[clairity]

have you ever seen your neighbor get dragged running and hanging out of the passenger side window by an angry uber driver? have you had someone slap you who is not homeless? i have.

i get that you want to equate homeless folks on transit with violence but you did a really bad job of it.

[sjjshvuiajhz]

I’m just describing an event that happened to me.

There are a lot of problems with Uber, but one thing it’s not is the cheapest and most convenient climate-controlled shelter for the city’s destitute mentally ill.

[clairity]

> "...it’s not is the cheapest and most convenient climate-controlled shelter for the city’s destitute mentally ill."

i can appreciate this point, but you're still insinuating that destitute people are bad, rather than realizing the complexity of the human condition as embodied in that other living being.

why not try to find and express some empathy, or even just some sympathy, for these folks? is there any gain for you to further put them down this way? are you so afraid of the homeless that you need to make sure random people on the internet don't associate an anonymized you with them?

[sjjshvuiajhz]

After being assaulted by that stranger I thought about him a lot:

1) He probably has been abused and harmed many times, perhaps in his childhood.

2) He probably expects the worst from people, and thinks that everyone is out to get him.

3) He may be suffering from schizophrenia and literally thought I was attacking him somehow (I was sitting across from him with earbuds in reading a kindle).

4) Becuase there is not enough housing to go around here, the standards are higher, in terms of having an agreeable personality/job skills/overall shit-togetherness to secure a place to live, whether by earning a salary or staying on a friend’s couch or in a homeless shelter.

5) Feedback loops mean that once you are homeless, you suffer a lot and all of the above issues probably get worse.

My personality is such that I end up caring about and loving people that I spend time around or think about a lot. But I’ve learned the hard way that even if you love someone, you need to look out for yourself when trying to help them.

[sjjshvuiajhz]

And to expand on that a bit:

It seems that transit in the Bay Area serves multiple purposes.

1) Getting you from point A to point B.

2) Mobile climate-controlled shelter for homeless people.

My claim is that purpose 1 is at odds with purpose 2. I’m all for solutions to the problem of not enough shelter. I don’t think the SFMTA is the solution, or if it is, then we should accept that companies like Uber are going to take its market share for purpose 1.

[clairity]

thanks for adding this depth to your experience.

[goobynight]

Ah yes. The hill to die on is definitely masking the volatility of the homeless.

This guy wasn't even making a generalization.