Olympic medal-winning cyclist Rebecca Twigg is homeless in Seattle • Hacker News Board

Re: Olympic medal-winning cyclist Rebecca Twigg is homeless in Seattle

#61

Post by animal531 » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 1:21 PM UTC

trabant00 wrote: post #21

majani wrote: post #13

"Olympic medal winner" is like a golden ticket in the fitness trainer industry. There's a lot of rich people who would be willing to pay over the odds to be trained by her.

She sounds like a person who would have a hard time fooling herself into taking the money. There's little if any good a professional athlete can do for regular person who wants to get/stay fit. She's good at taking health compromises to the extreme in exchange for performance. The exact opposite of what a regular person needs.

She doesn't need to be a regular trainer, she could be training people for various kinds of extreme activities.

Re: Olympic medal-winning cyclist Rebecca Twigg is homeless in Seattle

#62

Post by jplayer01 » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

estomagordo wrote: post #47

jplayer01 wrote: post #5

She sounds like a great person and I hope things work out for her. It's hard to find the right context for her without painting her in a bad light. Some people are eager to call her (or people like her) lazy, conveniently ignoring the fact that nobody really wants to live this way. Society as it is designed now doesn't know what to do with people like her, so they're either ignored or just given shelters and... That'…

Of course it's a societal failing. Why else would homelessness be much more prevalent in some areas than in others?

What is definitively a societal failing to you is a personal moral failing to others. I don't think it helps anybody to state these things in absolutes, especially when opinions tend to vary greatly, and I was more interested in provoking discussion about the topic as opposed to making any sort of moral judgment.

Re: Olympic medal-winning cyclist Rebecca Twigg is homeless in Seattle

#63

Post by dkersten » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 1:32 PM UTC

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #39

blinkingled wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> constantly staying with friends and family I wonder if truly free living is possible - looks like someone is always paying some price/ doing unfree things to make it happen.

Brings to mind the story about CEO who doesn't have phone, but then uses employees and friends phones when "absolutely necessary". The article was about how cool and freeing it was to live without a phone...

Off topic, but I went without a phone for about 9 months (technically, I had a phone, it just wasn't connected, so it really just acted as a portable wifi device) and it really was quite liberating and freeing knowing that once I left home/the office, I was not contactable. I didn't use other people's phones, I just used the internet (on my home wifi or office wifi) to communicate with people. It did mean I had to plan things ahead of time instead of the usual quick call "hey, I'm at X, where are you" type thing, but hey, we did that before mobile phones too, without problem. The only thing I really did miss was google/apple maps.

Eventually a family member got annoyed though and bought me a new sim. :/

Re: Olympic medal-winning cyclist Rebecca Twigg is homeless in Seattle

#64

Post by aladinator » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 1:33 PM UTC

Great story.

I kind of agree with many others here that it sounds like a mental health issue. But I also think that the story is more complicated than that.

We shouldn't neglect the impact on the brain a professional sports career has. I've seen it many times. The amount of sacrifice and energy put into something like this leads to a very unbalanced lifestyle, which is usually encouraged from all sides (parents, coaches, friends). Most often, the only positive emotion athletes experience is that joy of achieving a goal, and this quickly starts becoming an addiction. Especially in sports where not a lot of money is involved, passion and perseverance play a huge role in personal motivation and these sports usually attract athletes that put everything on hold in their life for their minute in the spotlight.

Unfortunately, only a minor fraction of athletes ends their career by choice. Usually, lack of success or injuries tend to force people to retire with unfinished business. This hits the "addicted" athlete very hard, and in an environment where it is generally not advisable to show weakness, can lead to severe mental health issues quickly.

Speaking from personal experience, life is pretty dull after being forced to retire. I fell into a deep existential crisis, mostly because the thing that was responsible for most of the joy in my life wasn't even remotely fun anymore, even as a simple hobby. The fact that I knew I wasn't on top of my game anymore, and I am not investing 100% of my energy into improving made it a pretty dull experience. On top of that, most of my social environment was still connected to that sport, so I wasn't really able to walk away and focus entirely on something different. And even worse, everything else I tried felt meaningless, I felt like it wasn't worth it if I didn't invest 100% of my energy into something I was passionate about. For me, nothing compares to the joy of pursuing a passion and putting everything I have into it.

Source: myself and plenty of my friends and competitors. And yes, I got some help and things are much better now.

Re: Olympic medal-winning cyclist Rebecca Twigg is homeless in Seattle

#65

Post by abstractbarista » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

matt4077 wrote: post #40

fulafel wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lazy people of course deserve housing too.

The whole idea that somebody could be so lazy as to become homeless, without any other issues, is somewhat absurd. Being homeless is terribly uncomfortable. A truly lazy person would find it unbeatable.

It seems natural to me - a reflection of harsh reality on this planet. You work for yourself, or you perish. You see this in all living beings. We're animals just like them, bound by the same harsh rules.

Re: Olympic medal-winning cyclist Rebecca Twigg is homeless in Seattle

#66

Post by equalarrow » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 1:45 PM UTC

thrwoawer234af wrote: post #25

This is very interesting. I've always wondered about how tech jobs require endless preening and showing-off for what are often not exactly jobs that require a lot of intellectual ability. "You want a job in ML ? Yes, learn these absurd frameworks, publish a few papers in so-and-so conferences. Then we'll let you do some clickrate optimization for our website. " No wonder, tech in the US has a diversity problem. Not e…

How is that a 'diversity' problem??

Re: Olympic medal-winning cyclist Rebecca Twigg is homeless in Seattle

#67

Post by leroy_masochist » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 1:53 PM UTC

aladinator wrote: post #64

Great story. I kind of agree with many others here that it sounds like a mental health issue. But I also think that the story is more complicated than that. We shouldn't neglect the impact on the brain a professional sports career has. I've seen it many times. The amount of sacrifice and energy put into something like this leads to a very unbalanced lifestyle, which is usually encouraged from all sides (parents, coac…

> We shouldn't neglect the impact on the brain a professional sports career has.

I think this is true in the abstract, but in this particular story, there's a lot more going on. She was a homeless teenager when she was discovered as a rider, and the article strongly implies that the only stable life she's ever known is racing.

This isn't a Ryan Leaf-type story, where a talented athlete was pushed too hard by their parents, coaches, and teammates and ended up breaking under the pressure. I think Rebecca's circumstances are way more poignantly tragic.

My heart goes out to her and I hope she gets the stability and peace she seems to be searching for.

Re: Olympic medal-winning cyclist Rebecca Twigg is homeless in Seattle

#68

Post by sjg007 » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

animal531 wrote: post #61

trabant00 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She sounds like a person who would have a hard time fooling herself into taking the money. There's little if any good a professional athlete can do for regular person who wants to get/stay fit. She's good at taking health compromises to the extreme in exchange for performance. The exact opposite of what a regular person needs.

She doesn't need to be a regular trainer, she could be training people for various kinds of extreme activities.

The obvious is that she should be a coach for the Olympic cycling teams.

Re: Olympic medal-winning cyclist Rebecca Twigg is homeless in Seattle

#69

Post by ohyes » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

dpau wrote: post #59

dondawest wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less of a “free spirit” than a “treatment resistant homeless person.” Social workers know the type. She goes to pains to point out that she’s homeless by choice.

If she's resistant, it seems to be out of a sense of empathy for other people in her situation, rather than mental illness or some other issue: >“I felt at one time that I couldn’t accept housing because there were all these other people who need it” >“The point is not so much that I need help, it’s that there are a bunch of people who need help — 12,000 in this area, half a million in the country,” Twigg said. “Help…

Classifying empathy as a mental illness captures much of what’s wrong with society. Similarly, being unable or unwilling to toil away at a low paying it desk job may actually show some amount of sanity that the rest of us lack.

Re: Olympic medal-winning cyclist Rebecca Twigg is homeless in Seattle

#70

Post by equalarrow » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

angel_j wrote: post #48

Homelessness is the tip of the housing iceberg. Right behind the homeless are those who are a paycheck, or emergency, from losing everything. Behind them are millions of paying out there earnings in high rent, forced to share apartments to live where the job pays. Fronting it all are upper-middle class people, foreign investors, and venture capital, buying up properties to rent out. The cause is not a lack of "afford…

"What's not affordable is spending most of your income on rent, and this is hardly a choice for most people right now."

Not a choice? Don't you enter into a rental agreement via choice? I've never met anyone who's said they were forced to rent some place.

I don't necessarily disagree with the housing shortage, but there's reasons for that. Look at state, local laws and nimby's that pass and influence local zoning restrictions. San Francisco is a perfect example of that process gone awry.

Want affordable rent? Then you can still choose not to live in one of the areas that is anti-housing.