4 ms·

ML engineers don't clean streets, pick up the garbage, serve food, stock fridges, repair buildings, deliver goods, make the trains run on time, etc., etc. What

ML engineers don't clean streets, pick up the garbage, serve food, stock fridges, repair buildings, deliver goods, make the trains run on time, etc., etc. What are you talking about?

paulmd 2y ago
> make the trains run on time incredibly unlikely that post-homeless people are going to get a job that requires DoT background checks and licensing. Becoming a train engineer is an ordeal even for healthy people, let alone recovering ones, it’s an incredibly desirable and gatekept position. the handling of percived “frothers” came up when that guy stole a train and did the rounds… and that’s just how they treat normal people who like trains. How do you think the brotherhood is going to react to someone who was shooting meth 6 months ago? I think that’s a common problem in this discourse, people love to be like “well they should just… drive a train!” and just have no idea how difficult it is to actually do some of these things anymore. Let alone for someone at the bottom without credentials or doors opened to them. Same for prisoners/convicts, which afaik is a way people frequently end up homeless. I don’t want a homeless camp next door either… but at the end of the day if you don’t provide a route out, then you are going to just create a permanent underclass, and they will end up somewhere or other. As a society it is very clear that we just expect them to suicide and save us the mental anguish of pulling the trigger ourselves. You don’t have to leave, but you can’t stay here. Where? Not my problem, see you in the ditch in a week. And the only solution anyone in the US will consider is just busing them to California. Given the housing overstock, we can literally just house everyone and call it a day. Doesn’t have to be projects either - if your residential-zoned house stands empty for more than a year, make it eligible for eminent domain and hold a lottery to take 1% of them and house people. That does take money, of course, but that can be levied on long-term unoccupied properties too. Solve multiple birds with one stone, make speculators pay to solve the problem they cause by buying their long-term-unoccupied houses with their own money. “What can be done that hasn’t been tried over and over” lots of stuff, actually. Eminent domain is an incredibly broad power, the state can take your home and give it to a developer to make a shopping mall or gas station if they want. Local jurisdictions have essentially unlimited power unless otherwise constrained by their state. Just people get the vapors when it’s being used to help the homeless and not to develop a shopping mall.
- readyman 2y ago
  Trains running on time requires far far far more than just more drivers. I don't think you need that explained to you. I simply agree with you about housing policy. There is no excuse for not housing people. The US is a pathetic failure of a society.
cat_plus_plus 2y ago
Let's first have trains in the first place, California seems utterly incapable of doing what even most developing countries manage to do with no fuss. Then trains can be part of the solution, where people can live in affordable places and commute to where they can make better money. Having recently homeless directly work on trains is beside the point and likely unrealistic.

ML engineers don't clean streets, pick up the garbage, serve food, stock fridges, repair buildings, deliver goods, make the trains run on time, etc., etc. What are you talking about?

paulmd 2y ago

> make the trains run on time incredibly unlikely that post-homeless people are going to get a job that requires DoT background checks and licensing. Becoming a train engineer is an ordeal even for healthy people, let alone recovering ones, it’s an incredibly desirable and gatekept position. the handling of percived “frothers” came up when that guy stole a train and did the rounds… and that’s just how they treat normal people who like trains. How do you think the brotherhood is going to react to someone who was shooting meth 6 months ago? I think that’s a common problem in this discourse, people love to be like “well they should just… drive a train!” and just have no idea how difficult it is to actually do some of these things anymore. Let alone for someone at the bottom without credentials or doors opened to them. Same for prisoners/convicts, which afaik is a way people frequently end up homeless. I don’t want a homeless camp next door either… but at the end of the day if you don’t provide a route out, then you are going to just create a permanent underclass, and they will end up somewhere or other. As a society it is very clear that we just expect them to suicide and save us the mental anguish of pulling the trigger ourselves. You don’t have to leave, but you can’t stay here. Where? Not my problem, see you in the ditch in a week. And the only solution anyone in the US will consider is just busing them to California. Given the housing overstock, we can literally just house everyone and call it a day. Doesn’t have to be projects either - if your residential-zoned house stands empty for more than a year, make it eligible for eminent domain and hold a lottery to take 1% of them and house people. That does take money, of course, but that can be levied on long-term unoccupied properties too. Solve multiple birds with one stone, make speculators pay to solve the problem they cause by buying their long-term-unoccupied houses with their own money. “What can be done that hasn’t been tried over and over” lots of stuff, actually. Eminent domain is an incredibly broad power, the state can take your home and give it to a developer to make a shopping mall or gas station if they want. Local jurisdictions have essentially unlimited power unless otherwise constrained by their state. Just people get the vapors when it’s being used to help the homeless and not to develop a shopping mall.

readyman 2y ago
Trains running on time requires far far far more than just more drivers. I don't think you need that explained to you. I simply agree with you about housing policy. There is no excuse for not housing people. The US is a pathetic failure of a society.

cat_plus_plus 2y ago

Let's first have trains in the first place, California seems utterly incapable of doing what even most developing countries manage to do with no fuss. Then trains can be part of the solution, where people can live in affordable places and commute to where they can make better money. Having recently homeless directly work on trains is beside the point and likely unrealistic.