Comment by tombert | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tombert | Hacker News Reader

One of the things that sickened me most about myself happened about a year ago when I took a trip to Philadelphia as a tourist. My wife and I were walking around, and I make the comment of "there doesn't appear to be any homeless people here", after which my wife immediately pointed to a homeless guy that we just walked past.

Somehow, I'd managed to shelter myself enough and live comfortably enough to where I stopped noticing less-fortunate people. It really depressed me, because I had previously thought of myself as a fairly empathetic person.

To help combat this I donate a fair amount of money ($50/month) to mental-health research and make a conscious effort to pay attention a bit more when I'm walking around.

I'm hardly a hyper-successful person, so I can't imagine how hard it would be to empathize if you're a multi-millionaire/billionaire.

EDIT: I know throwing money at a problem hardly counts as "solving" the empathy problem, but it does help me assuage some guilt.

If you have time, I'd recommend volunteering for local soup kitchens and donating nonperishable goods, hygene objects, etc. to local shelters. Exposure will help prevent empathy erosion and force you to notice/understand the problem space of the less-fortunate. First-hand accounts and documentaries regarding experiences not your own will also aid you.

After that story happened, I actually moved to a less-afluent neighborhood in NYC (for other reasons), and I've (very) recently started tutoring people in math at the local library for people to get their GEDs, which has also helped me somewhat.

A soup kitchen isn't a bad idea though. I will look into that.

I would like to commend your actually going out of your way to deal with something you've identified you wish to change about yourself. Also- I noticed you're in NYC. Would you be opposed to having a coffee chat sometime? (Feel free to decline- no stress. This is HN after all.)

I'd be happy to meet up; email is REDACTED, hit me up there. (This message will be deleted in about 45 minutes to avoid a shitstorm of spam).

EDIT: Doesn't look like I can delete, but I can chop out my email.

I've sent an email via a buffalo.edu address. :)

I doubt that paying a middle-class psych to run experiments will do much to improve the lives of homeless.

In the short-term, you are absolutely right.

That said, a lot of homelessness happens as a result of mental illnesses like drug addiction or schizophrenia, or degenerative diseases like Alzheimers. It might be a pipe dream, but I would like to have as much research as possible to help treat these diseases, to (hopefully) help reduce these issues, perhaps by developing a cheap medication to reduce or eliminate the effects.

It's not something any of us are immune to; any of us could develop Alzheimers when we get older. I'm fortunate enough to have a lot of really cool friends and family that would take care of me if that happened, but not everyone is so lucky.

> That said, a lot of homelessness happens as a result of mental illnesses like drug addiction or schizophrenia, or degenerative diseases like Alzheimers

Those with mental illnesses who are also homeless are more visible, but the majority of those who are homeless are homeless because of financial reasons. And often, they're entire families.

For NYC[1]:

> Research shows that the primary cause of homelessness, particularly among families, is lack of affordable housing. Surveys of homeless families have identified the following major immediate, triggering causes of homelessness: eviction; doubled-up or severely overcrowded housing; domestic violence; job loss; and hazardous housing conditions.

[1] https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about-ho...

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