Comment by MyFirstSass | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MyFirstSass | Hacker News Reader

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The US has become a frightening country in many ways to a travelling EU citizen.

I like to stroll around cities aimlessly but have met so many drug addicted, homeless and mentally unwell people just walking around like zombies with apparently no help it's almost unbelievable in the last years.

Last time i visited NY it had become so bad it honestly killed all joy - there were wandering rambling half naked people everywhere. I've never seen anything like it in the EU despite poverty in the East. I also tried taking the subway just a little bit out of the rich downtown areas and wow, abject poverty, dirt in the streets, open drug use just a few kilometers from the centre with no end in sight.

After watching various documentaries about the Sackler family and the medical industry in general i've come to one conclusion, it's entirely the fault of your own deregulated oligarch controlled system and not "the brown, yellow or russian people on the other side of earth that are doing the bad things yet again".

You have a wonderful country and so many great people so it really saddens me it's become so dystopian, so unequal and with so apparently little safety net for the very vulnerable.

> ...the fault of your own deregulated oligarch controlled system...

Follow the money... And how do you change this? The oligarchs, the 1%, make money but don't have any of the problems. How can you make them want to change and fix society?

I have argued here before that the US is not a real democracy. There are 2 parties that share power and are in service of the 1%. The rich and powerful minority has to be protected from the 99% majority of the people. How can you make the powerfull people care about all the drug deaths?

What in the world are you talking about? You're not wrong on a few points, ie. the Sackler family should all be thrown in jail for contributing to the opioid crisis. However, as someone who lives in NYC, you're spewing out a false narrative that I find offensive and inaccurate.

First off, have you ever visited a major city anywhere? You're going to see mentally-unwell drug addicts wandering around wherever you go. It's simply a fact of life in a metro area. Dirt in the streets? I mean, what are you even getting at here?

Nice, you took the subway out of the "rich downtown areas a few kilometers away". So that could be Midtown, that could be Williamsburg, that could be Downtown Brooklyn for all we know. Tell us where exactly you went that you saw "abject poverty and open drug use"? Because as someone who lives and works in the areas within the radius of what you seem to be describing, I see a vibrant, competitive, world class mecca of culture and business.

Don't ever get on here and slander NYC like that. Your cities wish they could be as cool and interesting as what we've got here. NYC is a global powerhouse and to come on here and call it dystopian is delusional.

I don't know where you're from, but I bet it's not even close to as relevant as New York City.

Not really sure if this is a parody reply because it reads like one, especially "Don't ever get on here and slander NYC like that." and "I bet it's not even close to as relevant as New York City."

These problems don't exist in many EU cities though you're claiming these problems exist everywhere.

I've seen heroin addicts aimlessly wandering around Berlin, I've seen drug addicts begging in Budapest, do you need more examples?

To say that these problems don't exist in many EU cities is a lie. What are you smoking? Because please pass it over.

> You're going to see mentally-unwell drug addicts wandering around wherever you go. It's simply a fact of life in a metro area

I often go weeks without seeing any homeless in my city and it's always a bit of a surprise when I do. I think they mostly have mental issues and drink - I can't recall any sign they were doing any other drugs.

What in the world am i talking about? I'm talking about the fact that i were there for 3 weeks the last time - lived in Brooklyn, and almost 100% of the times i took the metro downtown there were extremely unstable and mentally unwell people in each train, and often even in multiple wagons just walking around talking to people / the air / pissing themselves etc.

Absolutely nowhere in Europe will you experience that with that frequency yet, even though it's getting worse. Rough areas? Many. The weird guy here and there in the Subway, off course - but almost each and every time you drive in the subway - hard no! I lived in london for a few years and never really encountered any totally strung out people with their pants down, i did multiple times in NY in those 3 weeks.

Also off course i'm not talking about Williamsburg, a good example was going just north of the richest areas in Upper East side into Harlem, and wow what a contrast.

Contrasting that part of Harlem and the Upper East Side is like comparing one of those rough areas you mentioned to a prestigious neighborhood in the same city. What did you expect? Harlem is famous for being rough, although it's way better than it used to be.

I live here, I ride the subway every day. Are there mentally unwell people who ride the train? Sure there are. Is it even close to "100% of the time"? Absolutely not. It's like you had this fantasy about NYC and when you came here and it wasn't this sterile Disneyland you imploded. I could say the same things about Paris and London. Rampant pickpockets, drug use, poverty.

> First off, have you ever visited a major city anywhere? You're going to see mentally-unwell drug addicts wandering around wherever you go.

Yeah, no. You most definitely don't see mentally unwell drug addicts wandering about in Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore, Hanoi or Hong Kong.

Well it helps that in those cases, it's a capital offense to even possess drugs in those cities so I'll take some drug addicts in my city over living in an authoritarian police state.

Also, let's talk abject poverty and economic disparity. Take a stroll around Mumbai and you'll see human suffering on a scale that will humble you. Try being a migrant construction worker in Dubai - many will call that modern-day slavery.

Drug possession is not a capital offence in India. And despite the suffering and squalor, you still don't see mentally unwell drug addicts in Mumbai.

Also, that's quite a climbdown from your original statement.

Show me where I conceded anything.

You listed several cities, excluding Mumbai, that have some of the harshest drug laws on the planet. And I'd say that the suffering and squalor in Mumbai is more disturbing than a few mentally disturbed individuals on the subway in NYC.

Not sure how you think you're winning here.

TFA is about drug use. The comment you replied to was about visible drug addicts. You went from claiming that all large cities have drug addicts everywhere to stating your subjective preferences.

My comment was rebuttal against the overall opinion of the OP. The user was saying that NYC, and the US in general, had become frightening and dystopian. As someone who lives here, I refute that.

If you want to get into a petty argument over details of what I said, then you're missing the point.

> After watching various documentaries

Did you watch any documentaries about how it’s shipped from China, trafficked over by Mexican cartels, and entirely sold by Hondurans in SF?

I have watched it, but have you thought about why drugs have so much markets in SF, that it needs to be smuggled all the way to the other side of the earth instead of just selling them locally?

Yes, because you can sell them at a much higher profit margin in SF compared to “the other side of the earth”, even if you account for all the associated transportation costs.

I don’t think that existence of the massive purchasing power disparity between SF and countries where those drugs are manufactured is a giant revelation to most people.

So it wasn't the opioid epidemic, it wasn't the lack of safety nets, it wasn't medical deregulation and pain clinics, no it was the yellow people on the other side of earth. Jesus christ. Off course that's a problem but the way the US always blames extreme domestic problems on russians, chinese, middle easterners or anyone but yourself is pathetic in my view. You guys are the world superpower - take some responsibility, and not only by attacking or blaming other countries.

And i'm not saying this to make the EU faultless, it's a shitshow over here too and for that many people are blaming middle easternes, there's always some foreigners or far away to blame and it's embarrassing.

Last time i visited family in Manchester i saw similar developments but on a much smaller scale, and it's because of shit domestic politics not foreign actors.

Let's blame the policy makers, the plutocrats and the people with the most influence for once and not let them excuse bad developments with hybrid warfare or some other idiotic scapegoat while they sip wine from their yachts - it's the oldest play in the book.

CA has far more safety nets than people give it credit for. Medi-Cal, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Unemployment, CalFRESH, CalWORKS, etc. For sure opioid epidemic and Sacklers contributed heavily, but it's typical people would hand-wring about past problems when there are active fentanyl issues right now and causes contributing to them right now.

> no it was the yellow people on the other side of earth. Jesus christ.

In the historic visit of Xi Jinping to the US months ago, care to guess what one of the few topics POTUS and him talked about? Cracking down on shipments of fentanyl and precursors. Maybe instead, POTUS and all his advisors should've been more focused on the Sackler family. That'll sure help all those unfortunate souls dying from fentanyl today.

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