In this week's comments update, readers are divided over a tool that allows homeless people to earn money by posing controversial questions to passersby.
Beg the question: Japanese designer Tomo Kihara's tool for "street debating" that enables homeless people earn money without begging provoked a debate among readers around attitudes towards the issue.
"We as a community need to be engaged in bridging our similarities, not engaged in fuelling divide. Turning the homeless into political tools for an agenda dehumanises them as people," pointed out The Liberty Disciple.
"This is absolutely disgusting. It is decentralising empathy in favour of a more hollow interaction," agreed X.
HeywoodFloyd was undeterred by the negative arguments surrounding the project: "Realistic thought-provoking, easily capable of being implemented either conceptually or literally. Excellent work." Nicholas took a more balanced approach: "We can all agree that there are fierce complexities regarding homelessness and how to eradicate it. That being said, I commend this designer for investigating and conceiving a design that tries to help with the daily struggles homeless people face."
Kihara also responded to commenters himself: "Street debating is not intended to fuel divides, but to provide a space for people with differences to get together and discuss their differences."
For one reader, the design had set the benchmark for 2018.

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