[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.