25 ms·

Why Did An Angry Man Punch Me?

64 points by jamesjyu 13y ago

presidentender 13y ago
If we're going with noblesse oblige, we have to admit that we're nobility.
Crito 13y ago
Punching random people in the streets is not normal behaviour, that man needs medical treatment and likely needs to be detained until said treatment takes effect. That is not something that companies like Google are equipped to provide. Not by a long shot. It would not even be legal for them to take that situation into their own hands. The government of San Francisco is the most immediate entity actually in a position to do something there. If the government of San Francisco needs more money to do their job, then you should be asking the government of San Francisco why the hell they aren't raising that money by, perhaps, taxing Google. Asking why Google did not do anything is farcical.
- trekky1700 13y ago
  Honestly, even when there's money for medical attention, these people still exist. In Toronto we still have people like that, though from what I heard, less of them. Here, a man like that would've had access to all the medical help he needed at no cost, but there's no way, apart from arresting him and then getting a judge to agree he's a danger to force it upon him. Without revoking his rights, there's really no way to force help upon him. And definitely no way for Twitter or Google to do it.
  - Crito 13y ago
    Absolutely. It is a sad Catch-22 that many of the people who need help the most do not receive it because they do not help themselves, but their inability to help themselves is part of what they need help with in the first place. Waiting for the inevitable arrest is obviously unsatisfactory, but I don't know how you can improve this process without trampling on rights.
    - wutbrodo 13y ago
      As ideal as it may seem, people are wary of government having too much control over forcing people into mental health treatment. Unfortunately, as it turns out this is for good reason, because even in recent history there's been some pretty horrifying abuse of that power.
      - MetaCosm 13y ago
        Yeah, some of the studies of students checking themselves in and then trying to get out (perfectly sane students) are nightmarish. How do you PROVE you aren't faking "sanity". shiver It gives the people in charge unchecked god like power over other human beings.
      - dllthomas 13y ago
        On the other hand, someone walking up to a stranger and punching them is a good indication of someone not getting some help they need.
        wutbrodo 13y ago
        Oh yea of course, there are always cases that are clear black-and-white, but the same could be said about due process. If fifty people watch a guy stab someone to death, a police investigation and full trial probably isn't quite as necessary; that doesn't mean due process shouldn't exist, because the job of determining the boundary for "obviously guilty (or obviously insane, in the original example)" needs to have some formalism around it. I'm not even saying that the government _shouldn't_ be involved in assessing mental health, just that people are wary of it for a good reason (in the same way that people are wary of any form of testing as a requirement for voting, because of the way that it was so horribly abused in the past).
        dllthomas 13y ago
        I don't think I disagree with any of that.
  - AnimalMuppet 13y ago
    Well, if he punched somebody, then arresting him is an available option...
- falcolas 13y ago
  > why the hell they aren't raising that money by, perhaps, taxing Google. Perhaps because Google hides most of its income from the US and California governments through various international subsidaries. And perhaps also because the moment they worked around all these loopholes and actually started to get money out of Google, Google would simply up and move away, making things worse. Google, Twitter, and companies in general, should have some duty to their communities, if only out of gratitude for providing an environment in which they could thrive. That they don't speaks volumes on their corporate values. Personally, I think it's a problem with the "profit for shareholders above all else" which dominates the discussions about corporate values.
  - Crito 13y ago
    They may be hiding most of their international income in Ireland or wherever, but San Francisco does not need access to most of their income, do they? Tax the portion that they are able to tax. If the tax avoidance becomes or is excessive, you refocus your efforts above local government to seek a solution. "If we increase taxes they'll leave, so there is no point even trying" is a defeatist attitude. And assuming that is how Google really does operate, then expecting charity from Google is ludicrous anyway. (And you are still ignoring the fact that Google is not in a position to do anything besides provide money anyway. Your local government is the one that can actually do something with that money to combat this problem.)
    - greg83 13y ago
      "They may be hiding most of their international income in Ireland" Bermuda[1]. Google does its best to avoid paying tax in Ireland too. [1] http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/10/to-reduce-its-tax-burden-google-expands-use-of-the-double-irish/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/10/to-reduce-its-tax-bu...
  - eloff 13y ago
    It's a competitive environment, you take every advantage you can get, because so will the other guys. A public company in case you forgot is an institution designed to create value for share holders. So the fault is not with these companies but squarely on the idiotic governments with their ridiculous tax codes. They deserve everything they get as, to a lesser extent, do the people who vote for them.
- DanBC 13y ago
  You assume mental illness and not alcohosm nor drug use? That's a bit of a stigmatising guess. In the UK there is a section of the mental health act (section 136) that allows a police officer to take someone to a place of safety and hold them there for upto 72 hours. The person has to be in a public place and the pice have to think that you have a mental illness and need care. In many places in the UK the place of safety might be the local police cells, although there are a few specially built places of safety built near the mental health hospital for easy access. http://www.rethink.org/living-with-mental-illness/police-courts-prison/section-136-police-taking-you-to-a-place-of-safety-from-a-public-place http://www.rethink.org/living-with-mental-illness/police-cou... Other countries have similar law. It needs to be said that peoe with a mental health problem are more likely to be the victim, rather than a perpetrator, of violence. It is frustrating that people have jumped to the conclusion of mental illness rather than, say, drug use.
  - Crito 13y ago
    I'm not a mental health professional by any means, but I file addiction and drug abuse under the broad umbrella of things that are in the purview of mental health professionals. Even if you don't though, Google cannot go around throwing people into drunk tanks. There is a lot of work in the US that needs to be done with how we handle mental health, addiction, or just plain old drug abuse. Primarily, that work needs to be done in government.
- bkmartin 13y ago
  Why are we pigeonholing companies into financial contributions? Money is not the only way nor is it usually the best way to actually help. It is a tool that is sometimes needed to support an actual solution, but why aren't these companies getting really creative with how they help? Why isn't Google or Microsoft or Oracle or any huge company with billions in R&D trying to figuring out more efficient civil government processes? They could have 10 different programs (not necessarily software, but maybe software) going in 10 different communities to help figure out the most efficient ways to administer services in lots of different scenarios based on that community's needs. Why not have a research program run for efficient education delivery, or helping governments design and distribute public information or, or, or... think of all the numerous ways you bitch about government and then figure out a way to do it better. One small piece at a time. And that is how these companies, big and small, can help make their communities better. They need to walk alongside. Sometimes money is the needed resource, but usually its not.
  - Crito 13y ago
    Because I do not buy into the popular notion that techies can solve any and every problem. Google doesn't hire a bunch of political science guys or medical guys; they hire a bunch of CS, SE, CE, and mathematics guys. Why do you think that techies are more qualified to solve problems that people who specialized in those problems are struggling with? Remember that Google, and the tech industry in general, does not have a monopoly on smart people.
    - bkmartin 13y ago
      There are LOTS of start ups. Silicon Valley is full of people from EVERY discipline. This isn't just about the Googles and Twitters. Its about all of them, together, working to use their available talent resources to make a difference in their communities. Who's to say that techies couldn't help local case workers develop systems to better record their data and process it for correlations and trends. To help spot high risk individuals and offer more rapid responses or particular interventions. To help develop and implement more data standards for social workers or court systems or welfare programs. To help integrate food stamp programs into IRS and State tax data so people don't spend hours filling out the same information when they need to sign up for help and make a mistake on a form that causes weeks or months of delays. The amount of wasted time in setting up and delivering services to people is astounding. And yes, our governments are implementing some of this stuff, and yes some of it is a horrible bureaucratic mess... but it doesn't have to be. Silicon Valley communities are filled with the people that run and work at these companies. Why aren't they running for local office and bringing about winds of change to be a showcase of how it CAN be? Its a hotbed of disruption waiting to happen in both business and government... and I think some of the greatest gains for social good could happen if there was a collective effort from the tech community's citizens to be more involved in the actual running of local governments... maybe they could even translate that up to the state level in a couple of years. Just thinking aloud.
- m4x 13y ago
  I'm not sure Google specifically needs to be doing something, but the tech community at large certainly could be. Hence the original author's question, I presume: why isn't the tech community doing something? It seems like a reasonable question. Most tech companies are focused on products for healthy, wealthy people (wealthy enough to buy tech products, I mean. Which is far wealthier than the homeless people living on the street) What's to stop tech companies creating systems or products that directly help people at the bottom of society? Nothing really. It's a hard problem but that's what the tech community likes to boast about solving. I know those sorts of products aren't particularly appealing to most companies but they'd be a darn site better for society than facebook is
imgabe 13y ago
I think it's quite a stretch to lay all urban strife at the feet of tech companies. Twitter's job is to run twitter. They're not a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen or a free mental health clinic or whatever else this author thinks they should be. And if they were, they wouldn't be Twitter, and they wouldn't have the resources to do much of anything. Why look at homeless people and say Twitter/Google/Apple etc. should fix this instead of the government should fix this or maybe I should fix this?
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "Why look at homeless people and say Twitter/Google/Apple etc. should fix this instead of the government should fix this or maybe I should fix this?" When you vote in government that don't support a strong social/welfare system companies and citizens have a social responsibility. I don't think Twitter should be housing the homeless but doing things like building services inside the business so employees never have to venture out hurts local businesses and the local economy. All businesses should be supporting their local communities, not just tech businesses.
  - jerf 13y ago
    "When you vote in government that don't support a strong social/welfare system companies and citizens have a social responsibility." Isn't San Francisco pretty "socially aware" already?
    - k-mcgrady 13y ago
      I'm not sure but from what I've read about the numbers of homeless people and those with mental health issues left on the streets I wouldn't say it's that socially aware.
      - wutbrodo 13y ago
        You've got this almost completely ass-backwards. It's a far more complicated issue than that. Paradoxically, places with more homeless-friendly policies attract far more homeless people (for obvious reasons). As a famous example, Santa Monica has a history of hassling homeless people and effectively criminalizing homelessness, which has the effect of forcing the homeless population elsewhere. Also, relative to a lot of other places in the US, SF's far-more temperate weather increases the appeal for those living outside. On top of all that, you get asshole states like Nevada bussing homeless people to places like San Francisco[1] (SF is actually suing the state of Nevada for this). Now granted, the way _anywhere_ in the US treats their homeless and mentally ill is not particularly "socially aware", but looking at SF's relatively large homeless population and assuming that it comes from a relative lack of social awareness is a completely wrong-headed approach. [1] http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/11/2602391/san-francisco-sues-nevada-patient-dumping/ http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/11/2602391/san-franc...
dasil003 13y ago
I'm all for tech companies giving back more and helping with community building, but I don't see that a bunch of tech-obsessed individuals with autistic tendencies are going to be best at solving the incredibly serious and deep-rooted social problems we face in this country. I totally understand why tech people are a lightning rod for frustration in a place like San Francisco, but I don't see tech as the cause or the solution of these problems. That's not to absolve tech people of responsibility—I think everyone with money in this country has a responsibility—but it's just that we can't do it alone.
bdamm 13y ago
The point is that technology is supposed to be helping make the world better. However it clearly does not work very well, or very fast, in the case of personal conflict. Could it? Perhaps, but let me ask a few similar questions. How quickly did mass literacy change society for the better? How quickly did public education change society for the better? How quickly did the printing press change society for the better? How quickly did antibiotics change society for the better? I'm sure it wasn't fast enough for many who perished during the transitional points.
theorique 13y ago
Connecting the dots between an act of a single mentally ill individual in San Francisco (1) and the tech businesses and workers that have moved in within the past few years, is a bit of a stretch. No, make that an enormous stretch. I get that it's supposed to illustrate the disparity between the nouveau riche and the people left behind. But this is something for individual families and/or the state to solve. Google, Twitter, or Oracle do best when they are left to focus on their core business. If you need them to contribute more to "society" than they already do, raise corporate taxes and pray they don't move to Austin. ---- (1) a city famous for decades for the extreme and outlandish behavior of its homeless people
carsongross 13y ago
Alrighty, Tom. What, exactly, do you want the tech companies to do? Reopen the mental institutions? Maybe under private management? California closed them when Reagan's budget slashing lined up with the counter-culture's "Who are we to judge them?" mindset. Give this guy some money and see how it turns out? Hire people to reason with him? It's easy to see there's a problem. The answers to these problems are harder, and certainly less popular, than asking the tech community to "fix" them.
- DanBC 13y ago
  80s style insane asylums were abusive and were rightly closed. The lack of suitable community treatment and smaller, better mental health hospitals is the problem, not the closing of horrible institutions.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- dmm 13y ago
  What's the cake?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
dmm 13y ago
> What have you done in your neighborhoods that helps people like this poor man? Fascinating attitude. I can certainly understand the desire to help the clearly insane but being subjected to random violence is absolutely unacceptable. Who would subject children to such an environment? I guess the people putting up with this are young people without families or dependants?
brandon272 13y ago
People are jumping over the fact that he singled out tech companies but I think he did so because he was talking about San Francisco specifically. While Twitter doing more in the community may not have prevented this incident from occurring, I think the overall idea is right. Corporations should give back to their communities. Corporate influence is huge, corporations are members of their communities and have the power to effect real change. I also think it goes a long way for company culture when the company as a whole is genuinely focused on giving back. A lot of people rarely feel the joy of giving because they don't know where to start. They're intimidated. If the company you work for provides a platform for you to be able to roll up your sleeves and help people, that can be incredibly rewarding. Everyone benefits, including the company who gains credibility and good will within the community.
gress 13y ago
Because instead of getting away before he was in punching range, you stood there and took a photo?
billyjobob 13y ago
Have you seen the TV show 'Arrow'? They solved the problem of their inner city ghetto in quite an original way.
philbarr 13y ago
Seems to me that if he had enough time to take his phone out of his pocket and take a picture so that he could blog about it he had enough time to turn around and run in the opposite direction. That's worked perfectly well for me a couple of times. Was he waiting for someone to send him a tweet: "leg it!" ?
- memracom 13y ago
  He did say that he was a big strong fellow and that the punch didn't bother him. What bothered him was that incidents like this are a daily occurrence in a city with the largest concentration in the world of people who want to do things differently and solve problems. Either few people bother to read the article or he really is right that the people of HN don't really care about solving hard problems, just the easy get-rich-quick kind of problems.
maxcan 13y ago
> What did xyz do to help this man? What did he do to help himself? Unfortunately, its damn near impossible to help people who won't take the first couple steps themselves. I'm all for helping people who are taking some kind of initiative but being stymied by bureaucratic indifference, harsh economic reality, or some other circumstance. Unfortunately, it seems like most of the advocates for the poor and homeless in SF expect tech companies to fix everything by paying even higher taxes and eliminating shuttles without expecting the "victims" to take any initiative themselves.
- jmcgough 13y ago
  Considering his strange outfit, it's entirely possible that he's mentally ill (or, alternatively, he doesn't like people taking pictures of him). The article doesn't give any real context.
  - maxcan 13y ago
    This applies even all but the most extreme cases of the mentally ill. Outside of involuntarily confining someone and throwing away the key, if someone with limited mental illness or addiction doesn't want to get better and take the first baby steps on their own to doing so (even just stepping foot in a clinic for example) then no amount of resources will help.
mrpoptart 13y ago
http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/The-crisis-of-homelessness-is-rooted-in-mental-3236733.php http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/The-crisis-of-homelessn...
mdakin 13y ago
An angry man punched him because a critical mass of humanity continues to choose dystopia over utopia. All of the specifics and examples in that article really are just symptoms of dystopia. The phenomenon of mentally ill people running around on the streets punching people is merely just a symptom of dystopia. If you want to blame something-- it's not tech companies, Google, Twitter, etc. It's human nature in general, and it's the dystopian beliefs and behaviors of a group of assholes+morons alive on this planet right now who collectively pull humanity towards dystopia by their actions and behaviors in the world relative to the other humans they interact with. Humans on this planet at this moment in technology-time have all the technological know-how to create a world-wide utopia-- theoretically, it could be done in a matter of months. Unfortunately, there is a critical mass of humans who prefer to live in dystopia. And there are many in that critical mass who are willing to kill other people who disagree with them. So dystopia is what we have at this moment in time. Free will's a bitch when there is a critical mass of dystopian assholes+morons on a planet. The behavior of that critical mass of dystopians has a sort of spooky action at a distance for the rest of humanity, even those who are not directly connected/interacting with the dystopians. I can't wait for dystopian actions, behaviors, ideas, models, philosophies, religions, corporations, and governments to die, finally.
eeeeaaii 13y ago
"Why are our cities suffering from the same problems that every other city faces?" I don't even know what to say to this. How can the author even be asking this question? Here's a basic outline. It feels weird typing this because it should be obvious, but here goes. Northern California cities are cities just like any other. There are people of all income levels doing all sorts of different jobs, or not doing any jobs. There are a disproportionate number of tech workers in that region, but other than that it's pretty much the same as anywhere else. People are still people are still people. The reason a shirtless man randomly punched you is because he was crazy. The more people you have concentrated in a small area, the more likely you are to meet up with a crazy person when you're walking down the street (that's just statistics/probability). I live in NYC, a much bigger city, and I see crazy people all the time. When you see someone not wearing a shirt in public, babbling or shouting, hanging around on a street corner by themselves, etc., etc., they are most likely crazy. If you see a crazy person, stay as far away from them as possible and do not make eye contact. Definitely do not engage with them in any way (this includes taking pictures of them) because it will provoke them. Welcome to city life!
DanBC 13y ago
I'm having trouble reading this thread with its stigmatising views of "crazy people", compared to other HN threads that are supportive and urge people with me tal health problems to talk or to seek help. Well, some of the attitudes displayed here are precisely why some people feel unable to talk about their depression or paranoia or hallucinations. Some of the attitudes here are why people do not disclose their MH problems to emoyers even though US law provides protection.
- aeorgnoieang 13y ago
  I think it's pretty rare for someone to have problems similar to the person you depicted and also be employed. And despite legal protections, who would want to employee or supervise someone prone to taking off their clothes, wandering the streets, and punching people? Why is it wrong for others to not want to be around such a person? Sympathize with everyone!
  - bkmartin 13y ago
    That's not true at all. I have a good friend who is treated for "bi-polar" (not the real term) disorder. He had an issue a couple of years ago. Granted, he didn't hurt anyone, but he wasn't stable. He got treatment and is a highly functioning member of society. He holds a full time job, has a wife and a child. Just because someone isn't completely disabled 100% of the time so that they are institutionalized or homeless (and should be institutionalized) doesn't mean they don't have real mental health issues. Its not an on or off switch. In fact, you wouldn't even know this person had an issue if you weren't told. If you don't like sympathy, maybe you could try some empathy. I'm sure your high horse won't mind if you get down off of him for a while.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    Do you want a list of people with severe and enduring mental illness? Let's start with John Nash because he has an easy to watch Hollywood movie about him. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Beautiful_Mind_(film) http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Beautiful_Mind_(film) Your ignorance of severe mental illness ("I think it's pretty rare for someone to have problems similar to the person you depicted and also be employed.") is exactly why people with severe and enduring mental illness suffer stigma. You see someone who may for all you know be experiencing their first episode of psychosis or their first episode of drug induced psychosis but you have already written them off as someone unable to function in society and unable to work. A person who "is prone to taking their clothes off" can be an excellent employee. Emoyment makes them less likely to being prone to taking their clothes off because they have some routine and can afford the meds. You obey the law because it's the law. In the US it's the same law that prevents you discriminating against people in wheelchairs - so you open yourself up to some really lousy publicity if you break that and make clumsy comments about it.
southpawgirl 13y ago
I spent only one week in SF: I found the vibe horrendous. The existence of a caste system based on ethnicity and culture is incredibly evident just by taking a stroll in the city -- it was disturbing, and it made me feel unsafe (please note that normally I live in a rough London area, I am no shrinking violet). I agree with the author of the post that successful entrepreneurs have a social responsibility towards the territory; otherwise they are just exacerbating the tension between 'classes'.
- mdakin 13y ago
  I've been by the bay for going on seven years and I'm just now starting to perceive this caste-system aspect of the place. I perceived it first as something that I call "dynastic culture," which is, I think, how it shows up on a individual basis. But when you collect together in the same place a bunch of people whose consciousnesses run "dynastic culture," you end up with a caste system emerging at the more macro scale. Anyway, I suspect I would enjoy corresponding with you. If that's mutual, my email is mpdakin at Google's service. Cheers!
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    - mdakin 13y ago
      ?
      - lancewiggs 13y ago
        Can be interpreted as hitting on the previous commenter
        mdakin 13y ago
        Hehehe, she lives 1/3 of the way around the world, and I'm not rich so that's def. not my objective. Plus how can you hit on someone you've never even seen? Personally, I don't want to go much more down the rabbit-hole of a conversation that involves "caste systems" in a public forum, but this is the sort of thing I talk about with my friends. That and I've been randomly making friends with people on the Internet since I was a little kid! (Probably explains everything about me really.) :)
owenjones 13y ago
Another "What have tech companies done for SF post" huh. I still don't understand when it became the obligation of private companies to do anything other than run their companies to the best of their abilities? Situations such as this is why people formed a government that is able to tax corporations and people to fund homeless shelters and public housing and drug rehabilitation programs. Clearly there is a MAJOR societal problem in most of the United States, but I don't see how people can lay it at the doorstep of Twitter.
- bkmartin 13y ago
  Its about being a great LOCAL corporate citizen. That is what the issue is about. There is a huge problem for lots of people in San Francisco, rent prices. People are being displaced at an alarming rate that would be much worse if it wasn't for some rent controls that were put in place. People are angry, they are being forced to uproot from a place they called home for many years. Who's taking their place? Well paid people working for the tech startups. Who do people then blame for their problems? Tech startups. Now, the question becomes... do the tech startups get involved in the conversation and try to find ways to help the inevitable gentrification that is happening hurt those pushed out less than it otherwise would? Or do they just take the line the everyone is responsible for themselves, quit crying and get a better paying job! There are real people being hurt by Silicon Valley, for no fault of their own. And lots of these people are very hard working people who just want to live in a nice place like everyone else. But because their 40 hour weeks only clear them a couple hundred bucks after taxes they get pushed out to some other area that is probably more crime ridden and dangerous. Other posters are correct, you get a very clear economic class system happening.
  - owenjones 13y ago
    Well from what I know about SF rent-control-policies, (which is becoming an annoyingly large amount due to the influx of these posts) is that San Fransiscans have been historically hurt more from these policies than helped. You raise valid problems, which I would again say are the traditional responsibilities, and the reasons why, we have a government. Corporations historically have had TERRIBLE ethical and moral compasses which is why we need things like Child Labor Laws. I completely understand why people are mad at SF tech companies, but I think the rational place to direct their anger is towards the government that is not looking out for their interests. To think that Twitter is somehow equipped to tackle the SYSTEMIC societal issues the US face is baffling.
freerobby 13y ago
After reading this article I have a pretty good hunch about why the man punched him.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

64 points by jamesjyu 13y ago

If we're going with noblesse oblige, we have to admit that we're nobility.

Crito 13y ago

Punching random people in the streets is not normal behaviour, that man needs medical treatment and likely needs to be detained until said treatment takes effect. That is not something that companies like Google are equipped to provide. Not by a long shot. It would not even be legal for them to take that situation into their own hands. The government of San Francisco is the most immediate entity actually in a position to do something there. If the government of San Francisco needs more money to do their job, then you should be asking the government of San Francisco why the hell they aren't raising that money by, perhaps, taxing Google. Asking why Google did not do anything is farcical.

trekky1700 13y ago
Honestly, even when there's money for medical attention, these people still exist. In Toronto we still have people like that, though from what I heard, less of them. Here, a man like that would've had access to all the medical help he needed at no cost, but there's no way, apart from arresting him and then getting a judge to agree he's a danger to force it upon him. Without revoking his rights, there's really no way to force help upon him. And definitely no way for Twitter or Google to do it.
- Crito 13y ago
  Absolutely. It is a sad Catch-22 that many of the people who need help the most do not receive it because they do not help themselves, but their inability to help themselves is part of what they need help with in the first place. Waiting for the inevitable arrest is obviously unsatisfactory, but I don't know how you can improve this process without trampling on rights.
  - wutbrodo 13y ago
    As ideal as it may seem, people are wary of government having too much control over forcing people into mental health treatment. Unfortunately, as it turns out this is for good reason, because even in recent history there's been some pretty horrifying abuse of that power.
    - MetaCosm 13y ago
      Yeah, some of the studies of students checking themselves in and then trying to get out (perfectly sane students) are nightmarish. How do you PROVE you aren't faking "sanity". shiver It gives the people in charge unchecked god like power over other human beings.
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      On the other hand, someone walking up to a stranger and punching them is a good indication of someone not getting some help they need.
      - wutbrodo 13y ago
        Oh yea of course, there are always cases that are clear black-and-white, but the same could be said about due process. If fifty people watch a guy stab someone to death, a police investigation and full trial probably isn't quite as necessary; that doesn't mean due process shouldn't exist, because the job of determining the boundary for "obviously guilty (or obviously insane, in the original example)" needs to have some formalism around it. I'm not even saying that the government _shouldn't_ be involved in assessing mental health, just that people are wary of it for a good reason (in the same way that people are wary of any form of testing as a requirement for voting, because of the way that it was so horribly abused in the past).
        dllthomas 13y ago
        I don't think I disagree with any of that.
- AnimalMuppet 13y ago
  Well, if he punched somebody, then arresting him is an available option...
falcolas 13y ago
> why the hell they aren't raising that money by, perhaps, taxing Google. Perhaps because Google hides most of its income from the US and California governments through various international subsidaries. And perhaps also because the moment they worked around all these loopholes and actually started to get money out of Google, Google would simply up and move away, making things worse. Google, Twitter, and companies in general, should have some duty to their communities, if only out of gratitude for providing an environment in which they could thrive. That they don't speaks volumes on their corporate values. Personally, I think it's a problem with the "profit for shareholders above all else" which dominates the discussions about corporate values.
- Crito 13y ago
  They may be hiding most of their international income in Ireland or wherever, but San Francisco does not need access to most of their income, do they? Tax the portion that they are able to tax. If the tax avoidance becomes or is excessive, you refocus your efforts above local government to seek a solution. "If we increase taxes they'll leave, so there is no point even trying" is a defeatist attitude. And assuming that is how Google really does operate, then expecting charity from Google is ludicrous anyway. (And you are still ignoring the fact that Google is not in a position to do anything besides provide money anyway. Your local government is the one that can actually do something with that money to combat this problem.)
  - greg83 13y ago
    "They may be hiding most of their international income in Ireland" Bermuda[1]. Google does its best to avoid paying tax in Ireland too. [1] http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/10/to-reduce-its-tax-burden-google-expands-use-of-the-double-irish/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/10/to-reduce-its-tax-bu...
- eloff 13y ago
  It's a competitive environment, you take every advantage you can get, because so will the other guys. A public company in case you forgot is an institution designed to create value for share holders. So the fault is not with these companies but squarely on the idiotic governments with their ridiculous tax codes. They deserve everything they get as, to a lesser extent, do the people who vote for them.
DanBC 13y ago
You assume mental illness and not alcohosm nor drug use? That's a bit of a stigmatising guess. In the UK there is a section of the mental health act (section 136) that allows a police officer to take someone to a place of safety and hold them there for upto 72 hours. The person has to be in a public place and the pice have to think that you have a mental illness and need care. In many places in the UK the place of safety might be the local police cells, although there are a few specially built places of safety built near the mental health hospital for easy access. http://www.rethink.org/living-with-mental-illness/police-courts-prison/section-136-police-taking-you-to-a-place-of-safety-from-a-public-place http://www.rethink.org/living-with-mental-illness/police-cou... Other countries have similar law. It needs to be said that peoe with a mental health problem are more likely to be the victim, rather than a perpetrator, of violence. It is frustrating that people have jumped to the conclusion of mental illness rather than, say, drug use.
- Crito 13y ago
  I'm not a mental health professional by any means, but I file addiction and drug abuse under the broad umbrella of things that are in the purview of mental health professionals. Even if you don't though, Google cannot go around throwing people into drunk tanks. There is a lot of work in the US that needs to be done with how we handle mental health, addiction, or just plain old drug abuse. Primarily, that work needs to be done in government.
bkmartin 13y ago
Why are we pigeonholing companies into financial contributions? Money is not the only way nor is it usually the best way to actually help. It is a tool that is sometimes needed to support an actual solution, but why aren't these companies getting really creative with how they help? Why isn't Google or Microsoft or Oracle or any huge company with billions in R&D trying to figuring out more efficient civil government processes? They could have 10 different programs (not necessarily software, but maybe software) going in 10 different communities to help figure out the most efficient ways to administer services in lots of different scenarios based on that community's needs. Why not have a research program run for efficient education delivery, or helping governments design and distribute public information or, or, or... think of all the numerous ways you bitch about government and then figure out a way to do it better. One small piece at a time. And that is how these companies, big and small, can help make their communities better. They need to walk alongside. Sometimes money is the needed resource, but usually its not.
- Crito 13y ago
  Because I do not buy into the popular notion that techies can solve any and every problem. Google doesn't hire a bunch of political science guys or medical guys; they hire a bunch of CS, SE, CE, and mathematics guys. Why do you think that techies are more qualified to solve problems that people who specialized in those problems are struggling with? Remember that Google, and the tech industry in general, does not have a monopoly on smart people.
  - bkmartin 13y ago
    There are LOTS of start ups. Silicon Valley is full of people from EVERY discipline. This isn't just about the Googles and Twitters. Its about all of them, together, working to use their available talent resources to make a difference in their communities. Who's to say that techies couldn't help local case workers develop systems to better record their data and process it for correlations and trends. To help spot high risk individuals and offer more rapid responses or particular interventions. To help develop and implement more data standards for social workers or court systems or welfare programs. To help integrate food stamp programs into IRS and State tax data so people don't spend hours filling out the same information when they need to sign up for help and make a mistake on a form that causes weeks or months of delays. The amount of wasted time in setting up and delivering services to people is astounding. And yes, our governments are implementing some of this stuff, and yes some of it is a horrible bureaucratic mess... but it doesn't have to be. Silicon Valley communities are filled with the people that run and work at these companies. Why aren't they running for local office and bringing about winds of change to be a showcase of how it CAN be? Its a hotbed of disruption waiting to happen in both business and government... and I think some of the greatest gains for social good could happen if there was a collective effort from the tech community's citizens to be more involved in the actual running of local governments... maybe they could even translate that up to the state level in a couple of years. Just thinking aloud.
m4x 13y ago
I'm not sure Google specifically needs to be doing something, but the tech community at large certainly could be. Hence the original author's question, I presume: why isn't the tech community doing something? It seems like a reasonable question. Most tech companies are focused on products for healthy, wealthy people (wealthy enough to buy tech products, I mean. Which is far wealthier than the homeless people living on the street) What's to stop tech companies creating systems or products that directly help people at the bottom of society? Nothing really. It's a hard problem but that's what the tech community likes to boast about solving. I know those sorts of products aren't particularly appealing to most companies but they'd be a darn site better for society than facebook is

imgabe 13y ago

I think it's quite a stretch to lay all urban strife at the feet of tech companies. Twitter's job is to run twitter. They're not a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen or a free mental health clinic or whatever else this author thinks they should be. And if they were, they wouldn't be Twitter, and they wouldn't have the resources to do much of anything. Why look at homeless people and say Twitter/Google/Apple etc. should fix this instead of the government should fix this or maybe I should fix this?

k-mcgrady 13y ago
>> "Why look at homeless people and say Twitter/Google/Apple etc. should fix this instead of the government should fix this or maybe I should fix this?" When you vote in government that don't support a strong social/welfare system companies and citizens have a social responsibility. I don't think Twitter should be housing the homeless but doing things like building services inside the business so employees never have to venture out hurts local businesses and the local economy. All businesses should be supporting their local communities, not just tech businesses.
- jerf 13y ago
  "When you vote in government that don't support a strong social/welfare system companies and citizens have a social responsibility." Isn't San Francisco pretty "socially aware" already?
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    I'm not sure but from what I've read about the numbers of homeless people and those with mental health issues left on the streets I wouldn't say it's that socially aware.
    - wutbrodo 13y ago
      You've got this almost completely ass-backwards. It's a far more complicated issue than that. Paradoxically, places with more homeless-friendly policies attract far more homeless people (for obvious reasons). As a famous example, Santa Monica has a history of hassling homeless people and effectively criminalizing homelessness, which has the effect of forcing the homeless population elsewhere. Also, relative to a lot of other places in the US, SF's far-more temperate weather increases the appeal for those living outside. On top of all that, you get asshole states like Nevada bussing homeless people to places like San Francisco[1] (SF is actually suing the state of Nevada for this). Now granted, the way _anywhere_ in the US treats their homeless and mentally ill is not particularly "socially aware", but looking at SF's relatively large homeless population and assuming that it comes from a relative lack of social awareness is a completely wrong-headed approach. [1] http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/11/2602391/san-francisco-sues-nevada-patient-dumping/ http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/11/2602391/san-franc...

dasil003 13y ago

I'm all for tech companies giving back more and helping with community building, but I don't see that a bunch of tech-obsessed individuals with autistic tendencies are going to be best at solving the incredibly serious and deep-rooted social problems we face in this country. I totally understand why tech people are a lightning rod for frustration in a place like San Francisco, but I don't see tech as the cause or the solution of these problems. That's not to absolve tech people of responsibility—I think everyone with money in this country has a responsibility—but it's just that we can't do it alone.

bdamm 13y ago

The point is that technology is supposed to be helping make the world better. However it clearly does not work very well, or very fast, in the case of personal conflict. Could it? Perhaps, but let me ask a few similar questions. How quickly did mass literacy change society for the better? How quickly did public education change society for the better? How quickly did the printing press change society for the better? How quickly did antibiotics change society for the better? I'm sure it wasn't fast enough for many who perished during the transitional points.

theorique 13y ago

Connecting the dots between an act of a single mentally ill individual in San Francisco (1) and the tech businesses and workers that have moved in within the past few years, is a bit of a stretch. No, make that an enormous stretch. I get that it's supposed to illustrate the disparity between the nouveau riche and the people left behind. But this is something for individual families and/or the state to solve. Google, Twitter, or Oracle do best when they are left to focus on their core business. If you need them to contribute more to "society" than they already do, raise corporate taxes and pray they don't move to Austin. ---- (1) a city famous for decades for the extreme and outlandish behavior of its homeless people

carsongross 13y ago

Alrighty, Tom. What, exactly, do you want the tech companies to do? Reopen the mental institutions? Maybe under private management? California closed them when Reagan's budget slashing lined up with the counter-culture's "Who are we to judge them?" mindset. Give this guy some money and see how it turns out? Hire people to reason with him? It's easy to see there's a problem. The answers to these problems are harder, and certainly less popular, than asking the tech community to "fix" them.

DanBC 13y ago
80s style insane asylums were abusive and were rightly closed. The lack of suitable community treatment and smaller, better mental health hospitals is the problem, not the closing of horrible institutions.

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dmm 13y ago
What's the cake?
- deleted 13y ago
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dmm 13y ago

> What have you done in your neighborhoods that helps people like this poor man? Fascinating attitude. I can certainly understand the desire to help the clearly insane but being subjected to random violence is absolutely unacceptable. Who would subject children to such an environment? I guess the people putting up with this are young people without families or dependants?

brandon272 13y ago

People are jumping over the fact that he singled out tech companies but I think he did so because he was talking about San Francisco specifically. While Twitter doing more in the community may not have prevented this incident from occurring, I think the overall idea is right. Corporations should give back to their communities. Corporate influence is huge, corporations are members of their communities and have the power to effect real change. I also think it goes a long way for company culture when the company as a whole is genuinely focused on giving back. A lot of people rarely feel the joy of giving because they don't know where to start. They're intimidated. If the company you work for provides a platform for you to be able to roll up your sleeves and help people, that can be incredibly rewarding. Everyone benefits, including the company who gains credibility and good will within the community.

gress 13y ago

Because instead of getting away before he was in punching range, you stood there and took a photo?

billyjobob 13y ago

Have you seen the TV show 'Arrow'? They solved the problem of their inner city ghetto in quite an original way.

philbarr 13y ago

Seems to me that if he had enough time to take his phone out of his pocket and take a picture so that he could blog about it he had enough time to turn around and run in the opposite direction. That's worked perfectly well for me a couple of times. Was he waiting for someone to send him a tweet: "leg it!" ?

memracom 13y ago
He did say that he was a big strong fellow and that the punch didn't bother him. What bothered him was that incidents like this are a daily occurrence in a city with the largest concentration in the world of people who want to do things differently and solve problems. Either few people bother to read the article or he really is right that the people of HN don't really care about solving hard problems, just the easy get-rich-quick kind of problems.

maxcan 13y ago

> What did xyz do to help this man? What did he do to help himself? Unfortunately, its damn near impossible to help people who won't take the first couple steps themselves. I'm all for helping people who are taking some kind of initiative but being stymied by bureaucratic indifference, harsh economic reality, or some other circumstance. Unfortunately, it seems like most of the advocates for the poor and homeless in SF expect tech companies to fix everything by paying even higher taxes and eliminating shuttles without expecting the "victims" to take any initiative themselves.

jmcgough 13y ago
Considering his strange outfit, it's entirely possible that he's mentally ill (or, alternatively, he doesn't like people taking pictures of him). The article doesn't give any real context.
- maxcan 13y ago
  This applies even all but the most extreme cases of the mentally ill. Outside of involuntarily confining someone and throwing away the key, if someone with limited mental illness or addiction doesn't want to get better and take the first baby steps on their own to doing so (even just stepping foot in a clinic for example) then no amount of resources will help.

mrpoptart 13y ago

http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/The-crisis-of-homelessness-is-rooted-in-mental-3236733.php http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/The-crisis-of-homelessn...

mdakin 13y ago

An angry man punched him because a critical mass of humanity continues to choose dystopia over utopia. All of the specifics and examples in that article really are just symptoms of dystopia. The phenomenon of mentally ill people running around on the streets punching people is merely just a symptom of dystopia. If you want to blame something-- it's not tech companies, Google, Twitter, etc. It's human nature in general, and it's the dystopian beliefs and behaviors of a group of assholes+morons alive on this planet right now who collectively pull humanity towards dystopia by their actions and behaviors in the world relative to the other humans they interact with. Humans on this planet at this moment in technology-time have all the technological know-how to create a world-wide utopia-- theoretically, it could be done in a matter of months. Unfortunately, there is a critical mass of humans who prefer to live in dystopia. And there are many in that critical mass who are willing to kill other people who disagree with them. So dystopia is what we have at this moment in time. Free will's a bitch when there is a critical mass of dystopian assholes+morons on a planet. The behavior of that critical mass of dystopians has a sort of spooky action at a distance for the rest of humanity, even those who are not directly connected/interacting with the dystopians. I can't wait for dystopian actions, behaviors, ideas, models, philosophies, religions, corporations, and governments to die, finally.

eeeeaaii 13y ago

"Why are our cities suffering from the same problems that every other city faces?" I don't even know what to say to this. How can the author even be asking this question? Here's a basic outline. It feels weird typing this because it should be obvious, but here goes. Northern California cities are cities just like any other. There are people of all income levels doing all sorts of different jobs, or not doing any jobs. There are a disproportionate number of tech workers in that region, but other than that it's pretty much the same as anywhere else. People are still people are still people. The reason a shirtless man randomly punched you is because he was crazy. The more people you have concentrated in a small area, the more likely you are to meet up with a crazy person when you're walking down the street (that's just statistics/probability). I live in NYC, a much bigger city, and I see crazy people all the time. When you see someone not wearing a shirt in public, babbling or shouting, hanging around on a street corner by themselves, etc., etc., they are most likely crazy. If you see a crazy person, stay as far away from them as possible and do not make eye contact. Definitely do not engage with them in any way (this includes taking pictures of them) because it will provoke them. Welcome to city life!

DanBC 13y ago

I'm having trouble reading this thread with its stigmatising views of "crazy people", compared to other HN threads that are supportive and urge people with me tal health problems to talk or to seek help. Well, some of the attitudes displayed here are precisely why some people feel unable to talk about their depression or paranoia or hallucinations. Some of the attitudes here are why people do not disclose their MH problems to emoyers even though US law provides protection.

aeorgnoieang 13y ago
I think it's pretty rare for someone to have problems similar to the person you depicted and also be employed. And despite legal protections, who would want to employee or supervise someone prone to taking off their clothes, wandering the streets, and punching people? Why is it wrong for others to not want to be around such a person? Sympathize with everyone!
- bkmartin 13y ago
  That's not true at all. I have a good friend who is treated for "bi-polar" (not the real term) disorder. He had an issue a couple of years ago. Granted, he didn't hurt anyone, but he wasn't stable. He got treatment and is a highly functioning member of society. He holds a full time job, has a wife and a child. Just because someone isn't completely disabled 100% of the time so that they are institutionalized or homeless (and should be institutionalized) doesn't mean they don't have real mental health issues. Its not an on or off switch. In fact, you wouldn't even know this person had an issue if you weren't told. If you don't like sympathy, maybe you could try some empathy. I'm sure your high horse won't mind if you get down off of him for a while.
- DanBC 13y ago
  Do you want a list of people with severe and enduring mental illness? Let's start with John Nash because he has an easy to watch Hollywood movie about him. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Beautiful_Mind_(film) http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Beautiful_Mind_(film) Your ignorance of severe mental illness ("I think it's pretty rare for someone to have problems similar to the person you depicted and also be employed.") is exactly why people with severe and enduring mental illness suffer stigma. You see someone who may for all you know be experiencing their first episode of psychosis or their first episode of drug induced psychosis but you have already written them off as someone unable to function in society and unable to work. A person who "is prone to taking their clothes off" can be an excellent employee. Emoyment makes them less likely to being prone to taking their clothes off because they have some routine and can afford the meds. You obey the law because it's the law. In the US it's the same law that prevents you discriminating against people in wheelchairs - so you open yourself up to some really lousy publicity if you break that and make clumsy comments about it.

southpawgirl 13y ago

I spent only one week in SF: I found the vibe horrendous. The existence of a caste system based on ethnicity and culture is incredibly evident just by taking a stroll in the city -- it was disturbing, and it made me feel unsafe (please note that normally I live in a rough London area, I am no shrinking violet). I agree with the author of the post that successful entrepreneurs have a social responsibility towards the territory; otherwise they are just exacerbating the tension between 'classes'.

mdakin 13y ago
I've been by the bay for going on seven years and I'm just now starting to perceive this caste-system aspect of the place. I perceived it first as something that I call "dynastic culture," which is, I think, how it shows up on a individual basis. But when you collect together in the same place a bunch of people whose consciousnesses run "dynastic culture," you end up with a caste system emerging at the more macro scale. Anyway, I suspect I would enjoy corresponding with you. If that's mutual, my email is mpdakin at Google's service. Cheers!
- deleted 13y ago
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  - mdakin 13y ago
    ?
    - lancewiggs 13y ago
      Can be interpreted as hitting on the previous commenter
      - mdakin 13y ago
        Hehehe, she lives 1/3 of the way around the world, and I'm not rich so that's def. not my objective. Plus how can you hit on someone you've never even seen? Personally, I don't want to go much more down the rabbit-hole of a conversation that involves "caste systems" in a public forum, but this is the sort of thing I talk about with my friends. That and I've been randomly making friends with people on the Internet since I was a little kid! (Probably explains everything about me really.) :)

owenjones 13y ago

Another "What have tech companies done for SF post" huh. I still don't understand when it became the obligation of private companies to do anything other than run their companies to the best of their abilities? Situations such as this is why people formed a government that is able to tax corporations and people to fund homeless shelters and public housing and drug rehabilitation programs. Clearly there is a MAJOR societal problem in most of the United States, but I don't see how people can lay it at the doorstep of Twitter.

bkmartin 13y ago
Its about being a great LOCAL corporate citizen. That is what the issue is about. There is a huge problem for lots of people in San Francisco, rent prices. People are being displaced at an alarming rate that would be much worse if it wasn't for some rent controls that were put in place. People are angry, they are being forced to uproot from a place they called home for many years. Who's taking their place? Well paid people working for the tech startups. Who do people then blame for their problems? Tech startups. Now, the question becomes... do the tech startups get involved in the conversation and try to find ways to help the inevitable gentrification that is happening hurt those pushed out less than it otherwise would? Or do they just take the line the everyone is responsible for themselves, quit crying and get a better paying job! There are real people being hurt by Silicon Valley, for no fault of their own. And lots of these people are very hard working people who just want to live in a nice place like everyone else. But because their 40 hour weeks only clear them a couple hundred bucks after taxes they get pushed out to some other area that is probably more crime ridden and dangerous. Other posters are correct, you get a very clear economic class system happening.
- owenjones 13y ago
  Well from what I know about SF rent-control-policies, (which is becoming an annoyingly large amount due to the influx of these posts) is that San Fransiscans have been historically hurt more from these policies than helped. You raise valid problems, which I would again say are the traditional responsibilities, and the reasons why, we have a government. Corporations historically have had TERRIBLE ethical and moral compasses which is why we need things like Child Labor Laws. I completely understand why people are mad at SF tech companies, but I think the rational place to direct their anger is towards the government that is not looking out for their interests. To think that Twitter is somehow equipped to tackle the SYSTEMIC societal issues the US face is baffling.

freerobby 13y ago

After reading this article I have a pretty good hunch about why the man punched him.

deleted 13y ago

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