5 ms·

I find it so weird that people blame homeless people for defecating on the streets. Where else can they go? One of c. 2 dozen 'pit stops' that mostly close by

by RC_ITR 5y ago

I find it so weird that people blame homeless people for defecating on the streets. Where else can they go? One of c. 2 dozen 'pit stops' that mostly close by 8pm? That's the reason you've lost empathy for them, because they are humans who have to shit and are denied access to toilets?

vineyardmike 5y ago
> That's the reason you've lost empathy for them, because they are humans who have to shit and are denied access to toilets? Its totally fair, and expected that people lose sympathy when they have to clean up shit. Yes, if there were safe, available, places to shit then that'd be a good step to avoid this issue. But the root issue is that people no longer have sympathy because its so disruptive and so gross and has been going on for so long. > I find it so weird that people blame homeless people for defecating on the streets. They're blamed because they did it. They did it because there is no alt, but they did it, and "it" is gross and not desirable. SF has been talking about the issue for years, and its not resolved, so your tolerance and sympathy drops over time.
- RC_ITR 5y ago
  Sure seems weird that people love babies then.
  - scruple 5y ago
    There's a massive gulf between the two and I expect you do know this despite the comment.
    - RC_ITR 5y ago
      Yeah, people generally choose to understand that babies can't help themselves and also choose to believe that the unhoused (literally the group with the least agency in our society) have the agency to help themselves. EDIT: To be clear. I realize shit is gross. It's the most toxic thing a human regularly encounters. But the implication of the grossness of shit being a 'bright red line' for lost empathy is that no reasonable human would EVER deal with someone else's shit, when that is demonstrably untrue. We choose to empathize with babies and not homeless people. That's fine, I guess, but feels sort of gross on the cosmic scale.
      - bingbingbong 5y ago
        Pedantic point: Plenty of people don't particularly have a passion for poopies not produced by their progeny.
- jart 5y ago
  I would have thought it'd be the violence. Not like NYC homeless bundled up in a corner keeping warm while praying for the health of those who leave them coin.
  - gretch 5y ago
    Just my perspective, but I don't see that much violence. Violence is an event and inherently ephemeral. Poop is a thing and it will sit there until removed giving me much more time to see it. Maybe that's why? I'm sure violence _would_ get on me pretty quickly, but I just don't see that much violence in the homeless in my local area. Btw, it feels pretty disingenuous that your example is this group of perfect angel homeless people sleeping and praying on the corner. That rhetoric pretty much immediately loses anyone who has regular contact and they think "welp this person doesn't know what they are talking about"
    - jart 5y ago
      Well thank you for letting me know I lost you. I value your opinion and I'll be sure to take it into consideration. See also: https://danluu.com/look-stupid/ https://danluu.com/look-stupid/
- david38 5y ago
  Public toilets have been provided in the past. They rapidly turned into drug stalls.
jerry1979 5y ago
I had to clean up another person's poop because they pooped next to my car. I felt pretty angry about it because I hate poop, and I had a hard time understanding why this person left their poop on the ground instead of putting it in a nearby dumpster. Then I remembered they were probably high or had a mental illness. It takes a bit of stoic zen to get un-angry about cleaning up another person's poop.
- blacksmith_tb 5y ago
  I would say it's all relative, dog owners and parents with infants deal with someone else's shit all day, every day, and only occasionally complain about it. Part of that is actively caring about the shitters in question, I assume. But as you say, it's work to extend that care to someone you don't know.
  - gretch 5y ago
    Yeah, that's all true. In addition, I know that infants and dogs literally don't have the capacity to clean up their poop - they couldn't if they wanted to. If I, as an adult, can clean up your poop for you, then it escapes me why you, homeless but also adult, can't pick it up and put it in a dumpster. The logical conclusion is that you do not wish to.
  - jerry1979 5y ago
    One of the things I did to steel my will was to to think about the parents and the dog owners when I picked up other people's poop. However, thinking along those lines, I ended up connecting the idea that babies and dogs do not have free will, and I noticed that connection bubble to the surface when I saw homeless encampments. It colored the already dismal sight with a tinge of existential horror. So, I'm not so sure that the baby/dog to encampment dweller connection makes the most appropriate vehicle for mentally dealing with the poop. Or, maybe, it is the right vehicle. I really don't know.
    - qorrect 5y ago
      So homeless don't have free will ?
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> That's the reason you've lost empathy for them, because they are humans who have to shit and are denied access to toilets? Oxytocin--the hormone critically involved in empathy and social behaviors--has been linked to toxin-elicited and socially-mediated disgust [1]. If that link holds, it suggests why public defecation is the emerging turning point of the debate. Rhetorically, this means trivializing the problem is unlikely to be successful. People will lose empathy for people who shit on their street. On the flip side, this offers a well-scoped beachhead. Solving the public defecation problem could rebuild empathy for San Francisco's homeless and give political oxygen to the broader, more-intractable problem of homelessness overall. (I'm honestly shocked nobody has run for office in San Francisco on a vision zero-esque pledge to eliminate public defecation.) [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/gbb.12508 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/gbb.12...
- RC_ITR 5y ago
  Sure seems weird that people love babies then.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > weird that people love babies then There is a lot of research on this. It's a deep, fascinating rabbit hole and I don't know its contours well enough to flag the entrances. But it touches subjects like mammalian postpartum depression, infanticide in great apes, why the characters :) make one go "aww," cute aggression and a host of other matters. To address your point a bit more head on, I imagine public reactions to a publicly-defecating child would be very different from those to an adult.
  - gretch 5y ago
    Does it really confuse you? Are you so out of touch with basic human desires that you don't see the difference between having _your biological baby with your genes_ and a random homeless person? That people love their baby _despite_ their poop, because of the joy they bring, and because it satisfies the most primary of biological drives (reproduction). And you think it's weird that I'm okay with my baby's poop and not the poop of a random adult.
throwaway19937 5y ago
> That's the reason you've lost empathy for them, because they are humans who have to shit and are denied access to toilets? Nope, I lost empathy because in Seattle the homeless are exempt from prosecution and commit crimes with impunity. People like Francisco Calderon (https://komonews.com/news/project-seattle/warrant-issued-for-repeat-offender-francisco-calderon https://komonews.com/news/project-seattle/warrant-issued-for...) or Travis Berge (https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/meth-mental-illness-murder-how-one-prolific-offender-was-given-chance-after-chance/OLIJ2GQJ2JHTJFXW2YUD7GCVPM/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/meth-mental-illness-murder-...) are repeatedly released to commit crimes and harm others.

by RC_ITR 5y ago

vineyardmike 5y ago

> That's the reason you've lost empathy for them, because they are humans who have to shit and are denied access to toilets? Its totally fair, and expected that people lose sympathy when they have to clean up shit. Yes, if there were safe, available, places to shit then that'd be a good step to avoid this issue. But the root issue is that people no longer have sympathy because its so disruptive and so gross and has been going on for so long. > I find it so weird that people blame homeless people for defecating on the streets. They're blamed because they did it. They did it because there is no alt, but they did it, and "it" is gross and not desirable. SF has been talking about the issue for years, and its not resolved, so your tolerance and sympathy drops over time.

RC_ITR 5y ago
Sure seems weird that people love babies then.
- scruple 5y ago
  There's a massive gulf between the two and I expect you do know this despite the comment.
  - RC_ITR 5y ago
    Yeah, people generally choose to understand that babies can't help themselves and also choose to believe that the unhoused (literally the group with the least agency in our society) have the agency to help themselves. EDIT: To be clear. I realize shit is gross. It's the most toxic thing a human regularly encounters. But the implication of the grossness of shit being a 'bright red line' for lost empathy is that no reasonable human would EVER deal with someone else's shit, when that is demonstrably untrue. We choose to empathize with babies and not homeless people. That's fine, I guess, but feels sort of gross on the cosmic scale.
    - bingbingbong 5y ago
      Pedantic point: Plenty of people don't particularly have a passion for poopies not produced by their progeny.
jart 5y ago
I would have thought it'd be the violence. Not like NYC homeless bundled up in a corner keeping warm while praying for the health of those who leave them coin.
- gretch 5y ago
  Just my perspective, but I don't see that much violence. Violence is an event and inherently ephemeral. Poop is a thing and it will sit there until removed giving me much more time to see it. Maybe that's why? I'm sure violence _would_ get on me pretty quickly, but I just don't see that much violence in the homeless in my local area. Btw, it feels pretty disingenuous that your example is this group of perfect angel homeless people sleeping and praying on the corner. That rhetoric pretty much immediately loses anyone who has regular contact and they think "welp this person doesn't know what they are talking about"
  - jart 5y ago
    Well thank you for letting me know I lost you. I value your opinion and I'll be sure to take it into consideration. See also: https://danluu.com/look-stupid/ https://danluu.com/look-stupid/
david38 5y ago
Public toilets have been provided in the past. They rapidly turned into drug stalls.

jerry1979 5y ago

I had to clean up another person's poop because they pooped next to my car. I felt pretty angry about it because I hate poop, and I had a hard time understanding why this person left their poop on the ground instead of putting it in a nearby dumpster. Then I remembered they were probably high or had a mental illness. It takes a bit of stoic zen to get un-angry about cleaning up another person's poop.

blacksmith_tb 5y ago
I would say it's all relative, dog owners and parents with infants deal with someone else's shit all day, every day, and only occasionally complain about it. Part of that is actively caring about the shitters in question, I assume. But as you say, it's work to extend that care to someone you don't know.
- gretch 5y ago
  Yeah, that's all true. In addition, I know that infants and dogs literally don't have the capacity to clean up their poop - they couldn't if they wanted to. If I, as an adult, can clean up your poop for you, then it escapes me why you, homeless but also adult, can't pick it up and put it in a dumpster. The logical conclusion is that you do not wish to.
- jerry1979 5y ago
  One of the things I did to steel my will was to to think about the parents and the dog owners when I picked up other people's poop. However, thinking along those lines, I ended up connecting the idea that babies and dogs do not have free will, and I noticed that connection bubble to the surface when I saw homeless encampments. It colored the already dismal sight with a tinge of existential horror. So, I'm not so sure that the baby/dog to encampment dweller connection makes the most appropriate vehicle for mentally dealing with the poop. Or, maybe, it is the right vehicle. I really don't know.
  - qorrect 5y ago
    So homeless don't have free will ?

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> That's the reason you've lost empathy for them, because they are humans who have to shit and are denied access to toilets? Oxytocin--the hormone critically involved in empathy and social behaviors--has been linked to toxin-elicited and socially-mediated disgust [1]. If that link holds, it suggests why public defecation is the emerging turning point of the debate. Rhetorically, this means trivializing the problem is unlikely to be successful. People will lose empathy for people who shit on their street. On the flip side, this offers a well-scoped beachhead. Solving the public defecation problem could rebuild empathy for San Francisco's homeless and give political oxygen to the broader, more-intractable problem of homelessness overall. (I'm honestly shocked nobody has run for office in San Francisco on a vision zero-esque pledge to eliminate public defecation.) [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/gbb.12508 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/gbb.12...

RC_ITR 5y ago
Sure seems weird that people love babies then.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > weird that people love babies then There is a lot of research on this. It's a deep, fascinating rabbit hole and I don't know its contours well enough to flag the entrances. But it touches subjects like mammalian postpartum depression, infanticide in great apes, why the characters :) make one go "aww," cute aggression and a host of other matters. To address your point a bit more head on, I imagine public reactions to a publicly-defecating child would be very different from those to an adult.
- gretch 5y ago
  Does it really confuse you? Are you so out of touch with basic human desires that you don't see the difference between having _your biological baby with your genes_ and a random homeless person? That people love their baby _despite_ their poop, because of the joy they bring, and because it satisfies the most primary of biological drives (reproduction). And you think it's weird that I'm okay with my baby's poop and not the poop of a random adult.

throwaway19937 5y ago

> That's the reason you've lost empathy for them, because they are humans who have to shit and are denied access to toilets? Nope, I lost empathy because in Seattle the homeless are exempt from prosecution and commit crimes with impunity. People like Francisco Calderon (https://komonews.com/news/project-seattle/warrant-issued-for-repeat-offender-francisco-calderon https://komonews.com/news/project-seattle/warrant-issued-for...) or Travis Berge (https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/meth-mental-illness-murder-how-one-prolific-offender-was-given-chance-after-chance/OLIJ2GQJ2JHTJFXW2YUD7GCVPM/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/meth-mental-illness-murder-...) are repeatedly released to commit crimes and harm others.