Hacker News Reader

Comment by NeoTar | Hacker News Reader

> Also, what are they allowed to do?

If the law in England were to be similar to the one in Scotland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Outdoor_Access_Code), then "access rights can be exercised for recreational purposes, some educational activities and certain commercial purposes, and for crossing over land and water."

"Access rights do not extend to motorised activities... Access rights do not include the right to hunt, shoot or fish... Gathering items such as mushrooms or berries for commercial gain is not covered by access rights; but the customary picking of wild fungi and berries for personal consumption is not prohibited under the code."

"Wild camping, defined as lightweight camping by small numbers of people staying no more than two or three nights in any one place, is permitted under the code. ... The code requires that campers leave no trace, and must take away all litter, remove all traces of the tent pitch and of any open fire, and not cause any pollution"

So, homeless encampments are not permitted since these would not fall under this code.

View on HN

> are not permitted since these would not fall under this code

The thing is, the law/code only matters if it is enforced. I have little faith this will be enforced enough to be a deterrent when much more important things like shoplifting, bike or phone theft have effectively been decriminalized by lack of enforcement.

Edit: to be clear I am just playing devil's advocate here. I am in favor of "right to roam" laws, just pointing out that restrictions in the law by themselves don't mean anything unless they're followed up by adequate enforcement to deter the prohibited behavior and systemic changes to make said behavior unnecessary in the first place (in case of homelessness for example).

Scotland doesn't have the extreme levels of inequality that result in extreme levels of shoplifting, and therefore the shoplifting comparison doesn't hold up.

Inequality isn't the correct term. It's poverty, drug abuse and mental illness. Poverty still isn't a green light to commit crimes though. There are plenty of places to seek help legally. Crime is as much a cultural problem as anything else.

> Inequality isn't the correct term. It's poverty, drug abuse and mental illness.

...relative to others with less of that; hence an inequality.

It's absolute poverty, drug abuse, and mental illness that constrain people's circumstances and influence their decisions. How similar or dissimilar a person's circumstances are to those of strangers they have no relationship with are not relevant.

The problem is the large amount of people with nothing to loose and no realistic path to a better future. If your day to day reality is as bad as jail, you might as well shoplift or camp illegally or whatever. What are they going to do? House and feed you?

There are plenty of government programs and nonprofits that help the needy. They work for 80% of the homeless.

The issue with the chronically homeless who make up the other 20% is that they refuse the help because they don't want to follow rules such as curfews and no drugs & alcohol. The main reason for this is that most of them suffer from mental illness. This is a medical issue.

You're forgetting the tremendous number of homeless who simply die.

Also, the US is incapable of even reproducing itself, which falls far short of my definition of "works."

I'm not forgetting them. They fall into the category of 20% of the homeless who are mentally ill, and who need to be supervised in a safe medical facility. However, we cannot do that without their consent, and they will not give their consent in the majority of cases for the same reasons that they refuse help from government programs and non-profits. I'm also not sure that these people, suffering from mental illnesses like schizophrenia, are cognizant enough for giving consent.

>However, we cannot do that without their consent

>they will not give their consent in the majority of cases for the same reasons that they refuse help from government programs and non-profits.

...because of the underlying mental illness.

Do you really believe that you can get consent from this group of people who you say should be in medical facilities, when they have self-sorted into that group mostly by being too unwilling or unable to conform to any rules or structures?

No, which is exactly why I pointed it out as a problem.

> You're forgetting the tremendous number of homeless who simply die.

A lot of that is exactly for the reason the previous comment points out: mental health issues that unhoused people refuse to get treated. As someone who now works in that field, that person is correct. There is no way for case managers to "make" them get help. If the person is having a non-violent incident, then no one can really assist unless the person wants help. Even in some violent cases, police and PETs (Psychiatric Emergency Teams) can't help.

I work with the unhoused in LA, a city with one of the highest unhoused population counts. There is very little we can do if the people don't want help, which is a bigger majority than you assume. We also have a housing shortage for people that can afford rent, let alone landlords willing to help the unhoused. You make it sound easy, but it seems to me, you actually have no real experience in the field, which may be fine. But don't say a system isn't working when the services system can't help those that really need it.

Sure, maybe the US government can do more. They provide a lot of our funding and we also get a lot of assistance from private donors. But at this point it's yelling into the wind. Without fully supportive communities and government assistance, we're really moving nowhere. And it isn't just some shortcomings of the government. It's also private property NIMBY types that don't want services in their area. Example: our main office is in the Venice/Santa Monica area. We have rules and regulations brought upon by local NIMBYs on what time we can be there, who can be there, what services we can provide, and more. So while we help the unhoused in that area, we have offices elsewhere that some clients can't make it to, which reduces the assistance they are able to receive.

So while it's easy to say "it isn't working", how hard has everyone else really tried? I don't see many people quitting their dev jobs to make 1/2, sometimes 1/4 of the wage to do a more strenuous job. The only reason I did is because the agency I now work for also helped me when I was on the streets and they're willing to pay me more because of my lived experience. I still do web dev and IT stuff on the side to make up some of the wages I lost transitioning, but it was somewhat difficult to adjust to.

So, what are your experiences helping the unhoused?

How have you been able to help those around you?

How were you able to help those that refused?

Do you have a contact list of agencies that may help theunhoused? If so, can we collaborate so hopefully more people can get assistance? Well, maybe not, since you're probably in a different part of the world than me, but here's a starting point for the LA area: https://www.lahsa.org/get-help. Also on that site is a careers page that has a full listing of agencies in the different SPAs in LA county.

But if you know of national agencies that can assist the unhoused population, please, let me know. We are in dire need of real assistance, not empty words.

Edit: spelling

We would, as a culture, have to make and act on the value judgment that dying in the streets, paired with all the other social ills that accompany having long-term homelessness, is sufficiently bad to justify involuntarily committing the mentally ill to secure facilities. Do you see that happening?

That doesn't have to happen when locals can help their local community. Do you see yourself trying to bring community together to help? Have you tried discussing homelessness with public fugures? Celebrities? Anyone besides complaining that nothing works?

Grassroots movements start at a local area and grow, particularly where government doesnt help. What have you done besides make an excuse for taking action? Do you really think that being a random person complaining on the internet is actually helping the people you say need help?

I noticed you didn't answer any of my questions. Just filled space with empty words.

Again, I ask, what have you done to help unhoused people? Besides finding excuses why it won't happen, then complaining nothing gets done.

What you don't seem to understand is sitting around comfy and cozy in your residence complaining about stuff doesn't actually solve anything.

What needs to happen is individuals, such as yourself, actually need to try and help the unhoused instead of crying that the government doesn't do enough or that people as a whole will never make it happen.

How much of your life has actually been spent assist8ng others instead of being cynical and doubting? How many excuses have you made up in order to not help? I get that complaining on the internet is "cool" nowadays, but with society growing larger, we need more people to help instead of crying and whining about every step of the process (see my previous comment about NIMBYs). But everyone just wants to complain and be seen as someone who cares instead of actually doing it.

So again, what have you done to help? Because being upset nothing/not enough is being done and finding excuses to not do anything is quite frankly, useless.

I don't think I purported to solve anything, nor was I particularly upset. Disappointed or resigned, probably. I think we've denied ourselves the possibility of fixing anything. I could probably be convinced of the possibility of meaningful improvement, but I'm mostly skeptical.

I don't really do anything, other than giving food and whatever else the food pantry people ask for. I guess I theoretically try to improve the homeless vet problem, before they're vets...

>Also, the US is incapable of even reproducing itself, which falls far short of my definition of "works."

Not to say this is a non-issue (it's hugely important), but it seems a bit odd in a context where Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Sub-Saharan Africa (plus a few central Asian and South American nations) hadn't really been invoked

>Inequality isn't the correct term. It's poverty, drug abuse and mental illness.

Inequality is absolutely the correct term. The rich wield their means to exploit the poor. Without the rich, the poor are not exploited and poverty, drug abuse, and mental illness all decline. Every. Single. Time.

> Inequality isn't the correct term. It's poverty, drug abuse and mental illness.

Just curious where you think those last 3 things stem from.

Drug abuse and mental illness are much more prevalent in those worst off economically. Poverty (in developed countries) is almost always a result of inequality due to bad policies (lack of social safety nets).

> Crime is as much a cultural problem as anything else.

Right, part of crime is cultural, and part is economic. But culture is also determined by lack of access to economic opportunities.

> Drug abuse and mental illness are much more prevalent in those worst off economically. Poverty (in developed countries) is almost always a result of inequality

If the first half of your statement is true, then why do the billions of people subsisting on a few dollars a day around the world do not have society-wide problems with drug abuse and mental illness? Or are you implying that this causation only happens in developed countries?

What can you do to refute the idea that instead of drug abuse and mental illness being caused poverty, the same factors that predispose one to drug abuse and mental illness also predispose one to poverty?

> culture is also determined by lack of access to economic opportunities

Similarly, it's rather the other way around; lack of access to economic opportunities is caused by a culture that values human capital less. Of course, the two compound over time; but history is empirically full of examples of minority cultural groups that were discriminated against (whether legally, socially, or otherwise) but nevertheless succeeded economically due to the culture placing a high value on human capital[0].

[0]: Sowell, T. Discrimination and Disparities.

> then why do the billions of people subsisting on a few dollars a day around the world do not have society-wide problems with drug abuse and mental illness? Or are you implying that this causation only happens in developed countries?

As stupid as the idea that inequality in itself causes these problems is, it doesn't have trouble explaining why this would only happen in developed countries.

Historic levels of inequality, including urban "anyone can easily see that their downstairs neighbor is a hundred times richer than they are" inequality, were much greater than modern ones and involved a lot less social pathology; maybe look in that direction.

> What can you do to refute the idea that instead of drug abuse and mental illness being caused poverty, the same factors that predispose one to drug abuse and mental illness also predispose one to poverty?

Looking for a root cause seems unnecessary for this question; mental illness can easily just cause poverty directly.

> Historic levels of inequality, including urban "anyone can easily see that their downstairs neighbor is a hundred times richer than they are" inequality, were much greater than modern ones and involved a lot less social pathology; maybe look in that direction.

That one is absolutely not true.

Why do you think we no longer have servants?

Which part's not true, that inequality was lesser in the past, or that social pathology is more today?

Inequality was lesser in the past. Way less.

"Social pathology" is way too undefined a term for me to argue with.

You'll want to be careful about what you measure.

For example, we generally take Forbes as an authority on who's rich, but really rich people tend to be excluded from consideration, because Forbes can only measure certain kinds of wealth, and even when people's wealth mostly exists in that form, it can be hard to see.

Don't confuse a convenience metric with actual inequality.

> Inequality was lesser in the past. Way less.

I'm struggling to understand this one. Are you talking about the times of the cavemen, when I suppose everyone was equally materially poor? And yet you had other kinds of inequality back then, such as a bigger and stronger caveman being able to kill you and take your stuff, since there wasn't such a thing as a society or rule of law to protect you.

Or are you referring to the vast majority of people who for the vast majority of recorded history who lived in systems that elevated certain bloodlines above others, legally and culturally, and sometimes even to the status of gods? Certainly you cannot claim that, say, Queen Victoria and the common Englishman were more equal than King Charles is to his average subject, in every possible way.

Poverty can also cause mental illness.

This is pretty unlikely from a Darwinian perspective.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27157/w271...

What the fuck are you even talking about?

I think the direction of causality does bring into question what the expectations are for an egalitarian society is.

Is a society just if people with drug abuse, mental illness, and general dysfunction have equality of outcomes?

Of course, this simplistic debate belies the fact that all of these attributes have multifactorial causes, and most are in cyclical feedback with each other.

Dysfunction begets poverty begets dysfunction. No single intervention is socially curative outside of storybook logic.

Getting on my podium, I think that these factors are worse in developed societies than poor one (which often have greater inequality) for numerous reasons:

First would be the visibility of inequality. Next would be culture of material consumption. Next would be breakdown of social community (and the efficacy of social norms).

I think this explains why this types of behaviors are seen more in places like the US, which has a longstanding culture of materialism and individualism. I think it also explains why the behavior is more pronounced for outgroups and fractured broken communities.

This further explains why some groups within the US with strong social community have relatively low crime rates despite very poor economic conditions

>If the first half of your statement is true, then why do the billions of people subsisting on a few dollars a day around the world do not have society-wide problems with drug abuse and mental illness?

They don't live in societies with extreme inequality and precarity. Under capitalism, inequality is the problem, not merely poverty.

This is a stupid take, frankly. Lots of crime in major American cities would go away if much more affordable housing was available. High cost of living causes poverty and stress, which can lead to drug use and mental illness. It's very obvious that these things are related.

We tried building solid but low-frills housing developments in major American cities that impoverished people could live in for basically no cost. They became crime-infested hellholes.

If low cost housing is the silver bullet that solves the whole issue why doesn't the existence of low cost housing elsewhere solve the problem? The one time cost of transport to those locations would be insubstantial and irrelevant.

I'm not even sure inequality/poverty is the main driver. If there is no penalty for shoplifting then it just makes sense to shoplift no matter your financial situation.

It's just that for a long while, enforcement or the illusion of there being enforcement mostly kept everyone in order, but nowadays the illusions are breaking down. More and more people are pushing the boundaries and realizing that no actual enforcement is happening, so why should they stop?

We see the same in white-collar crime where companies constantly push the boundaries in blatant bad faith and this keeps happening because the illusions that kept everyone in order have broken down and actual enforcement isn't sufficient to deter the bad behavior.

Keep in mind that shoplifting isn't merely a survival issue, there are "professionals" who steal for resale.

"If there is no penalty for shoplifting then it just makes sense to shoplift no matter your financial situation." True sociopath logic, my man.

Most people do not base their actions on some kind of spreadsheet where they are optimizing for economic success. Many people, I hazard to guess most, base their behavior on some sort of pile of moral ideas and/or general bonhomie. Most people are pretty chill and don't want to screw around with other people's livelihoods regardless of legal consequences.

> Many people, I hazard to guess most, base their behavior on some sort of pile of moral ideas and/or general bonhomie

How do you then explain every company out there being hostile to their customers and constantly pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable, or even things like wage theft which is surprisingly common? Or is there a double-standard here, where individuals are supposed to act in good faith but companies are not just allowed to be assholes, but rewarded for doing so by the market and lack of adequate law enforcement actions?

It's true that morality and good-faith behavior has mostly kept things working well, but it's clear that morals and good faith alone isn't good enough since there are entities that abuse the system so laws and enforcement should be there. If it's not, then I'm not going to be particularly angry about the little guys acting antisocially when the entire economic system is encouraging & rewarding it.

Look at it from an IT security perspective: it's great that most users are acting in good faith and are not trying to exploit your system, but you still need to plan for the worst and make sure your system can survive hostile encounters. The same should apply to our legal system.

> How do you then explain

Companies are sociopathic and we haven't figured out a good way to deal with this.

> you still need to plan for the worst and make sure your system can survive hostile encounters

Sure, but that's pretty different from saying it "just makes sense" to be a hostile actor.

> sociopathic and we haven't figured out a good way to deal with this

Great, so let's start dealing with this rather than continuing the double-standard where the big guys are allowed & encouraged to behave antisocially while the little guys are shamed for it.

Until this is addressed, I'm not particularly surprised to see the little guys start acting anti-socially too; it makes perfect sense in the system of incentives we currently live in. Some people are lucky enough to survive while acting morally, but I don't think it's fair to be angry at those who don't instead of addressing the systemic problem that encourages antisocial behavior, both individual & corporate.

There have always been sociopaths, and it hasn't caused everyone to act like sociopaths. So that right there breaks the "perfect sense" claim.

The design of companies (especially limited liability companies, but many other aspects as well) diffuses the moral/aesthetic implications of decision making while concentrating the fiduciary implications, thus leading to behavioral patterns which are pretty inhuman.

I'm not arguing that there are not some bad actors - this is clearly and obviously true. I think the legal system should act in whatever way optimizes its goals (presumably, the flourishing of living things or something) and I tend to think the punitive impulse typically doesn't do that. It's main appeal is that it feels good to imagine someone getting punished.

> I tend to think the punitive impulse typically doesn't do that

Well when it comes to companies the punishment and deterrent should be monetary damages that will effectively make the undesirable behavior unprofitable and thus discourage it in the future.

But we're not doing that, setting the standard that antisocial behavior is acceptable (and rewarded by the market by being more profitable than acting honestly), thus it is no surprise that the little guys have a go at it (and guess what, since we're not punishing that either, there is no downside to doing it repeatedly).

> Look at it from an IT security perspective: it's great that most users are acting in good faith and are not trying to exploit your system, but you still need to plan for the worst and make sure your system can survive hostile encounters.

I think this is exactly the opposite of the right perspective for law and ethics. Society runs on trust, the more trust the better. ITSec runs best on zero trust. Applying the latter to the former lead to absurdities like "code is law" "smart" contracts.

> If there is no penalty for shoplifting then it just makes sense to shoplift no matter your financial situation.

And yet enforcement isn’t as strong of a predictor of shoplifting as poverty/inequality.

It’s like the joke - I murder as much as I want and it’s not the fear of enforcement that keeps the number at 0. It may be why you aren’t shoplifting but please don’t extrapolate to the rest of us.

> We see the same in white-collar crime where companies constantly push the boundaries in blatant bad faith and this keeps happening because the illusions that kept everyone in order have broken down and actual enforcement isn't sufficient to deter the bad behavior.

White collar and petty theft are very different. The simplest proof is that white collar crime as a concept didn’t even exist until the 20th century whereas petty theft has existed forever.

> enforcement isn’t as strong of a predictor of shoplifting as poverty/inequality.

I agree because there's still some morality left. But morality itself can change, and if deviance is normalized by lack of enforcement we might very well end up in a situation where nobody thinks twice about shoplifting, just like when it comes to white-collar crime which is already normalized and keeps being rewarded by the market again and again, so it's not really surprising that more and more "blue-collar" crime is happening.

> White collar and petty theft are very different

Why? Are you saying stealing a 3£ chocolate bar is bad, but doing the same in software via a hidden fee or some arcane clause in the ToS that nobody read (and thus did not agree to) is acceptable? In both cases someone is out 3£.

> I agree because there's still some morality left. But morality itself can change, and if deviance is normalized by lack of enforcement we might very well end up in a situation where nobody thinks twice about shoplifting

That’s a strong claim, but is there any scientific basis for claiming that enforcement creates morality? Anecdotally I see morality police in super religious communities and all it seems to enforce is the appearance of morality but actually people are chafing against it and subverting it all the time - if anything the repression seems to create higher incidence of violent and sexual crimes. As for police, I haven’t checked recently but the number of police officers and the amount of crime that occurs seems to be fairly uncorrelated which is not supporting the hypothesis that more enforcement = better morality and less crime.

One place I saw this play is out is in the Bahamas where you and super rich white people putting up huge fences claiming that the locals had a culture of theft - if it’s accessible steal it - when the simpler, but more uncomfortable truth, seemed to be that poverty and inequality creates resentment and the amount of inequality was quite extreme.

> Why? Are you saying stealing a 3£ chocolate bar is bad, but doing the same in software via a hidden fee or some arcane clause in the ToS that nobody read (and thus did not agree to) is acceptable? In both cases someone is out 3£.

I agree both are unacceptable but legally one form is an acceptable way to do business. White collar crime is something totally different by the way - it’s about individual actions like embezzlement or corruption. Corporate behavior is a whole other category. A major difference of corporate misbehavior is that companies generally exhibit a very sociopathic behavior so they engage in that pure calculus you talk about and moral hazards are extremely real (largely because the market is allowed to reward sociopaths). People at the individual level however don’t operate that way though - aside from where the brain is broken and there’s a compulsive act formed for theft or crime (often due to formative experiences during childhood), most people just don’t want to hurt each other but that desire is weak vs self preservation and preservation of your family. And what starts out as preservation can spiral downward into trying to give yourself the life you think you want (that nice jacket or nice tv).

> is there any scientific basis for claiming that enforcement creates morality

Not sure (and doubt it) but my argument is that if enforcement was adequate then you wouldn't need morality - morality would be a "bonus" but even if it were to go away, adequate enforcement would still deter the undesirable behavior by making it unprofitable.

> which is not supporting the hypothesis that more enforcement = better morality and less crime.

"Law enforcement" in general is too broad to be able to draw this conclusion. Which crimes actually trigger enforcement (and what is the penalty)? If police is too busy busting kids smoking pot (or other victimless crimes that are easy to prosecute) to attend shoplifting incidents/property crime then shoplifting will remain regardless of how much "enforcement" there is (and of course the second-order effects from punishing pot smokers will set them up for a life of crime where they'll then "upgrade" to other crime with actual victims).

> both are unacceptable but legally one form is an acceptable way to do business

But law != morality. From a moral point of view I'm not sure there's a difference - in both cases someone is unjustly enriching themselves at the expense of the victim. When talking about morals and how they prevent people from acting antisocially, those morals may evolve over time if the bad behavior has been normalized by financial reward & lack of consequences.

> People at the individual level however don’t operate that way though

That is true but the economic incentives that are there (and lack of deterrence) means that people may start operating that way and I'd argue more and more people do, whether by choice or by lack of other options.

And I’m saying that enforcement and morality are swamped by poverty and inequality.

I’d recommend trying to find any grounding in evidence of your claims because the poverty and inequality links to crime are pretty well established in the data.

In the countries that have this, such as Scotland or Sweden or Switzerland, how much of this is actually a problem?

Switzerland here: depends what kind of property. A large garden? The owner will likely call the cops on you for trespassing as soon as you show up (and they will come). A meadow some place up in the mountains? The rule is you camp after sunset and decamp at sunrise, but as with every remote place, if nobody sees you... Picking berries the same: it's stealing (Mundraub, yes in CH is still illegal) so in the smaller garden you'll be seen and probably reported but otherwise you'll be luckier.

The law would definitely be abused like renter's laws are abused now.

Tell me you don't know what decriminalization means without telling me you don't know what decriminalization means.

It seems to have been working in the UK for centuries.

> The thing is, the law/code only matters if it is enforced. I have little faith this will be enforced enough to be a deterrent

But the same would be true whether roaming is legal or not?

Some areas in Scotland also have bye-laws stopping camping during the summer months to reduce potential environment impact:

e.g.

https://www.lochlomond-trossachs.org/things-to-do/camping/ca...

These are relatively small areas though.

> "Access rights do not extend to motorised activities...

This seems problematic as there are remote properties that are only accessible through long trails. Stuff like ice fishing spots where you might need to snowmobile a few kilometers. Same with ATVs for deep woods camping.

Personally, I have a registered trail through land I own and have no problem with it. I hope people get it to enjoy since I don't get enough chances to. I can't even get to it myself without passing through a dozen different lots.

This might be an unpopular opinion. But if you need motorized conveyance to camp remotely... then you should probably not camp remotely. It's ok if some wild areas are less accessible.

Yep, if people want to do that there are hundreds of miles of forest service roads they can use to drive in to our national forests.

*cries in east coast*

Seriously, we have nothing over here. All the land was bought up, often before there even was a united states. And the forests we do have tend to be very heavily regulated. You want to do anything it's all pay for permit and be clustered with a bunch of other permit buyers.

I am not aware of single forest in the Northeast where you can just drive in, camp, and leave without breaking the law.

I've done exactly what you describe (drive in, camp, leave without breaking the law) in the White Mountains in NH[0].

In general, dispersed camping[1] is legal in almost all national forest and BLM land. I think many people don't realize this but you can camp for free almost anywhere in a national forest (keeping certain distances from trails, roads and bodies of water)

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Mountains_(New_England) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispersed_camping

Isn't there a 14-day limit in National Parks?

In general there are far more restrictions in National Parks than in national forests than on BLM land.

There are some restrictions but really very few in the latter two categories.

If you hike in you can camp on the east coast, generally you must be at least 1/4 mile from where you park. On the west coats you can just pull in with your car and set up camp right there.

Check out the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire or the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont. I've heard it's also legal in CT State Forests but haven't actually seen this written down anywhere.

Greene mountains in VT is one example. You can even shoot there without being bothered. Lmk if you need a list of places in MA NH and VT.

There's lots of state + national forest land in the Northeast where that's legal. I've done it many times in PA/NY/VT/NH/ME. There are probably some options in the other more developed states too, but I don't usually visit them as much for outdoor recreation.

Outside of the most popular locations for tourists that's pretty much the default.

-------

If you've had trouble finding this, have you been limiting your search to parks? Parks are usually more heavily restricted in terms of camping.

White Mountain National Forest for one. There are restriction regarding how close to a trail or hut you can camp and the topography can be challenging but you certainly can.

But yes there are orders of magnitude more national forest land out west. Probably more than the size of the entire or maybe UK.

I'll just leave this here:

https://fpr.vermont.gov/recreation/activities/camping/primit...

There are many, and nobody goes there.

Historically, Maine had excellent recreation policies in cooperation with the private paper companies that owned the majority of land in the northern part of the state: areas not actively being logged were available for recreation access, as were vehicles on logging roads (though you best yield to the logging trucks that drive down the middle of the roads, even if it means you need to dive into the ditch). State recreation fees for snowmobiles, fishing, etc. would cover things like insuring the private landowners against liability.

However, starting in the mid/late 90's, much of the paper company land was divested and sold to private equity land holders (yay modern finance!) and those previous open access policies have been very much curtailed. It's a big loss to the community, but it sure must be making some money for shareholders somewhere...

In NY, the state parks will be heavily regulated having designated pay for/reserved camp spots along with amenities. However, the forest preserves (Adirondacks/Catskills) and state forests do allow backcountry/primitive camping.

Just look for a nearby state forest and look up the dec regulations for that site. More than likely you can can primitive camp there.

You can primitive/dispersed camp at most forests in the NE. However they all require being far from a road. The best you can do is park and hike in.

1/4 mile is not far from a road. Of course, terrain may otherwise make it difficult to camp if the trail heads right up.

I've done it, it's just a huge PIA compared to out west where you just get on forest roads where there are clearings you pull into an camp all over the place.

The east coast just has this strong hostility towards camping for some reason.

There are a lot more people looking to camp in generally smaller areas especially on weekends. And the east doesn’t have the large networks of forest roads and almost roads and not really roads that you have in many western national forests and BLM land.

The West obviously has plenty of camping restrictions in popular areas like national parks and wilderness areas where you may have year in advance lotteries.

I’m not sure why the east would be uniquely hostile given the same agencies administer federal land across the whole country.

But, in general, yes if you want to get away from people and have more flexibility in where you can camp, you’re probably best off traveling to the western states.

There is comparatively very little federal land on the east coast. And even where there is land, it's not as friendly as the west.

Using white mountain NF as an example, their camping policy is much more restrictive than western national forests (i.e camp away from roads and trails).

There is virtually no BLM land and national parks are kinda strict all over. So you are left with state land and they tend to like structured campgrounds that you pay buy permits for.

Seriously. My kid walks 1/2-mile from the school bus to home down a dirt road without complaint.

Which can also make camping and hiking in those areas far more dangerous. If a rescue team have hike in 20 miles to get you without any motorized vehicles and can't get a chopper into those remote areas? They shouldn't be remote, they should just be left completely inaccessible.

The problem then is people these days, IMHO are far more reckless and stupid and will try and prove Mother Nature wrong by attempting to go into these areas to get internet cred from Tik Tok and other platforms. Perfect example is the people who go to Longs Peak and attempt the Keyhole Route thinking its a well traveled hike and easy.

If people are reckless and stupid that seems a self-correcting problem.

There are a ton of places in the Western US that are more than 20 miles from a road with very few restrictions on camping.

If you don't want to do it, don't do it.

It's okay for some areas and activities to be more dangerous. "Completely inaccessible" is banning access for safetyism.

Decades of deaths in activities like backcountry skiing staying relatively flat while the numbers of people doing those activities exploding would go directly against your assertion that people are more reckless and stupid in the social media age than they were in the past.

If things like the Keyhole route are outside of your risk tolerance, that's a perfectly valid and rational decision. I'd encourage you not to do them. That doesn't mean no one else should be allowed to take risks you don't.

Maybe explicitly registered trails (like the one on your land) could grant more access than the default Scottish ones mentioned above. That way the people who are okay with motorized vehicle access can allow it while not affecting the majority who probably don't want vehicles running through their land.

A decade ago several teenagers wore a track through the back of my parents' yard with snowmobiles during winter. I'm not familiar enough with snowmobiles to know how much snow should be on the ground, but they kept going after it was reduced to muddy slush that had been churned up by the treads in the back.

My neighbor doesn’t really care about people walking on her property down by the river. But periodically some ATVer rips down the no trespassing signs and makes a complete mess of the trail during muddy conditions.

And this is why a law like this wouldn’t work in low-trust societies like the US.

People need to give terms like low trust , especially as applied to large and diverse countries, a rest rather than spouting them because they think it makes them sound smart. In this case it’s what used to be a very rural town—founded 1653–which over the last few decades has become much more exurban and people who have lived there for a long time find the increased housing density, which in spite of still being pretty low, means people can’t just hunt and ride ATVs everywhere like they could 40 years ago.

Fair enough!

If you want to camp in the deep woods, and there is no trail, hike. Seriously.

I appreciate land owners who do make trails available. Seriously. I like offroading, I'm grateful for people who give that opportunity. But I don't think we're entitled to reach everything in a motorized way. And I certainly understand if land owners don't want a permanent stream of ATVs across their land.

This is ultimately a balance of rights, and I think "no motor vehicles unless the land owners allows it" is a fairly decent balance.

I guess just like Scottish law is adapted to Scottish environment, similar adjustments can be made were applicable. No one suggested porting Scottish code verbatim to Alaska.

Also, it's not like long hikes with camping along the way are unheard of.

> Stuff like ice fishing spots where you might need to snowmobile a few kilometers.

You generally have the right to travel any river or lake. I haven't heard of any country or place that limits this.

A few kilometers of snow is easily crossed by skis or snowshoes. Every cabin in Norway used to be accessed like that (changing now the last 2 years, where people now mostly expect to drive to the door). But still skiing a few kilometers is a basic life skill to me, especially if one is going to be going into the woods in the wintertime... At least from 10-12 years of age.

How do you prevent people from getting to close to your house and invading your privacy? Someone can come on your property with the intention to rob you, stalk you, etc and if they get caught they can just they were passing through. And unless you have cameras it would make it pretty difficult to prove otherwise. When you're out in the woods all alone that makes you pretty vulnerable and this isn't a situation I would want to be in.

It sounds like you're not a good candidate for an owner of a large parcel of wilderness.

And that's ok! Not everyone has to own acres of undeveloped land!

I think it's appropriate that some kinds of ownership are as much a responsibility as a privilege, similar to how not everyone is prepared to be responsible for river or stream running through their property.

For a somewhat tortured metaphor, there are seats on planes that give extra leg room, as long as you're willing and able to help others in the case of an emergency. You get the benefit of the extra leg room, but you get the responsibility of helping others in an emergency. And that seems like a fair balance!

They are not a candidate but in fact an actual owner. It is theirs and not yours.

That's ok, I'm a voting member of the general public, and if we decide it's to the benefit of us all for the public to have access to their land, we will!

So robbery? If you want it, you'll take it

Call it "eminent domain." Sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the wants of the few!

Preventing accidental privacy intrusion is easy. If you have a fence around your property (or even something as simple as a mowed lawn) then it is quite obvious where your plot starts and where the forest ends.

Someone malicious doesn't care about laws anyway. If they get caught today, couldn't they could just deny that they were there? I don't understand what would change in that case.

"Access rights do not extend to the land surrounding a house or other dwelling (e.g. a static caravan) to the extent needed to provide residents with a reasonable measures of privacy. This is usually defined as the garden around or adjacent to the house that is intensively managed for the enjoyment of residents. " - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Outdoor_Access_Code

The article goes on to give examples where this has been legally determined to be a significant area - over 5 hectares (12 acres) around a property ... for people like me who don't fully understand areas in this context, that would be a square of 220m (720 feet) to a side.

You are allowed to fence this area off, or take other security measures.

And ultimately - its not hugely different to the current situation. If I intend to commit a crime against you, is adding a trespass going to dissuade me?

I mean, are homeless encampments ever permitted? Yet they show up and are very hard to get rid of. Its not a can of worms I would want opened if I owned property on the west coast, that is for sure.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com