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The Disappearance of the Public Bench

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Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#231

Post by scoofy »

squibonpig wrote: post #228
scoofy wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> 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 live in San Francisco. Our transportation systems are on the verge of collapse. The #1 concern people have about using the system is anti-social behavior.

https://www.kron4.com/news/why-arent-people-riding-bart-hint...

The transit systems have already had a $1.1 billion, and a second bailout coming this year. This is very large amounts of money wasted, that could be very easily used elsewhere. This is real money.

The system was effectively anarchy from 2020-2025, and anti-social actors made the system extremely unpleasant, even smoking on trains and platforms.

Enforcement of anti-social behavior began last year and there was an immediate burst in usage, and a non-trivial increase in revenues.

These are real, pressing issues where I live. The consequences of acquiescing to anti-social behavior is trivially demonstrated in the article. Private institutions are removing benches because anti-social behavior is affecting business, not because they’re just mean. They’re literally making their own services worse… that doesn’t happen without genuine concern.

Again, your mileage may vary. If you live in a place where anti-social behavior is tolerated, then by all means, do not remove the benches. The point of the article is that effectively universally, these behaviors do harm the level of service.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#232

Post by MathMonkeyMan »

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.

Urine can contain too much sodium, and pharmaceuticals.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#233

Post by OutOfHere »

MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #232
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.

Urine can contain too much sodium, and pharmaceuticals.

I didn't claim that filtration wouldn't be required.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#234

Post by mx7zysuj4xew »

Loughla wrote: post #172
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

Have you ever interacted with a heroine or meth user? Sometimes using drugs is fine, depending on the drug, the reason, and the person. For example, I did cocaine once and immediately knew I needed to cut ties with those friends because if I had access to it regularly, I would ruin my life. Others can do coke recreationally and not have an issue. Others can't form the insight I had until their lives are in shambles,…

  > Have you ever interacted with a heroine or meth user?
Yes, I have, and so have you. The thing is You wouldn't notice that they were in fact drug users unless they told you.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#235

Post by mx7zysuj4xew »

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.

Because the word "use" and "abuse" are interchangeable for prohibitionists

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#236

Post by awakeasleep »

rafabulsing wrote: post #99
xp84 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To support your point, we’re talking nonsense when we use the word “homeless” to describe all the different types of people who can fit that definition.

Doing that masks the fact that there are working people with housing insecurity, by putting them in the same category as emotionally disturbed drug addicts.

In every analysis I’ve seen, poor people with housing insecurities outnumber the mentally ill type homeless people by three or four to one. It’s very possible to help them, but very difficult to talk about it because everyone imagines you’re talking about the other “chronic homeless” type.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#237

Post by MathMonkeyMan »

OutOfHere wrote: post #233
MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urine can contain too much sodium, and pharmaceuticals.

I didn't claim that filtration wouldn't be required.

This made me go down a rabbit hole of techniques for separating sodium and chloride from urea/ammonium/ammonia solutions. I wonder if it could ever be made viable when compared to the Haber process for ammonia production.

Also, phosphorus is the more scarce fertilizer, I think. I remember reading a paper from a Chinese lab that was trying to figure out how to cheaply isolate phosphorus fertilizer from commercial pig farm feces. They decided it wouldn't be cost effective.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#238

Post by squibonpig »

scoofy wrote: post #231
squibonpig wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 live in San Francisco. Our transportation systems are on the verge of collapse. The #1 c…

I'm aware of the problem. I live in Sacramento, up until recently I lived in LA, and I visit San Francisco often. The place we will disagree is solutions. Your language constantly implies stuff without saying it outright, and it makes me think the solutions you find attractive will differ, and it makes me think your motivation is the well-being of people who aren't homeless (for now) at the expense of those who are.

Let's take pooping in the street. I figure we can call this an anti-social behavior. I see two reasons someone would do this:

1. They need to shit and have no restroom. Presumably even then they'd still try to get some privacy, which leads me to

2. They're fucked in the head, completely calloused to it out of years of living like that, or off their ass on something (or choose multiple). Now the act is "anti-social" in technicality, but of course this person is just messed up and needs serious help. They aren't out to bother you or destroy society or whatever, and the solution isn't whacking them harder with a baton so they make the correct choice of not shitting there, it's not a choice.

Say we adopt the simplest policy that seems to directly follow from your outlook. "It is now a crime with a 1 year minimum or something to voluntarily shit on the street." By extension all you're doing is moving the crazy or drug addicted people into prisons. Prisons aren't built to help people, they're generally thought of as punishment and administered as such. So you're taking a bunch of people many of whom are not beyond help and happen to just be fucked up or addicted to something, and shunting them off into a torture cage because you don't want to see them shit on the street. What am I missing?

I'm not saying you should do nothing and let them shit on the street. The solution just needs to recognize that we're dealing, generally speaking, with people who need help. It would involve investment and well-designed systems built with the goal of helping those people, and most importantly an attempt to build more of a safety net to keep people from falling into that state. I'm inferring from how you talk about this that you would disagree. Word choice like "anti-social actor" (as though they just want to give people a hard time for the fun of it) or "asquiessing" (as though a large coordinated group just wanna shit on the street and do heroin because it's fun and everyone is just unwilling to do what needs to be done) and "enforcement of anti-social behavior" (as though policing the symptom is anything other than just criminalizing homelessness to shunt them off out of sight) makes me think you're approaching this from a counterproductive angle. There is a problem but what you're describing is a bandaid, and if I'm inferring correctly it's also cruel.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#239

Post by scoofy »

paganel wrote: post #229
scoofy wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm just a fairly boring nerd who studied philosophy in college and grad school.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#240

Post by scoofy »

squibonpig wrote: post #238
scoofy wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 live in San Francisco. Our transportation systems are on the verge of collapse. The #1 c…

I'm aware of the problem. I live in Sacramento, up until recently I lived in LA, and I visit San Francisco often. The place we will disagree is solutions. Your language constantly implies stuff without saying it outright, and it makes me think the solutions you find attractive will differ, and it makes me think your motivation is the well-being of people who aren't homeless (for now) at the expense of those who are.…

>By extension all you're doing is moving the crazy or drug addicted people into prisons.

Prisons? What, no. You don't got to prison for falling asleep in a bar. You just get asked to leave. That's all I'm suggesting for high-cost city services, that they actually enforce the rules, and ask people who are breaking the rules to leave the premises.

Obviously, the services must be valuable enough to enforce, but BART and Muni are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenues every single day due to anti-social behavior (SF Muni loses about $750,000 every single day to fare non-payment alone), so it trivially justifies having folks out here issuing citations and asking people to leave the service.

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