51–60 of 199 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Your office got off lucky. I disagree. Sleeper guy wanted to crash & didn't want their hardware. There wasn't meaningful risk. I think we make the mistake that perceiving risk makes it real. It's reality that determines our actual risk tho.
They got lucky in the sense that their exit door was unlocked, and anyone (not just the sleeper guy) could have discovered it.
A couple years ago one of the devs I work with came in to the office very early for some reason and discovered a man sleeping in one of the conference rooms. After the fact we discovered that an emergency exit door wasn’t locking properly. He didn’t take anything even though he could have easily made off with tens of thousands of dollars of electronics. He just needed somewhere to sleep.
Sadly that person could be charged with a crime instead of being recognized as a person in need. We should be viewing these situations as a cry for help instead of a criminal activity. This is what I hoped the "Defund the Police" movement was targeting. Sadly that phrase had good intentions but pretty bad optics.
Other people, like the NYTimes, believe it literally means abolish the police: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sadly that person could be charged with a crime instead of being recognized as a person in need. We should be viewing these situations as a cry for help instead of a criminal activity. This is what I hoped the "Defund the Police" movement was targeting. Sadly that phrase had good intentions but pretty bad optics.
> We should be viewing these situations as a cry for help instead of a criminal activity. You're right. When we uphold a law for the law's sake, we've lost our way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or at least a meal from the restaurant.
Yea, there is that aspect of it. Ideally, I will go buy them a meal, so they can't use the money for other things. I personally don't indulge in "other things", but I don't know how concerned I am about them using the money for that either. I think it's very, very difficult for someone digging through trash to get their life together, so if they indulge, they indulge. Note that it's not a comment on their character o…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Because I'm pretty sure that the people going through the trash would stop in an instant if they were offered a better alternative. Mostly, yes. Having been homeless myself for an extended period, I saw just how much mental illnesses impact so many people experiencing homelessness. In my completely unscientific lodgings with them, I'd say its probably around 30% of the people have some sort of debilitating mental i…
Or maybe just offer them some basic food for free, so they don't need to dig in trash cans for it? At least the western societies (I don't know and have no opinion on others) are producing enough food that there is no reason not to offer some basic nutrition to everyone.
I don't understand what I said somehow excludes helping in other ways.
My views are probably a bit more radical, in that I think that everyone should have free food. Homeless, homeful, working, unemployed, citizen, foreigner. Everyone. No exceptions. And, we already have a basis to maintain this system - SNAP.
So when I talked about how to help those whom are experiencing homelessness combined with debilitating mental illnesses, I'm talking of making that program... Not by destroying other programs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> people going through your trash is quite a nuisance. Sure, but who is ultimately responsible for this, the people going through the trash, or the people who have structured our society in such a way that there are people who think their best option in life is to scavenge other people's trash? Because I'm pretty sure that the people going through the trash would stop in an instant if they were offered a better alter…
> Because I'm pretty sure that the people going through the trash would stop in an instant if they were offered a better alternative. Mostly, yes. Having been homeless myself for an extended period, I saw just how much mental illnesses impact so many people experiencing homelessness. In my completely unscientific lodgings with them, I'd say its probably around 30% of the people have some sort of debilitating mental i…
The way - the only way - my homelessness ended is I had help.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> people going through your trash is quite a nuisance. Sure, but who is ultimately responsible for this, the people going through the trash, or the people who have structured our society in such a way that there are people who think their best option in life is to scavenge other people's trash? Because I'm pretty sure that the people going through the trash would stop in an instant if they were offered a better alter…
> Because I'm pretty sure that the people going through the trash would stop in an instant if they were offered a better alternative. Mostly, yes. Having been homeless myself for an extended period, I saw just how much mental illnesses impact so many people experiencing homelessness. In my completely unscientific lodgings with them, I'd say its probably around 30% of the people have some sort of debilitating mental i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Living in one of the worse parts of San Francisco, for the past few years (west SOMA), I can say that people going through your trash is quite a nuisance. You'll put your trash out for pickup day, and a significant portion of the time, someone will come and go through it. And often as they are going through it, they will just throw random things on the ground. So our little side street kind of has a constant layer of…
> people going through your trash is quite a nuisance. Sure, but who is ultimately responsible for this, the people going through the trash, or the people who have structured our society in such a way that there are people who think their best option in life is to scavenge other people's trash? Because I'm pretty sure that the people going through the trash would stop in an instant if they were offered a better alter…
Most people who enter homelessness leave it within a couple of weeks. That’s because these are people like you and me who due to unlucky bad circumstances are out on the street. They want to get back on their feet so they take advantage of social services, don’t have drug addictions or mental illnesses, and maybe have broader support structure through friends and family.
Then you have about 40% of the chronically homeless who are unfortunately not served well by the public services. These folks have mental illness that is left untreated and it’s sad to see them die slowly on the streets. These are fellow humans who are mentally incapable of making decisions, and they need full time care or something that puts them in a safer environment. We have ignored mental illness in this country.
The remainder is basically people who willingly want to be homeless and do drugs. They won’t enter shelters because you can’t do drugs there. They won’t take up temporary housing because the hosts ask for basic decency like no raging inside.
I think we need to make a clear separation between mentally ill/addicts and those who want to just do their own thing. Ultimately I’m paying A LOT in taxes and I feel that I have a right to access the public parks and not have to deal with belligerent people who pose a safety threat to the community. I can excuse the folks with mental illnesses or drug addiction as I believe we have an opportunity to help them - but if some folks adamantly refuse help then I’m not going to settle for letting public places just become dumping grounds.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sadly that person could be charged with a crime instead of being recognized as a person in need. We should be viewing these situations as a cry for help instead of a criminal activity. This is what I hoped the "Defund the Police" movement was targeting. Sadly that phrase had good intentions but pretty bad optics.
Some people believe that phrase had good intentions. Other people, like the NYTimes, believe it literally means abolish the police: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...