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Melissa A's avatar

Helping the homeless woman requires 100 different perfectly-timed, magically-funded steps.

Helping the robot required flipping it upright again.

That's why the robot was helped. Because it was something within those folks' control.

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Shalom Auslander's avatar

I suppose, though I'm not sure a reason is the same thing as an excuse. And I say that as someone who didn't help either of them. Sigh.

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Jane Baker's avatar

And it was cute. She wasn't cute. Also she would probably have sworn at them and spat too. Deep inside she would have loved help but...I know this as im metamorphosing into her myself

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Holly's avatar

Good points for sure

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Diane Morgan's avatar

I was thinking the same - they are not sure what to do to help the homeless woman..or it may be too scary to try to figure out. Helping the robot was fast and felt good. I do believe people start from and most are good at heart. Some have built up shields and ways of denial to keep safe (safe meaning in control).

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Amy Letter's avatar

It’s about safety: the robot is limited and predictable and so reliably harmless. Every interaction with another human being is a potential minefield of social, emotional, and physical harms.

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Shalom Auslander's avatar

That's true, but leaving a dollar beside someone isn't much of a risk. Of course here in LA there are so many homeless that if I were to give them each a dollar, I would be broke by the first traffic light. Maybe it's just - sadly - that there are way more homeless than cute robots, so we become numb.

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Amy Letter's avatar

Giving someone a dollar isn't the same as fixing their whole problem, tho. The robot's whole problem had a solution.

The robot-equivalent of giving a human a dollar would be someone like... nudging it a little closer to the curb? Sending a pic to the company that owns it? Maybe there is no equivalent.

I recently saw a homeless woman who'd fallen on the street near a grocery store in a way / location that made it clear she'd literally dropped while walking, and people called 911 for help, and the police and fire rescue who came were very kind to her. They sat with her while she rested in the shade and they gave her cold drinks. But then they left and she was still homeless and it was still crazy-hot-degrees outside.

And the non-uniformed citizens who saw her and called for help didn't approach her. I showed up after and only looked closely to make sure the uniformed public servants were being decent to her. If they were being cruel, I might've done something more, like video them? Call the legal clinic? Human situations are just more complicated.

And I'm sure if she'd collapsed near the building in a way that suggested she had chosen the spot to take a nap, no one would have called anyone or done anything.

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Jane Baker's avatar

That's such a good reply. Helping people can be emotionally dangerous

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Zoe Zuniga's avatar

And physically dangerous too. Insane people sometimes bite or scratch or hit

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Holly's avatar

Absolutely

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Holly's avatar

Interesting comments and a great post! Have you read the book “ The Dinner” by Herman Koch or The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater? It is unreal to me how easy it is to become desensitized to human suffering, myself included. Living in the country and small towns most of my life I was not used to seeing homeless people begging on the streets but helping a homeless person is a much bigger commitment than picking up a machine. The machine will not bite you for one. Human beings are very unpredictable and sometimes don’t want to be helped. Here in Fort Worth I try to keep water or a few dollars in the car. Lord have mercy!

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Shalom Auslander's avatar

I think the city has something to do with it. I do see more people helping with food or spare change in small towns; here in LA, there are 75,000 homeless. I moved from our last address simple because I was becoming so hardened to them, it troubled me. If I can't save them, I can at least not hate them.

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Holly's avatar

Yes exactly I give out one or two dollars water bottles or chips and pray for them but it does seem hopeless and it is such a sad feeling

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Cindy Hansen's avatar

They knew clearly what the robot needed but not what the woman wanted. Humans make the simplest decisions and avoid the hard stuff.

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Holly's avatar

Yep helping the robot was a pretty simple thing to do no risks

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William Routhier's avatar

It's about novelty. And robots don't yell or smell.

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Jane Baker's avatar

Exactly.

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William Routhier's avatar

I don't mean to imply we should ignore the homeless, I hope that's clear. People recognize that homelessness is a very complex and difficult problem, sociologically, psychologically, practically, and handing a homeless person five dollars doesn't really help solve it. Upending a robot is a thing that has a positive result, like freeing a kitten from a tree.

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Stephen D Forman's avatar

I think, if the homeless woman was topped by an orange safety flag, she might've garnered a different reaction.

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Shalom Auslander's avatar

She was. No takers.

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Irwin Rosenthal's avatar

From human beings that adore dogs and cats but eat other mammals with glee: what do you expect ?

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Shalom Auslander's avatar

We better figure out a way to start eating robots.

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Jane Baker's avatar

Ha ha. But these particular ones might have been vegan.

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Holly's avatar

So true !

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Victoria Lynn Devereaux's avatar

i have to say homelessness, especially in california, but elsewhere soon thereafter, has an incredible amount to do with ronald reagan as governor and then as president. there is research to verify this...this link is a timeline, https://www.kqed.org/news/11209729/did-the-emptying-of-mental-hospitals-contribute-to-homelessness-here...and yes, helping the homeless woman is consequentially more fraught for whomever wishes to try and the righting of the robot an easy fix. a family that is suddenly unemployed can become homeless in an incredibly short time. as a community, whether it be city, state, or country, we can actually deal with homelessness and mental illness in a more humane way, unfortunately now, with our present regime of toxicity and abscence of compassion it is far more difficult. billionaires find poverty distasteful but do not feel they have anything to do with it. the 19th century was not much fun for most who were not among the elite and the 2ist century elites so wish to emulate the gilded age. yuck. this whole thing actually snow-balled after the kennedy assassination. i thank you, auslander, for this question. we truly must ponder these things.

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Shalom Auslander's avatar

Someone once said that the powerful let the homeless exist as a warning to the rest of us not to rock the boat - to keep working, keep buying, keep slaving, or this can happen to you.

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Zoe Zuniga's avatar

I remember when Regan cut funding for mental health services for people who needed in patient treatment. And now Trump is cutting welfare services so we will have many more homeless moms with kids.

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Shalom Auslander's avatar

I lived in the East Village soon after that, down the street from a mental hospital that one day simply shut down, leaving the patients to themselves (and the streets).

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Jane Baker's avatar

And in UK Mrs (sell all the Council Houses to greedy bastards) Thatcher. My sister grabbed the opportunity and bought hers,ideologically she knew it was wrong but ...well who wants to be last in the race looking at everyone else's arse

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E.R. Flynn's avatar

All robots are evil threats to humanity. Therefore, any humans that help them betray our species and should be cast into robot deprogramming camps.

Too harsh?

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Shalom Auslander's avatar

If you run for office on that, I'll vote for you.

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Holly's avatar

Nope I agree!

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poloniousmonk's avatar

I don't think I'm qualified to answer this question. I grew up outside Philly. We dismembered and decapitated hitchbot.

Unlike your do-gooders, we're at least consistent :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HitchBOT

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Shalom Auslander's avatar

God bless you all.

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Jan McLaughlin's avatar

Damn.

It's been a while since you unexpectedly punched hard.

Give me a day to recover my wits.

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Allison Delman's avatar

Unfortunately, I think our society has become too used to seeing homeless people encamped and rush towards any shiny new object, which in this case is a robot. Not a great look but here we are.

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Cathleen Schine's avatar

Both

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Zoe Zuniga's avatar

Sadly homeless humans (unlike most other animals who are able to self-clean and groom), smell REALLY bad becuase we dont have a system to feed and house and shower people. instead we spend millions on counting them all over Los Angeles and other stupid things that don't really work.

It is really a shame that we don't have a system to keep people off the streets and safe. Stepping in human poop in San Francisco is no fun. And being a human who has to shit in the street is probably no picnic. And it is expensive to pay for the constant emergency care that people need when they live on the street.

To me this seems like a fate worse than death to be so smelly that people cannot stand to be near you. I really think i would rather be dead than have that happen to me.

I personally live in a van. but I shower at the gym and do a giant ikea bag full of laundry every week and hold a job and have a business of my own.

No one knows I live in a van because I am clean and normal. My van is clean inside and out. I work on my business in the van when I am not at work.

I talk regularly with a homeless guy who wears torn clothing and stinks, and cannot get on a public bus to go get his drivers license which is in storage and which he needs. But I cannot and will not offer him a ride because he fucking stinks so bad I cannot stand to be less than 4 feet from him.

He is kind, intelligent is not on drugs, and is always offering me veggies or supplies he finds on his bike rides around to dumpster dive. he has websites and does a lot of political work. He seems to be slightly autistic and cannot quite get it together to get cleaned up. (The drivers license is on a route that is not bikable).

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Shalom Auslander's avatar

I hope you can find some time to write about your experiences. "On The Road" is taken as a title, but I'd read yours before that one.

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Zoe Zuniga's avatar

AWww thanks for replying and reading my comment!!!! I get so excited when you publish and rush to open it and read it because it always makes me laugh so hard I cry as I do with your books!

I do write a bunch of urban van life experiences over on my own blog/site and then canonize the link on Medium so it is "syndicated" with my own site coming as the original source. (as if syndication is a thing these days). I have not done substack because i hate the idea of some social media giant owning my material outright. Though it isnt as if any of it will be around forever, so i dont know what I am worrying about.

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Sheila's avatar

Hummm!!! Before you mentioned the homeless women in the door way I was quite pleased with the aid given the unfortunate robot .. But than, when it appears they either didn t see, or pretended not it see , or perhaps really didn't see the not so cute homeless (related huminoid).. Hmmm ... that's a cunumbdram!!! Perhaps she wasn't as cute as the robot, the machine, the automation!!! We humanoids are misnamed!!! Fear seems to dominate ... So much more could be ruminated over ... Hummmm!!

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Jane Baker's avatar

I was dismayed. I would have given the helpless robot a good thump and a kicking.

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Sheila's avatar

Your choice!!

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Barbara Levinson's avatar

Helping a homeless woman requires compassion and empathy and some risk. Helping a robot get back on its feet is like righting an overturned chair. 0

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