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GoPro Project Claims Technology Is Making People Lose Empathy For Homeless

EwanPalmer (2536690) writes "A project involving GoPro cameras and people living on the streets of San Francisco has suggests technology is making people feel less compassionate towards the homeless. Started by Kevin F Adler, the Homeless GoPro project aims to 'build empathy through a first-hand perspective' by strapping one of the cameras onto homeless volunteers to document their lives and daily interactions. One of the volunteers, Adam Reichart, said he believes it is technology which is stopping people from feeling sympathy towards people living on the street as it's easier to have 'less feelings when you're typing something' than looking at them in the eye"

3 of 320 comments (clear)

  1. Helping the poor by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Informative

    In San Francisco you "have to see the poor" daily as well. Hows that working out for them?

    The trouble with the homeless is that they are not just poor, there are usually multiple problems at work including mental issues... so seeing them and giving them money is usually not helping much.

    If you really want to help the poor I suggest going to Modest Needs, that is the best place I've found to help the truly poor directly before they fall off the bottom rung of the ladder.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  2. Re:perception by TheSync · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Why the asylums were closed is anyone's guess."

    In California, the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act was passed "To end the inappropriate, indefinite, and involuntary commitment of mentally disordered persons, people with developmental disabilities, and persons impaired by chronic alcoholism."

    The goal of Deinstitutionalization was that instead of being warehoused in huge, remote institutions, mental patients should be returned to communities where, with help, they might achieve some function in society. Unfortunately there was not much funding for the second part, plus some patients chose the streets if they were not involuntarily committed. Thus many deinstitutionalized patients became homeless.

  3. Re:perception by Dahamma · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ronald Reagan's tax breaks resulted in increased government revenue, is the thing. Voodoo economics actually worked

    Increased revenue but MASSIVELY INCREASED spending. So, no, it did not work at all and is still the current model of pretty much every administration after his (Republican and Democrat) as to how to spend way more money than they take in for short term political gain over long term solutions.

    Claiming the tax breaks themselves results in increased revenue is horribly conflating correlation with causation. It's much more likely the increased revenue was in fact due to the increased deficit spending, of course.