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Comment by nugget | Hacker News Reader

As someone who lives around and deals with these people every day, let's call a spade a spade and not cover it up. Have you seen a zombie movie lately? These people basically ARE zombies - they hobble around, mutter to themselves, smell like shit, randomly attack people, and will infect you with disease if you touch them.

Whether they scream at/spit on/push around my sister or female employees because they are on crack, mentally ill, or just in a bad mood, I could care less. They need to be removed from the area because they are a real and present threat to public safety.

I would happily donate money to move them all to a camp outside the city where they can scream at trees and smoke tea leaves all day but for whatever reason the powers that be seem content to leave them where they are, which directly places the rest of us in harm's way.

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The powers that be leave them alone because if they don't, they are met with complete civil unrest in SF. Any attempt to even address the homeless issue is met with outrage and organized protest. This goes along with the outcry against gentrification and the lament of the city losing its "character."

Make no mistake, some of the people here actually want to live in a post-apocalyptic zombie film. :)

Do you have any links to reports of "complete civil unrest" happening as a result of proposing to address the homelessness issue?

So true. When I realized SF actually wanted these people living on the streets (despite empty talk to the contrary), I gave up petitioning the city to clean up my neighborhood and moved to a different neighborhood. No longer do I have to play hopscotch every morning along my commute. Or fear for the safety of my wife.

outcry against gentrification and the lament of the city losing its "character."

People sniffing glue, blazing crack pipes, and defecating on the street is 'character'?

It keeps the rents down and prevents richer people from moving in next door and making you feel insecure.

For the record, I don't think the situation is a good one by any means. I just don't think the people who are least empowered to do anything about it should be referred to pejoratively, and a big part of that is because it isn't going to help the situation. For that matter I don't think anyone should be referred to pejoratively on the basis of class membership, rich or poor.

It just seems to me that replacing the pejorative terms with neutral language makes the whole post more compassionate. And then the question you end up asking is, "This is bad, what should we do about it?" - because obviously zombies outside your four star hotel is a sign of badness - as opposed to, "Fucking crackheads, how do they work?"

I think that people even have to live on the street at all in the richest nation in the world is a travesty. It's almost like they're there to motivate people to work harder.

Funny, your userid is georgeorwell and you're advocating DoubleSpeak

I'm sorry, where is the deception?

"Doublespeak is language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs, "servicing the target" for bombing [1]), making the truth less unpleasant, without denying its nature. It may also be deployed as intentional ambiguity, or reversal of meaning (for example, naming a state of war "peace"). In such cases, doublespeak disguises the nature of the truth, producing a communication bypass.[2][3]

However, euphemism is not the same as doublespeak. It will not be considered as doublespeak if it is used appropriately and without the intention to deceive. For example, using "passed away" to suggest somebody is dead is an appropriate use of euphemism."

I would argue the euphemism often has the intention not to deceive but to strong arm the listener to perceive things along the lines the speaker intends. This becomes mildly coercive and when done for a social engineering purpose qualifies as Doublespeak imo.

So are you saying that "drug-addicted homeless person" is doublespeak whereas "shambling crackhead zombie" is neutral language? Because I think those are the phrases we are talking about, and I think the first is much more neutral.

I am confused as to how my attempt to assert the use of neutral language is coercive or being used for social engineering or how it is strong arming anyone here. I certainly don't want to be doing these things, so if I am I would appreciate being told how I am.

I would say that "economically disadvantaged sporadically sheltered substance abuser" is a lot more... Orwellian.

That's not a good solution because you're doing something to someone who is effectively powerless, and they have no recourse.

It's a recipe for large-scale, institutionalized abuse. All I have to do is label you crazy etc., and then I can do whatever I want with you, while no one has to see it.

Any case where we argue that we should compel someone to do something for social order needs to be handled with the utmost in transparency and restraint. I.e. not putting them in camps.

Vagrancy is a different standard than "craziness".

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