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The Disappearance of the Public Bench

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Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#91

Post by scoofy »

cousin_it wrote: post #90
scoofy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m saying sleeping on a bench that is meant for transit users to wait for a train is, indeed, anti-social. This is fairly trivial to demonstrate using a categorical imperative. If everyone used the transit system to sleep in, then that transit system would likely cease to exist, and the benches would not be maintained. We very much ought to have places for people to sleep. That those resources are rarely provided to…

Homeless people have no moral obligation to stay away from benches due to "solvency of transportation systems", if society doesn't care about them in return.

You seem to think need trumps all duty to your fellow citizen. I do not. By suggesting need trumps everything, you are demonstrating why the benches have disappeared.

If we live in a would where we accept that we allow some folks to disrupt complicated social programs, then those aspects of the social programs will disappear or the programs themselves will disappear.

This is exactly what the essay describes as happening. When someone on a bench disrupts the service and we will not remove the person creating the disruption, then we will end up removing the bench.

We can clutch our pearls all we like here, but people will stop using a social service they are uncomfortable using. And when they don't want to use it, they will stop funding it. As long as we live in a democracy, this will be in issue.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#92

Post by scoofy »

nextaccountic wrote: post #88
scoofy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m saying sleeping on a bench that is meant for transit users to wait for a train is, indeed, anti-social. This is fairly trivial to demonstrate using a categorical imperative. If everyone used the transit system to sleep in, then that transit system would likely cease to exist, and the benches would not be maintained. We very much ought to have places for people to sleep. That those resources are rarely provided to…

[flagged]

Firstly, I agree with you. I just don't think it's a contest, and I don't think "ranking something as worse" means the other thing should be considered permissible.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#93

Post by cousin_it »

scoofy wrote: post #91
cousin_it wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeless people have no moral obligation to stay away from benches due to "solvency of transportation systems", if society doesn't care about them in return.

You seem to think need trumps all duty to your fellow citizen. I do not. By suggesting need trumps everything, you are demonstrating why the benches have disappeared. If we live in a would where we accept that we allow some folks to disrupt complicated social programs, then those aspects of the social programs will disappear or the programs themselves will disappear. This is exactly what the essay describes as happen…

I believe in duty as much as the next guy. But duty goes both ways.

The Earth has lots of resources that are privately owned. The process by which these resources become privately owned has no satisfactory libertarian justification ("land and oil become yours when you mix them with your labor", really?) If the profit from these resources was divided equally, everyone would have enough for food and shelter. The people who have less than that are essentially victims of theft. Society should first pay these people the fair share that was stolen from them, and only then start telling them about their duties to society.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#94

Post by scoofy »

cousin_it wrote: post #93
scoofy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to think need trumps all duty to your fellow citizen. I do not. By suggesting need trumps everything, you are demonstrating why the benches have disappeared. If we live in a would where we accept that we allow some folks to disrupt complicated social programs, then those aspects of the social programs will disappear or the programs themselves will disappear. This is exactly what the essay describes as happen…

I believe in duty as much as the next guy. But duty goes both ways. The Earth has lots of resources that are privately owned. The process by which these resources become privately owned has no satisfactory libertarian justification ("land and oil become yours when you mix them with your labor", really?) If the profit from these resources was divided equally, everyone would have enough for food and shelter. The people…

Why do some people litter when they are steps away from a garbage can? Why do some people play their phones at high volume on public transit? Anti-social behavior comes in all shapes and sizes.

There is a distinction between pro- and anti-social behaviors beyond capitalist and socialist systems. You can have anti-social behavior in both systems. You can have pro-social behaviors in both systems. This should be fairly straight forward.

Not accommodating someone disrupting a service does not mean we need to be absolute pricks about it. This happens every day in public libraries, public parks, public toilets, and public transit systems. Simple because a need exists, doesn't mean the library or transit system does not also exist to meet needs.

If you think that socialism -- alone -- will end homelessness, I would ask you to check your history books. There was homelessness and vagrancy in the USSR. There are plenty of folks in San Francisco who refuse shelter when offered: https://x.com/LondonBreed/status/1734350588899717423 ... we are currently experiencing a move in large parts of the west from high-trust to low-trust societies. Much of the issues around homelessness, lack of housing, and refusal to provide adequate shelter space stem from folks engaging in low-trust behaviors, treating property as a zero-sum good, and cities as places that should exist in a type of stasis... rather than as communities that must continuously grow and change to meet needs. These low-trust issues certainly can persist in low-trust socialist societies as well.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#95

Post by [deleted] »

scoofy wrote: post #94
cousin_it wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe in duty as much as the next guy. But duty goes both ways. The Earth has lots of resources that are privately owned. The process by which these resources become privately owned has no satisfactory libertarian justification ("land and oil become yours when you mix them with your labor", really?) If the profit from these resources was divided equally, everyone would have enough for food and shelter. The people…

Why do some people litter when they are steps away from a garbage can? Why do some people play their phones at high volume on public transit? Anti-social behavior comes in all shapes and sizes. There is a distinction between pro- and anti-social behaviors beyond capitalist and socialist systems. You can have anti-social behavior in both systems. You can have pro-social behaviors in both systems. This should be fairly…

[deleted]

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#96

Post by [deleted] »

scoofy wrote: post #94
cousin_it wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe in duty as much as the next guy. But duty goes both ways. The Earth has lots of resources that are privately owned. The process by which these resources become privately owned has no satisfactory libertarian justification ("land and oil become yours when you mix them with your labor", really?) If the profit from these resources was divided equally, everyone would have enough for food and shelter. The people…

Why do some people litter when they are steps away from a garbage can? Why do some people play their phones at high volume on public transit? Anti-social behavior comes in all shapes and sizes. There is a distinction between pro- and anti-social behaviors beyond capitalist and socialist systems. You can have anti-social behavior in both systems. You can have pro-social behaviors in both systems. This should be fairly…

[deleted]

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#97

Post by cucumber3732842 »

Taek wrote: post #58
JoshTriplett wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be equating "homeless" with "drug addict". The article talks about taking away public benches because of homelessness. There are different programs needed for drug addiction than for homelessness. Not everyone who's homeless has a drug problem, and not everyone with a drug problem is homeless.

We didn't eliminate benches in public spaces because we wanted to reduce the presence of the nice, respectful, and polite homeless. We eliminated benches to reduce the presence of the problematic homeless, which has a much higher rate of drug abuse and mental illness.

>We eliminated benches to reduce the presence of the problematic homeless, which has a much higher rate of drug abuse and mental illness.

We eliminated benches to reduce the rate at which the problematic homeless cross paths with the complainers.

The DPW as an organization doesn't give a shit about how many commuter's asses a bench serves from 6am to 8pm. It just knows that every day when Karen sees a homeless man sleeping on that bench at 5AM she submits a complaint from the web form.

From their stupid "not my job, I just solve tickets" keyhole view of the situation removing the benches makes the problem smaller and they will iterate on that until complaint equilibrium is reached.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#98

Post by cucumber3732842 »

scoofy wrote: post #24

[flagged]

>Anti-social behavior can be trivially defined by a kind of categorical imperative. That is: does this behavior, if universalized, render the public service non-functional. It is increasingly naive to consider these concerns simply in a cultural context or some power dynamic.

Your own policy is anti-social then.

If we universalized your suggested policy of having strict(er?) prevention and/or (probably and) enforcement against "anti-social" (whatever that dog whistle means) behavior we would have the war on drugs but for every issue and policy area. We'd be living in more of a dystopia than we already are. The government would be subjugating us (more than it already is) rather than serving us (not that it does this much already). I think any honest assessment based on any degree of standard western/liberal (small L) assumptions about society and government would consider that "non functional".

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#99

Post by rafabulsing »

xp84 wrote: post #28
svpk wrote: post #10

I'd add that we also chose policies that made housing expensive. It used to be much cheaper to live in NYC for example, but housing options included what was essentially a dorm room with shared facilities. Those were outlawedes for various reasons. There are also a lot of other policy factors that push up housing prices. Cheap housing isn't a panacea, but if there was sub $500 dollar rent in NYC you'd see a lot less…

Idk about NYC but the people I see on fent in west coast cities’ homeless encampments couldn’t pay a $500 rent any more than they can the $5,000. They’re strung out all day long and can’t pursue any goal besides getting more drugs. On the other hand though, a lot of who’s technically homeless at any given time aren’t that chronic, mostly hopeless, and very visible set. It’s people who did lose their apartment just ba…

Most homeless people aren't born homeless. Maybe at the point they're at now, yeah, a $500 rent and a $5000 are equally inaccessible.

But for the people on the edge of homelessness, that $500 rent could be the difference that prevents them from going down the death spiral of homelessness, lack of options, drug addiction, etc.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#100

Post by 0xBA5ED »

queenkjuul wrote: post #69
Taek wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you've had a drug addict in your life at any point, and if not that is a blessing. Drug addiction is a dark place and it's very common that the availability of free support programs is entirely rejected by the user, and the only hope at a normal life requires forceful intervention by family and friends. The only way to solve drugs on the street is to look at the cities that have solved them and copy w…

Oh yeah, 60 years of arresting people in the US for drug crimes has gone so well. Couldn't be better! Cities that decriminalized have better outcomes. I hope people like you lose every election for the rest of time.

Which specific cities are you referring to that have better outcomes and which ones have worse outcomes?
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