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The Disappearance of the Public Bench

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Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#251

Post by squibonpig »

avazhi wrote: post #241
squibonpig wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Society would be better off without the homeless on average, objectively. Why does society have an obligation to assist and protect people who don't contribute to society? If you feel some moral imperative to assist some druggie slobbering in his own shit then by all means you do do, but don't rope me into it. The only people with any obligation to assist are their families or those whose religions command them to do…

I'll do what I can to force you to chip in, and you can do what you can to prevent me from forcing you.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#252

Post by linksnapzz »

CSSer wrote: post #179
KingMachiavelli wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I think we need to bring back corporal punishment for specific crimes. The process to arrest, prosecute, and then imprison people for "public space crimes" is basically flawed. Arresting and prosecuting is slow and expensive, prisons are full. A prison sentence destroys whatever remaining support system a person has and a conviction like that makes getting a job in the future nearly impossible. We should jus…

I suppose you really enjoyed Leviathan…

I've named servers Nasty, Poor, Brutish and Short before.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#253

Post by linksnapzz »

lobf wrote: post #185
KingMachiavelli wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I think we need to bring back corporal punishment for specific crimes. The process to arrest, prosecute, and then imprison people for "public space crimes" is basically flawed. Arresting and prosecuting is slow and expensive, prisons are full. A prison sentence destroys whatever remaining support system a person has and a conviction like that makes getting a job in the future nearly impossible. We should jus…

Too bad about that pesky “cruel and unusual” clause in the constitution for the bloodthirsty like you…

Birching minor criminals would not have been considered cruel or unusual to any of the men who wrote that clause.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#254

Post by linksnapzz »

queenkjuul wrote: post #69
Taek wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you've had a drug addict in your life at any point, and if not that is a blessing. Drug addiction is a dark place and it's very common that the availability of free support programs is entirely rejected by the user, and the only hope at a normal life requires forceful intervention by family and friends. The only way to solve drugs on the street is to look at the cities that have solved them and copy w…

Oh yeah, 60 years of arresting people in the US for drug crimes has gone so well. Couldn't be better! Cities that decriminalized have better outcomes. I hope people like you lose every election for the rest of time.

People seem to not like stepping over fentanyl zombies. It's a vote winner.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#255

Post by squibonpig »

scoofy wrote: post #240
squibonpig wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Alongside other stuff I have no issue with that, and if that's your entire point then sorry for grilling you about it.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#256

Post by linksnapzz »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #215
burnt-resistor wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tell which countries have and haven't experienced urban bombing terrorism by the style of public refuse receptacles. Before: concrete, rock, metal, and wood; after: minimal material hoops supporting transparent bags. Also, public drinking fountains I think are better signals of community commonwealth infrastructure than benches because they take more planning, infrastructure, investment, and maintenance to de…

And public restrooms. Oh, people shit on the sidewalk in your city? Huh, I wonder why that is.

Sane people who aren't under the influence of some substance, who cannot find a toilet, are not the cause of the public defecation problem.

This is an addiction/mental health/criminal justice problem-and the lack of public restrooms is downstream and not upstream of it.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#257

Post by verall »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #230
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'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?

> society has decided to stop jailing (committing) the homeless

> leaving them on the street is not helping them. committing them would give them access to (force upon them) care, and is the more humane thing to do

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

> doesn't that pretty much "fix the problem"?

Which problem? Every misunderstanding is someone replying to someone else without knowing who was replying to whom

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#258

Post by cwmoore »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #248
cwmoore wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breathing problems? Stop the breathing. Solved, by definition.

That is a completely irrelevant analogy. I wasn't advocating for the Soylent Green solution.

You seem to have missed my meaning entirely. Making a problem invisible makes two problems. Soylent Green is the opposite of the direction I would advocate.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#259

Post by cwmoore »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #189
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.

Taking the problem of crazy severely-mentally-ill people off the streets and out of the public consciousness is strictly better than having that problem be on the streets and in the public consciousness because it's happening around the public all the time. If nothing else, it reduces the chances that a random commuter will get randomly stabbed on the subway by a severely crazy person.

Rather have people hauled away on suspicion then? You know, before something happens? The people in the public places are the public. It’s likely that random stabbers have already been hauled away before for something else. You’re talking about running a training program for reinforcing the antisocial tendencies, and pensions for their paid captors.

Re: The Disappearance of the Public Bench

#260

Post by cwmoore »

fourseventy wrote: post #136
JoshTriplett wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That Venn diagram is pretty close to a circle False, and harmful. US HUD says it's ~16% of homeless people, other sources give different numbers, but it's certainly not a majority, let alone anywhere near 100%. The biggest problem, unsurprisingly, is housing cost . The US GAO states that a $100 increase in median rent correlates to a 9% rise in homelessness. Rents have gone up a lot more than that.

Walk down the makeshift tents on the sidewalks of downtown San Francisco and tell me with a straight face that only 16% of those people are addicted to drugs.

This is a textbook example of a biased observation. The conversation on this topic is so basic.
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