[pjs_]

If you grow up in a shitty environment there is an increased probability that you will get into drugs. Once you start doing strong drugs all day, there is a considerably increased chance of shitting all over the place and causing havoc.

I don't know if you grew up in a shitty environment or not but please consider that even if you did, the fact that you are not smoking meth in bookstore bathrooms cannot be purely a product of your own stout moral fiber, it is also due to luck, and the people that you see running riot in the city are the other side of that coin.

Speaking for myself, I am a post-graduate educated rich white guy who does my recycling and helps old ladies cross the road, and I am absolutely certain that if I got deep enough into serious drugs I would be shitting and yelling with the best of them, and I fuckin pray that if I ever get into that state, that educated people would have the sophistication to view me as something other than the unforgivably evil cartoon villain that you describe.

[lapetitejort]

Everything I've heard and read from current and former unhoused people points to the fact that mental health drops rapidly upon losing a home. Not being able to sleep a whole night without waking up and being fearful of people invading your space is sufficient. Add in food insecurity, nearby drug use, violence, etc and your brain gets fried. Just like a physical injury, this wound could take months or years to heal.

[Hermitian909]

I've worked with the homeless, this is absolutely the case. Being assaulted or stolen from while homeless is a matter of when not if once you've also lost your car. Sexual assault is also not uncommon.

Drugs drown out the non-stop pain of existence.

[gilleain]

I think of the problems that the homeless face as being like an evil roundabout. Although you enter with one of mental illness, addiction, or despair (or several, the analogy is imperfect) the roundabout mixes these up until you have them all.

Ultimately, we are all responsible in some sense for our own behaviour. However the freedom of people to choose to do the right thing is often severely limited by circumstance and previous choices.

[BobbyJo]

I don't see how you can consider it 'painting a cartoon villain' when it's acknowledging a shitty reality through the lens if objectivity. There really are people doing those things. Commonly. I'd visit SF maybe once a month when I lived out there, and seeing people do all of those things on any given visit was a coin flip.

Also, you are right, people are very often victims of their environment. A component of that environment is the ease of doing bad things. If you treat people who do bad things as victims, that makes doing bad things easier. You have to balance compassion with consequences. One without will fail.

[adminscoffee]

i think people lose hope, when they get a little further in life or make a step towards progress and tell people. a lot of west coast people (i live in seattle) have a hard time celebrating peoples small gains. it's all about posturing for them, they care because it makes them fit in but when it comes to actually treating people like they are human, they don't, a lot of people in these big tech cities are using each other to get ahead and if you cannot offer someone some type of nugget for them to get ahead, then you might as well be useless or homeless to them. i've witnessed it in my own career, a lot of people fear people who are struggling, even if that person never ask them for anything, they will ghost you or belittle you.

it's only a matter of time before the judgement comes for those people. like you can't treat people like they are trash because when you are down on your luck, karma or your consciousness will prevent you from getting the help you need. it's important to remember that not all these people are on drugs, some are broken, like sad broken, or a ton of mental illness. but yeah there are people on drugs, most people don't turn to drugs for fun, they turn to drugs because they are miserable and want to feel something. just like alcohol. people use drugs to avoid their situation, also why change when everyone thinks you'll never change? it's like the world has issues with forgiveness, mercy, empathy, kindness and are judgmental because they fear that poverty is contagious.

[coding123]

This. You hit the nail on the head - posturing of tech people. These people talk about racism and poverty as if they are solved issues. The policy has become - here's an olive branch, now it's your fault for being homeless.

The old way this stuff was handled was a social safety net - not one based in economic policy, but one that was churches and just people that cared. I think both still exist, but the current state of things is seeing a massive shift from selflessness to selfishness is actually having an effect.

The selfishness comes from a place of - it's not my problem it's now handled by policy X so I don't need to bother personally.

[BobbyJo]

The reality is: Poverty is contagious. Very very contagious. I know this firsthand.

I'm totally ok with people only taking care of themselves. If you have time/energy/money to spare, sure, use to help someone in need, someone that help will actually help. But if you don't, that's totally fine too.

None of that really changes the need to arrest people who rob stores, and the need to disincentize living in tents and shooting up in the streets like you own them.

[jaywalk]

I disagree that the parent described an "unforgivably evil cartoon villain" but how does your comment help? It's clear that particular type of homelessness is a massive problem in SF, and how they managed to get to that state isn't particularly relevant in solving the crisis. It's still important in helping prevent people from getting to that point, but that's not what we're talking about here.

[nverno]

A shitty environment certainly contributes, but drug abuse has risen in every demographic, and genetic predisposition is a huge factor (40-60% cited here[1]).

[1] https://americanaddictioncenters.org/rehab-guide/addiction-s...

[s1artibartfast]

Not genetics. From the source:

>Scientists estimate that genes, including the effects environmental factors have on a person's gene expression, called epigenetics, account for between 40 and 60 percent of a person's risk of addiction

[nverno]

That's why I phrased it as "genetic predisposition". As I understand, environment is of a major factor in gene expression, but the underlying genetics also vary between individuals, eg. Native Americans and other ethnic groups have a genetic predisposition towards alchoholism, or others that are bad with lactose, etc.

[s1artibartfast]

I agree with your example, but the number cited is not for innate genetic predisposition. It includes including the effects environmental factors have on a person's gene expression.

Some of these may be relatively uniform through the population, but manifest due to different environmental factors.

e.g. Child abuse could cause epigenetic changes to gene expression associated with a drug predisposition. This may be conserved between individuals.

[s1artibartfast]

>I fuckin pray that if I ever get into that state, that educated people would have the sophistication to view me as something other than the unforgivably evil cartoon villain that you describe.

Why should they if you act like a cartoon villain? Should they pretend you are helping an old lady when they are acting like a villain and robbing her?

At some point the causality doesn't matter. IF something is broken, it doesn't matter how it got that way. You can fix it, throw it away, or mitigate the damage it causes.

Some people can't be helped. Some can with significant effort. Some need to be locked away so that they don't hurt people. Sometimes the best you can do is mitigate their suffering.

[kooshball]

by this logic, anything anyone ever does is due to their "shitty environment". what an insane way to absolve people of all personal responsibility.