Comment by deanCommie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by deanCommie | Hacker News Reader

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> Obviously this didn’t work.

There are two things here to challenge.

1/ is it absolutely maybe has. Just because something was out of sight and out of mind before doesn't mean the problem was less prevalent. It all depends on the definition of the problem.

Is the problem: "There are people in poverty, in drug addiction, and they're dying?" Or is the problem "Sensible moderate tax payers have to interact with icky drug addicts in their day to day life"

The truth is because of Fentanyl both problems actually got worse. But in theory treating addiction as not a crime probably DOES save lives relative to the alternative.

But make no mistake, we're not now challenging the status quo because of problem 1 and the fentanyl epidemic. There's a backlash becaue of problem 2.

Truth is, people don't want to see visible poverty or addiction. They associate with crime and feel unsafe (even if it's illogical).

People agree that you shouldn't have to go to jail for doing heroin, but when faced with the choice of passed out heroin users in their alley regularly, or have them in jail, most are happy to find the excuse to get them out of their sight and into jail.

So 2/, the real reason decriminalization didn't work is because decriminalization isn't enough. Decriminalization is "cheap" to implement. But it's nothing without more social programs to help people get out of poverty, subsidized housing to get them off the streets, and mental health support for those that need it (a huge % of homeless addicts). But nobody - even in progressive places like Vancouver - wants to fund those enough. So, we try decriminalization, watch it fail, and then roll things back. And so the pendulum will go back and forth.

I think some addictions are powerful that they are effectively chronic diseases. The problem is that managing this disease may require government or some other entity to be a drug dealer for highly-addictive substances.

I can’t speak for others, but that’s a step too far for me.

> "Sensible moderate tax payers have to interact with icky drug addicts in their day to day life"

You phrased this in a way to make it sound absurd, but the fact is that this is absolutely part of the problem. "Sensible moderate tax payers" are participating into society because it makes them feel safer, and it abstracts away a lot of the details of building important infrastructure like roads and hospitals.

Those Sensible Moderate Tax payers are generally ok with paying taxes that they know will go to things that don't benefit them directly, partly because they believe it will make their overall society better. They pay for schools even though they don't have kids, or their kids already are finished their education. They pay for roads, even ones they don't drive on. And yes, they even pay for housing for homeless and help for addicts, even though most of them have never been homeless or an addict, and never will be

But those Sensible Moderate Taxpayers aren't stupid. They can see when a policy is not actually improving the world around them. Sure they don't have the research or stats to back it up, but they are often the ones who actually have to bear the negative externalities of bad policy. They're the ones who have roads riddled with potholes, or kids in schools with overcrowded classrooms and overworked teachers. And they're the ones stepping over unconscious heroin addicts on their way to work, or sitting quietly on a bus while someone on fentanyl rages at people while everyone tries not to make eye contact

These interactions make people's lives worse. Yeah, the person on Fentanyl raging on the bus is probably not having a good day, but they are also making everyone else's day worse. They are arguably making society worse.

So yeah. The Sensible Moderate Taxpayer has to ask themselves why they are paying taxes to support such people who don't participate in the same society or behave with the same social norms. Especially since it seems to be making their own life worse as a result

By the way..

> They associate with crime and feel unsafe (even if it's illogical)

It's not illogical. People who are addicts are often not behaving rationally, they are unpredictable and that makes them potentially dangerous. It's not "illogical" to feel unsafe when confronted by someone behaving aggressively and erratically, even if statistically they don't tend to cause harm.

And homeless people often have little to lose. Which similarly makes them potentially dangerous. Especially if they are panhandling they are sometimes invading people's space and maybe shouting at people, which always comes across aggressive. Again, it's not illogical to feel threatened and unsafe when people are actually behaving aggressively towards you

Anyways, all this to say, ignore the opinions of the Sensible Moderate Taxpayer at your peril. If you have an interest in guiding policy a certain way, you will have to convince them your policy won't make their lives worse

It's a difficult problem.

I agree with 99% of what you said.

But "we live in a society". We can't completely segregate all the classes from one another. We can't just imprison or kill the drug addicts. (i'm sure some reading would disagree).

So what do we do? Well, we don't solve the root causes, that's for sure. We don't prioritize poverty reduction or mental health. We seem to think it's more important for a society to allow the possibility for someone to become a billionaire, than for NOONE to ever have to risk being homeless.

That seems to me to be the core problem. We claim we care about these problems but we don't actually prioritize solutions. Then we overreact to signals that are only loosely correlated with them. A fentanyl addict screaming on a bus aggressively actually is at least commiting a crime, though punishing them for it won't help his addiction or help address the root cause of why they became an addict.

But there are lots of other signals of visible poverty that we police even if they're not strictly speaking crime. We create hostile architecture to prevent homeless people from sleeping in public spaces. Why? Because we don't want them ruined for everyone else. Understandable. But again, dealing with the symptom, not the root cause.

So it's not that I don't care about the opinions of the sensible moderate taxpayer (i am one). It's that I don't think their preferences for solutions actually address the root cause unless taken to their logical conclusion and we put all the poors in an internment camp.

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