Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If You Build It, They Will Come

benlandautaylor.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 228 posts

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#101

Post by xyzelement »

greekrich92 wrote: post #96
xyzelement wrote: post #32

// Lots of people have a sort of consumer attitude towards their communities, where they take everything for granted. I saw things this way when I was young. A social scene is an automatic feature of the world that appears on its own, like a wild blueberry bush. It starts sprouting parties and dinners and conferences and reading groups as naturally as the bush sprouts berries True in general. As a kid you think of th…

The subway should be free, and continuous fare hikes when you're already double paying with your eyes because of all the advertising they shove in front of you is more incentive to turnstile jump. Overpaid do-nothing senior adminstrators and lawmakers who are in the pocket of privatization are the problem, not that 17 year old.

Fares cover 40 per cent of the subway operating budget. It seems necessary revenue.

The 17 year old dodging fares becomes the 34 year old doing the same.

The percentage of fare dodgers who aren't pieces of shit in other parts of their life is zero.

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#102

Post by ButlerianJihad »

pclowes wrote: post #98
greekrich92 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subway should be free, and continuous fare hikes when you're already double paying with your eyes because of all the advertising they shove in front of you is more incentive to turnstile jump. Overpaid do-nothing senior adminstrators and lawmakers who are in the pocket of privatization are the problem, not that 17 year old.

Enforcing fares massively decreases vandalism, and antisocial behavior on public transportation. If you don’t have public transportation that I feel safe having a 10-year-old ride on unaccompanied by an adult then you do not have public transportation. You have a very expensive drug addict shelter on wheels/rails.

When I became homeless (again) about 26 years ago, the buses were a place of refuge and relaxation for me. I could easily pay the fare and stay on a long haul line. I'd be assured of safety and quietness for about 2 hours or so.

The area clinics were participating in this, because they could procure "Reduced Fare" passes that they would distribute to mentally ill patients, and we could get unlimited transit rides all month long, as long as we were still checking in, on the regular, with our case managers. Our providers would ensure that they qualified us for the "Reduced Fare" program.

After a while, the bus stops became camping grounds for street people who didn't ride. And the trains became camping grounds for people who needed to sleep. Literally, early in the morning, I would board the train and see people zonked out, with pillows, blankets, the whole bit.

Then a campaign began to clean up behavior aboard the transit system. Riders would need a destination, and fares were checked, and people were booted if they hadn't paid fares. So the vehicles themselves became quite sparse, and safer, and smelled better. But oh, the bus stops again. Everyone camped with impunity at the bus stops, and for paying passengers, it was intimidating just to beg for one place to sit down.

The transit system is undeniably safe. I am sure that 10-year-olds can ride unaccompanied. Any violence or fights, those seem to be between gangstas or people who know one another already, not just random outbursts.

Thankfully, too, they open up centers where people can chill, and get drinks of water and use the bathroom, which is honestly preferable to riding buses on false pretenses.

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#103

Post by hahahaa »

pclowes wrote: post #98
greekrich92 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subway should be free, and continuous fare hikes when you're already double paying with your eyes because of all the advertising they shove in front of you is more incentive to turnstile jump. Overpaid do-nothing senior adminstrators and lawmakers who are in the pocket of privatization are the problem, not that 17 year old.

Enforcing fares massively decreases vandalism, and antisocial behavior on public transportation. If you don’t have public transportation that I feel safe having a 10-year-old ride on unaccompanied by an adult then you do not have public transportation. You have a very expensive drug addict shelter on wheels/rails.

Right maybe we can make them free and safe? Not sure why that is not possible. Walking on the street is free. In many places it is safe too.

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#105

Post by xp84 »

colinsane wrote: post #57
xyzelement wrote: post #32

// Lots of people have a sort of consumer attitude towards their communities, where they take everything for granted. I saw things this way when I was young. A social scene is an automatic feature of the world that appears on its own, like a wild blueberry bush. It starts sprouting parties and dinners and conferences and reading groups as naturally as the bush sprouts berries True in general. As a kid you think of th…

the turnstile thing is more complex than you perceive because almost every transit system relies on public funding. here (Seattle) those fares only fund about 10% of the _operating cost_ of the transit per Sound Transit's own reports. not to derail the point, but please do go read your transit system's quarterly reports instead of taking the conclusion of fare dodging for granted. just about every city has public bud…

Not quite sure what you mean. Is it that fare dodging is fine because the taxpayers at large already pick up most of the tab? Or that fare dodging is worse than you’d think because it makes an already quite expensive thing for the public budget, even more expensive?

I’m thinking about BART right now, which really might simply go away altogether due in part to the collapse in fare revenue that remote work triggered. BART didn’t have nearly as bad as Seattle’s fare ratio though - pre-COVID, fares and parking covered 66% of the operating costs. (Source https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/BART%20FY23-32... ) This was apparently the best or one of the best of its peers. It was 28% last year, just due to the fare revenue basically halving.

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#106

Post by capnjazz »

crab_galaxy wrote: post #7

You really have to do it for the love of the game. It can be surprisingly vulnerable to be the social fabric, and it’s super easy to fall into various toxic inner dialogs when you’re busy and others don’t pick up the slack, or if others don’t reciprocate the effort, or worst of all when others don’t include you for whatever reason.

Another thing that makes this hard for me is I’m usually down for whatever. Some people I notice have strong opinions about activities, like (making up examples) thinking bowling is cringe or something in that vein. I don't really have anything I'm that against that I would kill everyones vibe for. I mostly just want to see people, so it feels weird becoming the project manager for a plan I’m completely flexible about.

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#107

Post by [deleted] »

charcircuit wrote: post #64

>If You Build It, They Will Come This is probably the worst advice I had ever heard in my life and has resulted in me wasting years of my life. It is not the act of building something that causes people to come. If you were to rent out a $10,000 venue for your awesome event. There isn't going to be some magic that causes people to come out let alone pay to let you recoup costs. Building something is the most expensiv…

[deleted]

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#108

Post by win311fwg »

embedding-shape wrote: post #16

> Lots of people have a sort of consumer attitude towards their communities, where they take everything for granted. I saw things this way when I was young. A social scene is an automatic feature of the world that appears on its own, like a wild blueberry bush. It starts sprouting parties and dinners and conferences and reading groups as naturally as the bush sprouts berries. I feel like this generally applies a lot…

> without harming others.

That's the problem. It isn't always clear to all people exactly what causes harm to others. For example, it is generally agreed upon that exposing your "nether region" is harmful to others even though all you are really doing is giving something for others to look at. Maybe some of the other weird things they see could be equally harmful? If your weird behaviour is commonly weird then you might have some precedent to look upon, but there is no way to tell what is and isn't harmful to others until it has already happened when you are being uniquely weird.

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#109

Post by [deleted] »

xyzelement wrote: post #32

// Lots of people have a sort of consumer attitude towards their communities, where they take everything for granted. I saw things this way when I was young. A social scene is an automatic feature of the world that appears on its own, like a wild blueberry bush. It starts sprouting parties and dinners and conferences and reading groups as naturally as the bush sprouts berries True in general. As a kid you think of th…

[deleted]

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#110

Post by lazyasciiart »

ryandrake wrote: post #40
dominotw wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we have tons of street festivals in chicago in summer but now they have lost been outsourced to festival companies and subsequently lost all charm and local feel. They are all copy paste of each other and outright scams. how do you make sure they have some charecter and dont turn into mc-festival

This is a huge problem with many cases of “just do something.” The minute it looks like a money making opportunity, or something that can be arbitraged, someone will inevitably turn it into a business and scale it up and now it’s no longer That Cool Community Thing. It’s yet another extractive business.

Someone tried to organize a street fair near me, did public outreach for months, and a week before the date a business owner a block away from the street fair contacted the city with a fake list of all the local businesses who said they hadn’t even known about this and it would destroy them, and the city didn’t issue the final permit. No event. (The list was known to be faked because some of the business owners listed were publicly supporting and advertising the event). So that’s the other problem with “just do something” - other people hate you and if you don’t already know the right people and how to be believed over the wrong people, you won’t get something done.
Post reply on HN