Rainway forces signing up to Discord in order to delete your account - <AUTHOR> https://rainway.com/support/account-and-privacy/how-do-i-delete-my-account/ <comment><USER2> Hi, CEO of Rainway here.

You actually don't need to sign up for Discord, emailing email@example.com is enough. You can also close your account from the app.

Discord is a convenient medium since our audience largely engages with us through it daily. I'll update the article to reflect all the valid options.

And to be clear, our business model isn't in data nor do we share data with others. Outside of basic engagement telemetry we don't even know what games you own.

<comment><USER3> So what is your business model?

<comment><USER2> Enterprise customers who integrate our technology into their applications and services.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is this company's business model?

It makes no sense to me how they plan to make money with something they advertise as completely free

<comment><USER5> Maybe this thread is the answer?

<comment><USER6> Maybe Discord should make their Delete your account feature being a signup to Rainway, that would be fair enough

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd like to comment that you can use Discord without an account, but yeah that does seem a bit weird

<comment><AUTHOR> When you click on the link supplied in the Rainway guide, you will be directed to a Discord sign-up form where you have to enter an username and check the box that says that you agree to the terms of service and privacy policy. I'm not familiar with all the configuration options Discord can offer, but in this case it seems you can't bypass account creation here.

<comment><USER7> Ah they might've changed it to combat bad actors, I haven't tried to use Discord without an account for a while now so sorry about outdated info

<comment><USER8> There are several options the 'server' admins can choose from. Some let you do everything without account, some only let you read, and others require an account for everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not accusing hddherman of bad behaviour, but seems like this could be a decent way to advertise/astroturf without raising suspicion. Bring up flaw that, while bad, is irrelevant to most of the target market, and then splatter links over Reddit and HN.

The first thing I did after clicking reading the linked page was to go to their homepage and see what the hell Rainway even was. I don't need the service but it seems potentially useful to many.

<comment><USER10> Exactly this. This is an ad, nothing more. "Company uses discord for support system" is uninteresting.

<comment><AUTHOR> What alternative do you propose for situations where Company A does some shady stuff? Are all the posts about Google/Facebook/Amazon doing illegal things also ads?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is why I'm so glad the GDPR exists. They list their email address in the privacy policy so a quick email should suffice.

Obviously you can raise complaints if they do not delete your information as the GDPR does not mandate or expect the individual to have to agree to another parties privacy policy to exercise your rights.

You also have rights to access et al and whilst unlikely it's possible failure to act within this law might cause issues later down the line.

<comment><USER12> The problem with the GDPR is that there is no enforcement. At best, you're relying on the other party acting in good faith and wanting to respect the regulation.

I've had companies that breached the regulation, complained to them with no effect, raised it with the ICO, they got back to me, upheld my complaint, reached out to the company and still nothing despite them being based in the UK thus enforcing fines is trivial.

There is nothing preventing this company from getting back to you saying that "for security reasons (or other BS reason) the Discord-based process is the only way to delete your account" and you wouldn't be able to do anything about it because even the relevant authorities don't seem to care.

<comment><USER13> There has been a number of fines. British Airways is on top of the leaderboard this far with €200M.

[https://www.enforcementtracker.com/](https://www.enforcementtracker.com/)

I'm not sure about how efficient the process is, but there is some enforcement.

<comment><USER14> > I'm not sure about how efficient the process is, but there is some > enforcement.

At least in Germany, it's okay in some states, essentially non-existant in others. I've reported some serious breaches, and about half of the responses were within 5 days, the other half haven't happened yet, after > 12 months. Reminding them just lead to getting an official case number, so they didn't forget, they just can't/won't enforce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Discord isn't as bad as far as signups go. I believe you can still use some channels without verifying your email. Meanwhile, telegram and skype require an install. I always dread dealing with a company that only responds to skype requests.

</comment><comment><USER16> there's a lot of places like this

scaleway force you to add your billing information to delete your account

</comment><comment><USER17> It makes sense to a point because Discord is neat and having a ticket system in there is convenient, plus it seems to be a service aimed at gamers, most of which will have a Discord account already (if they're on PC anyway).

<comment><USER18> Why do they need a ticket system for account deletion? Won't a normal delete button be good enough? They shouldn't force their own internal process on to customers, they could easily have that button use the Discord API to create a ticket.

<comment><USER19> Account deletion isn't a very glamorous project and isn't something you can put on your list of yearly accomplishments for a raise. This probably rolled downhill until customer service asked the front end team to put up a static webpage with some crude instructions. I've seen worse, but rarely.

<comment><USER20> Well, it should be if you ask me. When a user wants to delete his account, it usually is because he isn't happy with the company or the service. I could imagine that by making the deletion as painless and fast as possible, a company could go a long way to regain that user later. Some "sorry to see you leave, but we try to make as easy for you as possible" message and maybe even a goody the user can use elsewhere. After all, the account deletion is an opportunity to get in direct contact with your users in a critical point of the relationship.

<comment><USER19> Customer retention is a pretty critical business function, but in my experience the people approving raises etc generally have a much tighter relationship with the sales team. New revenue is a sales function, customer retention is a operations function. A big part of Steve Ballmer becoming CEO (and also his decline) was his sales first strategy.

Windows 8 might have been a huge flop for Ballmer over the long-run (arguably why he was asked to resign), but I bet the people working on Windows 8 features saw their careers advance much faster than the equally talented people fixing driver bugs for Windows 7. And the Windows 7 driver team is probably going to think designing a new ticketing system for deleting accounts is beneath them and let that project roll downhill. And so on.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Overweight? Standing May Be Solution - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/story?id=3922069&page=1 <comment><USER2> _"... In most cases, exercise alone, according to a team of scientists at the University of Missouri, isn't enough to take off those added pounds. ..."_

Horse crud.

Exercise is the best way to reduce weight for all but the most unfit. My guess the real reason why you get statements like this is because they are factoring in the time you have to take to exercise. How much? Well minimum 10K steps. For me thats 7 almost kilometers per day. If you walk, thats about an hour. Less if you run (20-30 min) or ride (20-25 min). Remember thats a minimum. Couple that with a reduced intake of food and you will loose weight. But work gets in the way of this. Ever tried exercising 1Hr+ per day during the working week? Every day?

For most (unless you create your own job) this is not possible because your work requires your presence in one spot working hard for longer hours. [0] Thats why this kind of research could be important. It is hardly a substitute for regular exercise and movement.

[0] _"1982 and 2002, the proportion of full-time workers working a 40 hour week declined from 39% to 24%"_ ~ [http://www.deir.qld.gov.au/industrial/family/overview/statis...](http://www.deir.qld.gov.au/industrial/family/overview/statistics)

<comment><USER3> > Horse crud.

> Exercise is the best way to reduce weight for all but the most unfit.

Not so. That hour of walking you suggest is easily replaced by simply reducing caloric intake slightly. In fact, you have to watch intake anyway, because when you exercise, your body automatically increases your appetite to compensate for the additional energy expenditure.

<http://nymag.com/news/sports/38001/>

 _"He will have to climb twenty flights of stairs to rid himself of the energy contained in one slice of bread!" Newburgh observed. So why not skip the stairs, skip the bread, and call it a day?_

The reasons to exercise include all sorts of health and fitness benefits, but losing weight is pretty far down the list. Even top athletes always have to be careful with diet and often weigh their food with gram scales.

<comment><USER2> _"... That hour of walking you suggest is easily replaced by simply reducing caloric intake slightly. ..."_

One thing I have found is exercise done before eating reduces appetite. Slight reductions in food is difficult if there is an abundance of high fat/high calorie food. Especially if it tastes good. One insight into the relationship between food, exercise and culture is the Japanese in places like Okinawa [0] & Sakaemura [1] who have:

\- low calorie, low fat diet

\- high energy output (mostly via farming & activities such as karate)

\- social networking

contributing 4-5 years on average longer lifespans it is thought through leanness. [2] They key thing appears to the combination of diet, exercise and societal connection. Exercise is one of the keys to leanness but not the only one.

One thing you can bet on. If you don't exercise, eat the wrong foods and too much of it you will loose fitness.

[0] <http://www.abc.net.au/sydney/stories/s1329191.htm>

[1] <http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/09/1089000356464.html>

[2] [http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/200704/000020070407A00...](http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/200704/000020070407A0077297.php)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> patrickg-zill Michael Dell, according to people I know that have worked for him, has a standing desk (sort of like an oversized lectern) instead of a regular sit- down desk. Getting up and sitting down were considered to be time wasters.

<comment><USER4> I think the real reason has to do with piles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if kneeling or lying down has the same detrimental effects as sitting.

At home, when I am coding on a laptop, I often alternate between sitting in a chair and kneeling at the foot of the bed. Oftentimes, kneeling feels better until my knees get sore, then it's back to the chair.

<comment><USER6> Hey that's what I do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Hacker's Diet

<http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html>

It is a great book.

</comment><comment><USER5> Does this mean we should make desks and tables higher so that we are forced to stand while we work?

<comment><USER8> Basically, yes. The best solution is probably to get a desk with adjustable height. A couple of my friends have them, and swear by them. They're a bit pricey, but I might get one anyway. (Do a web search on "height adjustable desk" for some options.)

Incidentally, being able to experiment with your work environment like this is yet another reason not to work in a 'normal' job. Not too many offices would let you get away with a standing desk, and if your desk is publicly visible the social cost of being the only one standing could be significant.

<comment><USER5> I definitely agree with the 'normal' job comment. I'm just curious about the concept of standing all day to code.

I guess the good thing about it is that it can force you to take regular breaks, even if the break consists of just sitting down.

<comment><USER9> I did it once. Worth doing! I was coding at someone else's house and they had a standing desk and sitting desk. I was at the standing desk all day, partly out of necessity and partly out of curiosity.

By the end of the day, my feet were a little sore and I was a little more tired than otherwise, but I felt more active while I was doing it. I would like to try it again before committing to a new desk, however. Now that I've been reminded of it, I'm already thinking of how I can try that at my place.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


More Cities Are Making It Illegal to Hand Out Food to the Homeless - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/10/22/357846415/more-cities-are-making-it-illegal-to-hand-out-food-to-the-homeless <comment><USER2> ""Street feeding is one of the worst things to do, because it keeps people in homeless status," he says. "I think it's very unproductive, very enabling, and it keeps people out of recovery programs."

Instead, he thinks food sharing programs should only be located near what he calls the "core areas of recovery": mental health, substance abuse and job readiness services. Otherwise, he says, homeless people may spend more time pursuing food than the services that will help them get back on their feet."

Not the argument I was expecting, but I would say I think making it _illegal_ to feed people is the wrong.

<comment><USER3> I think he's making the case that it should be illegal to hand out food at certain locations. However, you can certainly donate food to shelters or food centers, for example. It does seem like a good idea to provide basic food services for the homeless so they know where they can get their next meal, rather than begging on the street. Medical services should be supplied there also. It would be a more effective use of resources.

I'm not sure if it should be illegal, but as a civilization that's probably what we should encourage.

<comment><USER4> I agree. But making it illegal to feed the homeless, or feed them in some locations seems heavy handed and wrong.

If you want to encourage feeding the homeless in places close to where they can get other types of assistance, you should take positive steps to encourage that:

Provide assistance (financial or logistical) to organizations doing the feeding in proper locations.

Provide transportation to help the homeless get to the proper locations.

Or most simply: Ask the organizations or people what you can do to get them to start feeding the homeless in proper locations.

<comment><USER5> The issue is the realization that feeding the homeless in unstructured environments is a net negative. It makes people feel good because, "Look, I helped that guy eat today." But the reality is that guy could've likely eaten a meal more appropriate to his specific health needs in a location best suited to help him with medical aid, psychiatric help, and job skills/placement. So we have this terrible predicament where people feel _good_ about something that actually hurts people because they don't know better. It would be nice if education programs worked and people wised up and stopped feeding the homeless randomly, but you know what? It just doesn't work. We've tried that. So now the law is involved. It may sound crazy, but we have to get people to stop hurting the homeless by encouraging terribly unsafe behaviors like panhandling.

<comment><USER4> The issue is how you deal with a behavior that may be a net negative. Do you ban it? Or, Do you use education, incentives and support to change the prevalence of the behavior?

Also, are you completely sure that if you ban unstructured feeding, all the homeless will get fed in a structured way? Or will banning the feeding lead to some people starving?

Also, how do you know it's a net negative? Do you take the word of a politician who has incentive to move the homeless to low property value areas?

<comment><USER5> I live in Orlando, the city that got some infamy a number of years ago for banning the public unstructured feedings. I feel confident in saying that education seems to have failed, but banning seems to have been fairly successful at least with respect to curbing the behavior.

So that leaves the question of whether or not it's a net negative. Panhandling is demonstrably dangerous, and an argument for unstructured feeding is an argument for the status quo. I can definitely say that the status quo is an abject failure. As for the structured efforts, those must be measured and improved on an individual basis. They certainly have their own issues, but at least in my city those structured feeding facilities also provide access and information on medical care, job placement, and other assistance that is relevant to the homeless population.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just so you have some background -- I know homeless people, and I buy food for the homeless on a regular basis. I sit and eat and talk with them, give them rides, take them to hospitals, etc..., and I consider many of them friends. I'm not a therapist, or any sort of expert, but I have some experience.

It's just not street-food that's making or keeping people homeless, and it's a gross mischaracterization to claim that street feeding is what _keeps_ people homeless. I just can't see how that contributes any any significant way to their issues.

The homeless people I know have serious physical and/or mental health issues. People aren't exactly lining up to give them food and money. Many of them simply can't manage a budget and afford enough to eat through most of the month, so they supplement their diet however they can.

They know that there are programs out there to help them, but they don't take advantage of them _now_. Making it illegal to give them food isn't going to somehow force them to get help. It'll just make it worse for the homeless.

<comment><USER7> > They know that there are programs out there to help them, but they don't > take advantage of them now. Making it illegal to give them food isn't going > to somehow force them to get help. It'll just make it worse for the > homeless.

Are you sure? I'm not trying to attack your point, but what would happen if your homeless friends actually started taking advantage of these programs that are put in place to help them? Right now they don't need to because they are getting by on the kindness of others, but what if they had no other option but to go to these mental hospitals, homeless shelters, food banks, etc, where they could someday learn to take care of themselves and break the cycle?

I think what you're doing shows how much of a loving and kind-hearted person you are, but try to consider the other side of the argument. This is an enormously hard problem (dating back thousands of years). We need a way to break the cycle, and the current status quo just isn't working.

<comment><USER8> That's a gross generalization, almost a false dichotomy.

webnrrd2k's experience mirrors my past experiences, in that many homeless simply don't have the mental faculties to take care of themselves. This includes having enough sapience to seek out existing programs for help. Many will self medicate with illegal or stolen drugs, which only exasperates their situation.

It's very easy to project ourselves into these situations and think "What would I do if I were homeless?", and assume that if you were lazy enough and taken care of you would probably stay homeless. The fact that you are even able to jump these mental hurdles and consider these situations is why you are not currently homeless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Almost everyone sees it as their right (or the government's right) to restrict other's behavior/rights/property when it would affect their quality of life or the standards of their community (cf. drugs, gay marriage).

Suppose 90% of people in Fort Lauderdale want to disallow businesses from feeding the homeless while 90% of Philadelphia wants to disallow businesses from allowing smoking inside. What principle allows us to restrict smoking on private property that wouldn't also allow us to restrict people feeding the homeless? Is there a reason one of these is more acceptable than the other?

On edit: For those who feel the difference is purely about outcomes, what if Roger Marbut is right and feeding the homeless in the way banned is a net harm? Would it be okay then? Also, while one can argue smoking bars are a net good, they do, at a minimum, harm those who would like to smoke. We can also construct a scenario in which a smoking restaurateur wants to serve food to his 3 smoking customers (i.e. all are harmed).

<comment><USER10> I believe you are confusing the government's right to regulate behavior with the government's right to regulate negative externalities[0] caused by certain behaviors.

I would argue in that in the case of smoking, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that suggests the activity harms others around you. Therefore, the public has the right to regulate the negative externality that this activity creates -- needless physical harm to others. The regulation of this activity creates virtually zero new negative externalities and is therefore justified.

This is in contrast to the other behavioral regulations you mentioned such as gay marriage, feeding the homeless, or even other drugs. The supposed negative externalities these activities produce have been viewed with more skepticism by the general public in recent years.

For example, the argument that gay marriage would somehow harm the way certain children were raised, has been mostly debunked. If sufficient evidence to the contrary would arise, evidence that was comparable to the quality of the evidence for second hand smoke, then the public would be justified in reevaluating the issue.

Fortunately, from a civil rights perspective, this is not the case.

In the case of non-smokable drugs you have to consider how much harm drug use causes vs. drug prohibition. It becomes clear that the negative externalities from the latter are much larger in scope and scale. Therefore, a conversation in ending drug prohibition is justified.

So, I would argue that whether or not a regulation on feeding the homeless is justified depends on the scope and scale of the negative externalities the activity creates, vs the scope and scale of negative externalities the regulation itself may or may not create.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality)

<comment><USER4> > The regulation of this activity creates virtually zero new negative > externalities and is therefore justified.

The problem with considering issues involved from the point of view of 'Externalities' is how you measure 'externalities'. Can you be sure that you have measured all the possible externalities?

The regulation of the behavior curtails the rights of a number of people. You don't seem to consider that a significant externality (probably because you aren't one of those people).

You also present a false dichotomy. The question is no 'to regulate or not regulate, which is worse?'.

The question is 'How do we solve this problem while protecting as the rights of the people involved as much as possible?'

There is a tendency to want to regulate away issues rather than trying to understand the needs of everyone involved and craft solutions that actauly work.

<comment><USER10> You seem to have missed the point. And I'll let you have the last word if want. I will say this though:

There is no universal right to smoke. Smoking harms others and provides no benefit to anyone other than people who suffer nicotine addictions.

Furthermore, smoking bans are bar none the most effective way to reduce public harm from second hand smoke. They indeed "actually work".

EDIT: And to your other response I did mean "the right to continue their addiction." Thank you for pointing that out.

<comment><USER4> I know I said I was done being off topic...but apparently that wasn't true.

>Smoking harms others and provides no benefit to anyone other than people who suffer nicotine addictions.

You might feel that way, but other people feel differently. There is a fair amount of evidence that nicotine is often used as a form of self medication for both anxiety and depression. It also has a long history of being enjoyed socially by a number of different cultures.

I regularly encourage and support my friends who are trying to quit smoking, I did so even back when I was a smoker. My biggest issue with the anti-smoking activists is that they assume that because they don't like something, nobody can like it.

> Furthermore, smoking bans are bar none the most effective way to reduce > public harm from second hand smoke. They indeed "actually work".

They might be the most effective, but they are not the most fair. By your same logic, completely banning cars on public roads is the most effective way to reduce pedestrian fatalities.

Smoking bans trample on the universal right of individuals to to pursue happiness as they see fit. I think it is possible to protect this universal right while also protecting the rights of those who wish to be free of the harm caused by second hand smoke.

I think the unwillingness of anti-smoker to work to accomodate this is as callous as the unwillingness of some smokers to take the effort to avoid exposing people to their second-hand smoke.

And to bring this back to the discussion at hand: Banning something for the public good is rarely fair and often has ignored or unvalued externalities. This is especially true when the ban comes at the expense of a minority of the population (such as a ban on panhandling).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This topic tends to generate polarizing and conflicted views, as we can clearly see from the comments here. One side thinks it's cruel and heartless to prevent someone from giving food to a hungry human. The other side thinks that we shouldn't reward bad behavior. The core of the matter is that helping people is _hard_. I don't mean just token help. I mean _really_ helping in a meaningful way that makes a lasting difference.

An example: consider back in the 80s - 90s where there was a charity trend in at least parts of the United States of sending clothes to Africa. Seems like a good thing, right? How could giving clothes be bad. Clothing is a basic need (in many places), just like food. But what really happened when Americans started sending clothes to Africa? People who have actually spent time in Africa can tell you that the flood of free clothes totally destroyed the local textile industries. People who were making a productive living found themselves unable to compete and out of work/income.

So we see that with free clothes there were significant unintended negative consequences. Why would we expect it would be any different with free food? I totally get the desire to empathize with another human being and genuinely want to help people who found themselves in a very difficult situation with no obvious way to break the cycle. But we need to be aware that our supposed help may actually end up causing more difficulty in the long run. In that case, one could argue that charity becomes a selfish act--the real reason the giver does it is because it makes them feel better about themselves. I'm not making this point in an attempt to justify heartless inaction. I just think that we should put serious thought into examining whether our efforts at charity really make a meaningful difference in the lives of the people we're trying to help.

<comment><USER7> This is the best point here.

I don't think anyone is advocating to let the homeless starve. We just need to realize as a society that the small act of kindness that we can provide at the micro scale (giving rides, money, food, etc) can have harsh consequences when observed from the macro scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> When I arrived in bay area, I found not too many homeless people but there were few. Often they asked for "change".

So I thought I might be able to use these people as handyman. So I asked one of them if he would help me cleaning my car and moving furniture. I offered him $20, some used clothes and chilled beer. He shrugged saying he doesn't want my money. He told me that if he wanted work, he could get it easily and had held many jobs in past.

Being a homeless enabled him get various type of welfare from government he easily made $800 per month from government. He said he could get a job for $3000 a month but then it is not a major improvement over getting $800 for doing nothing.

US needs to rethink its welfare measure. They are winning votes but wrecking the country.

<comment><USER13> You DO know that's a singular anecdote and not even close to representative of many, if not most, of the folks that suffer in this situation, right?

<comment><USER12> Given two choices, people tend to make the choice that maximizes their interest. I am certain that this example is an indicative of what most are likely to think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm from Orlando, where the original hullabaloo over this sort of thing erupted a while back. Most of the time the people complaining about laws like these are (please forgive the stereotypes, but in my experience they've been accurate) white, upper class, white collar, with very little experience dealing with poverty or poverty related issues. They hear things that sound counter intuitive and the "white savior" complex goes into overdrive.

Since Orlando has weather (and an economy, look up 2008-present foreclosure rates in Central Florida for reference) that is very conducive to a large homeless population we have been dealing with the issue at a large scale for a long time, and a lot of caring, smart, experienced people all agree that there are very constructive ways of dealing with homelessness and very destructive ways of dealing with it. Time and time again, allowing the homeless to disperse geographically and survive in a "free for all" state creates enormous problems. You end up with exploitation, abuse, and harm to not only the homeless but those around them.

It's rare, but not unheard of, for stupid kids to give the homeless sandwiches laced with, say, exlax. It's rare, but not unheard of, for people to entice the homeless into essentially handyman jobs with the promise of a meal, or payment, only to "reconsider" at the last second once the job is done. It's rare, but not unheard of, for well meaning people to give out food that has gone bad, or can exacerbate terrible allergies or medical conditions.

Furthermore, encouraging the homeless to beg and subsist off of random passerby is an incredibly demeaning thing. It encourages the bad element of panhandling, begging, and lies to encourage donations. It creates an atmosphere where the most seriously poorly off end up being "out begged" by the devious looking to snag a quick meal, or beer money.

Last, but not least, it completely ruins standardized initiatives to solve the problem. The homeless are less likely to congregate in safe areas where organizations dedicated to help them are located. They're less likely to receive a steady, nutritious diet. They're less likely to be exposed to further job programs and mental health help. They're more likely to sleep in an alley somewhere instead of, at worst, gathering near a shelter, or at best, getting a bed in a shelter where they are safest and most secure. Keeping tabs on the homeless is one of the hardest things to do, but one of the most important. If you can't track progress on a community or individual scale you can't tell whether or not your efforts are working, and you can't develop the personal relationships and support groups that time and time again are proven to be, overwhelmingly, the most effective way to get people out of the vicious cycle.

It's hard to kind of shut off the automatic empathy that pops up, but you have to realize these are people just like you that ended up with a serious short stick in life. You need to treat them like that, instead of infantilizing them.

<comment><USER4> > It's rare, but not unheard of, for stupid kids to give the homeless > sandwiches laced with, say, exlax. It's rare, but not unheard of, for people > to entice the homeless into essentially handyman jobs with the promise of a > meal, or payment, only to "reconsider" at the last second once the job is > done. It's rare, but not unheard of, for well meaning people to give out > food that has gone bad, or can exacerbate terrible allergies or medical > conditions.

I would hope that these behaviors are already illegal under current laws.

>Furthermore, encouraging the homeless to beg and subsist off of random passerby is an incredibly demeaning thing. It encourages the bad element of panhandling, begging, and lies to encourage donations. It creates an atmosphere where the most seriously poorly off end up being "out begged" by the devious looking to snag a quick meal, or beer money.

I agree we shouldn't encourage this behavior. I disagree that we should make the behavior illegal.

>Last, but not least, it completely ruins standardized initiatives to solve the problem. The homeless are less likely to congregate in safe areas where organizations dedicated to help them are located. They're less likely to receive a steady, nutritious diet. They're less likely to be exposed to further job programs and mental health help. They're more likely to sleep in an alley somewhere instead of, at worst, gathering near a shelter, or at best, getting a bed in a shelter where they are safest and most secure.

I'm inclined to suggest that if not "making feeding homeless people illegal and strictly curtailing their movements" completely ruins the standardized initiatives, the standardized initiatives need a lot of work.

My big problem with forcing homeless into these safe areas by making things outside them illegal, is that you end up with "out of sight, out of mind". These programs already don't receive enough attention and support.

<comment><USER14> So again, this is the kind of mentality I addressed. Your solution is no solution, a continuity of the status quo. What we're doing ain't workin'. Full stop. Yeah, that stuff is already illegal. It's also a nightmare to police and enforce, and you end up in the same moral quandaries. Do we treat Good Samaritans like criminals because of a few bad eggs? Do we now have to interrogate all pan handlers? The general and most effective solution is to ban all handouts that haven't been well thought through.

You even said it yourself, there's not enough money or support. So save the extra $3 you would otherwise be giving out and make a year end donation to a worthy organization. Maybe give a weekend of free time. That will go miles beyond just throwing cash out of a car window at a random intersection. Ever wondered how many homeless get hit by cars begging at intersections by the way? It's more than you'd like to know.

<comment><USER15> You make good points but your message gets twisted by saying things like "this is the kind of mentality I addressed. Your solution is no solution"

Why not just say, "This is the status quo. I want to change things by --" ?

The reason this article is trending is that the status quo is broken. Instead of outlawing Good Samaritans, why not take the time and make the effort to educate them?

The educational information in your posts is quite valuable and deserves more attention than it is getting.

<comment><USER14> I realize that I probably sound like a bit of a dick, and I apologize for that, but I've been having this argument for many years and it definitely gets frustrating to explain the situation and have people essentially ignore everything you just said and say "well yeah but what about..."

Part of the problem is the mentality people go into this issue with, and changing that will do wonders for the various initiatives trying to tackle this. That said, it's something I had to go through myself so I should probably be more empathetic

<comment><USER16> _I probably sound like a bit of a dick_

You sound reasonable on first blush but your words are aimed to harm and crush the weak. That you put your apologies for a regime for the policing of the poor in apparently plausible and benevolent terms simply makes your words more harmful.

I think you should be ashamed of yourself.

Edit: Your parent post is very eloquent (if deceptive imho) argument for "give up on helping your fellow human, instead trust the authorities". Are you happy with living in a world like that really?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really wish we could all, liberals and conservatives, could come up with a "grand compromise" with regards to the homeless. Elements of the compromise:

1) Guarantee all people access to cheap, government provided dormitory style living, with a door that locks, a kitchen and basic food staples, and security screening of fellow residents. There would be different forms of permanent living for the mentally ill, drug addicts, recovering addicts, or able body people who have fallen on hard times. It would seem reasonable to require the sane and able bodied to do 20 hours of very basic work (picking up trash, watching security cameras, etc.) in return for the living. [this line has been edited, see footnote]

2) Re-enact and enforce vagrancy laws. No sleeping in the street, no panhandling, no begging, no telling manipulative sob stories on the subway.

3) Make the support for 1) the responsibility of the community they are from. The problem right now is any community that wishes to be generous to the homeless becomes a homeless magnet. This creates an incentive for cities not to be charitable, and to not take care of their own. The cities that are generous then get mocked for their homeless problem. Instead, if San Francisco police arrest a vagrant, they should make an effort to find out where his closest family from, or where his last established residency or hometown is, and then give him a one-way bus ticket back to that town.

Unfortunately, liberals are generally against #2, conservatives are against #1, no one even talks about #3 and so nothing gets done and the problem, which could be so easily solved given our resources, persists on and on.

(a) Edit/footnote: obviously many homeless people have drug and mental health problems that would make dorm living and performing a government job infeasible. There also needs to be funded supportive housing and programs for those cases. Also, there needs to be different levels of dorm living so those trying to escape drug addiction are not around those who are still using. The dorm living would need rules and management to prevent the problems that plague homeless shelter.

<comment><USER18> I have a counter-proposal:

1) Universal basic income. You get paid like $10,000 no matter what.

2) Eliminate minimum wage. Anyone is free to earn extra if they so desire.

3) Outlaw rent control. Now you have more abundant housing.

That wouldn't take care of all of it, but it would sure help.

<comment><USER19> I like roughly this.

One issue: how do you disburse the income? What happens if someone blows it all on drugs, and then is out? We're sort of back where we started. Could we then just let the person starve or whatever, and say, "well you had your chance."? Push comes to shove, I don't think I could.

My solution: Government provided withdrawal systems (ATMs or something like that), that provide $27/day (to use your number). Most people who unwisely spent their $27 could manage to wait another day and then get food.

Problem: How do you pay for all this?

Solution: A low-percentage wealth (aka capital) tax. It's a redistribution of wealth, but if you outearn/outinvest the rate, then you can accumulate wealth. Could then do away with estate taxes. Ideally I'd cap the Basic Income Guarantee as a percentage of this wealth tax, evenly distributed, and not a fixed number. As the society gets richer/poorer so does the distribution.

Then, just add in single payer health insurance, and remove minimum wage, social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare, and all sorts of other systems and we have my socialist/libertarian paradise. : )

<comment><USER18> I think we're on the same page.

However, I don't think your first solution solves your first problem. I don't have a good solution for it either, though.

I like your second solution, but I would prefer a progressive capital gains tax + a carbon tax. Basically you only get taxed on your wealth if you earn about a certain yearly amount.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I like Carlin's solution [1]

"... But getting back to low-cost housing, I think I might have solved this problem. I know just the place to build housing for the homeless: golf courses. It's perfect. Plenty of good land in nice neighborhoods; land that is currently being squandered on a mindless activity engaged in by white, well- to-do business criminals who use the game to get together so they can make deals to carve this country up a little finer among themselves..."

[1]: [http://www.georgecarlinrip.com/2014/01/golf-courses-for- home...](http://www.georgecarlinrip.com/2014/01/golf-courses-for- homeless.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> I know in Lubbock something similar was in the news a while. It had more to do with city health code violation than anything else and the matter seemed to die down. It's interesting because a church was doing the feeding and I didn't think the city would do such a thing considering how conservative and religious this city is. I rather see the food being eaten rather than being thrown away. I have nothing against the homeless except for the rare ones who get angry when I say I will buy them food rather than hand money over. There's also Tent City here in the 806 which is a congregation of homeless who sleep in tents and I haven't heard much trouble there. Now the homeless in San Francisco are a different story. I didn't want to believe it since SF is such a lovely city but damn, the homeless there are aggressive as hell. That's just my experience though.

</comment><comment><USER22> How is it that giving money to political campaigns is an expression of free speech, but giving food to the homeless isn't? If municipalities couldn't pass a law prohibiting _speaking_ to homeless people, how, in a post-"Citizens United" world, can they pass a law prohibiting giving food to homeless?

<comment><USER22> I'd really like my cowardly downvoter to post a reply; as far as I can tell, my reasoning is sound.

<comment><USER23> Don't read too much into downvotes. With no ability to correct a vote, it's sometimes just fat fingers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> _" Street feeding is one of the worst things to do, because it keeps people in homeless status," he says. "I think it's very unproductive, very enabling, and it keeps people out of recovery programs."_

What exactly, in this economy, should I tell a homeless person who is hungry? "Get a job"?

<comment><USER25> You would tell this person where to find food sharing programs, which would be "located near what he calls the "core areas of recovery": mental health, substance abuse and job readiness services."

<comment><USER26> Yes, we all read that. It's obvious misdirection. To the extent these things exist, they are badly underfunded. Let them eat cake, while properly segregated from polite society.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Also, soon it will be illegal to help victims of train and car crashes in order to reduce the number of accidents.

<comment><USER28> Actually, in the US [0] it's the default that you can be sued for injury or wrongful death if you attempt to assist. Some jurisdictions have Good Samaritan laws [1] to fix this very issue, though even then it sometimes only extends to trained personnel like emergency responders and doctors.

[0] And possibly other places, but I'm not familiar enough to say.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law)

<comment><USER29> You can be sued for anything, it's unlikely you would have any greater risk for attempting to help compared to doing nothing.

<comment><USER28> I do not understand why you would hold such a false impression. Anyone can indeed attempt to sue you for anything, however that says nothing about their likelihood to succeed.

Say I am untrained in any rescue or medical procedures. I witness a car collision, and a rider was ejected from a vehicle and lying next to it. I proceed to move them due to perceived fire hazard, however they in fact have a broken neck and die due to my moving them before stabilizing the neck. If it could be reasonably argued [0] that the person would have lived with proper intervention had I not intervened, why should I not be liable for that?

In fact, without a Good Samaritan law in effect, I _am_ potentially liable for the rider's death. I _can_ be successfully sued by the survivors. The whole point of Good Samaritan laws is to reduce or eliminate this liability to me in exactly these scenarios.

Now, if I do nothing, I am likely to only be liable if there is a duty to rescue [1].

[0] As in, well enough to win a criminal or civil case.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Seems to me that feeding the homeless is unambiguously a first amendment right.

Saying this doesn't invalidate some of the reasons why it might be a bad idea (although many of those reasons seem like...a stretch), but then again the first amendment allows you to say (and, I claim do) some stupid stuff.

I think giving money to panhandlers is dumb but I do it. It's clear to me that when I pull out a couple of bucks I'm expressing my concern for that person, for the social issues that may have helped them end up there (or they may simply have had their own problems, or own bad luck) and my feelings about myself as a person, which may be noble, base or guilty.

I also, when I think of it, donate to charities that help the homeless (it's a problem here in Palo Alto, though less than it used to be now the city council fell prey to the real estate lobby and shoved all the homeless shelters aside). I know a wholesale approach is generally more sensible. But sometimes a little "retail therapy" of this sort is valuable too.

</comment><comment><USER31> Seen this comment on that article. Kind of sad really; what we're turning into.

"that law has me, and plenty others in the greater Houston area, really ticked off. There were several very active (although small and not well funded) charities that were recently shut down due to this nonsense. Church groups that would fix food in their kitchens and take it to the homeless were stopped because they didn't have a commercial kitchen and all the permits that came with it; other groups would get together in their homes and cook meals, and got shut down for the same reasons. It's absolutely ridiculous to turn good samaritans in to criminals, but that's exactly what we do every time a new law is created as a knee jerk reaction to some recent event. How about we LEAVE PEOPLE ALONE? sorry /endrant"

</comment><comment><USER32> When I was young, due to some bad business deals and other factors, my family went homeless for a few months. We lived in a cheap motel, 4 of us to the room. We had some hot plates and cooked some in the room and used the bathroom sink to wash up afterwards. It wasn't too bad to be honest, we had food, shelter, clothing, jobs and each other.

We weren't the only "housing challenged" residents of this motel. By the late night activity in the hallway and the parking lot, most seemed to have some kind of severe addiction problem, though there were a couple illegal immigrants who had secured a room through a friend while they worked for remittance money. On more than one occasion, drunk/high people tried to force entry into our room later at night. My father slept by the door with a hammer after the second time.

Despite this, I'm not an authority on homelessness, but I know it sucks. For people like us, without severe mental, substance or family problems, wanting the make the sucking part stop is what kept us working on getting out of the situation. So I understand the ideas behind some of these notions around "not encouraging" people to be homeless. Having lived in those kinds of conditions before and not minded them terribly, to be perfectly honest, I've had moments where I've thought "if I could have a room and food, without working at all, I wouldn't bother looking for a job". So I fundamentally _get_ where that's coming from.

However, I also have several people in my family with severe psychological and addiction issues, and recognizing these same issues in the homeless I see out on the street every day, I understand that "getting out of the suckiness of homelessness" is not a major driver for them. Their hierarchy of needs is often screwed up and insomuch as they are able to satisfy that hierarchy, getting shelter (and even food) is often not a major priority for them. So no amount of having food kitchens or not having them is going to be a major decision point for them to suddenly come off their additions, become sane, and become productive members of society. However, I do think that people should be able to eat a safe meal if they need it.

Now that I'm long out of that situation, educated and affluent, I also suffer from NIMBYism. I worked very hard and have spent significant amounts of time and money to live in an area where I don't really have to worry about the kinds of negative environmental factors and activities that come with handling large homeless populations. I don't want a food kitchen anywhere near where I live. Not because I don't believe in feeding the homeless, people need to eat _today_ not after a six month job training program, but because for people who aren't working their way out of homelessness, there are large numbers of negative issues that homeless people bring along with them and it contributes to an environment I don't want to be in.

So this _is_ a very tough issue. However, just offering services isn't really a good answer either. When I spent some time in Portland, I was struck by the number and permanence of the homeless population there. It's not a particularly great outdoor environment, but the large number of free services in the downtown area have created a more or less stable population of self- supporting homeless. The principle complaint residents I've spoken to have is that it's great these services exist, but once they've been served, what's next?

I've observed poor coordination among homeless service organizations. You go here for food, here for the shelter, here for blankets, here for a job, if you're extremely lucky you might be getting medical/psychological/addiction care on a sporadic basis.

But what really needs to happen is a centralized "get off the streets" center. If a homeless person wants _any_ services, they have to check in there and they _must_ participate in all of the appropriate services proscribed to them. I'm also an advocate that they should immediately be working in return for the services. Every city has loads of work that needs doing, picking up litter, emptying public trash bins, park beautification, cleaning up graffiti, repainting bridges, filling in potholes, etc. In exchange a person who's "in the program" should get 3 hot meals a day, a small dorm room with a door they can lock, free psych/rehab/basic medical clinic treatment. They should be scored on participation, and if they do well, move on to more advanced programs like finding rent-controlled/shared housing, real jobs that pay money, mass-transit subsidies etc.

A friend of mine had a horrible experience and ended up in a battered women's shelter with 3 kids. The program they put her on was better than any homeless program I've seen. Within weeks, she had a job, psych counseling for her and her kids, and in a couple months had moved out of the shelter and was splitting a town home with another woman from the program at hugely subsidized rent (based on how much she made at her job). Within a year they had found her a two bedroom apartment just for her family. This was for a person who had money in her bank account, work history and some job skills, and a sizable social network who helped her out during her ordeal with food, money and places to stay.

It wasn't perfect, but I was surprised at how much better it was for her than for the homeless who don't really have anything at all.

<comment><USER33> > Every city has loads of work that needs doing, picking up litter, emptying > public trash bins, park beautification, cleaning up graffiti, repainting > bridges, filling in potholes, etc.

There's a large problem with the "filling in potholes" part. Road construction is a skilled trade (no, it's not just digging ditches). I've heard this "ditch-digging" argument on HN before (the other commenter wanted welfare recipients to dig a ditch on the Mexican border to keep illegal immigrants out...). Using public funds to effectively put tradesmen (some of whom are unionized) out of work to provide busywork to welfare recipients is not a good idea from a free-market point of view.

<comment><USER32> > to provide busywork to welfare recipients

well they wouldn't exactly be welfare recipients if they're working

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's one thing for a city to discourage me from giving food or money to panhandlers. It's another to make it illegal.

</comment><comment><USER35> It should be illegal to make this illegal unless such city at least first setup a free food program for the homeless that is easily accessible for all homeless in that city. They only want to drive them away to different cities so that the city look better?

</comment><comment><USER36> If people don't want to see homeless people in the streets, give them homes. LA Country has pretty much proven that the cost of social housing is lower than the cost of homelessness (policing, healthcare, etc).

</comment><comment><USER37> So if I meet someone on the street who has a home, I can hand them my fries?

</comment><comment><USER38> I once got yelled at by a pizza shop owner for buying a homeless guy a couple slices in the Lower East Side. It never crossed my mind that someone would take issue with someone feeding another human.

<comment><USER39> Many small businesses like that have issues with homeless people camping directly outside their business, harassing their customers asking for food. When people buy food for them, it encourages them to stick around and keep it up.

As you might imagine, having homeless people standing around outside harassing your customers is not great for business.

<comment><USER38> The guy wasn't outside harassing people, we were talking a couple blocks away and I asked him if he was hungry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> "Street feeding is one of the worst things to do, because it keeps people in homeless status,"

Oh yeah sure, they're homeless because they are asking for food, that's their own fault for staying homeless and not the fault of the society. This is very convenient.

Or maybe they just go to food sharing programs because they are hungry and that's their only option ? Who knows...

<comment><USER41> That's not what's being said.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> What are they going to do? Arrest me for helping a starving guy?

<comment><USER43> Yes. See what happened with Food Not Bombs in Orlando a couple of years back.

<comment><USER42> ah - I keep forgetting...US legal system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Sounds like a great way to invite a higher crime rate.

</comment><comment><USER45> I think it would be much better to make it illegal to have idiots being in power.

</comment><comment><USER46> War against food :-)

</comment><comment><USER47> Practice for treating humans like animals?

</comment><comment><USER48> Arrest me then.

</comment><comment><USER12> Firstly with minimum wage laws you deny them opportunity to earn their living. Then you deny them food. Well done America.

</comment><comment><USER49> ...while the Supreme Court protects the right of people and corporations (because of course they are persons too!) to feed politicians as much money as they want.</comment>


Nickel.rs – web application framework for rust - <AUTHOR> http://nickel.rs/

<comment><AUTHOR> nickels author here. This was previously named "floor" but I wanted to have a name with a stronger connection to Rust. Just to clarify upcoming questions ;-)</comment>