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Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug Or a Feature?
sarahnaomi writes: SimCity players have discussed a variety of creative strategies for their virtual homelessness problem. They've suggested waiting for natural disasters like tornadoes to blow the vagrants away, bulldozing parks where they congregate, or creating such a woefully insufficient city infrastructure that the homeless would leave on their own.
You can read all of these proposed final solutions in Matteo Bittanti's How to Get Rid of Homelessness, "a 600-page epic split in two volumes documenting the so-called 'homeless scandal' that affected 2013's SimCity." Bittanti collected, selected, and transcribed thousands of these messages exchanged by players on publisher Electronic Arts' official forums, Reddit, and the largest online SimCity community Simtropolis, who experienced and then tried to "eradicate" the phenomenon of homelessness that "plagued" SimCity."
You can read all of these proposed final solutions in Matteo Bittanti's How to Get Rid of Homelessness, "a 600-page epic split in two volumes documenting the so-called 'homeless scandal' that affected 2013's SimCity." Bittanti collected, selected, and transcribed thousands of these messages exchanged by players on publisher Electronic Arts' official forums, Reddit, and the largest online SimCity community Simtropolis, who experienced and then tried to "eradicate" the phenomenon of homelessness that "plagued" SimCity."
I found this one on a trip down memory lane. Runs in a DOSBox and works great on my Win7 laptop! Yes, it's ENTIRELY LEGAL. you can get the download here.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
It sure is a good thing that players' behavior as modeled in games has no effect whatsoever on their offline behavior, or in any way informs us about their attitudes toward the real world. That might be disconcerting.
host the Olympics?
If this dude is morally outraged by the way people play Sim City I can only hope someone alerts them to the way people play Dwarf Fortress.
Better to have homeless people on welfare in the streets rather than only drunken frat boys, small criminals and drug addicts. Problem in the US is you don't give them enough welfare (or at all) and no healthcare, hell homeful people at full time min wage employment don't even have healthcare. Nationalise all the evul healthcare companies (this cuts red tape), make the price of medicines drop, make welfare easier to get (less red tape) and redistribute the half a trillion or so you've saved in welfare.
The homeless people are who lived in all the neighborhoods of players who no longer play the game due to being locked out by intrusive DRM.
A limited run of 99 copies of How to get Rid of Homeless is available from Bittanti's Concrete Press via Amazon. Volume I is $150 and Volume II is $70.
Like anyone's going to pay $220.00 for a collection of reddit posts ...
They lost their way after SimCity 4 + Rush Hour. For aficionados of previous versions of the game, read the reviews first, it'll save you money. As for the "books", you can get the raw posts from reddit and the Simcity site.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Clearly your city needs a better welfare and education system, and perhaps a work incentive scheme.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I was under the impression that no one plays this game. The cities are so tiny that the game gets boring after about 2 hours of playtime. Support for the game has ended. And everyone went back to playing the previous Sim City game, or Cities XL.
That game has more problems than just the homeless population.
So does the author:
Bittanti says that it's impossible to distinguish between videogames and America in the same way that Jean Baudrillard thought it was impossible to distinguish between Disneyland and America. The book, he told me, is about simulation and its discontents, the unexpected convergence and collapse between reality and simulation.
"To me video games are the so-called 'real America,'" he said. "The real America operates according to a video game logic, and that game logic is neo-liberalism, and that absolutely manifests in San Francisco, that to me is the epicenter of inequality. In San Francisco you either have a Tesla and you drink a seven dollar cappuccino or you're homeless in the streets."
I think he's been playing games too long. SimCity's reality distortion field claims another victim, which is amazing because it's crap compared to its' predecessors.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Nope
signed
northern canada
go back to simcity version 1 or 2. homelessness wasn't a problem 22 years ago, right?
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Are we now going to say it's incorrect for a city simulator to present the player with problems that currently occur in actual real cities?
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As long as there are people starving and going mad in the streets
Mental health problems are far more likely to be the cause of homelessness than the reverse.
And I encounter someone who is mentally ill on the street, I'm not sure what you think I could do for them that the social workers and the police couldn't.
Note to self: Avoid Santa Monica. Non-zero probability of encountering strange person trying to make an obscure point while disguised as a homeless person.
the thing that most players don't realise about games like simcity (and other "simulation" games including civilisation and clones, the sims, and many others) is that they're not just simulations, they're also propaganda tools with a particular model of how reality is, or should, be.
for the most part, these games push the theology of "meritocratic" free market laissez-faire capitalism - with the deserving rich being those who worked hard and the undeserving poor being worthless lazy slobs. this simulates american moralising and judgemental opinions fairly well, but not the real world.
...was the last actual SimCity. Every subsequent game with that name was a dumbed-down fucking shell, a goddamn disgrace. Had high hopes for this latest iteration before all the BS came to light. SMH.
Hell I still play SC4 now when I get bored. Have an awesome realistic region of 4+ million or so, based on a map made from the Oxnard, CA area (scaled way up). Bah...but enough waxing nostalgic. Fuck fucking EA and what they did to Maxis, smfh.
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I think the PC name for that game is Little People's Fortress.
Only if it's made by Fisher-Price.
Given that a lot of homeless people have a mental illness and/or are addicted to drugs, that is not surprising.
Then perhaps the package should have included health care, such as a psychiatric evaluation and warm turkey treatment (first dose 1 minute later each day) for any chemical dependence.
Note to self: Avoid Santa Monica. Non-zero probability of encountering strange person trying to make an obscure point while disguised as a homeless person.
For that matter, avoid Earth in general.
I think you are missing the point. The vast majority of homeless have mental health issues, and that is why they are homeless. There is nothing that we can do to help them that the social workers cannot. The fact that you are using homelessness as a protest against capitalism is a bit wierd. Why not just move to another country you might be more happy with?
"Personally, I just don't care to contribute to a system/country that I find vomit-inducing and am pretty comfortable sleeping under a bridge."
Yeah, so I read your blog - you were arrested for holding burglary tools and appearing to be high and when you got out the first thing you did was score some weed, got high, then at some point got some schrooms, got high, then complained about the homeless life, etc. You sir, are in my opinion, a bullshit artist and your homeless has nothing to do with solidarity; I believe it has everything to do with you being in need of some serious mental help. Of course, I'm pretty sure you won't see it that way. Please, get yourself some help, you don't have to live with substance abuse issues and you don't appear to need to be a burglar to make a living if you actually are a programmer. Good luck, man.
I know my sig says "hire me", but I have had offers in real-life and turned them down because I didn't agree with the what/how the employer produced.
The guy above suggested forced-hospitalization of mentally-ill people as a way to help them. If he gets his way, you could be 'hospitalized' with that attitude.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The real answer is to make certain that all people have good quality housing without regard for their ability to pay. More than ever human labor is being replaced and devalued. Work related education is not an answer when jobs do not exist. And for those than can do the math it is cheaper to buy a poor person a home and keep it up for him than to slap him in jail or prison. It is an issue similar to medical care. It is far cheaper to simply give a poor person a whiz bang medical policy for free than to pay his bills when he is sick and at the emergency room door. But if we compromise and give the poor inadequate insurance coverage they will still end up at the emergency room. Oddly the way to save money can be to spend money more freely.
To me video games are the so-called 'real America,'" he said. "The real America operates according to a video game logic, and that game logic is neo-liberalism, and that absolutely manifests in San Francisco, that to me is the epicenter of inequality. In San Francisco you either have a Tesla and you drink a seven dollar cappuccino or you're homeless in the streets."
I think he's been playing games too long. SimCity's reality distortion field claims another victim, which is amazing because it's crap compared to its' predecessors.
Ever lived in San Francisco? Sounds pretty close to reality to me. Not everyone who isn't rich is homeless in the streets, though. Some of them are students with rich parents, but they themselves aren't technically rich yet. They just look rich with their Audi and their expensive clothes and new phone every year. While the rank and file who make the seven dollar cappucinos, flip the burgers and whatnot are stacked up five or six to a house with people living in hallways and closets.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There are places where welfare is less generous than others, but where I live homelessness is a lifestyle choice, the way it is for yourself. Now, it's not reasonable to expect the mentally ill to take responsibility for making the best choices for themselves, but again, there's nothing I can do that the professionals can't.
The bugs, and people glossing over the basic info on homeless made them much more of a problem. Homeless only really became a problem with going up to the largest cities. Traffic would snarl resulting in people not getting enough work resulting in homeless. Homeless would build up in that scenario until traffic got under control. Getting rid of homeless was only an issue if you recklessly upgraded everything. Homeless need a level 1 business that needs workers to get out of becoming homeless. If you have too many people and not enough jobs these jobs will be filled by people with homes. I've yet to see a scenario where I changed the economy to level 1 businesses with a surplus of jobs that didn't slowly remove the homeless without going all Machiavellian. Though Machiavellian is a much faster route.
Besides, south park already addressed the final solution to the homeless question:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Basically you just entice them to move to another city.
APK, can I solve homelessness in my PC games with a good hosts file??? :-P
And homeless population - that's a problem that occurs in most cities.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
So you're deliberately giving different projection to the experiences that the rich person would experience.
But you know, just because you're 'nice' perhaps, it doesn't make the rest of the homeless 'nice'.
If you follow your line of thinking backwards, you really should be hanging out with the homeless folks, trying to get them to be more of a well-spoken homeless hipster like yourself. Raise the perception of the homeless by educating -them-.
Sim City is a utopian planner/dictator simulator already (one person, the human player, dictates to the society) .... so now it produces the natural results of central planning (a large homeless discouraged population in an artificially-crippled economy where the "invisible hand" of the free economy can NEVER solve the problem) and induces the player (the central planner/dictator) to dream of ways of killing them off (or neglecting them to death) for the benefit of his/her whim, preferences of societal "cleanliness", organization, etc? The central planner wants his city to look fantastic, and to hell with all the inconvenient people! Ha! that's quite possibly the best simulation ever written! Very meta.
The solution is also a hyper-realistic one. Copy the example of our current President; double the budget for food stamps, promise them free phones and free junior college and free healthcare to keep them from getting too squirrly.... and then pretend they simply do not exist so you can cite new updated low unemployment numbers (leaving out the millions of unemployed you choose to pretend have been killed by Godzilla) while you push very hard to import another huge population to do all the work those people already in the sim wont't do.
Basically you just entice them to move to another city.
This technique is a significant contributor to the Bay Area's homelessness problem.
.: Semper Absurda
I think he's been playing games too long.
He certainly hasn't been reading San Francisco demographic information.
.: Semper Absurda
I know my sig says "hire me", but I have had offers in real-life and turned them down because I didn't agree with the what/how the employer produced.
I took a two minute glance at your blog. I read your comment here and a little bit of your other writings. You sound like you have a decent level of intelligence. I am gonna go out on a limb and assume that you are young (20 - 30). At some point in your life you are going to realize your wasted potential. When that moment of clarity hits you,... it is going to hit you like a stone to the head.
Part of 'being a man' is doing the work you don't want to do. It is the daily struggle so you can provide for a family; not living under a bridge so your values can remain intact. We are all idealistic at some point in our lives, but, there comes a time to grow up. Don't wait until it is too late.
my $.02
Ever lived in San Francisco? Sounds pretty close to reality to me.
I can understand why someone who didn't grow up in the Bay and who hasn't spend much time outside of certain districts would have that impression.
About 25% of San Franciscan households have incomes above $100,000 and about 13% are poverty-level or below. For comparison, those numbers for Alameda County are ~17% and ~13%, respectively. Yeah, SF has more inequality, but not to the extremes sometimes imagined.
(Numbers from demographia.com and US census data).
.: Semper Absurda
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For fuck's sake man, pick a class and get a job. Fighter mage thief multi? No wonder you're homeless.
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Wow - somebody modded up a post asking why the poor don't just splash out on travel expenses.
And I encounter someone who is mentally ill on the street, I'm not sure what you think I could do for them that the social workers and the police couldn't.
It's hard not to take this as a troll. The police are not generally inclined to help homeless people - although I see police harassing them almost every day. Social workers for the most part would help the homeless - but they're underpaid, understaffed and institutionally handicapped. Maybe you don't live in the United States?
I personally don't expect you to personally spend time / effort / money helping an individual homeless person in some way, but if you're unhappy with how local, state and federal governments are handling the problem at large, then the same recourse exists as for any other social problem.
.: Semper Absurda
Yeah, like we cannot take on more than one problem at a time, right? Face it: homelessness in Sim City IS A PROBLEM. It needs to be addressed NOW. It's not like all those homeless are going away if you ignore them. What are you going to do, force them to emigrate? To where, the Mushroom Kingdom? In case you haven't noticed there's a permanent status of civil war there. Some of these homeless people are veterans with severe psych issues and they're of all ages - from Battlezone tank crewmembers to Call of Duty former SpecOps - they need HELP. So get off your high Skyrim-imported horse and press F12, dammit!
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
I write this while homeless in Santa Monica, CA
Yet, you can somehow manage to post on slashdot.
Your priorities are puzzling to say the least.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug Or a Feature?
Homelessness is obviously a feature. It's the level of homelessness and the impact it has on gameplay that is being questioned in the article.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Doing what you don't want to do is the very definition of wasting rather than realising your potential.
How about you respond to APK? You spouted some bullshit claims and he called you out. Where's your response?
Jeez, give it a rest man. You're getting worse than the mycleanpc thing but not as funny.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Efficiency and progress are ours once more; now that we have the neutron bomb.
I can understand why someone who didn't grow up in the Bay and who hasn't spend much time outside of certain districts would have that impression.
I grew up in Santa Cruz, and I've been to SF dozens of times. I lived there for about a year. I know many people who live there. It's you that's ignorant as to how people live in SF.
About 25% of San Franciscan households have incomes above $100,000 and about 13% are poverty-level or below.
How is a "household" defined? If you put five kids making minimum wage into a house, that's a household with income above $100,000, but everyone in that house is still in poverty.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
if those homeless moved to somewhere that didnt cost 5 grand a month to live in a 500 foot 1 room studio, they might be able to actually live. I have no pity for people who force themselves into these issues.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
if those homeless moved to somewhere that didnt cost 5 grand a month to live in a 500 foot 1 room studio, they might be able to actually live. I have no pity for people who force themselves into these issues.
The question then becomes, who's going to make coffee, and pizza? Who's going to man the cash registers? They're really all expected to scurry in from outside the city limits to do the bidding of their corporate masters? The public transportation system in SF is a bit shit, that's really not practical.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hanging out in a library reading and posting on Slashdot is probably a hell of a lot more fun than sitting on a park bench in the rain.
"while they step over the clinging-desperately-to-life 'problem' all around them."
The *most* pathetic looking and in-your-face are conmen and criminals. Giving money is a transaction where they sell you a show where you can feel like you've done something good. In reality, you've just encouraged a beggar who fought for that premium corner.
Many of the people with real problems are quieter, and some of them don't even live on the streets. But hey, entitlement comes with believing that being on the street gives you some kind of credibility.
Mental illness is the real problem, and for those who can't fit into the mold of alcoholism, drug abuse, depression or schizophrenia, defiantly homeless should be considered a mental illness. It's certainly not making you or the people around you happy.
Few countries are equipped to deal with mental illness, so people live hard and die on the streets, and that's horrible.
"Don't let businesses run homeless people off who are trying to get out of the cold"
Damn right. Screw those bourguois minimum wage kids trying to make it through school cleaning vomit and filth out of bathrooms by people who view the coffee shop where they warmed up as the enemy!
Can't reason with crazy.
Just because you are in a jam and feel it's ok to steal something to survive, it doesn't mean you don't owe something in return to work off that debt. If you steal food from me because you are starving, fine, but you better help me replace that food. Don't expect to take out of need without ever feeling like you owe a debt.
I write this while homeless in Santa Monica, CA
Yet, you can somehow manage to post on slashdot.
Your priorities are puzzling to say the least.
I may be able to shed some light. I volunteered at a soup kitchen once, and when we were serving a whole room full of people, I noticed a couple of them had laptops. While I cannot know the exact reason, I had made a few guesses myself. I guessed that maybe a relative or a friend had given it to them, or they may have acquired it during a more plentiful portion of their lives, or an old laptop from the garbage that people start to throw out not so uncommon these days. So I would say it would be possible for a laptop to be in the possession of the homeless' stash.
As for priorities, I would say that being connected to the rest of the world, even though if only online, would be a great way for someone homeless to stay mentally sane and updated on the world and perhaps find access to support programmes or odd jobs. Without a support tools, it is very hard for somebody homeless to re-enter society. Thus, I would say that our homeless friend who posted on slashdot's priorities make sense to me.
How is a "household" defined? If you put five kids making minimum wage into a house, that's a household with income above $100,000, but everyone in that house is still in poverty.
That's only if you interpret the poverty line in terms of individual discretionary income as opposed to a standard of living. A large part of the cost of living is fixed costs such as rent and utilities which would be split among the occupants. In addition, the potentially variable costs of necessities such as food, scale pretty well in this country where whole sale markets are adjacent to pretty much every major city. I'll grant you that things like health care and auto insurance would still be a problem, but that's because they're still broken.
So according to your definition, a single-income family with a spouse and 3 kids with an income of over $100,000 is still living in poverty. I don't think so.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I doubt you'll be dismantling any hegemony anytime soon sleeping inside abandoned buildings and under bridges floating food kitchen to food kitchen.
I hear you, but my genetics are corrupt and most people would never believe that I have lived through what I have. I would not want to relate any of the details. It would be irresponsible for me to father a child. Realizing that I don't have the emotional tools to deal with people on a normal level, much less raise a child, is something that I have come to grips with over a long process. My level of detachment and ability to withstand what would be torturous for most people makes me a good candidate to be a sort of martyr for those in similarly hellish situations but without the ability to express their feelings. You are right, and a wise old guy on the street told me something very similar, but this is "the work I don't want to do."
If you are genuine and not fabricating this homeless persona ("running to a chowline for lentis and rice", who talks like that?), then reducing everything to your "genetics are corrupt" is rather fatalistic and sounds like you're ignoring the real cause of your situation. If you truly would rather live in homelessness, then own it and acknowledge that it is your choice. Don't blame it on your genetics. You can't deal with people on a normal level because you don't have the emotional tools? Fine, neither can a lot of people and they find ways to work around that. You have options and aren't on a set course that you can't deviate from, so don't pretend or lie to yourself that that is the case.
When no one who lives there is willing to work at starbucks because it doesnt pay enough, they will either start paying better or the cost of living will fall to normal levels.
Are you even from America? Neither one of those scenarios is what happens in the situation you propose to engineer here. What happens is that the cities form economic enclaves for the lower class that are "separated" from the rest of the city by some subtle landmark such as a city park, commercial\industrial district, railroad track or other non-residential zone. These areas are called Municipal Housing Projects and the properties are ubiquitously subsidized with rent assistance programs such as Section 8 to make the prospect of living there attractive to the point where some people think it's their only viable option. I'm not sure where you got these romanticized ideas of collective bargaining for the unskilled labor market, or why you think that you can win at this game by not playing but you need to drop them while you're ostensibly still young. Now I have nothing against Bohemianism if that's your choice, but remember that literally any other life style is going to require some actual effort on your part
Easy problem to solve, just export them to SimAuschwitz.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
As a comfy westerner, this story made me blush. Talk about first world problems!
i think you are missing the point I was trying to make which was to simply leave the area that is expensive and move to somewhere that is affordable. 20 grand in NYC or san fran is "homeless" but in other states it is enough to live comfortably.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
So according to your definition, a single-income family with a spouse and 3 kids with an income of over $100,000 is still living in poverty. I don't think so.
Actually, they wouldn't be even then. The federal poverty line is $11,670 for an individual. Of course, there's actually a nonlinear dependence on the household size - the line for a household of 5 is $27,910. I guess (like most) the parent doesn't really understand poverty.
.: Semper Absurda
I grew up in Santa Cruz, and I've been to SF dozens of times. I lived there for about a year. I know many people who live there. It's you that's ignorant as to how people live in SF.
Wow, dozens. </eyeroll>
If you put five kids making minimum wage into a house, that's a household with income above $100,000, but everyone in that house is still in poverty.
No, they aren't. The poverty line for an individual is $11,670, and $27,910 total for a family/household of 5 people.
.: Semper Absurda
Same here, though I don't have kids, and won't ever have kids, though I do have siblings with kids... so the same concept holds -- though poverty is not the only cause of suffering -- I'd imagine there are plenty of "well off" people who live with suffering of some sort, perhaps not so much physical suffering, but suffering nonetheless. So leaving one's kids a large inheritance is hardly a guarantee of them not suffering. I've heard too many horror stories of siblings fighting bitterly over inheritance... which I'm sure causes suffering. Anxiety and fear of losing one's worldly possessions is a form of suffering.
Something like a universal basic income would likely solve the most egregious physical suffering for most that simply lack basic survival necessities, and an actual functioning public mental health system would take care of most who wouldn't benefit from just a basic income.
The other kinds of suffering can only be eliminated by good friends, more advanced medicine, therapy, and personal philosophy or spirituality.
That's only if you interpret the poverty line in terms of individual discretionary income as opposed to a standard of living.
Not even then. The federal poverty line for a single person is $11,670, not $20,000. The poverty line for a five-person household is $27,910.
I'll grant you that things like health care and auto insurance would still be a problem, but that's because they're still broken.
I wont dispute that our health care system is broken, but...$100,000 per year is easily enough for auto insurance and Brone or Silver level subsidized ACA plans. If the five 20-somethings in the example somehow managed to file together, a Bronze plan would cost them ~$250 / mo. This is out of a monthly income of $8333 and includes all five individuals. Actually, if they filed separately, the Bronze plan would be free (estimated cost of $0 for 1 adult making $20,000).
Now, Medicaid (Medi-Cal here) provides free coverage to an individual making 133% of the poverty line or below ($15,521 or $37,120 for five people). At this level, the main barrier to receiving healthcare are knowledge of the process, transit time/cost and the local availability of Medicaid doctors, as opposed to direct health care costs.
Auto insurance is a different story in most places. But in California, the CCLA program provides very low cost insurance to people making less than 250% of the poverty line. For one person in San Francisco County, the annual premium is ~$265.
.: Semper Absurda
Wow, dozens.
Yes, before I lived there.
The poverty line for an individual is $11,670, and $27,910 total for a family/household of 5 people.
Not in San Francisco, it ain't.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A large part of the cost of living is fixed costs such as rent and utilities which would be split among the occupants.
Have you ever paid $800/mo for rent while making minimum wage part time? Because you can easily pay that much for a room in a house in many cities, not just San Francisco. And not a big room, with a walk-in closet. You might well pay that much for the closet, irony of ironies.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well, we can always see if they can keep a roof over their head at the poverty line if you throw in $300 a month for prescription drugs.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Ah, so you are exalting the fluidity of transiatism. Sorry for missing that. It doesn't actually impugn* upon the issue of a localized labor shortage, which is the point that I was trying to extrapolate on. You seem to be suggesting that the upper middle class would fall into hopeless desperation upon the exit of your (constituents?**/cohorts). I want to remind you that every political party have been gunning for our necks for more then a couple of centuries and that we have neither staggered nor fallen in our pursuit.
*: Literal Ancillary Comment: Parlez vous le francais. I'm from Buffalo, Give me a freaking break here!!!
**: Question, not a comment.
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You do know what a coffee shop is for?
ugh no, the point was that since mitt did it in mass, then its somehow ok to do at a federal level, which is wrong.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I used to live in a city, Roanoke, VA, where THAT was the EXACT solution--Only, it wasn't "Entice"...it was put them on an old school bus and drive them to a city 40 miles away--Lynchburg, VA. Lynchburg would then round up a bus load of their own and send them to Roanoke.
It really didn't SOLVE anything--it just kept the homeless population well churned.
I'm a bit stunned that this comment is modded to a +5. I suddenly have a lot more respect for the homeless than I do slashdotters. After all, they've managed to befuddle slashdotters with their amazing abilities to get online, despite being poor.
Yeah, entice is the wrong word, it's definitely "put."
There are also a lot of cities that buy Greyhound tickets to San Francisco, specifically, which is what I meant to refer to.
.: Semper Absurda
And $4.50 per day for cheeseburgers.
.: Semper Absurda
I've been where you are now. What I don't understand is, why are you arguing with the fools here ?
Most people simply lack the capacity to comprehend where you are simply because their life experiences and their own limitations prevent them from understanding. Not only are they not going to be of any assistance, their comments are going to be detrimental. They'll simply never understand. Why bother with them ? They are idiots.
You seem perfectly coherent, articulate, and intelligent to me. So what if you have a less than ideal personality right now ? That doesn't have to be a permanent state any more than living on the street does, not for you it doesn't.
The wealth of experience and understanding that you already have surpasses the average persons by far at this point. Accept help wherever you can get it. It doesn't matter what people's motivations are! Just take whatever you can get right now until you reach the goal of getting off the street. Other people's opinions are entirely insignificant. What and who you are now does not have to be what you are in a year, five years, ten years. That's what some people will never get. People change and evolve all the time.
Given what you've described you've been through, I wouldn't be surprised that you are suffering from PTSD to some extent. You need to get stable. You need a decent place to stay. You need decent nutrition and something to do consistently. Go for those things, accept the help that you can, and keep trying. It can take a long time to heal, but you need to; your'e too intelligent and articulate to stay in the situation you're in now, and your ability to help people will be exponentially enhanced.
I hope I haven't offended you. You just remind me so much of where I was nearly 25 years ago. I'm married now, I have friends that value me, and I'm able to help people. A LOT of people. Sometimes I look back and am amazed I survived. It would have been a whole hell of a lot easier if I'd just accepted help more often than I did. When I finally did, everything changed; not overnight, but gradually everything got better. Every little doubt that I had about myself and my limitations (which I might point out were put on me by fools) was dissolved over time.
Get out of the trap, never forget that you were in the trap, and help others when you're able, to get out of the trap.
And recognize that the comments made by fools here are part of the trap, too.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Hanging out in a library reading and posting on Slashdot is probably a hell of a lot more fun than sitting on a park bench in the rain.
Yup, and a lot more fun than what I'll be doing for the next 8 hours... Your point?
Living in big cities is crazy! What are you doing there? Move to where you can afford to live... Like I did.
You can't get everyone to tune in and wake up enough to do that. You can't even get 5% to do that. Especially not from your platform.