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The Disappearance of the Public Bench

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Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#151

Post by jdw64 »

guilhas wrote: post #143
jdw64 wrote: post #44

I think the reason most people do not sympathize with this argument is that most HN readers are programmers, and many of them are still in a relatively secure class position. Traditionally, programming has had a high barrier to entry, but it has also been a profession where compensation has remained relatively strong. As societies become harsher under pressure from high housing costs and economic displacement, they t…

Your comment sounds like half LLM slop, half confusion

English is not my native language.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#152

Post by InsideOutSanta »

triceratops wrote: post #121
pocksuppet wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically the problem is that productive members of society and drug dealers are incapable of existing near to each other? Why is that? I pass by some drug dealers sometimes on the way to work. I don't see the problem. Occasionally I get asked if I want to buy some drugs. I don't want to buy drugs so nothing else happens.

> [why are] productive members of society and drug dealers incapable of existing near to each other? Drug dealers are criminals. Criminals commit other crimes and attract other criminals and crime. For example, rival drug dealers who want to take their spot and use violence.

Seems like something decriminalizing drugs would solve then.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#153

Post by InsideOutSanta »

HEmanZ wrote: post #146
mmooss wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'I think you would be better served by not posting to social media and studying personal liberty and ethics.' Should I be able to enforce it? I think people who make comments like those above are much more dangerous than people on the street - the people on the street can't really do harm. Thankfully, we do have liberty, and they can do what they want - and I can do what I want - and it's none of your business whethe…

Yes the guy who screamed “I’m going to f*ing kill you!” Out of nowhere at my daughter and then chased us, or set fire to random trees in my neighborhood for fun, or cut the copper wiring off the side of my house, or took sledge hammers to local park statues, these people are definitely not a problem. No the problem is really the people who think it should stop. Those horrible, insensitive people. They’r being so self…

You are describing actual crimes, not homelessness. Nobody is saying that people who are violent should just be left to their own devices.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#154

Post by ipaddr »

ratelimitsteve wrote: post #145
cameldrv wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a very good friend who was an addict, and I tried to help him turn his life around in many ways, but I couldn’t figure out a way. Professionals told me “he has to hit rock bottom.” Anyhow he wound up getting arrested and spent a couple of weeks in jail where he got clean and decided to turn his life around. He went on to get a couple of masters degrees, get married, have two kids, and has a good job. He credit…

I have a friend who picked up heroin in jail, came out an addict and died of an OD in his basement. His daughter found him. If your anecdote can prove your point, then mine can disprove it.

I think I know that family. Didn't the daughter get beat up everyday by that father and that's why he went to jail. Her life is so much better now.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#155

Post by jmyeet »

nradov wrote: post #123
jmyeet wrote: post #32

I believe expensive housing is at the root of many societal problems, it's not even funny. We don't have park benches because we've adopted hostile architecture to keep out "undesirables". This mostly means "homeless people". But why are there so many homeless people? The primary reason is housing unaffordability [1]. One of the funny things about China is that there are a lot of "experts" who insist on reading the t…

You're spreading a common misconception. No one really "owns" a home in China. What they're usually purchasing is a 70-year lease on the land. The hope is that the lease can be renewed on favorable terms but there's no guarantee.

This is misleading, arguably false.

All land in China is state-owned. You own the building. You don't own the land the building is on. In this way, it's really no different to leasehold in the UK or land-lease in NYC. Do we say that all these UK leaseholders don't really "own" a house? Is there the same fearmongering?

And in the UK, it's often the Royal Family or some aristocratic landholder who owns the land (eg the Duke of Westminster owns an awful lot of London land) whereas in China, the lease renewal is essentially automatic and there's no property tax or land lease that gets paid.

It's also worth adding you never really truly own property anywhere. The government is free to change their mind at any time. And they do. All the time eg eminent domain.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#156

Post by mx7zysuj4xew »

0xBA5ED wrote: post #47
Loughla wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to that question in a society that allows (mostly) autonomy of choice is that we let them die on the street. I'm not convinced that involuntary incarceration will actually fix the problem. I believe it will just take it off of the streets and out of the public consciousness.

Not a great solution, honestly. Long term drug abuse is almost never a victimless habit. I'm tempted to say never.

This isn't the 1980s anymore. Using drugs is perfectly fine. A ton of people here on HN take drugs regularly, but few think it's worth to rock the boat against this kind of nonsense you're spreading

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#157

Post by mlsu »

showerst wrote: post #150
mlsu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in California, there are a lot of public support programs. I mean, a looooot of public support programs. A LOT. Like, to the point where the state is spending tens of thousands of dollars for each homeless person, and probably north of $100k per person per year for a subset. Talk to a firefighter or paramedic in a CA city sometime. They will tell you, there's "regulars" that they have to deal with every sing…

I mostly agree with your points, but I think the involuntary incarceration is a major rock and a hard place situation. There are definitely people for whom it would be a compassionate (and often societally optimal) thing to do. Giving the government the power to decide to take people away indefinitely is just a spectacularly bad precedent. Especially right now.

Yes, you have to be very, very careful. Lots of abuse with involuntary commitment, that's part of why it was abolished so completely.

I mean the reason this is a pipe dream and we all just opt to deal with it is that our state/institutional capacity has been eroded so completely. So, we just take away the public benches and call it a day.

The cruel way to do this is to just criminalize the behavior and then move all these people into the prison system. I think that would be a moral sin, but I see why people go there -- the alternative would be to construct a totally new, parallel mental health system with kinda like a jury/parole board type system, representation, and so on, and make it explicitly not part of the criminal justice system. Since the point is rehabilitation, not justice. All that would probably be insanely expensive, but a society focused on the humanity of its citizens would probably see it as worthwhile. Our society unfortunately, just does not see its citizens that way.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#158

Post by chadgpt2 »

scoofy wrote: post #141
paganel wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If everyone used the transit system to sleep in Nobody ever does that, whatever a "categorical imperative" might be or represent. But not having benches because a victim of capitalism might, Heaven forbid, sleep on it, is the epitome of cultural and societal barbarism. Countries that do that are not part of civilized society, they might be wealthy, and many of them are (I've seen a similar philosophy in regards to…

>whatever a "categorical imperative" might be or represent If you do not understand the concept of a categorical imperative, I would strongly suggest studying some ethical philosophy. There are folks that have spent lifetimes trying to figure out the best ways to see human flourishing, and they have some very, very good ideas.

Another categorical imperative is "everyone who is bullied by the city and only allowed to sleep in the transit system shall sleep in the transit system"

This one is fine. If the city doesn't like it, it should legalise sleeping on park benches.

Another one is "it costs society nothing if you occupy an empty seat on a nearly empty car". Most people don't sleep in the transit system when the transit system is busy, anyway, because why would you sleep in such a noisy place? They are there at quiet times because they don't have a better place. They don't like it any more than you do.

Another one is "everyone is equal". People here are complaining that a homeless person sleeping on park benches takes away their ability to sit on them. But why is sitting considered more valuable than sleeping? Or why should the benches be reserved for people who HN readers agree with?

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#159

Post by mmooss »

HEmanZ wrote: post #146
mmooss wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'I think you would be better served by not posting to social media and studying personal liberty and ethics.' Should I be able to enforce it? I think people who make comments like those above are much more dangerous than people on the street - the people on the street can't really do harm. Thankfully, we do have liberty, and they can do what they want - and I can do what I want - and it's none of your business whethe…

Yes the guy who screamed “I’m going to f*ing kill you!” Out of nowhere at my daughter and then chased us, or set fire to random trees in my neighborhood for fun, or cut the copper wiring off the side of my house, or took sledge hammers to local park statues, these people are definitely not a problem. No the problem is really the people who think it should stop. Those horrible, insensitive people. They’r being so self…

> Every one of these is a true example I have witnessed, along with too much other insanity to write down, from just the last year in Seattle

Now that you bring it up, it looks to me like you're exaggerating or extremely unlucky. It reminds me of the litany of crimes people claim happen with immigrants; weren't they eating the cats in one town?

Somehow in my experience in urban life, in many different neighborhoods, I haven't encountered a fraction of what you claim to have seen in the last year, and all the things you describe are so dramatic, while much of what I do know about, not experienced, is mundane and depressing. And of course, nobody would live in cities if things were that bad.

As someone else said, crimes are crimes; plenty of housed people commit them too. I see unhoused people every day and interact regularly, and I haven't seen a crime (of course, crime happens in any population).

Isn't liberty and human rights more important than whatever you're trying to accomplish? You diminish it for others, yours is diminished too.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#160

Post by chadgpt2 »

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…

The USSR did massively reduce homelessness by providing homes. They discovered the surprising fact they if someone has a home they are not homeless.
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