Eli Friedmann

I suppose the term (+ it can be applied to many factions across the ideological spectrum) is "motivated reasoning".
Whatever one is willing to rationalize, justify, etc in order to "score a point for the team"
I am team "fund the subway, help make it pleasant to use for everyone. minimal insanity."

I've definitely seen every angle + iteration of this over the last 2-3 decades.
It runs the gamut.
It can be someone who is clearly mentally deranged, hospital bracelet still on their wrist, or a rando creepy a**hole taking advantage of crowding conditions to cop a feel.
Neither are ok, obviously

We typically frame "sexual harassment" as something that a higher status individual imposes on a lower status individual.
Louis CK harassing female comedians lower down the show biz totem poll.
This is the opposite, status wise.
Either way, it's not an acceptable situation.

Yeah, it's an interesting point.
Not sure I know what to make of the gap there.
36 to 39 is not a huge gap but...it's significant enough to matter.
I would feel better about the whole situation if we could get steady averages in the mid/low 30s.
That's manageable.

If living in a city means "dicks will be waved at you and you will learn to like it", then cities are not going well.
Again, this is the kind of dynamic that the far right and left love.
The right likes it, because waving dicks and insanity is their preferred notion of what a city is.

And I might address this kind of situation not as a moral one but a medical one, pragmatic.
A need to be addressed.
I doubt "punishment" per se is really even the issue at hand.
Someone is probably falling apart if they arrive at this juncture.
Is my guess.

Yikes.
I don't know the legal terms but it edges toward "sexual assault" I would guess.
Beyond harassment.
It is also my guess that a person out of control enough to do this kind of thing is maybe not in control of their faculties.
So maybe not quite the "conventional" sexual harassment scenario.

It's an interesting comparison.
I hope that someday it can be leveraged to actually provide those hospitals.

Capitalism will probably not be dismantled anytime soon.
But I do HOPE a more functional medical system (for the indigent + the average citizen) can be developed.
The estimated number of seriously mentally ill indigent americans is around 150,000.
It's a manageable problem.
IF we choose to solve it

The right dismantled the hospitals..
The left considered the treatment therein inhumane (in many cases that was true).
But what nobody, left or right really wanted to grapple with was this:
Some patients cannot care for themselves.
That is an issue additional to our medical financing problems.

It's a f**king mess.
Wreckers all the way down the line.

From the psych nurses I've interacted with, it is a system that is stretched to it's breaking point.
Not enough nurses, not enough doctors, not enough beds.
And to fully take the measure of the system, long term care is barely existent.
Patients are stabilized and then tossed out on the street.

How many January 6th rioters would absolutely be nodding along to what this guy is saying?
A huge part of Trump's appeal is that only HE can solve everything.
That everyone else, including other republicans, are horrible and useless.
Popuist tripe.
Gotta storm the capitol + "take back" the country!

Vibes ARE facts.
We are human, we absorb vibes.
Things we witness effect us.
We should aim, within reason + what is possible to practically achieve, to create a transit system with good vibes.
That is a system that will thrive.
People will WANT to use it.
Which is what we all want, I hope.

A person throwing themselves violently against the doors of the train, screaming, eyes rolling in their heads.
A level of anguish few of us have experienced, I hope.
This can occur, unfortunately.
And it indicates a failure in the system.

I can't speak to the exact person being described in the post.
I was not there and am not a medical professional.
However I HAVE personally witnessed people in profound distress over the last couple decades on the train who I am extremely confident DO require serious medical intervention.

I think if you are reduced to urinating on the train full of people, you are probably in need of serious help.
Few people of sound mind will do this.
You are correct in the 2nd part here.
The left + right are both impediments to providing the level of care that can actually help someone like this.

And are there ((())) around the names involved?
I wonder what nazi tattoo guy thinks?
We've heard him disparage women and non whites so far.
Who's next on your target list, Platner?

If this guy thinks "left, right, republican, democrat" is all the same, do you really want him in charge of legislation?
He sounds like a lazy populist fool.
Is he just another Fetterman?
Or worse?

There is also a condition which may not be literally immediately physically dangerous but which is still unpleasant enough that the average citizen will simply nope the f**k out.
That matters as well.
People don't want to exist in a daily state of "well, i don't THINK it's actively dangerous but..."

Cool.
He's at "right, left, republican, democrat all the same really".
plus
secret cabal running the world.
I'm sure this campaign will end well.
Call it "QANON" or "Pizzagate" or "The Epstein files" or "Soros" whatever word you are most comfortable with.
It leads to the same populist nonsense.

Purposely missing the point I see.
Common online thing.
Is commuting on a train with urine trickling down the middle of it ok?
*The person quoted at the top of the thread seems to think it is*
Just "toughen up".
Peeing + screaming is fine with them.
See the point yet, or no?
(please don't answer)

And as we see, our country is incredibly bad at funding longterm healthcare and housing.
Which is exactly what that mentally ill woman on the train needs.
Both.
Perhaps for life.
Definitely years at least.

"the most traumatizing" is indeed a bit much.
However the larger point (imo) is that most people will prefer sitting in traffic in their car to commuting on a rolling toilet.
And if we want more people to use public transit (we do) AND we want ill people to get help, we need to fund hospitals.

It's a rhetorical race to the worst public transit imaginable.
Free.
But also dangerous and filthy and unreliable.
So that nobody will want to use it.
Thus defeating the entire purpose of it.
We can only hope that no elected officials listen to this nonsense.

That is for sure.
Go to any normal workplace, start using your work cubicle (or someone else's cubicle) as a toilet.
That room will clear the f**k OUT.

The message a normie gets when they see someone responding to this kind of abject suffering with "toughen up"?
"Well, I guess I won't be trying the subway ever"
*Nobody* with the option to drive will sign up for a commute on the moving toilet.
I promise you that.

The thing is...permanent long term care is incredibly expensive, complicated, difficult to get built, difficult get communities to agree to have it in/near them, legal issues, etc.
So the upshot is...this.
Because it's cheap to leave people to suffer.
And then point fingers at each other.

I see those on the left saying "toughen up, this doesn't effect my life in any way" (a bizarre lie, or at least I hope it's a lie).
And those on the right who just say "see, cities are filth, destroy it all, let it rot."
What they have in common is an unwillingness to discuss real policy.

When you see people wallowing in misery on the subway it indicates that government has failed.
The painful reality is that politicians are uncomfortable demanding the funding that would alleviate this kind of suffering.
Permanent long term care for those too ill to care for themselves.