7 ms·

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 spen

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?
    - voltaireodactyl 4y ago
      To split hairs: I would have to assume any person capable of visiting an American city, but somehow without any media exposure at all would have to be homeless themselves, and people are generally not shocked by others living their same experience. I’m trying to think of another scenario where such a hypothetical person might exist, but my imagination fails me.
      - pfannkuchen 4y ago
        Yes, you are totally correct that such a person would probably not visit Seattle. That part of my reply was an abstract clarifying question aimed at "It gives you an actual sense of what is dangerous rather than one built upon fear of the unknown and media spin". I.e. the negative feeling one gets when one is in a city with people living in tents as they do in Seattle today is not necessarily strictly or even primarily due to media consumption, because (I assert) a theoretical human unexposed to media would still have a qualitatively-same instinctive negative reaction. Do you disagree? If so I am interested in why you disagree. For example, if you somehow talked an orthodox Amish person into visiting Seattle with you (and perhaps had them read a few books about what cities are like in general first), they would still be shocked by the tent areas and find them unpleasant, despite never being exposed to whatever news outlets you consider inflammatory, immoral, incorrect, etc (and I do agree that all news outlets are all of these things, I personally avoid the stuff). Relatedly, if you then asked the Amish person if they would prefer to stay in Seattle and help try to fix the problem, or to just return to their Amish village and ignore the problem, I think they would 100% of the time go with the latter? Are they wrong?
- whateveracct 4y ago
  I mean, someone from rural America who never watches the news would likely feel scared in Seattle. Doesn't mean they are an any point during that fear in any danger. Framing it as desensitization isn't quite right. That implies that the city folk are mistaken in their perceptions and can't see how bad or dangerous their surroundings are. The city folk have a more correct view of the city than suburbanites and out-of-towners. If anyone is desensitized to homelessness in the city, it's the people who no longer treat the homeless as people imo. (sorry for the delayed reply - I would've preferred to be prompt to keep things conversational. But HN said I was going too fast and blocked me from commenting for a while. Which makes me think I got muted due to flagging or something. I posted 3 replies here about Seattle and got immediately hit with it).
  - pfannkuchen 4y ago
    Thanks for a level headed reply on this contentious topic. By desensitization, I mean with respect to the negative instinctive feeling an unacclimated human has when they are in such an environment. So then, you are saying that city folk eventually stop feeling this feeling, and it starts to feel normal (again, purely at an instinctive feelings level, not saying city folk start to think it is “okay” that people are homeless). Agree that people living in a place always have a more accurate view on its qualities than outsiders do, and also agree that dehumanizing the homeless is an even greater degree of desensitization. I wonder then if the normal feeling that comes represents the instinct actually turning off, or the instinct being habituated and simply no longer noticed by the conscious mind? If it’s the latter, then could this result in long term increased mental stress for people living in such cities? That sort of tracks…

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?
  - voltaireodactyl 4y ago
    To split hairs: I would have to assume any person capable of visiting an American city, but somehow without any media exposure at all would have to be homeless themselves, and people are generally not shocked by others living their same experience. I’m trying to think of another scenario where such a hypothetical person might exist, but my imagination fails me.
    - pfannkuchen 4y ago
      Yes, you are totally correct that such a person would probably not visit Seattle. That part of my reply was an abstract clarifying question aimed at "It gives you an actual sense of what is dangerous rather than one built upon fear of the unknown and media spin". I.e. the negative feeling one gets when one is in a city with people living in tents as they do in Seattle today is not necessarily strictly or even primarily due to media consumption, because (I assert) a theoretical human unexposed to media would still have a qualitatively-same instinctive negative reaction. Do you disagree? If so I am interested in why you disagree. For example, if you somehow talked an orthodox Amish person into visiting Seattle with you (and perhaps had them read a few books about what cities are like in general first), they would still be shocked by the tent areas and find them unpleasant, despite never being exposed to whatever news outlets you consider inflammatory, immoral, incorrect, etc (and I do agree that all news outlets are all of these things, I personally avoid the stuff). Relatedly, if you then asked the Amish person if they would prefer to stay in Seattle and help try to fix the problem, or to just return to their Amish village and ignore the problem, I think they would 100% of the time go with the latter? Are they wrong?
whateveracct 4y ago
I mean, someone from rural America who never watches the news would likely feel scared in Seattle. Doesn't mean they are an any point during that fear in any danger. Framing it as desensitization isn't quite right. That implies that the city folk are mistaken in their perceptions and can't see how bad or dangerous their surroundings are. The city folk have a more correct view of the city than suburbanites and out-of-towners. If anyone is desensitized to homelessness in the city, it's the people who no longer treat the homeless as people imo. (sorry for the delayed reply - I would've preferred to be prompt to keep things conversational. But HN said I was going too fast and blocked me from commenting for a while. Which makes me think I got muted due to flagging or something. I posted 3 replies here about Seattle and got immediately hit with it).
- pfannkuchen 4y ago
  Thanks for a level headed reply on this contentious topic. By desensitization, I mean with respect to the negative instinctive feeling an unacclimated human has when they are in such an environment. So then, you are saying that city folk eventually stop feeling this feeling, and it starts to feel normal (again, purely at an instinctive feelings level, not saying city folk start to think it is “okay” that people are homeless). Agree that people living in a place always have a more accurate view on its qualities than outsiders do, and also agree that dehumanizing the homeless is an even greater degree of desensitization. I wonder then if the normal feeling that comes represents the instinct actually turning off, or the instinct being habituated and simply no longer noticed by the conscious mind? If it’s the latter, then could this result in long term increased mental stress for people living in such cities? That sort of tracks…