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Comment by komali2 | Hacker News Reader

Thank you for taking some of the burden there, the entire thread is infuriating because I simply can't get good, data-based positions from those that are here to cry for the blood of those they label criminals.

Regarding Healthy San Francisco, it's certainly an incredible program and a fantastic way for a city to try to address the clown show that is the American healthcare system, but it's not universal healthcare. It's missing the universal. You can be someone whose life would be dramatically improved by universal healthcare (aka a person one surgery away from bankruptcy aka the majority of Americans) and be ineligible for Healthy San Francisco.

I will however grant that it is likely the most progressive policy in the city. Even still it falls short of the most basic standards of human rights by other industrialized nations (that being access to healthcare).

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You both did a much better job answering those points than I was prepared to do, that was really nice to see.

> I simply can't get good, data-based positions from those that are here to cry for the blood of those they label criminals.

That's the nature of it, unfortunately. The people who freak out the most about murder are the most excited to call for additional murder, and the mental gymnastics needed to resolve that cognitive dissonance means you're not going to get a good faith argument. They don't even necessarily believe what they're saying in many cases, it's just lashing out after getting riled up thinking they're being targeted somehow. There seems to be a lot of that here in this thread especially, since the victim was a techie.

I try to remind myself that it's not about convincing the person you're responding to, it's about reaching who else might be reading.

It's honestly a relief to see others share my feelings on the subject. Normally when I get deep in with conservative arguments like this, I can lie to myself that probably most of the people are bots, but here that's almost certainly not the case. So, I was getting super depressed at how much "work" there is to do for implementing evidence-based judicial processes (let alone in convincing people that homeless people aren't subhuman trash), because here we have a thread of thousands of likely rich techies, ostensibly relatively well educated people, all ignoring evidence and baying for blood while engaging in outright fallacy.

I mean, check out how much the comments calling for level heads, or simply linking to contradicting evidence, are getting downvoted. It's wild, and disappointing. These are supposed to be some pretty smart people on this forum.

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