For an individual, yes. For society as a whole, no. If you have one homeless person on the street who is seen by 1000 passers-by, their discomfort on an individual basis has to only be 0.1% as much as the homeless person's in order for the aggregate cost to be the same. This is just the tragedy of the commons in another form.
It's still true even with that kind of multiplier. Would you rather see a homeless person a thousand times, or be a homeless person? It's no comparison.
But you're making a fine argument for charity. If a thousand people don't want to see a person go homeless, it doesn't take much from each of them to make it so they don't have to.
That's the wrong analogy. The correct one is: would you rather be one poor person living amongst 1000 wealthy people, or one rich person living amongst 1000 poor ones?
And if 1000 is not a big enough number to make you think twice, then make it 10,000. Or 100,000. (The number of homeless in the U.S. is considerably larger than that BTW.)
> And if 1000 is not a big enough number to make you think twice, then make it 10,000. Or 100,000. (The number of homeless in the U.S. is considerably larger than that BTW.)
You're comparing the entire US homeless population to one person. The actual ratio is less than one in five hundred.
