[NegativeLatency]

This is a very un-nuanced take on what happened in Portland, and lines up with what the uncritical and uninformed national reporting about Portland has been saying.

It was not successful, but it was also never effectively funded, not implemented well, and rolled out in a rush.

[andsoitis]

Bad execution undermines otherwise good policy.

Ideas don’t execute themselves and when someone doesn’t deliver the goods, it is human nature to question their decision making ability in the first place.

Being defensive or arguing nuance is fine in theory, but in practice bad outcomes tend to reinforce biases.

I would prefer fully baked ideas that are rigorous and practical rather than purely utopian and just hoping for the best. One does not roll out underfunded programs that play with safety and health.

[Alupis]

And... when dealing with humans - policies are often not enacted like we thought they would be in our head's under ideal conditions.

Policies are implemented by politicians and government drones, are beholden to budgets and meandering political sentiment of the population, etc. ie - they will never be implemented "correctly" - so we should pick the policies that are the hardest to get wrong and/or have the least negative side effects.

[Alupis]

> It was not successful, but it was also never effectively funded, not implemented well, and rolled out in a rush.

So... like almost every government program? What makes you convinced it can actually be achieved in reality? With real people, real politicians, real budgets that get robbed for other pet projects down the line...

Even if it was achieved in reality - let's pretend to wave a magic wand - what is the expected outcome? Fewer people doing hard drugs than before? That seems difficult to accept given all consequences will effectively be removed... how many celebrities (with effectively unlimited resources) struggle their entire lives with drug abuse - in and out of rehab, etc. It seems it's better to prevent people from becoming addicts in the first place, vs. attempt to treat/mitigate addiction after it has formed.

[NegativeLatency]

> What makes you convinced it can actually be achieved in reality?

It may never be achieved, regardless of my or your personal views on the subject at hand I think reasonable people can agree if you try and do something but do it poorly, and it doesn't work, that's not necessarily a failure of the thing but more a failure of the execution.

ex: I'm bad at welding so therefore welding is not a good way to hold two pieces of metal together, is an invalid/incorrect conclusion.