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The Disappearance of the Public Bench

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Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#201

Post by joenot443 »

pocksuppet wrote: post #182
triceratops wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [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.

So the problem is that someone who does one crime is a criminal and being a criminal means someone does every crime? For example, someone who removes DRM from a video game is a criminal, and therefore he also shoots people, so we have to put DRM removers in jail to decrease shooting deaths? I have to admit, I'm not really following the logic there.

When you argue in bad faith like this you shouldn’t be surprised nobody takes you seriously.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#203

Post by jumpman_miya »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #14
strictnein wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is apparently the consensus And what a strange consensus it is. The prevailing belief seems to be that preventing people from slowly/quickly killing themselves on the street (or, more accurately, dying from addiction) is somehow not "progressive" and the moral thing to do is to pretend like these people have made the choice of their own volition and that we cannot judge them for this choice. In reality, the peop…

What a strange false dichotomy. Either we do absolutely nothing to help people, or we involuntarily incarcerate them? The actually progressive option is to provide meaningful public support programs , and also make housing affordable (by building enough housing). The US mostly doesn't do either of those, but it should.

[dead]

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#204

Post by jancsika »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #192
jancsika wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He then walked away and nothing else of note happened (aside from me spending the rest of the evening with my pulse at 140). Did you call the police after this person made a threat on your life?

What would the police do about it, arrest the homeless person? Would the local criminal justice system have the capacity to charge and convict them if the cops did so? Many of the cities where visible homelessness is a problem also have shortages of cops that cause them to triage what sorts of incidents they send an officer to respond to? I probably would not have called the police after this person if this happened…

Where do you live?

In the U.S. police will show up, investigate, and absolutely arrest someone who made a loud, direct, threat to murder another human being in public.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#205

Post by squibonpig »

jvandreae wrote: post #122
pocksuppet wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a drug-addled vagrant?

> It's amazing how much leftist discourse is just them pretending not to understand things, thus making discourse impossible. > https://x.com/MillennialWoes/status/1893134391322308918

Millennial woes dude that's fucking funny. Cooked, chopped, etc

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#207

Post by squibonpig »

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…

Why'd you say xi took power in 2019?

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#208

Post by OutOfHere »

oldsecondhand wrote: post #199
OutOfHere wrote: post #120

Having no public restrooms within a 15 minute walk is worse than having no public benches. Cities shouldn't be allowed to exist without either of them. Also, ground-level restaurants and supermarkets should not be allowed to reject non-customers from using them. Bulk urine is a good source of urea/ammonia which has commercial value, especially considering the global fertilizer shortage.

Every public toilet eventually becomes and ad-hoc homeless shelter.

Perhaps in urban settings it does. In the suburbs it is not an issue. Also, it is not an issue if someone looks after the toilet every hour, vacating anyone who doesn't belong.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#209

Post by squibonpig »

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…

Glad you can enjoy homeless people's "duty" not to lay on a bench. Do you have a duty to give them food? I'm sure you're able to justify why you don't have a categorical imperative to help them.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#210

Post by amanaplanacanal »

0xBA5ED wrote: post #176
mx7zysuj4xew wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You actually changed what I said then declared it nonsense. I said abuse, not use.

How do you separate those legally? I ask, because we are discussing using the legal system here.
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