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Without a recovery program, some people will still just spend their day smashing car windows to get money for drugs, then go home to their free apartment It mi

by drcode 3y ago

Without a recovery program, some people will still just spend their day smashing car windows to get money for drugs, then go home to their free apartment It might still be worth it regardless, but keep that in mind

i_am_jl 3y ago
If that person is currently living on the street, spending their day smashing car windows to get drugs, it's absolutely still worth it.
bee_rider 3y ago
This hypothetical person will either smash windows and go to an apartment, or smash windows and go sleep somewhere in public. If they are already at the point of smashing windows, then there’s some element of desperation or misanthropy that makes me prefer that they spend their night somewhere private. Anyway if we’re designing hypothetical people, we can come up with sympathetic ones too, so it seems like a wash policy-wise.
- ehvatum 3y ago
  Don’t be a tool. A heroin addict’s motivation to acquire heroin is infinitely greater than a heroin addict’s motivation for anything else in the world.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    What is the link between “make sure they sleep on the street” and “prevent them from breaking windows?” It isn’t a matter of whether or not I’m a tool. The proposed solution is just unrelated to the problem. As you say, if someone really wants heroin, they’ll get heroin. So, making their life miserable won’t stop them from getting it. What do we gain as a society from making sure they shoot up and sleep in public?
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      Isn’t it a moral hazard? The nice thing about living in Ballard is I can point out to my kid what happens when you do fent, at least. If there are no consequences for behavior, what’s the disincentive for not doing it? “We will coddle you while you OD on fent” doesn’t sound appealing to me.
      - bee_rider 3y ago
        I had to do some reordering hopefully it is OK. I think all I’ve done is group your ideas together, rather than change anything you said. > Isn’t it a moral hazard? […] If there are no consequences for behavior, what’s the disincentive for not doing it? There are still lots of downsides to becoming a heroin addict so I think letting them get out of the public eye is fine. > The nice thing about living in Ballard is I can point out to my kid what happens when you do fent, at least. It is your responsibility to parent your kid I guess, but I’d be wary of this sort of thing. What if you accidentally show off a corpse to your kid? That could be pretty traumatic, right? Also, is it really a good lesson, that it is OK to talk about people like that? They are people, not objects of derision. > “We will coddle you while you OD on fent” doesn’t sound appealing to me. This is one of those things, right? It is often the case that the right policy decisions don’t fit in with our personal moral inner monologue. It is what it is.
        seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        There are plenty of disincentives to doing drugs, but they are pretty abstract compared to seeing the guy in front of you splashed out on a bench. It makes it real. Lots of my behavior in life was doing things that my parents didn’t do, basically using anti examples rather than pro examples. The lack of much of a social safety net in the states means that making good decisions is even more important than it would be other countries. If we consider countries like China, where there really isn’t much net at all, drug addicts are rare because they can’t survive very long, and that creates a feedback loop against being a drug addict. We don’t have corpses in Ballard, just a lot of fent addicts who hang near the park. They get free food at the church next door, and there was an encampment at the park for about two years that we had to walk by often. > This is one of those things, right? It is often the case that the right policy decisions don’t fit in with our personal moral inner monologue. It is what it is. Your comment specifically asked what good could it do, it didn’t specify moral inner monologue correctness: > What do we gain as a society from making sure they shoot up and sleep in public?
philwelch 3y ago
There is a way around this dilemma that solves everyone’s problems. People who go around smashing windows etc. are arrested and thrown in jail. If they repeatedly offend, they receive longer and longer sentences, perhaps at some state penitentiary in a more cost effective location. If they are addicted to drugs, they are enrolled in mandatory treatment programs while in prison. This person is hence housed and separated from civil society, with much less incentive to cheat the system. This even solves the other problem that you haven’t brought up: the person who sleeps on the street smashing windows all day is likely to wreck the free apartment you end up giving them, too.
- kodah 3y ago
  We've done that for a long time and it doesn't change the outcome. You either pay exorbitant rates for them to sit in jail or you pay exhorbitant collective insurance rates. Worse off cities will usually incentivize those people to stay out of certain areas and in other areas, which also causes equity issues. We're better off actually helping people. Getting to the root of what's wrong and what threshold we declare someone needs help and of what type is what we're trying to figure out.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    > We've done that for a long time Have we? For every 1000 broken car windows in SF or LA, how many convictions (or even arrests) are there?
    - fzeroracer 3y ago
      I mean SF or LA aren't the only cities with homeless problems. My home city Seattle has them, New York has them, Austin has them. For decades leading up to the 2010s we were convicting and throwing every homeless person we could in jail, but the problem is that it just becomes a revolving door. Either you accept that an entire class of people need to be jailed for life for the crime of being homeless, or you try and fix the revolving door. Some cities have tried and failed, others haven't tried and also failed. Trying to solve a national problem on a state level is almost always bound to be a failure because the problem has to do with things that occurred 10-20 years ago with Purdue Pharma starting off the whole opioid epidemic. We're just now seeing the height of the problem they kicked off. The other 'unspoken truth' about this issue is that people in the rust belt and such have just as many problems with drugs and crime. The difference is that they have homes and these issues aren't visible until someone dies from suicide or an OD.

by drcode 3y ago

i_am_jl 3y ago

If that person is currently living on the street, spending their day smashing car windows to get drugs, it's absolutely still worth it.

bee_rider 3y ago

This hypothetical person will either smash windows and go to an apartment, or smash windows and go sleep somewhere in public. If they are already at the point of smashing windows, then there’s some element of desperation or misanthropy that makes me prefer that they spend their night somewhere private. Anyway if we’re designing hypothetical people, we can come up with sympathetic ones too, so it seems like a wash policy-wise.

ehvatum 3y ago
Don’t be a tool. A heroin addict’s motivation to acquire heroin is infinitely greater than a heroin addict’s motivation for anything else in the world.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  What is the link between “make sure they sleep on the street” and “prevent them from breaking windows?” It isn’t a matter of whether or not I’m a tool. The proposed solution is just unrelated to the problem. As you say, if someone really wants heroin, they’ll get heroin. So, making their life miserable won’t stop them from getting it. What do we gain as a society from making sure they shoot up and sleep in public?
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Isn’t it a moral hazard? The nice thing about living in Ballard is I can point out to my kid what happens when you do fent, at least. If there are no consequences for behavior, what’s the disincentive for not doing it? “We will coddle you while you OD on fent” doesn’t sound appealing to me.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      I had to do some reordering hopefully it is OK. I think all I’ve done is group your ideas together, rather than change anything you said. > Isn’t it a moral hazard? […] If there are no consequences for behavior, what’s the disincentive for not doing it? There are still lots of downsides to becoming a heroin addict so I think letting them get out of the public eye is fine. > The nice thing about living in Ballard is I can point out to my kid what happens when you do fent, at least. It is your responsibility to parent your kid I guess, but I’d be wary of this sort of thing. What if you accidentally show off a corpse to your kid? That could be pretty traumatic, right? Also, is it really a good lesson, that it is OK to talk about people like that? They are people, not objects of derision. > “We will coddle you while you OD on fent” doesn’t sound appealing to me. This is one of those things, right? It is often the case that the right policy decisions don’t fit in with our personal moral inner monologue. It is what it is.
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        There are plenty of disincentives to doing drugs, but they are pretty abstract compared to seeing the guy in front of you splashed out on a bench. It makes it real. Lots of my behavior in life was doing things that my parents didn’t do, basically using anti examples rather than pro examples. The lack of much of a social safety net in the states means that making good decisions is even more important than it would be other countries. If we consider countries like China, where there really isn’t much net at all, drug addicts are rare because they can’t survive very long, and that creates a feedback loop against being a drug addict. We don’t have corpses in Ballard, just a lot of fent addicts who hang near the park. They get free food at the church next door, and there was an encampment at the park for about two years that we had to walk by often. > This is one of those things, right? It is often the case that the right policy decisions don’t fit in with our personal moral inner monologue. It is what it is. Your comment specifically asked what good could it do, it didn’t specify moral inner monologue correctness: > What do we gain as a society from making sure they shoot up and sleep in public?

philwelch 3y ago

There is a way around this dilemma that solves everyone’s problems. People who go around smashing windows etc. are arrested and thrown in jail. If they repeatedly offend, they receive longer and longer sentences, perhaps at some state penitentiary in a more cost effective location. If they are addicted to drugs, they are enrolled in mandatory treatment programs while in prison. This person is hence housed and separated from civil society, with much less incentive to cheat the system. This even solves the other problem that you haven’t brought up: the person who sleeps on the street smashing windows all day is likely to wreck the free apartment you end up giving them, too.

kodah 3y ago
We've done that for a long time and it doesn't change the outcome. You either pay exorbitant rates for them to sit in jail or you pay exhorbitant collective insurance rates. Worse off cities will usually incentivize those people to stay out of certain areas and in other areas, which also causes equity issues. We're better off actually helping people. Getting to the root of what's wrong and what threshold we declare someone needs help and of what type is what we're trying to figure out.
- philwelch 3y ago
  > We've done that for a long time Have we? For every 1000 broken car windows in SF or LA, how many convictions (or even arrests) are there?
  - fzeroracer 3y ago
    I mean SF or LA aren't the only cities with homeless problems. My home city Seattle has them, New York has them, Austin has them. For decades leading up to the 2010s we were convicting and throwing every homeless person we could in jail, but the problem is that it just becomes a revolving door. Either you accept that an entire class of people need to be jailed for life for the crime of being homeless, or you try and fix the revolving door. Some cities have tried and failed, others haven't tried and also failed. Trying to solve a national problem on a state level is almost always bound to be a failure because the problem has to do with things that occurred 10-20 years ago with Purdue Pharma starting off the whole opioid epidemic. We're just now seeing the height of the problem they kicked off. The other 'unspoken truth' about this issue is that people in the rust belt and such have just as many problems with drugs and crime. The difference is that they have homes and these issues aren't visible until someone dies from suicide or an OD.