[ExI] dna

Mon Apr 8 20:42:14 UTC 2019

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Jeff Davis
Subject: Re: [ExI] dna

>…Spike, our straight arrow boy scout white boy from Whitelandia writes:

You flatter me sir.  Up until the Whitelandia, it was accurate.  Where I grew up, black was about a third of the local population.  Where I live now, white is about 4% which scarcely justifies the name.

>…"...putting convicts to work is illegal unless they volunteer... " 

>…Actually, no.

>…Re Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution,  w/ attention to: 

>…"...except as a punishment for crime ..."

Ah, but this is California, with its own legal system.  Nobody noticed much until it was contradicting federal law.

We see the road cleanup crews, but they can only compel them to participate in exchange for something, such as reduced sentence.  Not all do.

>…That said, a further note:  Like so many problems that society chooses not to solve despite an obvious, free, and immediately available solution, the "problem" of homeless persons pooping on the street has just such a solution…

True, however most big cities have homeless shelters well below capacity, as homeless people live in the streets nearby.

As I understand it, plenty of homeless will not use the shelters because they don’t like being around other people.

>…As with so many issues of modern life, people can choose either to get their head out of their ass or to live in shit…

No need to choose: plenty of people do both simultaneously.

>…By the way, San Francisco is a big city -- I just got back from a visit -- and the notion that there is shit everywhere is the usual media nonsense.  The problem is almost entirely restricted to a very small area of downtown…. Ray Charles and Jeff Davis

-- 

I have heard this: the SF constables do a good job of keeping the homeless away from the waterfront, the airport, the most important business sections where people are likely to go.  The homeless people congregate right down there where it was the happening place to be fifty years ago.  Well, OK then.  I have no objections.  I wouldn’t have fit in there then, don’t fit in there now.

I have been reading up a bit on some of the proposed solutions.  Stoners are people.  In many places in the country (and the world) they are treated with disdain and revulsion, but they are people.  San Francisco does an admirable job of dealing with them I suppose.  

I am told you can have a perfectly normal conversation with some of the homeless stoners, and it is clear they are suffering people but human just the same.  Heroin doesn’t actually kill the addicts, if they don’t get an overdose.

So… big rich city government is kicking around a number of ideas, some of which are plausible.  One of the things that kills heroin addicts is the unpredictability of the dose and the purity of the medication.  It is expensive, so the local “pharmacist” mixes with inert ingredients, other stuff that mimics heroin, all manner of junk mixed in there (which is perhaps where the nickname started) but if one is in the habit of using a medication which is half or a third or a quarter actual heroin, then someone comes along with highly purified heroin, the result can be fatal.  So… the notion was to get actual pharmaceutical grade heroin, which isn’t all that expensive to make, then let them use that, give it to them.

Well now.  The problem is that doing this in any quasi-legal way requires a licensed doctor to dispense the meds, and makes the doctor and the city liable for anything that can go wrong.  No malpractice insurance company wants to go near that deal, and what about the liability the city holds if a junky shoots up and then perishes?  Or kills someone while stoned?  Or… plenty of good reasons why that idea is problematic at best.

What if a man tracks his runaway daughter to one of these safe-shooting galleries, is horrified to find her emaciated, addicted, but just then the doctor strolls up with a needle, here ya go… and that doctor is slain by the distraught father’s bare hands before anyone can call for security (which wouldn’t help anyway because there isn’t any security.)

And what if one were struggling but mostly recovering from addiction, but went into one of the shooting galleries, SF city government offers a sweet treat, addict is worse than ever two weeks later.

And what if… there are public toilets everywhere but someone is living in most of them, so the homeless people are still outta luck?

I don’t know the answers.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20190408/54ff114e/attachment.htm>