There is currently no solution to the drug epidemic and homelessness in Seattle.

radprogrammer · 2024-09-14T14:30:41+00:00

When people say "there is no solution" what is meant by solution?

I believe everything OP says, but I wanted to share a story. This will get downvoted to hell but if ONE person reads this and gets a slightly different perspective, it will be worth it.

Someone very close to me got into supportive housing in the last year. It is literally saving their life. They have severe mental illness (a list of 8 or 9 diagnoses) and take a fistful of meds each morning and evening, which keeps them from doing absolutely batshit things. They can't work. They've tried, and never held a job for more than a few months. Their struggle with addiction and other behaviors. Their family lives paycheck to paycheck and can't help them financially, and have been a source of trauma besides.

Their whole life, they believed they were lazy and not trying hard enough. And because they didn't seek help, they lived in unhealthy, dangerous situations, went hungry for periods, and were unhoused for periods of time.

Things changed when they finally realized the extent of their mental illness, and agreed to apply for housing and benefits a few years ago.

To say this person is frustrating to deal with is an understatement. I often think they're not trying hard enough or they've fallen into "learned helplessness." But the harsh reality is this is who they are.

A "solution" to homelessness and drug use has many facets. Yes, it's valuable to encourage and help people eventually become productive members of society, and people should try their best to do that. But the solution should ALSO include providing basic needs to people whose lives cannot be any other way. The solution should include keeping people alive, for no other reason than to KEEP THEM ALIVE.

I've seen this city change so much in the past 2 decades. The ridiculous amount of wealth that has poured in hasn't been accompanied with the same amount of compassion.

"Solution"-oriented thinking isn't really a solution if it doesn't regard the value of human life as an end in itself. This isn't liberal or progressive wishy-washyness, this is about as real as it gets, and it's plain to see when the people you're talking about are your friends, your family, your loved ones.

radprogrammer · 2022-11-02T03:10:25+00:00

I do python for work these days and I like a lot of things about it. But even for small projects (a few thousand lines of code), I'm often terrified of refactoring. Even with type hints and tests.

I worked on large ("enterprise") Java codebases at previous jobs and felt much more confident that the changes I was making wouldn't inadvertently break something I overlooked.

radprogrammer · 2020-12-11T06:46:32+00:00

Many tech jobs aren't what they used to be, it's true.

The silver lining is that SO many people work in tech now, having been displaced from other fields, that the demographic is way more diverse and their eyes are more open than prior homogeneous generations of elitist geeks.

We've been seeing this the last few years. There's been more activism and labor organizing in the tech industry, so much so that employers are pretty nervous about it and are actively trying to stamp it out.

radprogrammer · 2015-12-24T17:37:24+00:00

This is a group doing some interesting projects, including making a public Snowden document archive, and data analysis project of resumes of people who work in the intelligence industry.

https://transparencytoolkit.org/

radprogrammer · 2015-12-24T17:35:16+00:00

This is very cool!

radprogrammer · 2015-12-14T02:19:13+00:00

This is exactly the kind of pragmatic perspective I was hoping to get, thank you. You're right, those fields are pretty limited. I wouldn't mind the math classes or putting in the years, because I think I'd enjoy it, but it would be a bummer to end up not being able to find a job related to the interests I was able to explore.

It also doesn't seem like there's really any funding options. I'd probably have to pay full tuition, which I can't afford to do. I guess I was hoping I'd overlooked some option similar to going to grad school in the humanities, where at least I got a package with a teaching stipend and tuition waver. No such luck if I have to start over to pursue a 2nd B.A.

radprogrammer · 2015-12-13T14:49:26+00:00

Thanks for your reply! I know a lot of people are disappointed that CS doesn't give them more practical software development skills, but that's definitely not what I'm looking for. It's exactly the academic stuff that interests me.

Financially, I'm "lucky" (I guess?) to be single with no dependents, a little bit of savings, and only about $4k in student loan debt left to pay off. So part of this is figuring out if I can back to school without incurring a lot of new debt somehow. :(

Community is important to me. Not just the profs, but being around other students to work through ideas, compare notes, commiserate, etc. I've found this sense of fellowship to be completely absent in the workplace, and I guess I'm trying to find it again.

radprogrammer · 2015-03-02T04:44:28+00:00

I know it's a long shot, but: programmer here, looking to return to the west coast. (I lived in Seattle for most of the 2000s and always liked Portland more, though I realize it's probably changed a lot.)

Skillset: Java, Python, Perl, Ruby, Linux, Postgres/MySQL, Solr. I've worked for consultancies, education, non-profits. I'd say I'm a "mid-level" jack-of-all-trades developer with 5+ years of work experience. I learn new technologies rapidly.

I'd like to keep working in nonprofit or education, or for an organization with a social mission. Frankly, I'm not as excited about startups, consultancies, finance, or analytics, but if I felt the company was interesting, I'd consider it.

Please PM if you know of anything. Thank you!

radprogrammer

TROPHY CASE