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The cost to run the service though is as close to zero as you can possibly get. It just feels somewhat inhumane to take something away which is a marginal cost

by dijit 3y ago

The cost to run the service though is as close to zero as you can possibly get. It just feels somewhat inhumane to take something away which is a marginal cost and at best and doesn't cause harm. I mean, Libraries themselves do not need to exist, they are a service, they don't earn money, under pure capitalism they can't exist. But we know as a society that it improves social mobility and education. and I mean, you can't do a lot these days without access to internet.

throwawaymaths 3y ago
Why not provide wifi for the homeless as a service, with its own line item, instead of doing it via the Library?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- sangnoir 3y ago
  Why segregate an existing service that's already meant for everyone? Would we need another wifi network for Veterans and yet another for retirees?
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > Why segregate a service that's already meant for everyone? Because one group denies it to others. In New York, the potent image is that of a homeless person obviously going through a mental health issue, who hasn’t bathed in what smells like weeks, sitting in a subway car on their own. (When I was younger and naïve, I went into one such car and tried to talk to them. I had a handful of what I’ll pretend was a smelly sauce tossed my way.)
    - sangnoir 3y ago
      How about shoring up the social safety net like other developed countries? The length at which Americans go to ignore the homeless (until they are in close physical proximity) is astounding. And most "solutions" are to keep the homeless out of sight without doing anything about their circumstances.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > How about shoring up the social safety net like other developed countries? Genuinely curious: how is the mental-health and drug addiction nexus dealt with when one has an unwilling participant?
        sangnoir 3y ago
        Participate in what exactly? You won't find many takers if the intervention is automatic institutionalization. There are a lot of areas the US has not explored between commiting people to mental asylums and letting them roam the streets.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > Participate in what exactly? I don't know–I'm asking what "other developed countries" do.
      - 0xB31B1B 3y ago
        San Francisco, where this article is about, is spending more than 75k USD per homeless person per year on homeless services. The issues is not a lack of compassion of city residents or the collective residents of the city shouting "pull yourselves up by your bootstraps" to anyone in a precarious position. We have been increasing taxes and spending every year as long as I have been here to help "fix the homeless problem" and it keeps getting worse. At the limit, I would prefer we spend our marginal incoming tax dollar on education and schooling for the children of the city, not on non sober permanent housing for out of town meth heads who just want to get high. Doubling down in this issue, you have a huge portion of the non chronically homeless people who are just on tough times who completely avoid the homeless services in the city because of the legitimate issue that a single insane violent drug addict can have on on an entire homeless shelter or an entire 500 unit permanent supportive housing building. SF housed a few hundred people in the pandemic in an old 300 unit hotel and a few of the residents caused 20 million dollars in damage.
meetingthrower 3y ago
Right, but bedding down outside the library at night so you can get free wifi is antisocial behavior. Why should we invest this much in our public spaces and then effectively give them away? I wouldnt want somebody sleeping next to my house so he could get WiFi. Public spaces are ours. Don't get me wrong. I think we should make massive investments in trying to solve the homeless problem, but giving away our public commons is utter stupidity.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gumby 3y ago
  > Why should we invest this much in our public spaces and then effectively give them away? I wouldnt want somebody sleeping next to my house so he could get WiFi. Public spaces are ours. “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” ― Anatole France
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    The law in practice doesn’t prohibit it. You’re seeing a debate about whether it should, a debate to which this quip adds nothing.
    - gumby 3y ago
      It directly addresses my excerpt of the comment I responded to. The author asked why access to public space should be "given away" and then wrote "public spaces are ours" (emphasis mine). The cleverness of Anatole France's famous quote is that he framed it in a way that the answers to those questions were automatically obvious, by emphasizing the massive difference in agency and scope of action between the haves and the have nots.
  - 0xB31B1B 3y ago

by dijit 3y ago

throwawaymaths 3y ago

Why not provide wifi for the homeless as a service, with its own line item, instead of doing it via the Library?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sangnoir 3y ago
Why segregate an existing service that's already meant for everyone? Would we need another wifi network for Veterans and yet another for retirees?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Why segregate a service that's already meant for everyone? Because one group denies it to others. In New York, the potent image is that of a homeless person obviously going through a mental health issue, who hasn’t bathed in what smells like weeks, sitting in a subway car on their own. (When I was younger and naïve, I went into one such car and tried to talk to them. I had a handful of what I’ll pretend was a smelly sauce tossed my way.)
  - sangnoir 3y ago
    How about shoring up the social safety net like other developed countries? The length at which Americans go to ignore the homeless (until they are in close physical proximity) is astounding. And most "solutions" are to keep the homeless out of sight without doing anything about their circumstances.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > How about shoring up the social safety net like other developed countries? Genuinely curious: how is the mental-health and drug addiction nexus dealt with when one has an unwilling participant?
      - sangnoir 3y ago
        Participate in what exactly? You won't find many takers if the intervention is automatic institutionalization. There are a lot of areas the US has not explored between commiting people to mental asylums and letting them roam the streets.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > Participate in what exactly? I don't know–I'm asking what "other developed countries" do.
    - 0xB31B1B 3y ago
      San Francisco, where this article is about, is spending more than 75k USD per homeless person per year on homeless services. The issues is not a lack of compassion of city residents or the collective residents of the city shouting "pull yourselves up by your bootstraps" to anyone in a precarious position. We have been increasing taxes and spending every year as long as I have been here to help "fix the homeless problem" and it keeps getting worse. At the limit, I would prefer we spend our marginal incoming tax dollar on education and schooling for the children of the city, not on non sober permanent housing for out of town meth heads who just want to get high. Doubling down in this issue, you have a huge portion of the non chronically homeless people who are just on tough times who completely avoid the homeless services in the city because of the legitimate issue that a single insane violent drug addict can have on on an entire homeless shelter or an entire 500 unit permanent supportive housing building. SF housed a few hundred people in the pandemic in an old 300 unit hotel and a few of the residents caused 20 million dollars in damage.

meetingthrower 3y ago

Right, but bedding down outside the library at night so you can get free wifi is antisocial behavior. Why should we invest this much in our public spaces and then effectively give them away? I wouldnt want somebody sleeping next to my house so he could get WiFi. Public spaces are ours. Don't get me wrong. I think we should make massive investments in trying to solve the homeless problem, but giving away our public commons is utter stupidity.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
gumby 3y ago
> Why should we invest this much in our public spaces and then effectively give them away? I wouldnt want somebody sleeping next to my house so he could get WiFi. Public spaces are ours. “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” ― Anatole France
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  The law in practice doesn’t prohibit it. You’re seeing a debate about whether it should, a debate to which this quip adds nothing.
  - gumby 3y ago
    It directly addresses my excerpt of the comment I responded to. The author asked why access to public space should be "given away" and then wrote "public spaces are ours" (emphasis mine). The cleverness of Anatole France's famous quote is that he framed it in a way that the answers to those questions were automatically obvious, by emphasizing the massive difference in agency and scope of action between the haves and the have nots.
- 0xB31B1B 3y ago