24 ms·

"Homeless" is one of those catch all words like "plastic" or "cancer", where the things being described only look relatively similar from the outside. As the b

by csours 7y ago

"Homeless" is one of those catch all words like "plastic" or "cancer", where the things being described only look relatively similar from the outside. As the blogpost notes: "There are already lots of hidden homeless passing for normal, couch surfing, etc. People tend to not realize it." Fortunately right now, I'm at very low risk of homelessness, but I can imagine scenarios where it could happen. Some people don't have family to fall back on. Some people's family are terrible people and it's questionable whether they are better off with them or living rough. A lot of people live in their cars or vans for a while. Here in Austin, urban camping was decriminalized (I am not an expert, this may not be entirely correct) and now there are quite a lot of tents popping up all over the place. As a civilian, it's impossible for me to tell what situation a person is in; are they potentially violent, do they live in the same world as me, are they mentally and physically capable but undergoing hard times? They are all people, and they should all be helped, but help for one person isn't like help for another; and just lumping people together and parking them doesn't help anyone.

dcolkitt 7y ago
Is this not the problem that "credit scoring" systems are designed to solve? You've identified a major issue, certain segments of the homeless population are much riskier for "civilians" than others. The problem is the guy who couldn't make rent last week is lumped together with the schizophrenic meth addict with a long history of violence. The solution, at least for the "harmless homeless" is to credibly broadcast to civilians and authorities their benign circumstances and histories. With widespread facial recognition and augmented reality, this might not be as hard to do as it seems. The homeless can be assigned a social credit score based on their criminal record, user rating by shelters and other provider institutions, employment history, and how long they've been homeless. Authorities, and potentially even civilians, can instantly identify and flag homeless people that are likely to be problematic. Without a doubt, this regime would certainly make life better for the harmless and down-on-their-luck homeless types. Yet my guess is most would oppose such a system. The point is tradeoffs exist in the social design space. Most of the down-on-the-luck homeless are unfairly stigmatized because society at large lumps them in with the violent, destructive and anti-social. We can make more efforts to draw a visible class distinction between those respective groups, yet it's often homeless advocates that oppose doing so.
- pryce 7y ago
  Yes, the groups and volunteers that work with homeless people, attempt to provide care, understanding, and social services, and if possible a path out of being a rough-sleeper are generally opposed to attempting to "solve" this complex set of issues with facial recognition and augmented reality, and this ought to cause us to hesitate before we make terrifyingly glib declarations like "without a doubt, this regime would certainly make life better for the [homeless & homeless types]".
  - dcolkitt 7y ago
    > if possible a path out of being a rough-sleeper are generally opposed to attempting to "solve" this complex set of issues with facial recognition and augmented reality These two avenues are completely orthogonal to each other. There's no reason that you can't create a path out of homelessness, but still make the time somebody spends homeless more pleasant. Effort in one doesn't negate the other. And yes, without a doubt adding visible class distinctions between the down-on-their-luck homeless and the violent, destructive homeless would almost assuredly make life better for members of the former. You may still oppose the idea on other grounds, but there's absolutely no reason to doubt why raising a sub-group's social class status wouldn't improve their life.
- benignslime 7y ago
  Man if you're an engineer someone should take your creds.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- lostgame 7y ago
  Your opening statement alone required the downvote I needed to give you. You have no idea what people have been through. The circumstances that may end them up with a poor credit score have little to do with how responsible or diligent that person is. Have some understanding. Not shocked your post has garnered more downvotes than mine.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
_bxg1 7y ago
> As a civilian, it's impossible for me to tell what situation a person is in; are they potentially violent, do they live in the same world as me, are they mentally and physically capable but undergoing hard times? They are all people, and they should all be helped, but help for one person isn't like help for another; and just lumping people together and parking them doesn't help anyone. I think you're conflating separate questions: how to act around a given homeless person, and what kind of system is needed to help them at scale. As for helping them, while there will be nuances to any group of people, I don't think it's a waste of time to make general statements about what solutions might look like. There may be complicating circumstances, but the fundamental barrier is the same: our society (unfortunately) requires you to make some amount of money and to have a place to live if you're going to participate in it and have much hope of upward mobility. And there's a circular effect, where if you don't have those things, it's incredibly hard to "bootstrap" your way into it. This core mechanism applies to nearly all homeless people. So anything that tries to solve that bootstrapping problem will apply to a whole lots of people, even if it needs to be combined with other things like addiction help, mental healthcare, etc on a case-by-case basis. For anyone else here in Austin, this is a great organization that works on this problem: https://www.caritasofaustin.org/ https://www.caritasofaustin.org/
- csours 7y ago
  > I think you're conflating separate questions: how to act around a given homeless person, and what kind of system is needed to help them at scale. I think you're right, and it probably has to do with the context of my interactions.
burrows 7y ago
In the same category: love, racism, (G)god, forever.

by csours 7y ago

dcolkitt 7y ago

Is this not the problem that "credit scoring" systems are designed to solve? You've identified a major issue, certain segments of the homeless population are much riskier for "civilians" than others. The problem is the guy who couldn't make rent last week is lumped together with the schizophrenic meth addict with a long history of violence. The solution, at least for the "harmless homeless" is to credibly broadcast to civilians and authorities their benign circumstances and histories. With widespread facial recognition and augmented reality, this might not be as hard to do as it seems. The homeless can be assigned a social credit score based on their criminal record, user rating by shelters and other provider institutions, employment history, and how long they've been homeless. Authorities, and potentially even civilians, can instantly identify and flag homeless people that are likely to be problematic. Without a doubt, this regime would certainly make life better for the harmless and down-on-their-luck homeless types. Yet my guess is most would oppose such a system. The point is tradeoffs exist in the social design space. Most of the down-on-the-luck homeless are unfairly stigmatized because society at large lumps them in with the violent, destructive and anti-social. We can make more efforts to draw a visible class distinction between those respective groups, yet it's often homeless advocates that oppose doing so.

pryce 7y ago
Yes, the groups and volunteers that work with homeless people, attempt to provide care, understanding, and social services, and if possible a path out of being a rough-sleeper are generally opposed to attempting to "solve" this complex set of issues with facial recognition and augmented reality, and this ought to cause us to hesitate before we make terrifyingly glib declarations like "without a doubt, this regime would certainly make life better for the [homeless & homeless types]".
- dcolkitt 7y ago
  > if possible a path out of being a rough-sleeper are generally opposed to attempting to "solve" this complex set of issues with facial recognition and augmented reality These two avenues are completely orthogonal to each other. There's no reason that you can't create a path out of homelessness, but still make the time somebody spends homeless more pleasant. Effort in one doesn't negate the other. And yes, without a doubt adding visible class distinctions between the down-on-their-luck homeless and the violent, destructive homeless would almost assuredly make life better for members of the former. You may still oppose the idea on other grounds, but there's absolutely no reason to doubt why raising a sub-group's social class status wouldn't improve their life.
benignslime 7y ago
Man if you're an engineer someone should take your creds.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
lostgame 7y ago
Your opening statement alone required the downvote I needed to give you. You have no idea what people have been through. The circumstances that may end them up with a poor credit score have little to do with how responsible or diligent that person is. Have some understanding. Not shocked your post has garnered more downvotes than mine.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

_bxg1 7y ago

> As a civilian, it's impossible for me to tell what situation a person is in; are they potentially violent, do they live in the same world as me, are they mentally and physically capable but undergoing hard times? They are all people, and they should all be helped, but help for one person isn't like help for another; and just lumping people together and parking them doesn't help anyone. I think you're conflating separate questions: how to act around a given homeless person, and what kind of system is needed to help them at scale. As for helping them, while there will be nuances to any group of people, I don't think it's a waste of time to make general statements about what solutions might look like. There may be complicating circumstances, but the fundamental barrier is the same: our society (unfortunately) requires you to make some amount of money and to have a place to live if you're going to participate in it and have much hope of upward mobility. And there's a circular effect, where if you don't have those things, it's incredibly hard to "bootstrap" your way into it. This core mechanism applies to nearly all homeless people. So anything that tries to solve that bootstrapping problem will apply to a whole lots of people, even if it needs to be combined with other things like addiction help, mental healthcare, etc on a case-by-case basis. For anyone else here in Austin, this is a great organization that works on this problem: https://www.caritasofaustin.org/ https://www.caritasofaustin.org/

csours 7y ago
> I think you're conflating separate questions: how to act around a given homeless person, and what kind of system is needed to help them at scale. I think you're right, and it probably has to do with the context of my interactions.

burrows 7y ago

In the same category: love, racism, (G)god, forever.