I get an incredible “narcism ick” from this writing. I wonder if other people feel the same way.
It’s so gross contrasted with the theme. The very first paragraphs start with a poor attempt to humble brag his”credentials” as not just a “normal” homeless person.
The self mythologising, the framing of negative things more like the weather than consequences of his choices.
The fact that despite privileged upbringing and working in tech in the valley he has no one willing to offer him a couch.
The most striking for me is the framing of his own grandmothers death as exceptional, proving his lineage is special.
Calling others NPCs, framing of stealing from stores as being the heroic action, even with approval from grandmother.
I feel this is getting redundant. I’d love to hear if anyone disagrees and what their thoughts are.
The article is good and worth reading. I think the author was going for a bit of a Kerouac / Burroughs style in his writing.
I have never been homeless or close to being homeless, but it seems incredibly likely that under the stress of losing my job, not knowing where my next meal is from, where to sleep tonight, etc. – I would slowly lose the ability to make the kind of rational ethical decisions you’re criticizing him for.
Heck, even going a day or two without sleep is enough to make the average functional person incapable of pragmatic, rational thought.
It seems clear to me that the author was experiencing an unmedicated psychotic disorder and gallantly owning the preposterous outlook he had at the time. So, not bragging, just plainly stating the sort of bigger than life delusions that come with the territory.
I think that's the whole shtick because most tech workers are so far removed from homelessness they don't even consider the possibility. It's not about the author being a narcist, it's about most people from higher social classes having some flavor of narcism.
> The fact that despite privileged upbringing and working in tech in the valley he has no one willing to offer him a couch.
Totally believable. There are very few people I'd offer a couch for more than two nights, and I imagine that in highly competitive environments, like the US tech sector, the typical situation is more grim. Look around and ask yourself - how many true friends does a typical corporate employee have? Someone they could realistically call "ay I'm going homeless can I get a bed for free for like, a few months". Most "friendships" turn out to be very superficial when tried.
> The most striking for me is the framing of his own grandmothers death as exceptional, proving his lineage is special.
This makes a lot of sense. From his point of view, his grandma was special. From your point of view, your grandma is special. The whole point of this post is the contrast between "I am special" and the world disagreeing.
Imagine a situation: someone steals all your money and frames you for pedophilia. Instantly you lose your job, all your friends distance themselves from you, you get evicted from your house. Suddenly, through sheer unbelievably bad luck, you have $5, an old jacket, and serious charges. You show up at soup kitchen in order not to starve and you see all these meth addicts, mentally ill, mentally ill meth addicts, and other types of folks from the lowest class of the society. Would you stand there thinking "ah yes, I'm equal to them, these are my homies, wassap nigga" or would your brain scream "no, this isn't happening, I'm only passing by, I'm different, why is this woman with rotting face staring at me, I need to get out of here ASAP".
> Look around and ask yourself - how many true friends does a typical corporate employee have? Someone they could realistically call "ay I'm going homeless can I get a bed for free for like, a few months". Most "friendships" turn out to be very superficial when tried.
I think a lot of people are willing to open up their couch. That story changes big time when that person has what might be schizophrenia.
I think you make the mistake of tying character traits to causality for his circumstances. It’s a common thing for people with trauma to think of themselves as the heroes of their stories. It’s a mechanism to stay sane in dire circumstances and part of the human survival instinct.
An example.
You will often hear people talk about themselves as cancer survivors or that they fought cancer and won.
Now if we take a step back to look at that, thinking you beat an illness because you ate more green leaves and less sugar is pretty narcissistic, because in reality it’s often more of a dozen people spending hundreds of hours of time during your treatment and the scientists developing your therapy meds that spend years of their life having the major share in your recovery, if you recover.
You could eat double-stacked cheeseburgers for a year having cancer and it will have zero outcome on the cancer survival chance itself. Therapy works or you die. Reality is that simple.
Still you will never see a comment under a cancer survivor’s post that says I get an incredible “narcissism ick" from this writing.
Why do you think that is?
Almost everyone of us over 40 knows someone who died miserably of cancer or got healthy again but you can see the toll therapy and illness took on the person, their life, their careers, financially etc. So we give them some rope and empathy and let them be their own heroes if it makes their life easier.
Homelessness on the other hand is something that is always tied to personal failure by society. When often just like cancer, it’s just an unfortunate accumulation of external factors.
But you set yourself up to dislike this man from the start. First you established for yourself he must be a narcissist from his writing, then you try to find reasons why you’re right, but not a single one why you could be wrong.
That’s pretty dumb.
First, you say he seems to think he’s better than the "normal" homeless person, which feeds right into your narcissistic prejudice, and then you continue from there, building yourself a nice causality chain based on your personal belief model that doesn’t seem to have room for thinking about the big picture.
You say he is not a victim of external factors and instead directly responsible for his misery, but you don’t know the full story.
You could have sent him a message and asked about it; instead, you went to a conclusion on a flawed set of data you possess about this man and then published your conclusion, probably because you usually get away with that or people simply don’t care enough about you to take time out of their day questioning you about your belief system.
You link his upbringing to him not even having a couch to crash on, which has zero correlation. If rich/privileged people never felt lonely, Elon Musk wouldn’t have paid a fortune because he seems to offer flight attendants horse money for someone to voluntarily touch his dingdong.
I don’t know how you come to the conclusion that he thinks his grandma’s death is exceptional, which it is tbh, as with everyone who loses close family, but that angered you more than his own mother sending him an email that his grandmother died instead of calling him.
Did that not raise any questions with you? If your dad dies, do you expect to get a text from your mum? In what world is that normal?
But as I said, you set yourself up from the start to not like this man and therefore miss stuff like that from the narrow point of view. There are subtle hints everywhere that this man is a victim of his circumstances, and he tries to make the best of it.
From thinking to being qualified to do the work of a lawyer, to never backing down, because he is convinced he can prove everyone wrong.
I can’t predict the weather, but I will tell you that man will go to jail for years if he doesn’t change his mind fast, and the judge is going to eat his self defending ass alive.
And that man will not survive jail intact, mentally and physically.
Which is a tragedy if you think that maybe visiting any hospital in his area and just talking to a doctor, any doctor about what plagues him and what situation he is in will likely safe his life down the road.
About the stealing. We both agree that stealing is not an option, but we also don’t have to survive on the street in winter.
He only steals stuff that he needs to survive; he doesn't sell what he steals.
I think the store managers would have helped him out if he asked nicely, maybe do some clean-up work or anything to pay for the stuff in return; there would be no need to steal.
But this man fell through all security nets and is now met with losing trust in society enough so he rather steals than asks or offers something of value to the people who could make his life better.
And he is right to be sceptical about the society he now lives in.
You do not care how we could get this man back into society; you put him into a drawer and decided this man’s life is not worth a word of positivity or half an hour of your time to think about how you could help him, and then you put your disapproval out on the internet so people can chime in and make you feel better.
I really hope you’re not a Christian, because you will go to hell for stuff like this.
Are people reading this or just up voting the title? Sounds like someone who screwed up their life, likely by being stubborn, and doing a lot of drugs, which doesn't take knowing how to code to pull off. Reads like a love letter to misery by someone who knew they would never be truly affected by it.
What's incredible to me are comments, like yours, that are saying that somehow the system failed this person, just based on this blog post. When in fact:
1. He was given food and shelter, which he declined - most of his comments about the food are that it's too sugary.
2. He makes it sound like he was offered more permanent shelter in Feb of 2025, which he also declined.
To be clear, I'm not making a judgment about this person - and, for that matter, the comment you replied to didn't seem to be making a judgment either, just stating a reasonable conclusion that the author suffered from mental illness.
So I'd like to know what additional resources you think would have changed this person's circumstances?
> I'm not making a judgment about this person [...] just stating a reasonable conclusion that the author suffered from mental illness.
You're not making a judgment, but are somehow able to diagnose mental illness from a blog post? Wild.
It's far easier to conclude that the system has failed this person, as it habitually fails millions of people in the US, in these same circumstances. Are they all mentally ill?
And even if mental health is an issue, does that mean that they are somehow less worthy of assistance? That it's OK for a human being to live under a bridge?
The level of self-righteousness and lack of empathy in your comments is baffling.
> You're not making a judgment, but are somehow able to diagnose mental illness from a blog post? Wild.
The author literally talks about his "psychosis" that led him to his predicament, so no, I don't think it's a judgment, just the ability to read.
> And even if mental health is an issue, does that mean that they are somehow less worthy of assistance?
I have no idea where you seem to get this idea. My point is that, at least in this author's case, he has received assistance. He discusses 2 separate instances in this post where he declined resources and support - he is living under a bridge because he specifically rejected the shelter that was offered him.
Could the process of getting people support be better? Of course, but his experience dealing with the pains of bureaucracy doesn't seem much different that bureaucratic slights we all, rich and poor, have to deal with when trying to get assistance from government. FWIW I especially liked his "I identify as a woman" comment in order to get a shower.
> The level of self-righteousness and lack of empathy in your comments is baffling.
The only self righteousness I see on display is your belief that everyone else is so uncaring because we don't necessarily think the government should force this person into a shelter. I'm not judging the author at all, but I'm certainly judging you.
> Currently constructing the Sanctuary of the Silent Star while unpacking a 6-month journey through psychosis, homelessness, and the systems that govern us. One story at a time.
I'm not saying it's his own fault. I'm also not too happy when people point to mental illness. But this is his blog description where he mentions himself that he unpacs a 6-month journey through psychosis.
6 months of psychosis means you're mentally ill with psychosis as a symptom.
I assumed this was a support group or service for tech workers who ended up homeless, and upvoted for that, and then took back my upvote after reading these comments :')
Sure, we don't know the entire backstory, but can we agree that no person should live in these conditions? Especially in one of the richest places in the world. Everyone deserves dignity, food, and shelter.
Also, can we stop stigmatizing "drug" use? Most of humanity uses "drugs" regularly for various reasons. Just because a specific "drug" which someone enjoys using recreationally is on a government list doesn't mean that they can't be a productive member of society. Live and let live.
It’s hard to respond to a call for “everyone to agree” in an online forum but yes.
Even people who are self or outwardly destructive, do not deserve the outcome the author got.
I think a harder to answer question is, assuming there are not enough resources to help everyone in need (in a practical sense) should we prioritise the “more deserving” over the less.
Every human who is suffering deserves compassion, but should we deprioritise those who are suffering partially because of their own choices?
> Every human who is suffering deserves compassion, but should we deprioritise those who are suffering partially because of their own choices?
Opening the discussion about who is more worthy of assistance is a slippery slope towards some people not getting it due to personal biases and politics of those in power.
Poor life choices can be consequences of poor upbringing, mental health, or simply bad luck. People can be helped in different ways to avoid making those mistakes. Reform is possible, but it starts with a society and government that cares for all of its people, and doesn't marginalize some as lower-class citizens.
> Poor life choices can be consequences of poor upbringing, mental health, or simply bad luck.
You forget stupidity and ignorance. Sometimes people make poor life choices because they're stupid or ignorant (or both).
Yeah sure poor life choices can be consequences of poor upbringing, mental health, or simply bad luck, but that's not always the case.
Regarding this specific piece of writing and as a tech person myself, i wonder: why does this person not have some safety net savings?
Having worked in the highest-paying city (San Francisco) in the highest paying state (California) in the richest nation (USA)... Why didn't this guy build his own safety net?
And is capable enough to be (1) wealthy and (2) distribute that wealth so that everyone is wealthy enough. Especially (2) is hard. Norway seems to be the only country having some actual demonstrable skill at it.
When Covid came to Europe, we saw on the news how Italy was hit and what doctors had to do.
Long story short: young people lived, old people died. Because doctors faced the awful decision of whom to put on life support.
In the Covid case there's a genuine moment of lack of resources (good luck training enough doctors to help, even in a utopia it wouldn't be possible). Unfortunately, since many countries are bad at distributing their own resources enough such that no one is poor, we're basically in a Covid-like situation when it comes to homeless people.
And I'm saying this as a Dutch person. As I have one family member who didn't eat for 2 weeks, fainted, got found, etc. Granted, this person doesn't want to deal with bureaucracy and is quite stubborn, among other things. But still, even in a country that has "socialism" this stuff happens. And we're not as socialistic as one might think: Polish people that come here to perform labor do so in quite awful circumstances, to the point that when they lose a finger or a thumb they get reimbursed like 300 to 500 euro's IIRC. I watched it from some Dutch documentary (probably Nieuwsuur).
Countries are just incredibly bad at resource (re)distribution.
He was given food and shelter, and then he left on his own volition. He wasn't willing to stay in a shelter unless he had a private room so he stole some stuff from some stores so he could sleep under a bridge.
He was given temporary shelter, and later a bed in a room with 20 people. Have you seen what these places look like? Would you sleep in such conditions?
Dignity and personal space is something the richest country in the world can afford for all of its citizens. Yet chooses not to.
People committing petty theft are largely forced to do so due to the circumstances they live in. Your judgment is better aimed at people committing white-collar crime with far worse consequences in the same city the author is located in.
He makes it sound like he was originally offered more permanent shelter but he rejected it:
> The end of March happened and so did the temporary shelter. I needed to find a new place.
> I remembered a place in San Mateo I rejected back in February. It hadn’t crossed my mind when I first arrived back in San Francisco. When I had been offered it in February, I rejected the offer because I thought it was ludicrous to think I was homeless. I come from a relatively privileged upbringing, and the idea of homelessness was a distant concept to my naive brain.
> A couple months ago, I found that particular bridge was next to an office building inhabited by some of my old colleagues. A start-up I had been a part of in New York. Where I was the first employee. I had owned equity. They had eventually sold for $350 million.
It is depressing easy to have this happen and even worse how many people are convinced it could never be them.
For what it's worth: I know it could be me. I'm currently with tens of thousands of dollars in savings (in Europe, not American) but it could still be me. I'm quite afraid of it actually and I live every day so that it won't be me. I've noticed that reduces chances significantly, not to zero, but significantly.
Obviously there is a ton unsaid in this blog post, but I just wanted to answer your question because it's exceedingly common for companies to be sold, sometimes for lots of money, and for common stock (which is what employees hold) to get wiped out. If the startup was sold for $350 million, but it received $350 or more million in funding, the investors get (some of) their money back, and employees get nothing. This happens all the time.
Again, I don't know what happened in the author's specific case, but think it's important to know that lots of startups have exits that can look big on paper but still are a wipeout for common equity.
What I probably never get: When somebody is capable and reasonable but jobless, why stay homeless in a city with one of the highest rents? Why not move to a cheaper place, get any job, even a bad paid job will pay a nice flat in a small town.
It's always those large very expensive cities that have a huge amount of homelessness.
Don't get me wrong, I do not want to play clever here, it's just a honest question.
San Francisco also has a climate you won't freeze to death in February, a government that won't bulldoze your tent, charities that give you free stuff. For better or worse. In this man's case, it is probably also the only place where he has a slimmer of personal connections left that may still lend a helping hand.
Also, by the time he is already homeless homeless, he is likely no longer able to afford the fixed costs of a move. He is not getting an apartment even in small town USA if he can't put down a deposit. He is not even getting there without money to pay for the trip. He'll also likely need a car to hold any job which is another major cost.
And by the way, you said he should get a job, "any job." Now put yourself in the position of a small town mcdonalds franchise owner. Someone just moved to the town from California cough all in a sudden. He has no local connection, no experience in food service (or whatever other low skill job you are offering), probably not even an address. Why would you hire him instead of literally anyone else?
If a person has motivation, it's not impossible to find means. Hitchhiking. General assistance thru the Human Services Agency for cash. Explain your circumstances/try another job offering/repeat.
I think the harsh truth in this case is that this person has qualities of their personality and their habits that make them incompatible with a conventional job.
> When somebody is capable and reasonable but jobless
I'm not sure what your qualifications for 'reasonable' and 'capable' are, but without a support system those things are difficult to prove such that you can utilize them properly.
Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine have been evicted from your home and have no job. You have no car, no phone, no ID, no money, no credit or bank account. All of the people you know who would give you money or a place to stay or a reference have disappeared and cannot be reached. What do you do?
You could find a cash job as a dishwasher or something similar. If you work nights you can sleep in the library on in other public places. But where do you put your things? Spare clothes, toiletries, books, everything you might need to feel comfortable or to look decent has to be carried on your person, and even then is liable to become lost or stolen. How do you shower? Every restroom experience is using a public one. You can't cook meals, so you have to find free ones or buy them.
Hopefully what you got out of that is that access to things that you and I take for granted is a really big deal to someone without a home, and cities like San Francisco make many of those things difficult instead of impossible.
Not a worse place to be homeless, except maybe Portland or Seattle.
Obviously more to this story when someones support network has collapsed to this degree, but at the same time people don't have great support networks anymore =/
honest question: are there not enough shelters in SF? Are there not enough jobs? I heard it's dirty and unsafe at places, isn't government hiring street cleaners and police?
I will never stop being dumbfounded by the contrast of people going through this kind of hardship being surrounded by some of the wealthiest people in the world. This exists in other parts of the world as well, of course, but it's particularly troubling that it exists in the tech epicenter.
There's something deeply disturbing about a society that allows this to happen, and yet it's something we've learned to accept and largely ignore for centuries. The promise of technology bringing forth universal prosperity is a lie promoted by those who have something to gain from that narrative. Yet we keep believing these people to this day.
In my society, absolutely, possibly literally more than a hundred people.
Where in the world is the answer no? Maybe if you’ve freshly immigrated to a new country or something?
That is a very scary thought, but it’s also scary for me to think that so many people live such isolated lives, it’s such a foreign concept to me culturally.
The answer is no when you are severely mentally ill or have some other condition that causes you to be strongly detrimental to the people around you, such as addiction.
To the point where you have no friends. To the point where even your own parents have given up.
> Where in the world
Everywhere. You can’t comprehend it because you don’t know anyone like that, likely because the government you live in takes care of that problem for you.
> isolated lives
And by the way, the people in your culture in this situation are isolated too, from you. And that’s okay, and maybe good even. But you don’t know about them.
I don’t know what the right answer is. America’s answer is definitely not the right answer. But interrogate your culture, too, and how it takes care of your most vulnerable people. You may be dismayed at the answer, or you may not.
Unfortunately I think there are many places in the world like that. It just takes someone with even a mild mental illness, a relatively small family and the sudden early death of a parent to start a vicious cycle.
I pay taxes and live in a country with a government in exchange for protection and a decent standard of living. Relying on family, friends or strangers for basic necessities is a sign that my government has failed me.
>“I Can Hire Half the Working Class To Fight the Other Half“
Technically a satire quote criticizing the robber Baron it's credited for, but the sentiment is the same. Pay off a bourgeois and they'll fight against the the sympathetic bourgeois and proletariat happily. The elite don't even need to lift a finger.
They've got capital, but I'd argue that they're long way from model capitalism since some time. There's both over- (regulatory capture) and under regulation (consumer and environment protection) that goes against this and companies have enough sway to influence the law and consequently the market. Free market in the original sense of "free from all forms of economic privilege, monopolies and artificial scarcities" is not even a goal anymore.
I get an incredible “narcism ick” from this writing. I wonder if other people feel the same way.
It’s so gross contrasted with the theme. The very first paragraphs start with a poor attempt to humble brag his”credentials” as not just a “normal” homeless person.
The self mythologising, the framing of negative things more like the weather than consequences of his choices.
The fact that despite privileged upbringing and working in tech in the valley he has no one willing to offer him a couch.
The most striking for me is the framing of his own grandmothers death as exceptional, proving his lineage is special.
Calling others NPCs, framing of stealing from stores as being the heroic action, even with approval from grandmother.
I feel this is getting redundant. I’d love to hear if anyone disagrees and what their thoughts are.
The article is good and worth reading. I think the author was going for a bit of a Kerouac / Burroughs style in his writing.
I have never been homeless or close to being homeless, but it seems incredibly likely that under the stress of losing my job, not knowing where my next meal is from, where to sleep tonight, etc. – I would slowly lose the ability to make the kind of rational ethical decisions you’re criticizing him for.
Heck, even going a day or two without sleep is enough to make the average functional person incapable of pragmatic, rational thought.
It seems clear to me that the author was experiencing an unmedicated psychotic disorder and gallantly owning the preposterous outlook he had at the time. So, not bragging, just plainly stating the sort of bigger than life delusions that come with the territory.
Which parts do you think were the delusions?
> narcism ick
I think that's the whole shtick because most tech workers are so far removed from homelessness they don't even consider the possibility. It's not about the author being a narcist, it's about most people from higher social classes having some flavor of narcism.
> The fact that despite privileged upbringing and working in tech in the valley he has no one willing to offer him a couch.
Totally believable. There are very few people I'd offer a couch for more than two nights, and I imagine that in highly competitive environments, like the US tech sector, the typical situation is more grim. Look around and ask yourself - how many true friends does a typical corporate employee have? Someone they could realistically call "ay I'm going homeless can I get a bed for free for like, a few months". Most "friendships" turn out to be very superficial when tried.
> The most striking for me is the framing of his own grandmothers death as exceptional, proving his lineage is special.
This makes a lot of sense. From his point of view, his grandma was special. From your point of view, your grandma is special. The whole point of this post is the contrast between "I am special" and the world disagreeing.
Imagine a situation: someone steals all your money and frames you for pedophilia. Instantly you lose your job, all your friends distance themselves from you, you get evicted from your house. Suddenly, through sheer unbelievably bad luck, you have $5, an old jacket, and serious charges. You show up at soup kitchen in order not to starve and you see all these meth addicts, mentally ill, mentally ill meth addicts, and other types of folks from the lowest class of the society. Would you stand there thinking "ah yes, I'm equal to them, these are my homies, wassap nigga" or would your brain scream "no, this isn't happening, I'm only passing by, I'm different, why is this woman with rotting face staring at me, I need to get out of here ASAP".
> Look around and ask yourself - how many true friends does a typical corporate employee have? Someone they could realistically call "ay I'm going homeless can I get a bed for free for like, a few months". Most "friendships" turn out to be very superficial when tried.
I think a lot of people are willing to open up their couch. That story changes big time when that person has what might be schizophrenia.
I think you make the mistake of tying character traits to causality for his circumstances. It’s a common thing for people with trauma to think of themselves as the heroes of their stories. It’s a mechanism to stay sane in dire circumstances and part of the human survival instinct.
An example.
You will often hear people talk about themselves as cancer survivors or that they fought cancer and won.
Now if we take a step back to look at that, thinking you beat an illness because you ate more green leaves and less sugar is pretty narcissistic, because in reality it’s often more of a dozen people spending hundreds of hours of time during your treatment and the scientists developing your therapy meds that spend years of their life having the major share in your recovery, if you recover.
You could eat double-stacked cheeseburgers for a year having cancer and it will have zero outcome on the cancer survival chance itself. Therapy works or you die. Reality is that simple.
Still you will never see a comment under a cancer survivor’s post that says I get an incredible “narcissism ick" from this writing.
Why do you think that is?
Almost everyone of us over 40 knows someone who died miserably of cancer or got healthy again but you can see the toll therapy and illness took on the person, their life, their careers, financially etc. So we give them some rope and empathy and let them be their own heroes if it makes their life easier.
Homelessness on the other hand is something that is always tied to personal failure by society. When often just like cancer, it’s just an unfortunate accumulation of external factors.
But you set yourself up to dislike this man from the start. First you established for yourself he must be a narcissist from his writing, then you try to find reasons why you’re right, but not a single one why you could be wrong.
That’s pretty dumb.
First, you say he seems to think he’s better than the "normal" homeless person, which feeds right into your narcissistic prejudice, and then you continue from there, building yourself a nice causality chain based on your personal belief model that doesn’t seem to have room for thinking about the big picture.
You say he is not a victim of external factors and instead directly responsible for his misery, but you don’t know the full story.
You could have sent him a message and asked about it; instead, you went to a conclusion on a flawed set of data you possess about this man and then published your conclusion, probably because you usually get away with that or people simply don’t care enough about you to take time out of their day questioning you about your belief system.
You link his upbringing to him not even having a couch to crash on, which has zero correlation. If rich/privileged people never felt lonely, Elon Musk wouldn’t have paid a fortune because he seems to offer flight attendants horse money for someone to voluntarily touch his dingdong.
I don’t know how you come to the conclusion that he thinks his grandma’s death is exceptional, which it is tbh, as with everyone who loses close family, but that angered you more than his own mother sending him an email that his grandmother died instead of calling him.
Did that not raise any questions with you? If your dad dies, do you expect to get a text from your mum? In what world is that normal?
But as I said, you set yourself up from the start to not like this man and therefore miss stuff like that from the narrow point of view. There are subtle hints everywhere that this man is a victim of his circumstances, and he tries to make the best of it.
From thinking to being qualified to do the work of a lawyer, to never backing down, because he is convinced he can prove everyone wrong.
I can’t predict the weather, but I will tell you that man will go to jail for years if he doesn’t change his mind fast, and the judge is going to eat his self defending ass alive.
And that man will not survive jail intact, mentally and physically.
Which is a tragedy if you think that maybe visiting any hospital in his area and just talking to a doctor, any doctor about what plagues him and what situation he is in will likely safe his life down the road.
About the stealing. We both agree that stealing is not an option, but we also don’t have to survive on the street in winter.
He only steals stuff that he needs to survive; he doesn't sell what he steals.
I think the store managers would have helped him out if he asked nicely, maybe do some clean-up work or anything to pay for the stuff in return; there would be no need to steal.
But this man fell through all security nets and is now met with losing trust in society enough so he rather steals than asks or offers something of value to the people who could make his life better.
And he is right to be sceptical about the society he now lives in.
You do not care how we could get this man back into society; you put him into a drawer and decided this man’s life is not worth a word of positivity or half an hour of your time to think about how you could help him, and then you put your disapproval out on the internet so people can chime in and make you feel better.
I really hope you’re not a Christian, because you will go to hell for stuff like this.
Are people reading this or just up voting the title? Sounds like someone who screwed up their life, likely by being stubborn, and doing a lot of drugs, which doesn't take knowing how to code to pull off. Reads like a love letter to misery by someone who knew they would never be truly affected by it.
There's a good saying, "People become homeless not when they run out of money, but when they run out of relationships."
This post reads to me like someone suffering from mental illness and/or personality disorder.
The blog and the contents of the post both indicate it’s someone writing about a time they were homeless and suffering from psychosis.
This is the first time I'm seeing that phrase. And I think it hits the nail on the head.
> This post reads to me like someone suffering from mental illness and/or personality disorder.
Sometimes people are just assholes, eh.
I don't have the data to say this is the case, but "just being an asshole" is a circumstance that is often under-considered.
He explicitly writes that he did not do drugs or alcohol.
It would seem like it is some kind of felony charges that are the cause. Whatever they were.
But all in all - the downside risk is huge in the US.
The style of writing and strange segways suggest mental illness; the blog description seems to confirm it.
It is incredible how much energy is being put into justifying why this is his own fault?
I guess this is the only way people with high salaries or wealth in the US can find peace with themselves - maybe that's the mental illness?
What's incredible to me are comments, like yours, that are saying that somehow the system failed this person, just based on this blog post. When in fact:
1. He was given food and shelter, which he declined - most of his comments about the food are that it's too sugary.
2. He makes it sound like he was offered more permanent shelter in Feb of 2025, which he also declined.
To be clear, I'm not making a judgment about this person - and, for that matter, the comment you replied to didn't seem to be making a judgment either, just stating a reasonable conclusion that the author suffered from mental illness.
So I'd like to know what additional resources you think would have changed this person's circumstances?
Do you genuinely think that people who with mental issues ought to live in shelters as a dingitifies existence?
I think I can extend me predicament about mental illness to you also.
> I'm not making a judgment about this person [...] just stating a reasonable conclusion that the author suffered from mental illness.
You're not making a judgment, but are somehow able to diagnose mental illness from a blog post? Wild.
It's far easier to conclude that the system has failed this person, as it habitually fails millions of people in the US, in these same circumstances. Are they all mentally ill?
And even if mental health is an issue, does that mean that they are somehow less worthy of assistance? That it's OK for a human being to live under a bridge?
The level of self-righteousness and lack of empathy in your comments is baffling.
> You're not making a judgment, but are somehow able to diagnose mental illness from a blog post? Wild.
The author literally talks about his "psychosis" that led him to his predicament, so no, I don't think it's a judgment, just the ability to read.
> And even if mental health is an issue, does that mean that they are somehow less worthy of assistance?
I have no idea where you seem to get this idea. My point is that, at least in this author's case, he has received assistance. He discusses 2 separate instances in this post where he declined resources and support - he is living under a bridge because he specifically rejected the shelter that was offered him.
Could the process of getting people support be better? Of course, but his experience dealing with the pains of bureaucracy doesn't seem much different that bureaucratic slights we all, rich and poor, have to deal with when trying to get assistance from government. FWIW I especially liked his "I identify as a woman" comment in order to get a shower.
> The level of self-righteousness and lack of empathy in your comments is baffling.
The only self righteousness I see on display is your belief that everyone else is so uncaring because we don't necessarily think the government should force this person into a shelter. I'm not judging the author at all, but I'm certainly judging you.
> Currently constructing the Sanctuary of the Silent Star while unpacking a 6-month journey through psychosis, homelessness, and the systems that govern us. One story at a time.
I'm not saying it's his own fault. I'm also not too happy when people point to mental illness. But this is his blog description where he mentions himself that he unpacs a 6-month journey through psychosis.
6 months of psychosis means you're mentally ill with psychosis as a symptom.
Doesn’t change anything. In civilized world, people who are mentally ill are took care of by the society, not thrown in the streets.
He wasn't "thrown into the streets". He was offered food and shelter, and he declined it.
He was respecting the laws of California. What he did was like a speeding ticket.
I do agree that if he was truly in need he would have stolen an iPhone or some designer purses.
How privileged to steal sleeping bags and food.
> I needed a guide. I stole Don Quixote from the library.
That wasn't any kind of necessity. He lost me there.
> He explicitly writes that he did not do drugs or alcohol
> My public defender reminded me of a woman I did ayahuasca with in upstate New York.
Well...
Everyone does drugs or alcohol, even the pope, even Jesus himself.
> Everyone does drugs or alcohol, even the pope, even Jesus himself.
This phrase is only true because you include alcohol, otherwise it would be false. Not everybody does drugs.
And alcohol tends to be one of the top "people disabler" in the world
> He explicitly writes that he did not do drugs or alcohol.
What are you talking about? He specifically mentions drinking beer and doing ayahuasca in the past.
I assumed this was a support group or service for tech workers who ended up homeless, and upvoted for that, and then took back my upvote after reading these comments :')
Sure, we don't know the entire backstory, but can we agree that no person should live in these conditions? Especially in one of the richest places in the world. Everyone deserves dignity, food, and shelter.
Also, can we stop stigmatizing "drug" use? Most of humanity uses "drugs" regularly for various reasons. Just because a specific "drug" which someone enjoys using recreationally is on a government list doesn't mean that they can't be a productive member of society. Live and let live.
It’s hard to respond to a call for “everyone to agree” in an online forum but yes.
Even people who are self or outwardly destructive, do not deserve the outcome the author got.
I think a harder to answer question is, assuming there are not enough resources to help everyone in need (in a practical sense) should we prioritise the “more deserving” over the less.
Every human who is suffering deserves compassion, but should we deprioritise those who are suffering partially because of their own choices?
Two weeks ago, a guy in Hamburg/Germany pulled a young woman on the metro track 2 seconds before the train arrived, both dead in the end.
Sorry - its acceptable that I do not have compassion for those suckers!
> Every human who is suffering deserves compassion, but should we deprioritise those who are suffering partially because of their own choices?
Opening the discussion about who is more worthy of assistance is a slippery slope towards some people not getting it due to personal biases and politics of those in power.
Poor life choices can be consequences of poor upbringing, mental health, or simply bad luck. People can be helped in different ways to avoid making those mistakes. Reform is possible, but it starts with a society and government that cares for all of its people, and doesn't marginalize some as lower-class citizens.
> Poor life choices can be consequences of poor upbringing, mental health, or simply bad luck.
You forget stupidity and ignorance. Sometimes people make poor life choices because they're stupid or ignorant (or both).
Yeah sure poor life choices can be consequences of poor upbringing, mental health, or simply bad luck, but that's not always the case.
Regarding this specific piece of writing and as a tech person myself, i wonder: why does this person not have some safety net savings?
Having worked in the highest-paying city (San Francisco) in the highest paying state (California) in the richest nation (USA)... Why didn't this guy build his own safety net?
And is capable enough to be (1) wealthy and (2) distribute that wealth so that everyone is wealthy enough. Especially (2) is hard. Norway seems to be the only country having some actual demonstrable skill at it.
When Covid came to Europe, we saw on the news how Italy was hit and what doctors had to do.
Long story short: young people lived, old people died. Because doctors faced the awful decision of whom to put on life support.
In the Covid case there's a genuine moment of lack of resources (good luck training enough doctors to help, even in a utopia it wouldn't be possible). Unfortunately, since many countries are bad at distributing their own resources enough such that no one is poor, we're basically in a Covid-like situation when it comes to homeless people.
And I'm saying this as a Dutch person. As I have one family member who didn't eat for 2 weeks, fainted, got found, etc. Granted, this person doesn't want to deal with bureaucracy and is quite stubborn, among other things. But still, even in a country that has "socialism" this stuff happens. And we're not as socialistic as one might think: Polish people that come here to perform labor do so in quite awful circumstances, to the point that when they lose a finger or a thumb they get reimbursed like 300 to 500 euro's IIRC. I watched it from some Dutch documentary (probably Nieuwsuur).
Countries are just incredibly bad at resource (re)distribution.
He was given food and shelter, and then he left on his own volition. He wasn't willing to stay in a shelter unless he had a private room so he stole some stuff from some stores so he could sleep under a bridge.
He was given temporary shelter, and later a bed in a room with 20 people. Have you seen what these places look like? Would you sleep in such conditions?
Dignity and personal space is something the richest country in the world can afford for all of its citizens. Yet chooses not to.
People committing petty theft are largely forced to do so due to the circumstances they live in. Your judgment is better aimed at people committing white-collar crime with far worse consequences in the same city the author is located in.
He makes it sound like he was originally offered more permanent shelter but he rejected it:
> The end of March happened and so did the temporary shelter. I needed to find a new place.
> I remembered a place in San Mateo I rejected back in February. It hadn’t crossed my mind when I first arrived back in San Francisco. When I had been offered it in February, I rejected the offer because I thought it was ludicrous to think I was homeless. I come from a relatively privileged upbringing, and the idea of homelessness was a distant concept to my naive brain.
>> no person should live in these conditions
Do you suggest they should be forced to the asylum for mentally ill people?
> A couple months ago, I found that particular bridge was next to an office building inhabited by some of my old colleagues. A start-up I had been a part of in New York. Where I was the first employee. I had owned equity. They had eventually sold for $350 million.
It is depressing easy to have this happen and even worse how many people are convinced it could never be them.
For what it's worth: I know it could be me. I'm currently with tens of thousands of dollars in savings (in Europe, not American) but it could still be me. I'm quite afraid of it actually and I live every day so that it won't be me. I've noticed that reduces chances significantly, not to zero, but significantly.
Put your funds in some diversified dividend ETFs and you will be quite fine.
> A start-up I had been a part of in New York. Where I was the first employee. I had owned equity. They had eventually sold for $350 million.
What happened to the author's equity?
Obviously there is a ton unsaid in this blog post, but I just wanted to answer your question because it's exceedingly common for companies to be sold, sometimes for lots of money, and for common stock (which is what employees hold) to get wiped out. If the startup was sold for $350 million, but it received $350 or more million in funding, the investors get (some of) their money back, and employees get nothing. This happens all the time.
Again, I don't know what happened in the author's specific case, but think it's important to know that lots of startups have exits that can look big on paper but still are a wipeout for common equity.
Liquidation Preferences e.g.
> The morning crew felt like NPCs (for those older folks, an NPC is a character in a video game that is scripted or run by AI).
For those older folks, an NPC is a character in an adventure that is scripted or run by the Dungeon Master.
That line alone tells me a lot about the author.
He's homeless and still manages to look down on the people helping him.
I don't have a hard time guessing why he didn't have any other person's place to stay at, even temporarily.
What I probably never get: When somebody is capable and reasonable but jobless, why stay homeless in a city with one of the highest rents? Why not move to a cheaper place, get any job, even a bad paid job will pay a nice flat in a small town. It's always those large very expensive cities that have a huge amount of homelessness.
Don't get me wrong, I do not want to play clever here, it's just a honest question.
San Francisco also has a climate you won't freeze to death in February, a government that won't bulldoze your tent, charities that give you free stuff. For better or worse. In this man's case, it is probably also the only place where he has a slimmer of personal connections left that may still lend a helping hand.
Also, by the time he is already homeless homeless, he is likely no longer able to afford the fixed costs of a move. He is not getting an apartment even in small town USA if he can't put down a deposit. He is not even getting there without money to pay for the trip. He'll also likely need a car to hold any job which is another major cost.
And by the way, you said he should get a job, "any job." Now put yourself in the position of a small town mcdonalds franchise owner. Someone just moved to the town from California cough all in a sudden. He has no local connection, no experience in food service (or whatever other low skill job you are offering), probably not even an address. Why would you hire him instead of literally anyone else?
If a person has motivation, it's not impossible to find means. Hitchhiking. General assistance thru the Human Services Agency for cash. Explain your circumstances/try another job offering/repeat.
I think the harsh truth in this case is that this person has qualities of their personality and their habits that make them incompatible with a conventional job.
> When somebody is capable and reasonable but jobless
I'm not sure what your qualifications for 'reasonable' and 'capable' are, but without a support system those things are difficult to prove such that you can utilize them properly.
Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine have been evicted from your home and have no job. You have no car, no phone, no ID, no money, no credit or bank account. All of the people you know who would give you money or a place to stay or a reference have disappeared and cannot be reached. What do you do?
You could find a cash job as a dishwasher or something similar. If you work nights you can sleep in the library on in other public places. But where do you put your things? Spare clothes, toiletries, books, everything you might need to feel comfortable or to look decent has to be carried on your person, and even then is liable to become lost or stolen. How do you shower? Every restroom experience is using a public one. You can't cook meals, so you have to find free ones or buy them.
Hopefully what you got out of that is that access to things that you and I take for granted is a really big deal to someone without a home, and cities like San Francisco make many of those things difficult instead of impossible.
Honest answer: the author is mentally ill. They come out and say it at the end, but there are some pretty big clues along the way.
Not a worse place to be homeless, except maybe Portland or Seattle.
Obviously more to this story when someones support network has collapsed to this degree, but at the same time people don't have great support networks anymore =/
Could always be worse in Des Moines or Toronto
I can attest that the Quaker Meeting on 9th street is an earnest reverent bunch. I attended regularly for some time around 2020.
Great read. One bad side is it was so long, by the time I came back to upvote this article you already fell off trending.
honest question: are there not enough shelters in SF? Are there not enough jobs? I heard it's dirty and unsafe at places, isn't government hiring street cleaners and police?
Tipp: Go on YouTube, search for "SF live walk" or "San Francisco city walk" and you will get an impression
I will never stop being dumbfounded by the contrast of people going through this kind of hardship being surrounded by some of the wealthiest people in the world. This exists in other parts of the world as well, of course, but it's particularly troubling that it exists in the tech epicenter.
There's something deeply disturbing about a society that allows this to happen, and yet it's something we've learned to accept and largely ignore for centuries. The promise of technology bringing forth universal prosperity is a lie promoted by those who have something to gain from that narrative. Yet we keep believing these people to this day.
If you needed a bed for the night, do you have friends who would offer you their couch? Family? Cousins, parents, etc?
In my society, absolutely, possibly literally more than a hundred people.
Where in the world is the answer no? Maybe if you’ve freshly immigrated to a new country or something?
That is a very scary thought, but it’s also scary for me to think that so many people live such isolated lives, it’s such a foreign concept to me culturally.
The answer is no when you are severely mentally ill or have some other condition that causes you to be strongly detrimental to the people around you, such as addiction.
To the point where you have no friends. To the point where even your own parents have given up.
> Where in the world
Everywhere. You can’t comprehend it because you don’t know anyone like that, likely because the government you live in takes care of that problem for you.
> isolated lives
And by the way, the people in your culture in this situation are isolated too, from you. And that’s okay, and maybe good even. But you don’t know about them.
I don’t know what the right answer is. America’s answer is definitely not the right answer. But interrogate your culture, too, and how it takes care of your most vulnerable people. You may be dismayed at the answer, or you may not.
Unfortunately I think there are many places in the world like that. It just takes someone with even a mild mental illness, a relatively small family and the sudden early death of a parent to start a vicious cycle.
I don't see how that's relevant.
I pay taxes and live in a country with a government in exchange for protection and a decent standard of living. Relying on family, friends or strangers for basic necessities is a sign that my government has failed me.
>“I Can Hire Half the Working Class To Fight the Other Half“
Technically a satire quote criticizing the robber Baron it's credited for, but the sentiment is the same. Pay off a bourgeois and they'll fight against the the sympathetic bourgeois and proletariat happily. The elite don't even need to lift a finger.
It is scary. We live in a harsh world. I hope you made it through.
needs more backstory. what's your crime and why aren't you being paid for your superbowl work?
I think the superbowl work is the present and the homelessness was a flashback
Exactly, he was homeless for 6 months is what I understood.
I'm not sure if this is real account or AI slop -- possibly a mix of both.
But the US is a f*cking dystopia at this point.
How come the richest country of the world - the model of capitalism - allows so many of their citizens go homeless?
It's mindblowing.
> the model of capitalism
They've got capital, but I'd argue that they're long way from model capitalism since some time. There's both over- (regulatory capture) and under regulation (consumer and environment protection) that goes against this and companies have enough sway to influence the law and consequently the market. Free market in the original sense of "free from all forms of economic privilege, monopolies and artificial scarcities" is not even a goal anymore.
What about freedom from starving in the streets?