Met Summer Banter

[natedizel]

1 minute ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

Good for you. Not everyone is the same. Take your own beliefs of that particular situation out of it and look at it with some compassion. Up to 45% are said to suffer from mental health issues, and roughly 11% of the 630k+ homeless are veterans. It’s not all junkies and/or people who are just aren’t that motivated to be better, as you claim. 

Ya, and thats a social issue. Capitalism didnt cause that. 

I have plenty of compassion. Im fine with helping those who need help (vets/mental health). But to think its a capitalism problem is a cop-out.

[NorEastermass128]

21 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

It probably helped that you were there to watch the Red Sox and not the Orioles...

Saw Sale pitch in his prime. Good day. 

[Brian5671]

47 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

It probably helped that you were there to watch the Red Sox and not the Orioles...

does anyone go to see the Orioles?  Christ they are awful year after year

[NorEastermass128]

4 minutes ago, Brian5671 said:

does anyone go to see the Orioles?  Christ they are awful year after year

Actually one game the Yanks were playing the O’s. I was living in DC at the time though, so it wasn’t too long a ride. 

[PhineasC]

3 minutes ago, Brian5671 said:

does anyone go to see the Orioles?  Christ they are awful year after year

The only time the stadium is really busy is when the Yankees or Sox are in town.

There is very little reason for anyone to bother going to Baltimore just to see the Orioles.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

33 minutes ago, natedizel said:

Ya, and thats a social issue. Capitalism didnt cause that. 

I have plenty of compassion. Im fine with helping those who need help (vets/mental health). But to think its a capitalism problem is a cop-out.

You claimed from that pic they are junkies. I merely stated differently. The topic changed away from capitalism though, once you wrongfully made those assumptions. ‘anti-capitalism’ states have homeless problems so the issue isn’t a capitlaism vs socialist debate and I think the pic was just a funny meme that takes on a life of it’s own. In fact, there are plenty of European countries with better social programs than the US with a higher homeless rate, like Sweden for example.

[natedizel]

11 minutes ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

You claimed from that pic they are junkies. I merely stated differently. The topic changed away from capitalism though, once you wrongfully made those assumptions. ‘anti-capitalism’ states have homeless problems so the issue isn’t a capitlaism vs socialist debate and I think the pic was just a funny meme that takes on a life of it’s own. In fact, there are plenty of European countries with better social programs than the US with a higher homeless rate, like Sweden for example.

That pic is anti-capitalism thoe. It insinuates capitalism is the root cause of it.

Finding a tent city funny seems kinda obsurd to me. Maybe show some compassion for those people.

[MacChump]

15 hours ago, mreaves said:

I thought about flying into Rapid City, I could have used airline miles but I wanted to do the drive and rental cars were crazy when I checked into them. We are doing it in 3 days or so. I like road trips and have always felt that seeing new stuff along the way is part of the fun. 

we were in wyoming for a wedding a few years ago and decided to drive up to yellowstone for a couple of days...we had never been there before and weren't sure how to tackle it...on a whim i downloaded one of those GPS tour apps on my phone and played it through the car speakers and it helped out immensely...i was really skeptical but if you are trying to figure out what to see and do there in limited time i can highly recommend it...

[Ginx snewx]

4 hours ago, PhineasC said:

It't not just the murders there, although they are bad enough. There is so much urban decay and petty crime now. Low-level crimes have mostly been "de-emphasized" by the police and DA so activities such as public intoxication, petty theft, shoplifting, fighting, open-air alcohol/drug sales and consumption, blocking random streets, and public urination are all more-or-less tolerated now. It makes the whole experience down there just not worth it. There is literally nothing in Baltimore that makes it worth dealing with that BS. 

NYC is going that route so sad

[mreaves]

26 minutes ago, MacChump said:

we were in wyoming for a wedding a few years ago and decided to drive up to yellowstone for a couple of days...we had never been there before and weren't sure how to tackle it...on a whim i downloaded one of those GPS tour apps on my phone and played it through the car speakers and it helped out immensely...i was really skeptical but if you are trying to figure out what to see and do there in limited time i can highly recommend it...

Thanks for the tip. I’ll definitely try something like that. 

[MacChump]

2 minutes ago, mreaves said:

Thanks for the tip. I’ll definitely try something like that. 

https://gypsyguide.com/tour/yellowstone-national-park/

this is the one we used...my girls named the dude Fred

[bch2014]

41 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

NYC is going that route so sad

When you used to come to NYC, did you hangout a lot in Brownsville, Far Rockaway, East New York, etc? Assuming your a normal visitor, and the answer is no, you’ll be totally fine in the city. 

Not to mention that the leading candidate for mayor is running on a “law and order” platform and is a former cop. 

[Ginx snewx]

10 minutes ago, bch2014 said:

When you used to come to NYC, did you hangout a lot in Brownsville, Far Rockaway, East New York, etc? Assuming your a normal visitor, and the answer is no, you’ll be totally fine in the city. 

Not to mention that the leading candidate for mayor is running on a “law and order” platform and is a former cop. 

Thats not what my friends in NYC say but ok.

[PhineasC]

These cities are going to need to crack down again on the "lifestyle crimes" to get this under control. That is a big part of the general rise in lawlessness in the cities. I don't think the police have actually been "defunded" anywhere to any great degree, so that is really not the issue. The police in some cases have pulled back on enforcement, but much of that can be linked back to the policies from the DAs that they will not prosecute these "minor" crimes. The issue is that going soft on these crimes creates an environment of general chaos and lawlessness that then begets more serious crime. What we saw in 2020 was really just a dumb experiment that clearly didn't work.

[PhineasC]

1 minute ago, Ginx snewx said:

Thats not what my friends in NYC say but ok.

I once had a woman I know who was really militant about how great Baltimore is tell me that sometimes getting mugged was just a "small price to pay" for all of the "good things" from Baltimore. She even had advice on how to handle the regular muggings to avoid any unnecessary violence...

I can tell you that even these diehard types are now moving away from Baltimore. There aren't even safe enclaves there anymore. I realize most here don't know Baltimore well at all and think their stay at the Marriott across from Camden Yards to see the BoSox that one time gives them a good feel of the place, but they are wrong. The shootings in Fells Point recently really rocked a lot of people. Fells Point is a super duper gentrified and touristy area. If the crime is seeping in there, that means it cannot be avoided anywhere in Baltimore.

As for NYC, at least that city has a lot of things to offer to offset the crime and grime. I still would never, ever live there, though. LOL

[powderfreak]

19 minutes ago, bch2014 said:

When you used to come to NYC, did you hangout a lot in Brownsville, Far Rockaway, East New York, etc? Assuming your a normal visitor, and the answer is no, you’ll be totally fine in the city. 

Not to mention that the leading candidate for mayor is running on a “law and order” platform and is a former cop. 

My sister and fiancé say the same.  But they also sort of say it’s a huge number of people living closely and there’s always been some crime, hard to separate whats normal and what’s not in a place of that scale.

They also love living there so that can play into not seeing negatives sometimes.

We do have a resident NYPD officer here that might offer more insight that just us anecdotally lol.  

[ORH_wxman]

10 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

My sister and fiancé say the same.  But they also sort of say it’s a huge number of people living closely and there’s always been some crime, hard to separate whats normal and what’s not in a place of that scale.

They also love living there so that can play into not seeing negatives sometimes.

We do have a resident NYPD officer here that might offer more insight that just us anecdotally lol.  

There's always going to be some crime where a lot of people are living in high density....the way to measure it though is on a relative scale. Violent crime is absolutely surging right now compared to the normal pre-2020 baselines. That is not a good thing at all. It is what helped hollow out a lot of cities in the 1970s/1980s.

[powderfreak]

7 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

There's always going to be some crime where a lot of people are living in high density....the way to measure it though is on a relative scale. Violent crime is absolutely surging right now compared to the normal pre-2020 baselines. That is not a good thing at all. It is what helped hollow out a lot of cities in the 1970s/1980s.

Makes sense, stuff you may not see on a daily basis living there but it’s festering around the edges.  My aunt still talks about getting mugged three different times in the early 1990s, to the point where she moved out to Long Island in like 1995… maybe on the tail end of that other era you mentioned.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

NYC brings back so many great memories from the 90s into early 2000s, great place. Sure it has issues and the pandemic exposed it but it will come back better. Can’t wait to take the fam there once it is alive again. There is nothing like it.

[PhineasC]

2 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Makes sense, stuff you may not see on a daily basis living there but it’s festering around the edges.  My aunt still talks about getting mugged three different times in the early 1990s, to the point where she moved out to Long Island in like 1995… maybe on the tail end of that other era you mentioned.

What you do see on a daily basis is the proliferation of urban decay and minor crime: graffiti everywhere with no one trying to clean it, broken windows, huge mobs of teens loitering around stealing bikes and shoplifting, tons of homeless sleeping on the subway cars, people blasting down major streets in broad daylight on dirt bikes and ATVs popping wheelies and screeching tires, open-air drug and alcohol use, etc.

Like I have been saying, the DAs decriminalized this stuff so it is out in the open now. It's a visible sign of the huge rise in violent crime going on behind the scenes in the alleys. Although, the violent crime is starting to come out into the open too now.

[bch2014]

There has definitely been a surge in violence in American cities in 2020-21.

Anyone who is denying that has their head in the sand. HOWEVER, in most cities, that surge has been isolated to already-dangerous pockets of the city. Anyone who won't come to NYC as a visitor because they think they'll be a crime victim is quite frankly, out of touch. 

For example, from January-April 2021, there were 12 murders south of 96th St in Manhattan and north and east of Prospect Park in Brooklyn. That encompasses the area that most tourists visit and has a population of approximately 1.5MM. If you annualize those 12 murders, and even apply a growth factor given that the middle third of the year (summer) is usually the most violent, you get yourself to approximately 50 murders. For context, Dallas has a similar population to the area I just laid out and in 2019, pre crime wave, had 210 murders. 

Comparing Baltimore to NYC, the 2020 murder rate in Baltimore was 9.8x that of NYC so they don't belong in the same conversation.

 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

[ORH_wxman]

7 minutes ago, bch2014 said:

There has definitely been a surge in violence in American cities in 2020-21.

Anyone who is denying that has their head in the sand. HOWEVER, in most cities, that surge has been isolated to already-dangerous pockets of the city. Anyone who won't come to NYC as a visitor because they think they'll be a crime victim is quite frankly, out of touch. 

For example, from January-April 2021, there were 12 murders south of 96th St in Manhattan and north and east of Prospect Park in Brooklyn. That encompasses the area that most tourists visit and has a population of approximately 1.5MM. If you annualize those 12 murders, and even apply a growth factor given that the middle third of the year (summer) is usually the most violent, you get yourself to approximately 50 murders. For context, Dallas has a similar population to the area I just laid out and in 2019, pre crime wave, had 210 murders. 

Comparing Baltimore to NYC, the 2020 murder rate in Baltimore was 9.8x that of NYC so they don't belong in the same conversation.

 

That's probably the saddest part of it....the people who need help the most are on the receiving end of the violent crime surge.

[PhineasC]

1 minute ago, ORH_wxman said:

That's probably the saddest part of it....the people who need help the most are on the receiving end of the violent crime surge.

The usual suspects don't care at all.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

7 minutes ago, bch2014 said:

There has definitely been a surge in violence in American cities in 2020-21.

Anyone who is denying that has their head in the sand. HOWEVER, in most cities, that surge has been isolated to already-dangerous pockets of the city. Anyone who won't come to NYC as a visitor because they think they'll be a crime victim is quite frankly, out of touch. 

For example, from January-April 2021, there were 12 murders south of 96th St in Manhattan and north and east of Prospect Park in Brooklyn. That encompasses the area that most tourists visit and has a population of approximately 1.5MM. If you annualize those 12 murders, and even apply a growth factor given that the middle third of the year (summer) is usually the most violent, you get yourself to approximately 50 murders. For context, Dallas has a similar population to the area I just laid out and in 2019, pre crime wave, had 210 murders. 

Comparing Baltimore to NYC, the 2020 murder rate in Baltimore was 9.8x that of NYC so they don't belong in the same conversation.

 

The next mayor has a tall task but the importance of who the city selects will be felt for decades. The city practically has the chance to start over, they have to get it right. If they fail to curb the inequality again and let the big money real estate investors dictate the city’s path….it’s doomed. 

[Ginx snewx]

7 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

The usual suspects don't care at all.

Hey the tourist attractions are safe.... 

[bch2014]

4 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

The usual suspects don't care at all.

It's not that I don't care-I think we need more boots-on-the-ground law enforcement in those areas. 

I'm just saying that the average visitor's experience (which is how this conversation started-Sox fans in Baltimore and people not visiting NYC) has nothing to be worried about.

But agreed-don't walk through a NYCHA project at 3 AM on a HHH (had to get a weather angle in there) July night. Your chances of being shot there are higher now than they were three years ago.

As for @RUNNAWAYICEBERG's comment re: real estate developers... That's the least of the city's problems... Housing costs are one of the biggest drivers of inequality, and we need more development to help drive them down. 

 

 

 

 

[Whineminster]

14 minutes ago, bch2014 said:

It's not that I don't care-I think we need more boots-on-the-ground law enforcement in those areas. 

I'm just saying that the average visitor's experience (which is how this conversation started-Sox fans in Baltimore and people not visiting NYC) has nothing to be worried about.

But agreed-don't walk through a NYCHA project at 3 AM on a HHH (had to get a weather angle in there) July night. Your chances of being shot there are higher now than they were three years ago.

As for @RUNNAWAYICEBERG's comment re: real estate developers... That's the least of the city's problems... Housing costs are one of the biggest drivers of inequality, and we need more development to help drive them down. 

To me that seems like a problem.  You're getting free and subsidized housing, and yet committing crimes? Give me a break. My buddy lives across a public housing place in Wash Heights and it's always a mess....trash and beer bottles everywhere, dog crap, loitering all hours of the night.  It's just not right. 

[PhineasC]

56 minutes ago, Whineminster said:

To me that seems like a problem.  You're getting free and subsidized housing, and yet committing crimes? Give me a break. My buddy lives across a public housing place in Wash Heights and it's always a mess....trash and beer bottles everywhere, dog crap, loitering all hours of the night.  It's just not right. 

At some level, people have to want to help themselves and their communities. But certain people don't want to hear that line of thinking and shout it down.

The government has lately been actively disincentivizing people from trying to pull themselves out of poverty-stricken victimhood, so things will keep getting worse.

 

[Typhoon Tip]

Mass killing incidence/attempts have increased an order of magnitude spanning the last 25 years.   Inside and out of urban vs rural settings, and blurred regions that cross -over demographics, too. 

Not sure how anyone's drawing distinctions on violence.  It seems there is another systemic "trigger" that isn't related to traditional simplistic models of over-population leading to stress factors with density. It's fun to blame it on shit, though.

it's just  ( numbers game + the internet fomenting the unstable fringe among them) /2 and represents a far more profound systemic pandemia than any f'n virus, and is a factor of socio-dynamic feedbacks upon a species that was not intrinsically evolved to handle the immense power said tech affords them.  The ultimate result of said experiment yet to be determined.

Namely, it cuts the 700 thousand years of human evolutionary co-dependency on one another in the cooperative social organization of human society.  A lot of the travails are hands thus "made to be idol while playing with guns" - as a hugely simplistic metaphor.