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The Disappearance of the Public Bench

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Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#221

Post by phil21 »

jancsika wrote: post #204
JuniperMesos wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not anywhere being discussed here. Chicago it may or may not get added to a dispatch call. Chances of it ever being followed up on are slim. At best you might get a patrol car rolling through a couple hours later to mark the ticket solved.

It’s a pretty common experience for anyone who is out and about using public transit in public spaces. They know nothing will be done to the suspect so what’s the point of bothering to respond at all?

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#222

Post by throwaway313313 »

next_xibalba wrote: post #5
pstuart wrote: post #2

Gosh, if only there was some way we could solve homelessness! Don't worry about it, as at least we can drop tens of billions of dollars to show the Iranians how big and powerful we are.

SF spends more per capita than anywhere in the world on homelessness. And it’s barely made a dent. The solution is upstream of money. It’s policy decisions derived from cultural values. In other places in the world, where homelessness is vanishingly rare, these people are made to choose: “you will get treatment or you will go to jail, but we will not tolerate the destruction of the commons.”

SF spending on homelessness has actually created a homeless industrial complex that thrives off of the enhancement and continuation of the "community" they serve.

The current solutions, while all well meaning or nice sounding, are essentially incentives and akin to figuring out all kinds of accelerants to throw on a fire.

The more money they spend on their current approaches the greater the homeless population they can and need to accommodate, and then even more money becomes "needed".

The problem is just about every well meaning "provide for a specific need" program creates a dependency and all of the deterrent solutions look like non solutions to all of the short term empathic people.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#223

Post by JuniperMesos »

ohnei wrote: post #190
JuniperMesos wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any meaningful public support program that actually keeps severely-mentally-ill visibly-homeless people from acting crazy in public will necessarily involve involuntarily incarcerating at least some of them, some of the time. A lot of very dysfunctional people genuinely do not want to cooperate with meaningful public support programs or are simply too out of it to meaningfully consent or not consent to participation…

That is going right back to false dichotomy. Something can be meaningful and not clean up the streets of all things uncomfortable.

Sure, but if it doesn't specifically solve the problem of cleaning up the streets of visibly-homeless people, then it doesn't solve the problem of public transit authorities wanting to remove benches from public transit waiting areas.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#224

Post by squibonpig »

scoofy wrote: post #220
squibonpig wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we neglect our duty why would we expect them not to neglect theirs?

People neglect their duty all the time. That doesn't make it okay, and it doesn't mean we should find it acceptable. Again, this is about creating a better society for everyone. If we operate a transportation system that is inefficient because many of the patrons do not want to use it because of quality of life issue, then all those gains from transportation efficiencies lost... they are lost and replaced with expens…

Man at the end of the day we're animals. When you deprive people in certain ways for long periods of time they act certain ways with high reliability. You can't blame them for that; it's like blaming the water for running down a stream. If you want to create a better society you need to give the water somewhere else to go. Duty and ethics are, frankly, useless ways to look at this problem, and all you'll achieve with this methodology is the brutalization of the already deprived. That's why I felt angry reading your comments. I figured that's what you really wanted.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#225

Post by filoleg »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #210
0xBA5ED wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I will admit, I didn't think it through super deeply, but I have a very simple (and possibly naive) proposal.

We separate them legally the same way we separate alcohol use vs. alcohol abuse. The consequences of getting caught for speeding vs. getting caught for speeding while under influence tend to drastically differ in magnitude, so I suggest we do the same for other kinds of drug abuse.

Being under influence shouldn't be a mitigating factor while committing crimes, but for non-driving offenses it often ends up being such. So I suggest we treat it the same way for violent crimes as we do for driving offenses.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#226

Post by scoofy »

squibonpig wrote: post #224
scoofy wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People neglect their duty all the time. That doesn't make it okay, and it doesn't mean we should find it acceptable. Again, this is about creating a better society for everyone. If we operate a transportation system that is inefficient because many of the patrons do not want to use it because of quality of life issue, then all those gains from transportation efficiencies lost... they are lost and replaced with expens…

Man at the end of the day we're animals. When you deprive people in certain ways for long periods of time they act certain ways with high reliability. You can't blame them for that; it's like blaming the water for running down a stream. If you want to create a better society you need to give the water somewhere else to go. Duty and ethics are, frankly, useless ways to look at this problem, and all you'll achieve with…

>That's why I felt angry reading your comments. I figured that's what you really wanted.

I'm sitting here arguing for improving outcomes for everyone and you think I'm trying to make people angry??? What?

Yes, I think analysis like the authors and yours is naive... but that is because I actually give a shit. For every one of me, there are probably a dozen folks who don't care at all, and would happily literally criminalize homelessness. I'm merely proposing that we prioritize efficient functional systems while also providing other places for folks in need to rest their heads.

That a bench in a subway system should be for people using the subway does not mean that we can't also have a bench in another place that could be used to sleep on. In a place that does not do more harm than good.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#227

Post by potsandpans »

cameldrv wrote: post #112
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.

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…

Wow, it must be true if you said it!

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#228

Post by squibonpig »

scoofy wrote: post #226
squibonpig wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man at the end of the day we're animals. When you deprive people in certain ways for long periods of time they act certain ways with high reliability. You can't blame them for that; it's like blaming the water for running down a stream. If you want to create a better society you need to give the water somewhere else to go. Duty and ethics are, frankly, useless ways to look at this problem, and all you'll achieve with…

>That's why I felt angry reading your comments. I figured that's what you really wanted. I'm sitting here arguing for improving outcomes for everyone and you think I'm trying to make people angry??? What? Yes, I think analysis like the authors and yours is naive... but that is because I actually give a shit. For every one of me, there are probably a dozen folks who don't care at all, and would happily literally crimi…

Yes, it seems like you're only focused on the disruption they cause. To paraphrase you said something like

>They'll sleep on the benches and this will cause disruption, so the benches will be removed

Why? What if we just didn't remove the benches, or we installed more? The solution you immediately reached for was to kick the homeless person off the bench while saying it was their duty not to block the bench and that if they were allowed to sleep on the bench it would, to be a little hyperbolic, cripple the transit system. I don't hear any solutions being suggested other than "kicking them off the bench" and the logic you're advocating where you blame them for their situation immediately justifies basically throwing them in jail. They failed their fellow citizens, after all.

And to be clear I know you're saying we should install more benches, but it seems secondary to you man. With how you're thinking I don't see why you think we ought to do that.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#229

Post by paganel »

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.

> I would strongly suggest studying some ethical philosophy

Now, why would I ever want to do that? What's next, starting a crypto company in the Bahamas while joining a polycule?

> 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.

No, I won't join a polycule while swindling people out of their money.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#230

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

Loughla wrote: post #38
zdragnar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These programs exist, but they are underutilized to a significant degree. From a partner who used to work in one, people: - didn't trust the program and wouldn't sign up - didn't actually want to quit using so they avoided it - wanted to get the benefits from the program without changing anything (i.e. showed up to get free food etc) - tried but didn't like it and went back to using Very few people actually went all…

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.

> I'm not convinced that involuntary incarceration will actually fix the problem.

Not to sound too crass, but doesn't that pretty much "fix the problem" (i.e. homeless people on the street) by definition?

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