#AIS: Joe Lonsdale on the problem with higher education

A host introduces Joe Lonstale (spelled Lonsdale in the episode title) for a solo talk of five to ten minutes, saying he has promised to "burn the house down". The speaker greets Miami, mentions coming from Austin, and jokes with the crowd about who lives in the city.

He calls himself an American optimist but says he wants to discuss things that are broken now, that he believes we know how to fix, and that are not being fixed. He contrasts the excitement about the future, including what he heard from Elon that day, with smart friends who see America in decline.

He asks why a civilization with so many promising developments still seems to be breaking, naming figures such as Dahlia or Bridgewater among those who see decline and decay. As an illustration, he describes a policy group he runs in Austin that follows the homeless population.

In his story, a middle-aged man who had just lost his job tells shelter staff he wants job training. The staff member answers that he deserves a home and should not worry about training. The speaker uses the exchange to show a system focused on housing rather than the help the man requested. This is his account of one case.

The speaker says that in 2018 the mayor of Austin went to San Francisco and Los Angeles for advice, even though there was not much homelessness downtown. He claims those cities have hundreds of millions of dollars flowing to allied groups and politicians, and calls it a money spigot that Austin did not have.

He says he heard from both sides that the advice was to show people that capitalism does not work, and that funding would follow. In his telling, the mayor then let camps spread downtown, deaths, trafficking and drug use rose, and funding for the mayor and allies grew sharply. This is the speaker's allegation, supported in the talk only by his own report.

He adds that the response was a housing first strategy and that it is not a simple left-versus-right matter, since he says it was first deployed under W. Bush.

He says Los Angeles spends $800,000 per new home and that about 7,000 nonprofits funded by HUD share the same philosophy: no pay for performance, no transparency and no accountability. He recalls first thinking it made sense to build as many homes as there are homeless people.

His objection is that a couple of percent of society live on the edge, on couches and with relatives, so real demand could be six to ten million homes, effectively infinite. He asks who gets the homes when they are built, and relays a man in his group who learned that, under a points system, drug use or a crime would help qualify him for housing.