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San Diego continues to face a hepatitis A outbreak:
Like other major cities all along the West Coast, San Diego is struggling with a homeless crisis. In a place that bills itself as "America's Finest City," spiraling real estate values have contributed to spiraling homelessness, leaving more than 3,200 people living on the streets or in their cars.
Most alarmingly, the deplorable sanitary conditions help spread a liver-damaging virus that lives in fæces, contributing to the deadliest U.S. hepatitis A epidemic in 20 years. "Some of the most vulnerable are dying in the streets in one of the most desirable and livable regions in America," a San Diego County grand jury wrote in its report in June — reiterating recommendations it gave the city over the past decade to address homelessness.
San Diego has struggled to do that. Two years ago, Mayor Kevin Faulconer closed a downtown tent shelter that operated for 29 years during winter months. He promised a "game changer" — a new, permanent facility with services to funnel people to housing. But it wasn't enough. The result? Legions of Californians without shelter. A spreading contagion. And an extraordinary challenge to the city's sunny identity that threatens its key tourism industry.
Previously: San Diego Declares Emergency Due to Outbreak of Hepatitis A
San Diego Power-Washing Streets to Fight Hepatitis A Outbreak
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 08 2017, @08:06PM (8 children)
You forgot mudslides.
So, I don't know about lately, but every year through the 1980s and 90s, Miami would scoop up all their homeless in the day or two before the Orange Bowl parade - trumped up charges that never were pressed, but did relocate them out to Krome detention facility in the Everglades where they were all released within hours... being without means, it took them several days to make their way back downtown and thus the Annual National Television Spectacle of the Orange Bowl was untainted by images of Miami's homeless (which, in all honesty, look like every other major city's homeless... but I guess it's bad for the image nonetheless.)
The thing about deporting the homeless, is: deport them where? You might give them a lift to a low cost housing area in North Dakota, but I doubt many would stay... Many of Miami's "homeless" actually spent the summers in northern cities like Chicago, it was kind of a lifestyle choice more than an inability to find an affordable roof.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday December 08 2017, @11:42PM (7 children)
Soylent green processing centre?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday December 09 2017, @01:08AM (6 children)
If people would take this up as a serious consideration, I'd consider it worthy of debate.
As it is, many people seem to think that it is "fair" to do this to the homeless, and yet lack the spine to execute the policy.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday December 09 2017, @02:26AM (4 children)
Be careful what you wish for. Reminds me of that Pixar movie Robots. Street sweeper robots constantly on the look for any robot past its prime, or basically, unable to evade the sweeper. Wasn't all that difficult to find yourself at the bottom, or subject to the whims of the ruling Elite.
Problem with that in real life, is that these people have done NOTHING to deserve death like that. They're being removed simply because of social status and access to means, which can be taken away from anybody at will.
I believe there is a movie that aptly describes the future you advocate discussing, In Time. Without giving away the movie if you've seen it, suffice to say, somebody dies because they scraped bottom. For just a split second.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday December 09 2017, @03:17AM (3 children)
That's been a mainstay of SciFi for a long time - the first one that springs to mind is, I think, a Larry Niven short story about a recidivist traffic offender (ran 3, count them 3, red lights) who was sent to the organ bank for harvesting due to his incorrigible nature. Star Trek TNG threatened to whack Wesley for falling into "new plants."
In modern American society the big threat is that if you run out of money you'll wish you were dead. It's o.k. if you've got a big pile from inheritance or a lotto win or wherever, but if you don't have any and you can't keep a decent job or beg off your family or perhaps friends, then you're homeless, health-careless, and spend the majority of your time begging from the bureaucracy for a pittance that might give you adequate nutrition and marginal housing. What the system misses is that by putting people through the Social Security Office grinder as a way to not die of starvation, they take away both their ability and their will to go out and do better for themselves.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday December 09 2017, @08:18AM (1 child)
Well, that's kinda bullshit. When it's because of medical reasons, it's UTTER bullshit. I would advocate for all who find themselves there, myself included, to find a rich person, literally gut them, and then stay alive by taking their resources (namely money). I'm sure as fuck not dying for the rest of you just because I got sick. We can play the blame game forever on that one, but woe to any one of you that get sick. When the reason why I can't get well is because some fuckers want to get rich, and doctors are no longer able to care for patients and assess reasonable fees, well then fucking kill the rich. Dead nuts serious on that one. I'm not going into that light just because Mr. Sociopathic McFucknuts wants a yacht. In your world medical better be fucking free, or covered by living wages. In that dystopia the ability to afford some sort of insurance just to survive the very real chance of being added to the meat grinder. They will not get away with it while I still have life. Medical is absolutely fucked in this failed country of mine since the for-profit assholes turned into an industry. Title 19 in the 1970s is a good damn reason why we're not even close to the top 10 in the world for medical, and Cuba embarrasses us.
As for the will to do it, I think that's mostly bullshit too. Or can be mitigated with social programs that made more sense than adding 10,000 beauticians to a zip code while a rich fucker in the community gets richer by rent seeking for those government dollars to run the classes.
As for the ability, when sick, you're literally backasswackards. The government is giving you BACK the ability. See the movie Sicko. France invested in their citizen and he got better and went back to being a productive member of society. In this country, it's FUCK YOU. Watch as your life savings drains to nothing, and like a Sniper just wounding a soldier, life brings in your loved ones and relatives to go down the hole with you. It's not like they can take the proposed position and just tearfully watch as they smother their loved one with a pillow to avoid the costs. That's a tremendous drain on society that serves no one. It should make sense for us to prevent that, invest back in our citizens directly, and get them back to work. But, But, But we can't get over the who deserves what, and why do I gotta pay *whine*?
As for the ability, when well, you also ignore the costs of treating them like animals with no safety nets. They're not going to be all civilized and march quietly and obediently into the Soylent processors. They will fight to survive, almost as if it has been genetically engineered in us to do so.
Does welfare need to change? You betcha. Killing it entirely while maintaining the rest of it status quo is a recipe for complete utter disaster and the deserved death of our society and country.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday December 09 2017, @04:33PM
So, nice rant, but I think you missed my angle - I'm against the bureaucracy of social security, not the benefits - basically pro UBI. Since "free" is such a problem for people, provide a no-questions-asked UBI to every living citizen. Make the UBI sufficient to afford food, shelter and basic medical care, then quit worrying about it. People who want to do better than UBI need to go and make their way in the world. Tax the fuck out of weed, booze and video games for all I care, let people be industrious enough to grow, distill and create their own - if they get the skills and ability to do any of that, they're probably also developing skills that might be somewhat valuable in society too.
In UBI-land when somebody has enough of the stressful shit of the career world, just take a break, move into affordable housing and chill until you're ready for it again. I chilled in University for 6.5 years making barely basic income (still relying on the parents for health insurance), and when they offered me 4 more years of the same, I was done with it, ready to actually go do something and have a little extra money. Too bad in this world that once you make that transition, you're on a treadmill that doesn't stop until retirement. Take a break from the "career" life and you might never get back into the world of health insurance and enough income to pay for a modest home again.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @02:09PM
The Niven story was more about the rest of society sending people to the organ banks for personal benefit rather than because they 'touched bottom'. It was an argument against using capital punishment criminals for forced organ donation. ie. Need a new heart, or liver, or lungs, or kidneys, or pancreas, or ... ? Vote the death penalty for running a red light, dropping litter, or jaywalking ...
Niven was saying that people will rationalize extreme systems if it is to their benefit that the system continue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @07:26AM
(note to myself: shit, I should have grinned to make it obvious. Clearly, one can't be sure how some USians will react)