14 ms·

Have you actually lived in Seattle? Or is that your opinion from visiting?

pfannkuchen 4y ago
How would living in Seattle proper provide a qualitatively different perspective from living in Redmond and visiting? Are you saying you eventually get used to people on mind altering drugs living in tents (sometimes growling at you as you walk by), and it stops bothering you? Genuinely asking. I have a similar opinion of the city but also have never lived on that side of the lake, and I wonder what I am missing…
- whateveracct 4y ago
  It gives you an actual sense of what is dangerous rather than one built upon fear of the unknown and media spin, mostly. I went up to Seattle recently and spent an evening running around Belltown. Not the nicest area of the city but also not the worst. I lived there for years. It was fine. I did see and interact with homeless people and I wouldn't be surprised if some were high. Still better than any night out on the Eastside
  - pfannkuchen 4y ago
    Thanks for the reply. The Eastside is for sure boring. I agree that media consumption in general leads to instinctive overestimation of danger, since our brains are built to live in small villages where if you hear about 10 people being assaulted in a year it means you are really in serious danger of being assaulted personally. Whereas in a city, 10 assaults barely moves the needle in terms of actual risk to each person, and our instincts can’t tell the difference. It’s interesting though, if I’m hearing you correctly you are indeed basically saying that you do become desensitized to the ambient homeless through exposure over time. This is assuming that a person without any media exposure at all would still find the homeless situation shocking and unpleasant to be around, which I imagine you wouldn’t disagree with?
    - voltaireodactyl 4y ago
      “Shocking” — hardly, given the aforementioned extensive media coverage of the situation. “Unpleasant to be around” — I personally find lots of folks unpleasant to be around; the homeless fall somewhere in the middle of the scale. I’m far less concerned with their drug use than with the intoxication of people owning and operating cars, for example. I know far more people negatively and physically impacted by DUI than by random assault by the homeless. I’m also less bothered by the existence of folks without homes than I am by folks who — upon registering their own discomfort with the situation — seek to move the problem out of view rather than addressing the root cause. The process you’re seeking to describe as a “desensitization” is instead a growing comfort with a larger swath of communities than folks who don’t live in such cities are fortunate enough to encounter. In reality, it would seem that desensitization actually occurs when folks are exposed to endlessly “othering” media, with very little personal experience to speak of. Policing has taken a similar path from “community engagement based decision making” to “birds eye statistical algorithmic policing”. It’s going about as well as addressing the actual causes of homelessness.
      - WeylandYutani 4y ago
        This is just bullshit. Homeless camps are a fucking disgrace for a rich Western country and every citizen should feel bad about it.
        whateveracct 4y ago
        what's your solution? if they're a disgrace we must have been able to get to where we are with a simple change, right? what was then blindspot?
        mantas 4y ago
        Why with a specifically simple change?
      - pfannkuchen 4y ago
        I’m a bit confused how you’ve taken the “shocking” part so extremely out of its immediately adjacent context. “This is assuming that a person *without any media exposure* at all would still find the homeless situation shocking” How could a hypothetical person without any media exposure at all be informed by the extensive media coverage?

How would living in Seattle proper provide a qualitatively different perspective from living in Redmond and visiting? Are you saying you eventually get used to people on mind altering drugs living in tents (sometimes growling at you as you walk by), and it stops bothering you? Genuinely asking. I have a similar opinion of the city but also have never lived on that side of the lake, and I wonder what I am missing…

whateveracct 4y ago
It gives you an actual sense of what is dangerous rather than one built upon fear of the unknown and media spin, mostly. I went up to Seattle recently and spent an evening running around Belltown. Not the nicest area of the city but also not the worst. I lived there for years. It was fine. I did see and interact with homeless people and I wouldn't be surprised if some were high. Still better than any night out on the Eastside
- pfannkuchen 4y ago
  Thanks for the reply. The Eastside is for sure boring. I agree that media consumption in general leads to instinctive overestimation of danger, since our brains are built to live in small villages where if you hear about 10 people being assaulted in a year it means you are really in serious danger of being assaulted personally. Whereas in a city, 10 assaults barely moves the needle in terms of actual risk to each person, and our instincts can’t tell the difference. It’s interesting though, if I’m hearing you correctly you are indeed basically saying that you do become desensitized to the ambient homeless through exposure over time. This is assuming that a person without any media exposure at all would still find the homeless situation shocking and unpleasant to be around, which I imagine you wouldn’t disagree with?
  - voltaireodactyl 4y ago
    “Shocking” — hardly, given the aforementioned extensive media coverage of the situation. “Unpleasant to be around” — I personally find lots of folks unpleasant to be around; the homeless fall somewhere in the middle of the scale. I’m far less concerned with their drug use than with the intoxication of people owning and operating cars, for example. I know far more people negatively and physically impacted by DUI than by random assault by the homeless. I’m also less bothered by the existence of folks without homes than I am by folks who — upon registering their own discomfort with the situation — seek to move the problem out of view rather than addressing the root cause. The process you’re seeking to describe as a “desensitization” is instead a growing comfort with a larger swath of communities than folks who don’t live in such cities are fortunate enough to encounter. In reality, it would seem that desensitization actually occurs when folks are exposed to endlessly “othering” media, with very little personal experience to speak of. Policing has taken a similar path from “community engagement based decision making” to “birds eye statistical algorithmic policing”. It’s going about as well as addressing the actual causes of homelessness.
    - WeylandYutani 4y ago
      This is just bullshit. Homeless camps are a fucking disgrace for a rich Western country and every citizen should feel bad about it.
      - whateveracct 4y ago
        what's your solution? if they're a disgrace we must have been able to get to where we are with a simple change, right? what was then blindspot?
        mantas 4y ago
        Why with a specifically simple change?
    - pfannkuchen 4y ago
      I’m a bit confused how you’ve taken the “shocking” part so extremely out of its immediately adjacent context. “This is assuming that a person *without any media exposure* at all would still find the homeless situation shocking” How could a hypothetical person without any media exposure at all be informed by the extensive media coverage?