

The idea that bottle deposits is a key factor in homelessness, is enticing in some ways. Why? There is a correlation there, so the possibility of this being a factor exists. The idea is positive, as it sees the homeless not simply as victims but as economic and hard working people who perform an useful job: would you be up to the task of digging through the trash to earn your paycheck? It is also positive in the sense that it improves the life of the homeless: availability of ready cash is always good, and it is now easier to escape a worse situation such as an abusive home. Viewed in this light deposit programs are a vital social program, one where everyone benefits [3].

Deposit on beverage containers reduces the impact of homelessness by supplying a low skill and ubiquitous job. When costs of something are reduced one should expect to see an increase in its consumption [4].

Notes:
[1] It appears that the homeless rate is roughly the same in Europe as in the US/Canada. For all the claimed differences between the US and Canada, or the US and Europe, most seem to fall into what Freud termed the "narcissism of small differences." If homelessness isn't much different, what true deep and significant differences exist? Most of the differences seem to be small differences of some parameter, yet all the institutions and frameworks are largely similar if not exactly equal.
[2] Of course correlation is not causation. It is best to keep ones mind open to many different correlents before making up ones mind regarding possible/plausible causation. I'm making a claim here regarding a correlation I have not heard discussed before.
[3] One possible negative impact of putting this idea out there is that some cities could change bottle return policy in order to discourage "vagrants" - simply by making it a requirement that bottles be returned by car (for some lame/fake "safety" reason). Of course attaching this idea to the bigger idea could help minimize the likelihood. If Rambo taught us anything - and he has taught us a lot - it is that cities will stop at nothing to enforce "not in my backyard". Rambo taught the city but good, however one battle in a war is nothing.
[4] Call to econometric masters out there - look at data and bottle introduction times, I think this could make a very interesting little paper. Data is sparse, but perhaps deaths of homeless are one recorded number (one would expect a dip in deaths as life got easier, and then an increase as number of homeless increased due to homelessness becoming more attractive) that could tease out information. Some cities may have decent numbers (???). A quick look around suggests that our society doesn't track things like this very well so I leave it up to someone who can arbirtage their knowledge here. Or, actually, we don't seem to track much of anything very well - quick: how many homeschoolers are there? Well, the current estimate post huge movement garning attention is something like 3% of children - however, since it is required by law to send your children to school the exact number should be known. Even for things were we should have data - we track birth/deaths, and kids are suppose to be in school so their absence should be investigaged to ensure they are not chained to a radiator somewhere- we don't).