alt Hacker News“Why can’t we have nice things?”
Any article like this that I read that dismisses anti-social behavior as some kind of normative cultural trait I think misses the point.
In most places street furniture serves a function, and a function that cost a significant amount of resources. The anti-social use of these features harms the social services those features are meant to serve.
Anti-social behavior can be trivially defined by a kind of categorical imperative. That is: does this behavior, if universalized, render the public service non-functional. It is increasingly naive to consider these concerns simply in a cultural context or some power dynamic.
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I'm really baffled by the amount of anti-social behavior. Case in point: trash. Where I live it's so common to litter that most people simply don't consider littering something wrong. The idea "if people didn't litter we wouldn't be living in a garbage dump" isn't even a part of the social discourse, and the solution is to keep raising taxes to fund more cleaning services. When I see this, it's very hard for me not to think that my tax money is wasted on people who will never respect it, and there's very little wrong with elitism. My second favorite is people having big-ass pavements but bravely deciding to walk on the cycling path because why not. Bonus points if it's a parent with a stroller.
On the benches specifically, I've noticed something interesting. I don't mind sitting on the ground, and when I cannot find a bench, I do exactly that. People often assume I must be homeless.
>Anti-social behavior can be trivially defined by a kind of categorical imperative. That is: does this behavior, if universalized, render the public service non-functional. It is increasingly naive to consider these concerns simply in a cultural context or some power dynamic.
Your own policy is anti-social then.
If we universalized your suggested policy of having strict(er?) prevention and/or (probably and) enforcement against "anti-social" (whatever that dog whistle means) behavior we would have the war on drugs but for every issue and policy area. We'd be living in more of a dystopia than we already are. The government would be subjugating us (more than it already is) rather than serving us (not that it does this much already). I think any honest assessment based on any degree of standard western/liberal (small L) assumptions about society and government would consider that "non functional".
Are you saying that sleeping on a bench, if you don't have anywhere else to sleep, is antisocial?