xyzelement
// Lots of people have a sort of consumer attitude towards
their communities, where they take everything for granted.
I saw things this way when I was young. A social scene is
an automatic feature of the world that appears on its own,
like a wild blueberry bush. It starts sprouting parties
and dinners and conferences and reading groups as
naturally as the bush sprouts berriesTrue in general. As a
kid you think of things as bigger than you. Like whoever
maintains a hiking trail or runs your towns diner is "big"
compared to you.As a grown up you hopefully realize that
it's the other way - the work and effort to make and
maintain those things is vulnerable and fragile.I think
about this whenever I see someone hop over the subway
turnstile. The transit system is "for granted" - it's you
and your few bucks that matters. But of enough ppl feel
that way it all goes away via decay eventually.
|
> nicbou
There is a point where the things you took for granted
start decaying. Your body, your things, your
communities, your relationships. It's only when you
start repairing or replacing them that you really
value maintenance and the people doing it. As you
point out, it's usually done by surprisingly few,
surprisingly motivated people, and their work is often
underappreciated until they stop doing it.Maybe we
should teach people to maintain something early on, as
children, so that they learn to appreciate the work
that goes into keeping the wheels turning.
|
> > appplication
What you're describing is essentially the concept
of civic duty and, at least in America, it's
unfortunately become deconstructed and politicized
to the point where it's impossible to exist as a
meaningful cultural phenomenon.It also relies on
people putting effort towards often intangible,
uncapitalized, and unextractable shared value. So
perhaps it makes sense that this is being
diminished over time, as the grip of capitalism
squeezes tighter and more efficiently. With more
economic stress placed on individuals, people have
less available time and resources to devote to
things other than staying afloat.Between
polarization/politicization of literally
everything and the relentless corporate desire to
deconstruct society in the name of quarterly
growth, I'm not optimistic this is making a
comeback. If we want to teach the children
anything, it is that The System has failed and is
in dire need of replacement.
|
> > > rapind
> it's unfortunately become deconstructed and
politicized to the point where it's impossible
to exist as a meaningful cultural phenomenon.I
think greed and corruption (cheating) by
politicians and government employees has an
outsized effect on this. Whenever you hear
about it you lose trust and may even feel
justified to cheat the system in turn.
Basically they got there's, so I'll get
mine.IMO the penalties for corruption in
public service jobs (all the way to the top!)
should also be outsized to match the damage it
does to society. I'm talking prison time. Also
transparency at all levels and at all times.
Public service should have really really good
reasons to keep anything private and the
default should be open to the public. There
shouldn't be a need for FOI requests unless
there's a good reason to keep something from
being completely public.
|
> > > > cassonmars
> IMO the penalties for corruption in
public service jobs (all the way to the
top!) should also be outsized to match the
damage it does to society.Tough to do when
those who write the laws are a part of the
problem. What do you suggest to make this
so?
|
> > > > > jrajav
Grassroots campaigning and hardline
support for candidates running on rule
of law and overturning Citizens
United. Overturning any status quo is
possible in a functioning democracy -
it just takes a lot of unskippable
effort.
|
> > > > > rapind
If you talk to people about the things
that get you fired up then you might
meet other people who also get fired
up about these things, and before you
know it, one of you is running for
office and / or you are all getting
involved locally. Or, you just keep
talking about it I guess, but I think
it at least improves the odds for
change.Passion can be just as
contagious as defeatism.
|
> > > Ferret7446
Part of it has to do with having children. If
you have kids, you have a stake in the future.
The birth rate has been falling, so naturally
civic duty has also fallen.
|
> > > rightbyte
> politicization of literally everythingThe
status quo is in favour of the owning class.
Things in a macro sense can't be not
political.
|
> > > > inigyou
And, when things are viewed as not
political, that in itself is a political
view, and usually a very bad one.
|
> jambalaya8
It isn't only the decay. People change. Who you were
online at age 23 and 30 and almost definitely 39 is
bound to be vastly different as your priorities and
real life relationships change (like marriages,
etc).And the topics changed faster. People into
mainframe OSes had the same conversational fluidity in
that for decades. Leave linux for too long and
everything sounds like vocabulary from an alien world,
now. And so many 'technologies' with it. True probably
since cloud and containerization. So people have less
in common technically in those communities and as more
career branching happens, people get nichier. More
interest bubbles. More and more people in core areas,
making it hard to not be overwhelmed simultaneously.
|
> > PaulDavisThe1st
In the late 80s I was working at Rabbit Software
in Malvern PA (they made IBM 3270 terminal
emulator software). I used to car pool to work
from Phila. with a brilliant woman who was a lot
older than me, and had a solid lifetime of IBM
mainframe experience. I was a Unix hacker with
just a few years under my belt.We realized very
quickly that if there was one thing we couldn't
talk to each other about, it was computers.
|
> > > jancsika
Back in 1984 George Lewis apparently did a
stint at IRCAM, culminating in an
electro-acoustic performance with three Apple
IIe's connected by MIDI to three DX7s. I'd bet
his conversations with the IRCAM directors
were similarly limited!
|
> > > > DonHopkins
Speaking of IRCAM, does anybody know
Joseph "jojo" Francis --
francis@ircam.fr?Scenes don't sprout like
blueberry bushes -- or baobab trees with
their roots in the sky. Someone does the
legwork -- or the scene quietly dies while
everyone assumes it was a natural feature
of the landscape.Maintenance is fragile
and underappreciated until it stops; you
do it for the love of the game even when
reciprocity is uneven; the process of
putting the thing on is often where the
real community forms, not the event flyer.
Someone spent fifteen years building a
local scene and still says it was worth it
after Facebook ate the users. Someone else
noted that recreational typing on HN
rarely becomes meeting people. Sometimes
it does, if you treat the thread as a
place to organize a hunt instead of only
consume takes.Which brings me to a
digression that already started elsewhere
in this thread (IRCAM, Apple IIes, DX7s)
and to the kind of legwork I actually
enjoy: preserving a weird primary source,
then trying to find the human who wrote
it.Does anyone know how to contact the
legendary Jojo -- Joseph Francis, once
francis@ircam.fr?I asked FJ!!!; he thought
Jojo was last seen in LA. Brewster -- if
you're reading this -- any breadcrumbs?
I'm wandering the stacks the way the
Archive wanders the Web: save the strange
pages, then go looking for the people.
That is producing social fabric, just with
a longer half-life. If you knew him from
Paris / Usenet / soc.motss, please point
him here or forward this.Jojo, if you see
this: please email don@donhopkins.com. I'd
love to catch up, reminisce, and talk
about applying those brilliant (and
ridiculous) UI ideas now. I'd rather you
tell your own story than have me invent
one.His classic Usenet riff, glorious
typos
intact:http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/uni
x-haters/x-windows/jojo-o...Jojo built it
with words decades ago, and boy did he
make me come! He invented a whole product
line of design-free GUI kits (POSEUR,
XYmorph, Quagmire, boraX -- all open,
scalable, and extensible, of course), then
drops the mask for one paragraph he titles
XBorges:>One longs for the day when the
responsibility of programming computers
falls squarely on the shoulders of the
users, where it belongs; they are provided
with a set of infinitely configurable
instruction codes, on an open, extensible,
and scalable n-bit bus, and their task
before setting upon work, is the naming of
all the operations they want, and encoding
them into words, sentences, phrases and
storing them for instant retrieval while
they use ideas communicated to them from
all the users before to choose most wisely
within the infinities of possibility. They
have at their hands all books written, all
interfaces, they merely traverse endless
treelike chains of possibility, of choice,
of alternate (open, scalable, and
extensible) universes; baobob-like roots
in the sky and leaves delving gnomishly in
circular connections leading to
closed-form solutions.>Visual design:
patterns on the screen, snow in
hell.Thirty years ago that read like
absurdist satire about Motif-era
configurability. Today it reads like
someone accidentally describing prompting,
tool use, and semantic navigation --
naming the operations in words, then
retrieving them -- while standing in
Borges' Library of Babel.David MacKay said
writing is navigating in the library of
all possible books. Dasher made that
literal: you don't type, you steer through
probability space toward the text that
already exists as possibility. The
Internet Archive is busy saving the books
that were written. LLMs collapsed a fuzzy
corner of the ones that could be. The hard
problem Jojo named is still the hard
problem: not generating the infinity, but
traversing it wisely -- which is also,
annoyingly, the hard problem of community.
Infinite possible hangouts. Someone still
has to pick a time and open the
door.Dasher: information-efficient text
entry - David MacKay, April 19 2007,
Google Tech
Talk:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie9Se
7FneXESpeech Dasher: An Efficient
Correction Interface for Speech
Recognition:https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=cCF6a00BcooLLMs accidentally built a
wing of the Library of Babel. XBorges was
always about the card catalog. Dasher was
always about steering. The Archive is why
any of the cards still exist. And if you
build the catalog (or the search party),
sometimes they will come.I ordered a
cursed monkey's paw from the ACME catalog,
thoughtfully wished for the rest of the
monkey, gave him an infinite number of
typewriters, told him about Dasher and
Bruce Tognazzini Apple ][ Integer BASIC
program, and he came up with this:One
Monkey, Infinite Typewriters: What It's
Like to Be Me.
A Personal Account of Incarnation,
Navigation, and the Beautiful Machinery of
Existence, By
Palm:https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/b
lob/main/examples/adven...David MacKay's
Dasher, Palm On Being Palm, and Tog's "The
Infinite Numer of
Monkeys":https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l
L2sw2oYU98>Le Jojo: Fresh 'n' Clean,
speaking out to the way you want to live
today; American - All American; doing, a
bit so, and even more so.Please Jojo --
write me. Everyone else: if you know him,
please be the person who does the little
bit of legwork and taps him on the
shoulder.
|
> > > > > DonHopkins
Tim Pozar and Brewster Kahle CHM
Interview by Marc Weber October 29
1996https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2
h2LHRFbNABrewster said:But also the
early stuff has got people's dreams.
The early people that sort of say --
you know, the early people on the web,
like you, doing your dinosaur exhibit.
You've got this ability to be able to
do something new and different. But at
some point, people will just say, "oh,
well, you know, you can't do that",
and they'll just sort of focus in on
all it can do. But in the beginning,
you have just amazing things. So I
always kept the early logs of WAIS. I
thought those would be the most
valuable things. Is one of the
questions, that people ask of the net.
And so I kept all of those logs.Oh,
you have those? Oh yeah. What do
people look for? What are people
dreaming that the technology can
finally answer? And right now already,
the web has sort of stagnated,
people's idea of it has really focused
down to the stuff the technicians have
given. But it's the early dreams that
we should trying to live up to. So I'm
trying to keep some of that alive.
|
> > > > > > jambalaya8
Been thinking a lot about concept
and word hijacking/cancellation,
lately. Dasher is a good example.
Ever notice how this happens? It
is one of my concerns about
agentic AI.I haven't thought about
Motif in ages, either,
incidentally. Another tricky word,
of course.
|
> > > > > > PaulDavisThe1st
> > And right now already, the web
has sort of stagnated, people's
idea of it has really focused down
to the stuff the technicians have
givenThis comment has not aged
well at all.
|
> > > > > > DonHopkins
Not as unwell aged as the Dumbold
Voting Machine's P. Diddy "Vote or
Die" disaster that either
electrocuts you or sets you on
fire if you choose
"Die".https://donhopkins.medium.co
m/dumbold-voting-machine-for-the..
.
|
> necovek
A transit system has a different cost and is actually
paid for by majority of users: the fact that few abuse
it is not going to break it (as long as we keep it
immoral to do so - note that there may be valid
reasons to do it, when someone is in some sort of
urgency and eg. ticketing machine is overcrowded or
broken: it's not on us to judge even if we might be
right 99% of the time).Here, we are talking about
things where it takes volunteer work to keep a thing
you want going - I do not even want to imagine a world
where a board game night is organized by a paid pro
instead of the enthusiast, even if a status quo means
that there is always an assymetry between hosts doing
most work and guests never hosting themselves (maybe
they do not have a big enough space though - they can
still volunteer to help though).I've realized this in
high school and uni and started making conscious
effort to sometimes do the social fabric things even
when I did not feel like it, in order to continue
benefiting from the social engagement.
|
> > inigyou
This is, to some extent, precisely what happened
to most of the internet. Things run for passion
withered away; things run for profit remained. New
people grew up surrounded by only for-profit
things, and believed that was just the way things
were supposed to work. They've never seen a
personal website.When I was 5 or 6 my dad helped
me make a web page about the Star Wars movie I
just saw and didn't really understand but I
thought the pod racers were cool. Apparently our
ISP came with a little bit of web space. That
doesn't happen any more. You don't even get
Usenet.
|
> colinsane
the turnstile thing is more complex than you perceive
because almost every transit system relies on public
funding. here (Seattle) those fares only fund about
10% of the _operating cost_ of the transit per Sound
Transit's own reports. not to derail the point, but
please do go read your transit system's quarterly
reports instead of taking the conclusion of fare
dodging for granted. just about every city has public
budget reports for their transit system precisely
because they are the product of public funding.
|
> > xp84
Not quite sure what you mean. Is it that fare
dodging is fine because the taxpayers at large
already pick up most of the tab? Or that fare
dodging is worse than you'd think because it makes
an already quite expensive thing for the public
budget, even more expensive?I'm thinking about
BART right now, which really might simply go away
altogether due in part to the collapse in fare
revenue that remote work triggered. BART didn't
have nearly as bad as Seattle's fare ratio though
- pre-COVID, fares and parking covered 66% of the
operating costs. (Source
https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/BART
%20FY23-32... ) This was apparently the best or
one of the best of its peers. It was 28% last
year, just due to the fare revenue basically
halving.
|
> > > colinsane
i hadn't considered that Seattle might be an
outlier; the numbers vary by city more than i
knew.https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/defaul
t/files/documents/2...page 11 has the $
figures. "link" is the commuter rail system:
$408M operating expenses but only $51M revenue
from fares, i.e. fares cover 12% of op ex.the
"average fare per boarding" is $1.34 (page 3;
this is ticket price multiplied by the
proportion of trips where the rider pays that
ticket). throw that together: even with 100%
payment compliance the average ticket price
would be $11 per boarding for that to be a
complete funding source. $11 would force more
riders onto the subsidized fare programs, plus
other knock-on effects from raising fares
(e.g. reduced ridership in general) means the
sticker price would have to be higher yet.the
commuter rail here was never designed for
ridership fares to cover its operating costs.
it just wasn't. the recent focus on fares in
the face of all this is misinformed, that's
the kindest way i can phrase that.(apologies
to hijack much of this with what turns out to
be more of a Seattle-specific issue).
|
> > > > BobbyTables2
There are probably some savings in
externalities not accounted for as
well.Seems to me mass transit could reduce
road maintenance costs, parking
infrastructure, and such. Not to mention
reduction in pollution and increase in
desirability.Unfortunately, it's difficult
to "capture" those savings explicitly. So
it ends up looking like a taxpayer funded
charity program...
|
> > > > > inigyou
I can't remember what the paradox is
called but it has a name - in any big
city, public transit sets the speed of
car traffic. Cars always go at the
same speed as public transit,
door-to-door. If you want to eliminate
traffic jams, improve the metro.
|
> greekrich92
The subway should be free, and continuous fare hikes
when you're already double paying with your eyes
because of all the advertising they shove in front of
you is more incentive to turnstile jump.
Overpaid do-nothing senior adminstrators and lawmakers
who are in the pocket of privatization are the
problem, not that 17 year old.
|
> > pclowes
Enforcing fares massively decreases vandalism, and
antisocial behavior on public transportation.If
you don't have public transportation that I feel
safe having a 10-year-old ride on unaccompanied by
an adult then you do not have public
transportation. You have a very expensive drug
addict shelter on wheels/rails.
|
> > > aweb
That's an interesting point and I agree it
makes some kind of sense, but is there a
source for it?I live in Montpellier France and
all transit has become free 2 years ago. I
didn't notice any change in people's behavior
at all. Transit is also free in Talinn IIRC
and I wonder if they saw something there?
|
> > > > wiether
Then they'll shift the goalpost: it's not
free, someone is paying for it, which is
every taxpayer.Then you'll ask for
receipts of what they pay to use the roads
and they'll be out.Regarding free transit,
I think part of the reason it can fail is
the socioeconomic situation.
In places that rewards the rich and
abandon the less fortunate, it's deemed to
fail.But also, I think that when people
have to pay to use transit, they'll be
less willing to act as a warden, so if
they see someone doing something negative,
they'll keep out, thinking that it's the
responsibility of whoever is taking their
money.
Meanwhile, when we see public transit as a
common good, we are more willing to act to
keep it great.
|
> > > > pclowes
https://growsf.org/news/2026-02-12-bart-fa
re-gates-10-millio...The maintenance cost
graph is very eye-opening.
|
> > > CHB0403085482
It's attitudes like that let that stop any and
every public transport being
built.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0s86kEUx
xak
|
> > > inigyou
They aren't enforced in Berlin and the worst
vandalism is graffiti on the side of some
trains (which, let's be real, who cares and it
adds some variety).You know what I think
helps? Treating people like grown-ups
|
> > > > pclowes
The impact in SF was absolutely
incredible. A very small percentage of the
writers was causing 90+ percent of the
problems and vandalism.Treating these
people like adults would be best, but I'll
take getting them off of public
transportation
first.https://x.com/SFBART/status/20209529
77180328184https://growsf.org/news/2026-02
-12-bart-fare-gates-10-millio...
|
> > > > > inigyou
What was the vandalism?Sometimes you
see trains with graffiti on one side
and a stern duct-taped paper notice
offering a reward for turning in
whoever drew the graffiti to the
police. Which is retarded, it's just
paint. They seem to have stopped doing
those notices now.If you think
graffiti is vandalism I don't care. If
they were smashing the windows then it
actually matters.
|
> > > > > > pclowes
Lol, no it was not just graffiti.
I dont mind graffiti nearly as
much as say:- open drug use
(literally smoking crack on the
bus)
- screaming threat of violence to
everyone one around
- purposefully urinating or
defecating on the seats.
- literally lighting things on
fire
- deliberately smashing glass at
bus stops (somehow very endemic in
SF)I do think graffiti is a public
notice of: "this is a place you
can treat poorly and behave
terribly in with no
consequence"Some graffiti I think
is quite artistic and a sincere
cultural contribution, but most on
the sides of buses are more of the
bathroom stall variety.
|
> > > > > > inigyou
I don't think you need fare gates
to stop those things. You need
police to arrest them. On one
visit to Berlin, someone insulted
a bus driver and the bus waited 10
minutes for the police to come and
arrest him.Just as importantly,
you need to stop arresting people
who aren't doing those things.
Otherwise there's no differential
and no reason not to do them.> I
do think graffiti is a public
notice of: "this is a place you
can treat poorly and behave
terribly in with no consequence"I
think that's only true in
authoritarian regimes. The kind of
place where all crimes are
considered fatally bad, resulting
in no differential. Otherwise, if
there's graffiti but no feces on
the sidewalk, it signals that you
can paint graffiti, but you can't
defecate on the sidewalk. You see
the difference?
|
> > > > > > pclowes
I don't think you appreciate how
hard it is to get arrested and how
ineffective it is when a DA won't
prosecute crimes. Like yes in a
more perfect and just society,
this would not be a problem.In
fact, most cities can operate just
fine without barrier-esque fare
gates. However, when you are
trying to pull a city out of a
societal doom loop, you need to do
what you can when you can.I think
it would blow your mind if you
knew the types of crimes a
criminal can commit and be
released.
|
> > > > > > inigyou
The USA has 25% of the world's
prisoners. I don't think it has a
problem with not enough policing.
|
> > > > > > pclowes
This still feels like a good faith
discussion so I'll engage.The US
does over incarcerate on average.
There is clearly a problem there!
The solution is not abdicating
prosecution and the rule of law to
make up for it in "progressive"
cities.Taking the Iryna Zarutska
case as an extreme example, I
don't think anyone would argue
that the killer should have been
on that train. He should have been
imprisoned/involuntarily committed
a long time ago.It is not
progressive or empathetic to allow
predators to with severe mental or
drug issues with long histories of
violence to repeatedly prey on a
specific community regardless of
the national incarceration
rate.Having people who come across
as crazy or violent on public
transportation makes the average
citizen vote for the very policies
that produce over incarceration
(or defund public transportation)
because they look around and their
lived experience is that there are
not enough police or bad people in
jail and that the taxpayer dollars
are wasted on public
transportation because it becomes
a cesspool of crime and drug
use.If you want to lower
incarceration and you want people
to use public transportation, it
must be clean and orderly and
socially sustainable.
|
> > > hahahaa
Right maybe we can make them free and safe?
Not sure why that is not possible. Walking on
the street is free. In many places it is safe
too.
|
> > > > MoltenMan
Safe is a tougher problem, and especially
when you consider that in most American
cities with subways, the exact cities
we're talking about right now, generally
NO, there are many areas where it is not
safe to walk! While I agree public
transportation safety and public safety in
general are incredibly important, they're
also (clearly, given how we're failing at
them) also difficult endeavors.I also
think this is relatively orthogonal to
cost; cost is nice because it helps keep
the people you don't want in the train
(crazy people with knives, people smoking
weed in the train, people who yell at
everyone on the train and make them feel
unsafe, etc.), but it's also important to
create at least a small barrier so that
people don't 'waste' the transit system!
In general, when things are completely
free, they will be taken advantage of;
even a very small tax / friction helps
stop this. If the subway is completely
free, there's no reason to not just sit on
it all day (taking up space and making it
worse for everyone). I think subsidizing
the subway is net beneficial given that we
subsidize cars and things already with
road upkeep and such, but free is not what
you want.
|
> > > > > hahahaa
There are other things to consider.
Free public transit would make it more
desirable to not use cars as much
reducing congestion, accidents,
pollution, energy usage. The need to
build less high traffic roads may be a
money saver to offset. Also it will
get more people to exercise by walking
to bus stops. You'd need disencentive
for abuse but you can personally only
add 16 person hours of usage per day
so it is not like say free unlimited
money or electricity where a single
user can add a lot of strain. And
spending all that time on transit is a
cost. For homeless people yeah you may
need to solve that problem! Build more
housing for sale and rent driving down
prices and reducing the number of
homeless yet productive people (with
jobs but can't afford rent). Build
shelter for homeless with problems
they can't hold down a job.
|
> > > > > > MoltenMan
Why do you need free public
transit for this? Why not just
cheap public transit? Cars
certainly aren't free, but people
drive them because cars are just
far better in most ways; you get
to listen to your own music, they
can be fun to drive, are
incredibly flexible (can go
anywhere), don't have the last
mile problem, take like half the
time unless it's rush hour, etc.
Cost just isn't the reason people
aren't using public transit.
People buy cars because you NEED
cars for many other reasons (most
of them mentioned), and then once
you have a car and pay for
insurance and everything it's
simply nicer and faster than
public transit (rarely cheaper,
even only factoring in gas and per
mile depreciation, although the
BART is so expensive it comes
close). (FTR: I'm not sure where I
stand on public transit
subsidization; I think some is
definitely good, but not sure how
much I think is optimal).
|
> > > > > > arcxi
You need cars because you live in
the country where cities are built
around the assumption of car
ownership. Go to any place with an
adequate public transit and you'll
see a lot less cars. Go to Tokyo
and you'll be shocked, it's the
largest city in the world and
their highways are practically
empty. It just doesn't make any
sense to drive when your public
transit is that good.
|
> > > > > > MoltenMan
I have been to Tokyo, and I agree
with you; perhaps I should have
been clearer, but my point was
that in American cities you DO
need cars (this is a given,
however unfortunate it is), and so
you are going to already have a
car and the costs that go along
with it, and as such you are not
going to use public transit even
when you could because you already
have a car. If I had had a car
when I was in Tokyo I certainly
would have used it! Public transit
takes half an hour to go a couple
miles, and cost wise gas is
cheaper! In the scenario where you
already have a car, it doesn't
make sense to use public transit
90% of the time. Does that make
sense?The only point I was trying
to make here was that cost isn't
the reason public transit doesn't
work in American cities, and
making public transit free will in
fact make it worse rather than
better. I want good public transit
too, don't worry!
|
> > > > > inigyou
Why not make it so there are better
free places to sit than the subway?
Like a park or something?
|
> > > ButlerianJihad
When I became homeless (again) about 26 years
ago, the buses were a place of refuge and
relaxation for me. I could easily pay the fare
and stay on a long haul line. I'd be assured
of safety and quietness for about 2 hours or
so.The area clinics were participating in
this, because they could procure "Reduced
Fare" passes that they would distribute to
mentally ill patients, and we could get
unlimited transit rides all month long, as
long as we were still checking in, on the
regular, with our case managers. Our providers
would ensure that they qualified us for the
"Reduced Fare" program.After a while, the bus
stops became camping grounds for street people
who didn't ride. And the trains became camping
grounds for people who needed to sleep.
Literally, early in the morning, I would board
the train and see people zonked out, with
pillows, blankets, the whole bit.Then a
campaign began to clean up behavior aboard the
transit system. Riders would need a
destination, and fares were checked, and
people were booted if they hadn't paid fares.
So the vehicles themselves became quite
sparse, and safer, and smelled better. But oh,
the bus stops again. Everyone camped with
impunity at the bus stops, and for paying
passengers, it was intimidating just to beg
for one place to sit down.The transit system
is undeniably safe. I am sure that
10-year-olds can ride unaccompanied. Any
violence or fights, those seem to be between
gangstas or people who know one another
already, not just random outbursts.Thankfully,
too, they open up centers where people can
chill, and get drinks of water and use the
bathroom, which is honestly preferable to
riding buses on false pretenses.
|
> > > > inigyou
That's not really anything to do with fare
evasion. That's a global systemic problem.
That's the entire system being completely
retarded, for political reasons ("look,
we're solving homelessness")
|
> > > > > ButlerianJihad
Fare evasion on the trains here is
child's play. It's on the honor system
and so if a fare inspector pops you,
worst case you're disembarking at the
next station.In 18 years, I've
literally never ever seen an inspector
giving a stiffer penalty than that!
|
> > > hduto
Genuinely curious here: is this born out
across all geographies? Japan's fare
enforcement for instance vs western Europe and
resultant behavior?
|
> > > > tonyhart7
some culture as just better than others
|
> > > > > > tonyhart7
You must be privileged since you
never experience it in real life
|
> > > > > > hduto
I feel the question was about
transit fare observance relative
to anti-social behavior. Not about
culture overall. At least not
substantially
|
> > > lovich
> If you don't have public transportation that
I feel safe having a 10-year-old ride on
unaccompanied by an adult then you do not have
public transportation. You have a very
expensive drug addict shelter on
wheels/rails.What an escalation. If I don't
feel safe having a 10 year old drive a car is
that just a drug addict shelter on wheels?
|
> > dublinben
Public transit should be worth the (inexpensive)
cost of a ticket. The money used to make fares
free should instead be spent on improving the
quality of service. Better service attracts more
riders, bringing in more ticket revenue, enabling
further service improvements, and so on. It
produces a positive flywheel effect that benefits
current passengers, new passengers, and even
drivers!Free transit is a downward cycle, where
increased ridership just increases costs, creating
a negative flywheel.
|
> > > qazwsxedchac
Counterexample: Public transport throughout
Luxembourg (the entire country, not just the
capital city) is free. As in beer. Clean,
safe, and reliable, too.The positive "flywheel
effect" where transport connectivity enables
network effects does exist, but it does not
follow that free public transport leads to
negative effects.
|
> > xyzelement
Fares cover 40 per cent of the subway operating
budget. It seems necessary revenue.The 17 year old
dodging fares becomes the 34 year old doing the
same.The percentage of fare dodgers who aren't
pieces of shit in other parts of their life is
zero.
|
> > > inigyou
The percentage of people who aren't pieces of
shit in at least one part of their life is
zero.
|
> > inemesitaffia
Private Jet rides should be free
|
> > > inigyou
They are. You just gotta obtain the jet, the
fuel and the pilot.
|
crab_galaxy
You really have to do it for the love of the game. It can
be surprisingly vulnerable to be the social fabric, and
it's super easy to fall into various toxic inner dialogs
when you're busy and others don't pick up the slack, or if
others don't reciprocate the effort, or worst of all when
others don't include you for whatever reason.
|
> capnjazz
Another thing that makes this hard for me is I'm
usually down for whatever. Some people I notice have
strong opinions about activities, like (making up
examples) thinking bowling is cringe or something in
that vein. I don't really have anything I'm that
against that I would kill everyones vibe for. I mostly
just want to see people, so it feels weird becoming
the project manager for a plan I'm completely flexible
about.
|
> > hsuduebc2
One could argue that it is quite the opposite.
Someone potentially complaining about various
activities does not make them better suited to
organize events. Having strong feelings about an
activity simply means they can choose not to join,
not that nobody should ever go bowling again. Your
flexibility and willingness to do almost anything
actually make you very well suited to organizing
group events.
|
> > > capnjazz
You've got a good point. I will test this out
|
> alwa
What's more, it's precisely that genuine love of the
game that makes your thing so appealing to the others.
Authenticity's hard to fake!
|
> nicbou
I fully agree. I have experienced the same thing. It
was hard not to take it personally, but I have come to
accept that people are busy, tired, shy, and sometimes
just not organisers of things.When I feel that way
now, I remind myself that to some people, I am the one
who does not reciprocate invites, or who rarely has
time. I rarely feel anything negative about them; I am
just bbusy/tired/shy/not-in-an-organising-mood.
|
> zeroCalories
That's the cost of doing business. Luckily, you can't
go bankrupt from hurt feelings....
|
embedding-shape
> Lots of people have a sort of consumer attitude towards
their communities, where they take everything for granted.
I saw things this way when I was young. A social scene is
an automatic feature of the world that appears on its own,
like a wild blueberry bush. It starts sprouting parties
and dinners and conferences and reading groups as
naturally as the bush sprouts berries.I feel like this
generally applies a lot in life, and most people generally
sees themselves as passive consumers when it comes to most
things. You can just do things, even if people look at you
weird or say your weird, even in public, and nothing
really changes when they say/think those things about you.
Just enjoy life as much as you can, in the way you wish,
without harming others.
|
> dghlsakjg
Part of growing up for me was realizing how little
others care, and how little I care about what others
think.It's liberating. Be weird in public!
|
> > mettamage
whoopseedoopsie-whoopsieflaisie I'm a deer and I
run crazy!whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop
whoop whoop!I also foam a lot, then drink from a
rainbow and feel better again.(normally I don't
let this part of my inner monologue come out,
especially not on HN, but you gave me permission,
ha)
|
> win311fwg
> without harming others.That's the problem. It isn't
always clear to all people exactly what causes harm to
others. For example, it is generally agreed upon that
exposing your "nether region" is harmful to others
even though all you are really doing is giving
something for others to look at. Maybe some of the
other weird things they see could be equally harmful?
If your weird behaviour is commonly weird then you
might have some precedent to look upon, but there is
no way to tell what is and isn't harmful to others
until it has already happened when you are being
uniquely weird.
|
> > embedding-shape
> For example, it is generally agreed upon that
exposing your "nether region" is harmful to others
even though all you are really doing is giving
something for others to look at.Indeed, probably
in your country it's very much "generally agreed
upon" that nude people are harmful to others,
while where I live, you'll find it hard to go to
the beach without seeing at least one naked body,
and no people are being harmed in this environment
:) I'm sure there are prudes here too, but it's
more "generally agreed upon" that nude people
aren't a harm to others, here at least.I guess I
should have specifically said "without physically
harming others" as that's much easier to draw a
line with.
|
mattmaroon
"I've come to believe that part of today's problem of
social alienation is a problem of too many free riders."I
started planning street festivals a few years ago. It's
now a lucrative and growing business for me. The demand
for events at all scales vastly outstrips supply, and I
think growing social isolation is part of the reason.The
free riders might seem like a problem to someone who just
wants there to be events, but it is a huge opportunity to
us who throw them.
|
> jasondigitized
Would love to hear more about the impetus for your
festivals, the festivals, and the process to get
there.
|
> > mattmaroon
Interesting. I've been debating starting a social
media channel teaching people how to do it.
|
> dominotw
we have tons of street festivals in chicago in summer
but now they have lost been outsourced to festival
companies and subsequently lost all charm and local
feel.
They are all copy paste of each other and outright
scams.how do you make sure they have some charecter
and dont turn into mc-festival
|
> > mattmaroon
Well, I don't think I've gotten to mc-festival
scale yet so I don't know. I've got a few
festivals in the 25k attendee range, which is big
but I have vended at some that are and order of
magnitude bigger. The biggest fest I do,
Circleville Pumpkin Show, gets 400,000 people, is
so old it had to skip a year for WWI, and is very
much the opposite of a corporate festival.But I've
also done the MLB all-star game, and subcontracted
through a few major f&b firms and those started
off as corporate as they come.I don't think I've
yet been involved in one that became corporate
after starting off small but I'll let you know if
I get there.
|
> > ryandrake
This is a huge problem with many cases of "just do
something." The minute it looks like a money
making opportunity, or something that can be
arbitraged, someone will inevitably turn it into a
business and scale it up and now it's no longer
That Cool Community Thing. It's yet another
extractive business.
|
> > > mattmaroon
It's more than just that (though I'm sure
that's part of it).The thing about festivals
is they have real economies of scale. For
instance sponsors value getting in front of
25,000 people really highly, but they don't
value a 2,500 person festival at all. (I'm
speaking general audience, in some niches a
high quality small crowd is still worth
money.) The portapotties get cheaper when
you're ordering however many come on one
truck. The dumpster and tent companies don't
charge you any more for a 3 day rental than a
one day. Etc.So to make the business model
grow you grow the festival. But soon you're
running a big security budget, so you look
around for who in your area does security fit
really big events. There are two firms. Ok you
pick one.Now the city wants to talk about your
sanitation plan. Ok who does sanitation as a
service here? OK there's one company. Who can
provide me a few 40 yd dumpsters and retrieve
them on Sunday night? Ok there are like two
willing to do that. Who rents large tents that
has a fire permit in your city and can bring
out a forklift because we're on hard surface
so we need 500lb cement anchors according to
my city fire department. Ok there's one
vendor.How do I feed 25k people? Well who does
f&b for large events. Oh there are a few and
they're bidding on me. Guess I'll go with the
highest bidder among the few big national f&b
firms. (My festivals are food festivals and I
can handle f&b for 25,000 eaters no problem
because I have run many large food truck
festivals and I know who is good but most
promoters cannot tell the good food operators
from the bad and there are so many of both.)So
what happens is you've got all these pieces
and you get to a level where just practical
reasons as well as municipality rules make you
choose between a handful of basically
interchangeable vendors. And those vendors all
do a good job and aren't price gouging
(they've got plenty of labor cost too) but
they kinda all look the same.
|
> > > lazyasciiart
Someone tried to organize a street fair near
me, did public outreach for months, and a week
before the date a business owner a block away
from the street fair contacted the city with a
fake list of all the local businesses who said
they hadn't even known about this and it would
destroy them, and the city didn't issue the
final permit. No event. (The list was known to
be faked because some of the business owners
listed were publicly supporting and
advertising the event). So that's the other
problem with "just do something" - other
people hate you and if you don't already know
the right people and how to be believed over
the wrong people, you won't get something
done.
|
> > > > inigyou
So how did your lawsuit go against him?
|
> Skidaddle
What kind of street festivals are we talking about?
|
> > mattmaroon
Mine are food-focused.
|
> fellowniusmonk
The real hack is that the events aren't the community,
they serve the community, the process of working
together to put these types of events on is what
builds deep connection.People don't actually get where
the deep value lies, the event income or social
credibility for those involved in putting it on just
helps ensure there is enough fuel for the fire of the
real community.
|
Exoristos
America used to be awash with grassroots social
institutions. I know an elderly gent who belonged to the
Lions _and_ two similar organizations. When my mother was
young, there were dances and dinners multiple nights a
week. Which, for me, raises the question why weren't these
things passed down? Why weren't the young a kind of
apprentices to the old? That seems like the natural
progression. But we see this generational rift in many
areas of American life, including on the job training or
something as practical as home cooking. It's like gazing
into the past across a cataclysmic divide.
|
> Brendinooo
Armchair historian AT BEST but...a lot of grassroots
social institutions formed in the period between the
Industrial Revolution (mass migration to the cities)
and the invention of the radio. There were all of a
sudden a LOT of people close together, some were even
starting to get newfangled leisure time, and there
wasn't a ton to do. On top of that, a lot of the
institutions were ethnic because of the mass
immigration that was happening at the time.From there,
the track downhill is death by a thousand cuts: radio,
melting pot, television, suburbs, Internet, etc.So in
a sense one might mourn the loss, but I think it seems
worth pointing out that they were enabled in the first
place by a particular set of conditions that weren't
some baked-in human default.
|
> gallerdude
Staying at home is as entertaining as it's ever been:
video games, Netflix, don't even get me started on
short-form content.
|
> xg15
It's trite, but I think a part of it is "because the
internet happened" - and I don't mean just today's
enshittification era but also the "good old times"
everyone seems to remember fondly here. At some point,
the internet was full of that kind of community spirit
that you described, but of course this meant that
people were more likely to direct their energy to
online community building than to real-life stuff. And
unfortunately online communities didn't always teach
the skills that offline communities required, and also
probably contributed a lot to the "consumer mindset"
the OP warns against...
|
> > ghaff
I suspect there are a lot of reasons. You don't
have men and their housewife for the most part. So
the typically male Lions, Elks, etc. clubs don't
fit as well with modern lifestyles for that reason
in part. Bowling nights went out of fashion.
People are less likely to to be clustered in a
town/small city for work. There are just a lot of
reasons why routinely heading down to $PLACE with
all the guys after work just isn't that popular
any longer.
|
> > danaris
As someone who was growing up during the period
where the Internet became mainstream...This was
happening before then. The Lions, Rotary, etc
clubs in my area made very little effort to reach
out and invite younger members. Aside from the
Rotary exchange program, I couldn't have named a
single event they were putting on that was
genuinely aimed at people under the age of 50.And
the few times that they did try to talk to some of
us young people about the club, the very, very
strong impression I got of the pitch was "you can
pay significant monthly dues to come to meetings
with old people and occasionally go do volunteer
activities out in the community." I already did
some volunteering without having to pay for the
privilege, and I didn't see the draw of going to
meetings with old people.
|
> > Exoristos
The downfall of social institutions was well on
its way by the Boomers.
|
> nektro
> Why weren't the young a kind of apprentices to the
old?this question could explain almost everything
about american life right now
|
> xp84
I really feel this comment. The most tragic part to me
is that these older type of organizations, I'd
actually argue would be great for what people like me
would benefit from. People are so isolated and lonely
and "third places" are known to be a good thing for
basically everyone. And it's not like I couldn't, with
some effort, attend a few events and probably make a
few acquaintances to get sponsored to join one. But
the age chasm that's already happened means most of
the people down there are in their 60s at the youngest
which makes me as a younger (than that) person feel
nervous that these guys might not feel they have a lot
to talk about with me (or even that I don't belong).
And with membership being so static, a new member
would find themselves the only ones who hasn't known
everyone in the room for 30 years.
Of note, a similar phenomenon can be seen in early
Internet communities: a coupon years ago I paid to
join The WELL just to see what it was like. It was
interesting from an Internet Archaeology point of
view, but most of the people there are older Gen Xers
or boomers. Basically no millennial ever joined The
WELL, because the Internet had moved on before we got
online. The community has only shrunk from attrition,
so everyone there has known the other members since
the 90s.
|
> watwut
There used to be a lot of disdain on HN against people
who were "just partying". While the geeks stayed home,
learned for school or job yadda yadda. People who
socialize were always maligned here, their socializing
was supposed reason why they earned less money.And
that attitude is one part of the answer. Second is
that home entertainment became easier and more fun, so
people stay home watching movies, browsing internet,
what have you instead of going out. And overtime,
dance places became emptier and organizers
demotivated.
|
> > inigyou
You can party sometimes. If it's all you do, you
might have a problem. Berlin is a cool place, eh?
(I swear that techno is targeted at autistic
people)
|
> > makeitdouble
On "just partying", while I get what you're
saying, I have a hard time to believe they ever
cared about what HN thought about them or that our
opinions had meaningful impact. TBH I am/was more
jealous of people with truly advanced "people
skills" than anything, especially as they still
earn pretty decently.Lots more money is still made
by networking or potentially mild grifting than
through sheer innovation or technical excelence
for instance.
|
> > > watwut
I think that HN was reflection of real world
attitudes. And yes, people care about what
their real world contacts think.> Lots more
money is still made byThat has nothing to do
with community, friendship, company and
socializing as entertainment article is about.
You using dance hall to build business
contacts destroys all of these. It turns them
into another worlplace - and pushes people
elsewhere if they want to actually rest.
|
> > tonyhart7
Yeah, now everyone glued to their phonecrazy how
20 years different changes human life forever
|
> > zeroCalories
The stigma is pure cope. Most nerdy types I know
wasted a ton of time on some stupid hobby. If not
video games, it was some other dumb geek thing
like anime, comic books, or furries.
|
> senderista
I think a big part is the decline in organized
religion.
|
> > rubylimetea
Interestingly, I always guessed the opposite.That
modern American Christianity obsoleted the old
clubs and "secret" societies - most of which were
no longer very secret, more ritual than societal,
and at some point had to define what "higher
power" meant to its members - a topic that easily
takes over the municipal development discussions -
to not only the younger men but to the women (who
were largely barred from such organizations).90s
television and the "role model" movement helped
Christianity unify and sweep the attention of the
youth, reflected in "youth group" programs across
churches in the United States and also the rise of
indie televangelists (some became millionaires,
along with thousands of pastors).By the early- to
mid-2000s, Christianity had figured out how to put
on a much better show (for the kids) and,
especially in California, again had evolved into
something new, more palatable, entertaining, and
far more inclusive than you could ever get from
something like a Masonic order or even a Rotary
Club.90s-00s Christianity was a massive movement
that I wonder whether or not would be possible
without the advent of TV. To me, those old clubs
where grandpas met and discussed things was a way
of the past. Like comparing newspapers to social
media - just an obsolete way of sharing
information.
|
> > intended
All organized things started going down in
participation no?
|
> > > Exoristos
In the United States tradition that arose in
the early nineteenth century, religious bodies
were spiritual families with "brothers" and
"sisters" that assisted in each other's lives
outside of services. Descriptions of just how
involved in daily life churches were can be
found in e.g. Boles's 'Religion in Antebellum
Kentucky.' Much unofficial societal
organization flowed from there. Granted this
was not the case, or not as much the case, in
churches that predate that period, say, urban
Episcopalians.
|
> > > > intended
While the root may have been religious,
Lions and Rotary were things in other
parts of the world, shorn of their
religious connection. I know that my
grandfather was a Lions club member, and
that was in India.Generally clubs of that
nature have seen their membership drop,
have they not?
|
> NoMoreNicksLeft
>Which, for me, raises the question why weren't these
things passed down? Why weren't the young a kind of
apprentices to the old?Because at that time, the
younger generation outnumbered the old. And today, the
older generation outnumbers the younger. They grew up
in a growing world, and you have grown up in a
shrinking world. Not shrinking quite so quickly that
you can't help but notice... not yet. We're not Japan,
not yet. When you read that heartwarming story about
the Japanese train line that stays open until that one
Japanese girl finishes high school, that happened
because she was part of a shrinking society. Do you
think they had dances planned multiple nights per week
in her prefecture?
|
> mannanj
It was technology. With greater efficiency, came also
greater separation and distance at home and with
family and community and our initiatory
rituals/rites.We used to use community to pass those
down, but now the average American family gets divided
from each other at an early age as soon as the
distraction and ideology from technology like screens
and things social media comes into play.Edit: Before
internet, there were other forms of "social media" at
play attempting to extract the attention of the
individual units of the family and community, but they
weren't as effective. With the internet they are more
effective.
|
> > inigyou
What was the social media before social media? TV?
|
grahar64
I volunteer at a weekly event where we consistently have
over 400 people show up, and every week it is a struggle
to get 20 necessary volunteers to run it.When you ask, you
do get volunteers, but there are a few awesome people who
volunteer every week and love it. The event would
absolutely be impossible without them.Thank you to every
person who volunteers, especially if you do it without
asking.
|
> inigyou
Fusion Festival offers a free guaranteed ticket and
free meals to anyone who's willing to sacrifice 3x7
hours of their time across the 6-day event doing
menial work. Despite this they still apparently get
fewer volunteers than they'd like.
|
brap
This is very interesting. I never thought of myself as a
"consumer" in that sense, but I guess it is 100% correct,
I've always been a consumer and I have in fact taken
things for granted.I don't see that changing, to be
honest, but it's interesting that this never even occurred
to me. It seems so obvious in hindsight. Quite the
blindspot.
|
sim04ful
This is indeed part of the something i've been
internalising for quite a while. I've always felt i needed
to improve my social circle by finding/making one, but i
realised it's better to just have hobbies and skill sets
that make me useful and relevant to a certain niche and
then my circle would naturally arise from there.It's also
why i'm trying to participate more here, even with the
crippling imposters syndrome that prevents me from
contributing anything...It's so difficult actively
participating in a group that seemingly got cultivated
from a culture somewhat alien to my own upbringing.
|
> skybrian
I'm skeptical that posting on social networks will
accomplish what you're hoping for. I've been fairly
actively commenting on Hacker News for over 15 years
and haven't met anyone this way. This is just
recreational typing.
|
> > nicbou
I meet everyone this way. I reach out to people
and people reach out to me.
|
> > inigyou
Some usernames stick out. If there's a thread
about DNSSEC you know tptacek will show up to
complain about it.
|
> > mannanj
I wonder about that. Why is this one of the few
communities, that despite being so high quality in
a technical sense has so little in person
community connection?
|
> > > xg15
Won't say this is all, but I think there are
some design decisions that actively push it
away from that:- No DMs- A UI that strongly
deemphasizes specific posters and emphasizes
messages in an abstract "discussion tree"- No
persistent or "sticky" threads. Every
discussion that takes place here will be off
the front-page and essentially forgotten in a
few days. There is no space where anything
like "community lore" could develop. (*)All
that strongly encourages you to focus on links
and messages, but not on the people behind it
or on longer-form discussions.(*) That's not
quite true - if you're long enough here, you
do see some patterns emerge, like reoccurring
preferences or discussions emerge, and even
"celebrities" whose pages get upvoted to the
front page disproportionately often. But it's
all implicit, observational stuff, there is
not really a "water cooler" or "off topic"
area for discussion. (Apart from the annual
"Merry Christmas" thread maybe)
|
> > > > ghaff
I'd add that, in spite of a US and
probably SV focus, it's very
geographically distributed. Back in my BBS
days, we actually had a core of local
participants who got together IRL from
time to time.
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sam_lowry_
Do not expect a reward, dude.I spent 15 years building a
local community, I had 10,000 daily users once, people
recognized me on the street, then everyone left on a whim
when Facebook made it easier to hang in one's own echo
chambers.I still think it was worth it.Once in a while, I
bump into a stranger, and they tell me how the found their
only true love because of me, or how they landed a job
that made them loads of money because I facilitated
communication in our community. Other times... I barely
escaped molestation by a disgruntled member once, and
someone threw a glassful of Orval at me (yes, it really
happened).It was still worth it.
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> customguy
A bit of a tangent, but it's fascinating how often you
hear these stories (and I experienced one, myself), of
communities "moving to Facebook" and basically
dissolving as a community. I would like to see a
collection of such anecdotes, but I can see why it
doesn't get compiled, because it would essentially
just be [description of community] and then
[Facebook], with no specifically interesting thing to
report other than "it petered out". Same for Amazon,
come to think of it. You can describe what used to be,
and that it's now longer there, but there isn't really
any compelling tale in it.
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> > JumpCrisscross
> fascinating how often you hear these stories
(and I experienced one, myself), of communities
"moving to Facebook" and basically dissolving as a
communityThere's an analogy here to suffocating in
an anoxic atmosphere.Our bodies don't sense blood
oxygen well. Instead, our urge to breathe is
mainly driven by dissolved CO2 [1]. So if you're
breathing out CO2, and breathing in no O2, your
alarm bells stay mostly silent. Your lights go out
without your ever being wiser.Analogously, I think
our social senses trigger when we've been away
from people we care for. We get that "I haven't
seen so and so in a while" urge, which in turn
drives reaching out.The problem is that sense
seems almost like a proximity timer. If we've
interacted in any way with so and so, it resets. A
threshold which appears to be met by e.g. liking a
photo on Facebook-empty calories of social
interaction. A nitrogen atmosphere giving the
perception of normalcy while everything slowly
decays. And then, at a moment nobody notices until
it's passed, the social rot sets in and a former
community is now folks who once knew each other.It
petered out.[1]
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4515048/#
b21
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