Hacker News Reader

Comment by cscurmudgeon | Hacker News Reader

> At the end of the day, I would love for our governments to provide taxpayer funded facilities around the city and even on several of our major highways. We used to have a lot here but they closed almost all of them.

You are almost there. Now we should ask why this happened:

> but they closed almost all of them

There is no civic sense in large swathes of the population. Strict enforcement of basic rules will help us a lot here.

View on HN

> There is no civic sense in large swathes of the population. Strict enforcement of basic rules will help us a lot here.

It won't solve the problem, and that is a ton of mentally ill people with barely to no access to adequate treatment. Locking them up in jails may help for a few days or weeks but is horribly expensive to taxpayers while still not solving the problem (or make it even worse, given how conditions behind bars tend to be).

In Japan that's not a problem. It begs the question what they do differently.

There is no way to get half of America to wear a 1-ply cotton cloth for their countrymen during a pandemic, and much of the other half is too fucking stupid to pull that cloth up over their noses even after two years of practice. I think the idea of pleasant bathrooms is a lost cause.

I don’t think the data supports this assertion. I think the perception that this is true is likely due to news click bait designed to generate revenue based on fostering outrage. Here is an excerpt from USC public health article.

Overall, since late March 2020, between 80% and 90% of U.S. adults consistently have viewed wearing a mask or face covering as an effective way to stay safe from the coronavirus, according to the Understanding Coronavirus in America Tracking Survey, an ongoing nationally representative internet-based panel survey of more than 6,000 people aged 18 and older (see Data Source).

Similarly, about 90% reported wearing a mask in the previous seven days to keep safe from the virus, although there are significant differences by locale, age, gender, race, income, education, and other sociodemographic factors. Generally, people who live in rural areas, are younger, are male, are white, have lower incomes, and have less education are less likely to report wearing masks, the survey found (Figure 1).

Source article: https://healthpolicy.usc.edu/evidence-base/most-u-s-adults-w...

Thank you, that is better than what my perception was.

10-20% is still 30-60 million which is a lot of people. One can see how you'd get that impression.

You apply the phrase "too fucking stupid" to others yet fail to mention that mask mandates are not effective:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/opinion/do-mask-mandates-...

Those "1-ply cotton cloths" do little more than prevent police from IDing ANTIFA protesters burning, robbing and generally raise hell in, e.g., Portland, Oregon (even though police will likely never do anything about it).

Clean restrooms are something we can do - it only requires will, acceptance, skill and persistence: the will to maintain certain hygeine standards, the acceptance that some tasks are unpleasant yet worthwhile, the cleaning skill (most young'uns don't know how to properly sweep a floor, much less swing a mop) and the persistence to, well, persist!

You are in a cult, but I am glad you are trying to maintain normal hygienic standards.

"cult"? Is that the "cult of people who clean their restrooms"? Are you perhaps not a member? Hmmm, I can't follow you there.

But thanks for the pat on the back and FWIW feel free to shit anywhere you want!8-)) [in CA that is]

> There is no civic sense in large swathes of the population. Strict enforcement of basic rules will help us a lot here

Strict enforcement of basic rules against a subset of the population while letting off other groups is a major contributor to the lack of civic sense.

I assure you that rich white people defecating in the streets will be treated the same way as poor brown people doing the same thing.

This is baselessly asserted: rich people consistently receive gentler treatment at the hands of the police for similar crimes[1]. Black Americans get dinged for this twice: not only are they poorer on average than Whites, but are also disproportionately likely to be brutalized or killed by law enforcement[2]. When Black people do die in custody, their deaths are more likely to be characterized with pseudomedical terms like “excited delirium[3].”

[1]: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/696355

[2]: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2022/12/22/policing_survey...

[3]: https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/About-APA/Organiza...

Per interaction they are more likely to experience violence per police office but per interaction black Americans are all about equally likely to die to law enforcement as the average.

"disproportionately likely to be brutalized or killed by law enforcement"

Hi woodruffw - what group is disproportionaly likely to kill or brutalize law enforcement? What happens when you correct for that?

ah yes the just and even handed laws that prevent both the rich and the poor from sleeping under bridges.

Yes, but those low level crimes are much more disruptive to having a safe and orderly society that’s nice to live in.

yes. We truly must crack down on these crimes that so disrupt a safe and orderly society. That said, maybe we're being slightly hasty with bringing in the criminal justice system to deal with this injustice. I think we as a society underestimate the importance of our social safety nets in the crimes of the homeless.

When you stop and think about the bigger picture, clearly it's the food banks that are responsible. By letting the homeless scum of the earth get food twice a week, we give them the feces that will just be maliciously defecated upon streets and in our businesses. Clearly we should be closing them down to preserve a nice to live in society.

> When you stop and think about the bigger picture, clearly it's the food banks that are responsible. By letting the homeless scum of the earth get food twice a week, we give them the feces that will just be maliciously defecated upon streets and in our businesses. Clearly we should be closing them down to preserve a nice to live in society.

So are you opening up your home for a total stranger to relief themselves? Why not? You seem much kinder than us folks. If enough people living in cities with this issue open up their homes to strangers in need, we won't have this issue in the first place.

I will be waiting for the eventual proof that you do so.

Hyperbole requires hyperbole ;)

I disagree. Rich white people have "a long life ahead of them" which it would be a shame to ruin for "20 minutes of action", so they would be let off without charges or without jail time, while the poor would be sentenced to the maximum penalty allowed by the law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Turner

Yeah rich white people never get 39 years in prison for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Weinstein

They get that rarely enough that it's newsworthy when they do.

So was Brock Turner.

Source needed.

By basic civic laws, I mean things like not allowing open air drug markets in downtown:

Very recent video

https://v.redd.it/x87v0nws5anb1

FFS, if you have an open air drug market, it doesn't really matter if there are public restrooms. This is one major reason why BART boarded up their restrooms in downtown SF.

"This is one major reason why BART boarded up their restrooms in downtown SF."

We live in a society where we can't have public restrooms and progressives (including virtually half the commenters here!) think that we're being too mean to vagrants. Just incredible.

Why are Tokyo and Singapore nice cities? What would they do if someone was shooting up in the streets in front of children?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com