Malicious design

[137beth]

[Long extended response with many digressions, term definitions, and comparisons to the Harry Potter setting]

Aha! That's the answer: homeless people should just learn how to do magic, and use charms to stay warm overnight! This design isn't "malicious," it's just encouraging homeless people to take responsibility for their own magic.

[2D8HP]

Aha! That's the answer....[/COLOR]

Exactly!

If they want shelter they shouldn't be muggles!

OBVIOUSLY!!!

[Vinyadan]

What about examples such as benches that, to discourage skateboarders and the homeless, are made less comfortable than ordinary benches?

Like "leaning benches" in places where they have plenty of room for ordinary benches:

Spoiler: image

Show

Because **** YOU, OLD PEOPLE!!!

[Murk]

And no, I won't accept the euphemism, nor the assumption that all or even most homeless people are drugged up lunatics. Attempting to clear homeless people out of safe locations and into dangerous ones is malicious

Well, we agree on that.
(There wasn't any euphemism intended, by the way, nor did I ever assume all or even most homeless people are drugged up lunatics.)

Yes, it is malicious or hostile if you try to clear people away from locations and into dangerous ones, especially if they need those locations to sleep or to eat (not so sure about "need to skate", but let's keep this on the homelessness). We agree on that.
That is not all this design does, though. Aside from its hostile intent, it also has a very friendly and safe intent towards others. A design can do both. This design is malicious and dangerous towards the homeless, and securing and protective towards the neighbourhood kids. That's why I'm not keen on calling it just "malicious design", since that's not its sole purpose, nor its sole result.
It is also why I did agree that a government that only implements designs like these without offering the homeless better options is failing, since then the malicious results of the design far outweigh the friendly results.
In other cases - the case of the busy shopping mall and the boy looking to skate - I think the beneficial results (safety for everyone who is shopping) outweigh the malicious results (someone who has to look for another place to skate).

Maybe it's nitpicking about semantics, but a design that harms some and helps others isn't malicious in nature, I think - it depends on how much it harms, how much it helps, what the other options are.

[Rogar Demonblud]

dude it discourage people to not be at a place it does not hurt the person directly.

Okay, how would you describe a plan to force someone to abandon shelter to go live exposed to the elements? Harmful is the least of it.

Of course, given how many municipalities are withdrawing shelter funding and using regulations to force others to close, it really does seem we're going back to the Late Medieval idea of 'make the poor go die somewhere else'.

[Jormengand]

Being awful for homeless people while only being convenient for others inasmuch as it means they don't have to deal with homeless people is malicious. Its sole purpose is being a **** to homeless people, and I don't want to be the kind of person who benefits from that.

[137beth]

This design is malicious and dangerous towards the homeless, and securing and protective towards the neighbourhood kids.

Except for the neighborhood kids who are homeless.

[Rynjin]

you could say a spider web in all its splendor is a malicious design for the fly or any flying insect caught in it but that don't change the fact that making the web that way is the spider smart design. i know it stir emotions in some members but calling something that was made to do its jobs malicious just be cause it did its job is being a bit irrational and frankly stupid. you have the right to think who ever commissioned the design is a heartless donkey-butt and maybe be angry at the dude if it makes you feel better, but calling something malicious just because its doing its job it frankly asinine.

people should appreciate this kind of ingenuity of using design of certain item to discourage unwanted behavior and learn from it instead of calling it an evil item just because the one who used it was a ****.

Personally, what I find asinine is repeatedly mixing up the words "ineffective" and "malicious" as if they have anything to do with each other.

Of course the items were effective, you are correct. They were designed to do a thing, and perform that job well.

The job they were designed to perform, however, is malicious.

If I designed a toy specifically to harm as many children as possible, and it succeeded in maiming thousands of children, then congratulations to me, I have successfully designed a malicious toy.

Appreciate my genius. You have to appreciate and praise me, after all I succeeded in designing what I set out to, right?

[2D8HP]

Except for the neighborhood kids who are homeless.

Coincidentally

...appreciate and praise me, after all I succeeded in designing what I set out to, right?

Problem SOLVED!!!

Well done

[LordEntrails]

There is a great deal of mixing, or ignoring, that many of these designs are not used by governments, they are used by private property owners.

For instance, if I build a store you want me to build it in such a way that it is friendly towards homeless, loitering, public urination, skateboarders, and non-customers? So that in fact it makes the place unfriendly towards the customer I rely on in order to keep my business open? So that public urination makes the place stink, that skateboarders damage the property, and so that people taking shelter in the doorways make it unfriendly towards people coming and going from my business...

Sure, let's do everything possible to support the the part of the population that contributes the least to society. Such an approach will drop us all to the lowest common denominator is short order.

I know, absolutely no compassion from me? NOT! Every individual has an obligation to support and help those that can not help themselves. But not to the point of harming themselves. Not to the point that the individual can no longer support themselves.

Every group of people, each society, must determine for itself where that line is. Hopefully it can do so with full knowledge of the impacts on ALL of it's citizens. But using emotionally charged terms takes a difficult topic and shrouds it in emotion. Good decisions are rarely ever made based on emotion. And useful discussion is never held in a charged emotional environment.

[warty goblin]

Sure, let's do everything possible to support the the part of the population that contributes the least to society. Such an approach will drop us all to the lowest common denominator is short order.

A thing I have never understood, why do we consider the lowest common denominator to be a bad thing? It's literally the most efficient encapsulation of what we all have in common, rendered pejorative by interpreting a judgement-free mathematical concept as a statement of moral worth. It's really quite backwards, and represents a deep misunderstanding both of math and of having things in common with people.

For instance, literally all humans need sleep. Because we are physical entities who occupy space, we need a space to sleep. This is a very lowest common denominator thing, in a sensible interpretation of the term. Ditto food, water and some level of shelter from the elements. Seems to me that this is more or less exactly what a society should do, insofar as the better aspects of a society is its ability to provide for the common good. And the common good is definitely distinct from 'making things totally pleasant and comfortable for the bourgeoisie at all times.' In fact I rather suspect any sensible understanding of common good requires the discomfiture of such people (myself included) in a number of ways.

[2D8HP]

Please don't speculate on why, as I strongly suspect that will go past Forum Rules but I'm curious if me observations match those of others.

I was born in '68 and I'm currently a 12 mile drive from my birthplace in Oakland, California, and I've hardly spent much time farther away, so I have a narrow sample to draw from.

Anyway, according to my grandparents and/or parents lots of people were homeless in the 1930's (including me grandfather who was a "fruit tramp" doing crop picking), but that disappeared with the second world war, and there just weren't many homeless until an explosion of runaway youths in the late 1960's.

. In the 1970's I remember beggars (usually near Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley) who back then were called "Street People" or "Bereftdos", but the total number was relatively small until the 1980's when it looked to me that the population of "homeless", as they're now called, swelled tremendously, and but for a small decrease I saw in the late 1990's, has pretty much grown year after year after year, and now I see dozens of tents near highways everyday in the 15 mile drive from my job to my home.

What do you see?

[Peelee]

Please don't speculate on why, as I strongly suspect that will go past Forum Rules but I'm curious if me observations match those of others.

I was born in '68 and I'm currently a 12 mile drive from my birthplace in Oakland, California, and I've hardly spent much time farther away, so I have a narrow sample to draw from.

Anyway, according to my grandparents and/or parents lots of people were homeless in the 1930's (including me grandfather who was a "fruit tramp" doing crop picking), but that disappeared with the second world war, and there just weren't many homeless until an explosion of runaway youths in the late 1960's.

. In the 1970's I remember beggars (usually near Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley) who back then were called "Street People" or "Bereftdos", but the total number was relatively small until the 1980's when it looked to me that the population of "homeless", as they're now called, swelled tremendously, and but for a small decrease I saw in the late 1990's, has pretty much grown year after year after year, and now I see dozens of tents near highways everyday in the 15 mile drive from my job to my home.

What do you see?

Didn't mental health facility closures in the '60s and '70s cause a homeless population explosion, especially in places like New York City?

[Rogar Demonblud]

The Reagan Administration, but yes. Also, the VA had no funding in those days for PTSD counseling, a fissure we've since at least spackled over if not sealed.

[pendell]

I was born in 1971. The surge in homelessness was not a gradual thing; it was an abrupt shift in the 1980s. It was called Deinstitutionalization . You can read about it on Wikipedia. Overflowing, overcrowded mental institutions were a scandal. So they attempted to move people out of institutions into the community for treatment instead.

Result: Instead of having lots of people locked up in institutions, you have those same people sleeping on grates, or filling up prisons instead.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Knaight]

And no, I won't accept the euphemism, nor the assumption that all or even most homeless people are drugged up lunatics. Attempting to clear homeless people out of safe locations and into dangerous ones is malicious, through and through.

This also applies to "confiscating" tents and sleeping bags in the dead of winter to "encourage" the homeless not to "trespass" on public parks - an example of actual policy indicative of the same sort of mindset and established by the same people who habitually use malicious design elements.

[LordEntrails]

A thing I have never understood, why do we consider the lowest common denominator to be a bad thing? It's literally the most efficient encapsulation of what we all have in common, rendered pejorative by interpreting a judgement-free mathematical concept as a statement of moral worth. ...

Absolutes can easily lead to folly. Using an LCD approach would also mean that we should teach all students to the least academically capable. Or that driving regulations should be written for the least capable driver. Or that we should assume people are incapable of excellence. All of which I think are easily reasoned as troublesome.

Now, your mention of LCD as something like food and shelter being a base or bottom obligation of society. That, to me, is something worthwhile for a society to discuss. But I think we would be in violation of forum rules in short order were we to try and discuss it much further.

I will return to the idea of exclusionary design. Which I think is a much better term than the emotionally charged Malicious Design.

Does it not make sense, and is within moral limits, that buildings and spaces be designed to encourage desirable behavior and discourage negative behavior? (With the understanding that defining such behavior is troublesome, and that depending upon the design authority, the range of acceptable behavior should be different.)

[Bohandas]

I understand the message of the clip, but I'm not sure I would call this design "unpleasant" or "malicious".

How about "malevolent"?

Sure, let's do everything possible to support the the part of the population that contributes the least to society.

Businessmen? Hollywood? Self-help authors? Lawyers? Daytime talk-show hosts?

[snowblizz]

Only since then?

Where's that?

Scandinavia. And am unsure if an explanation as to what has changed and why is forum appropriate. It would feature words like "working social wellfare systems", "dismantling due to other types of malicious design" and "people being able to move around freely".

Broadly speaking. In the largest cities you would see it occasionally, now we have beggars even in towns as small as 15000 in habitants.

. In the 1970's I remember beggars (usually near Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley) who back then were called "Street People" or "Bereftdos", but the total number was relatively small until the 1980's when it looked to me that the population of "homeless", as they're now called, swelled tremendously, and but for a small decrease I saw in the late 1990's, has pretty much grown year after year after year, and now I see dozens of tents near highways everyday in the 15 mile drive from my job to my home.

What do you see?

Nothing quite like that for sure. Though homelessness did sorta rear it's head when the town decided to close a shelter for people dealing with various substance abuses. And lots of hand-wringing about how "we definitely would help if they only would come and seek help". To quote the head of the social/wellfare department in the town.

Similarly I know the de-institutionalising was a thing around here and also led to as a friend of mine put it "a lot more people talking to themselves on the street".

[eggynack]

its meant as a metaphor bruh, the point being design meant for something may seem unpleasant to another of a different perspective. i ask you kindly to refrain from trying to find meaning that are not there.

The only reason we wouldn't necessarily call a spider web malicious design, or care about the fact that it is malicious design, is because the target is a fly. If the target were not a fly, but a human, the presence of these giant death webs would be pretty concerning. And I'd really have to call those giant human killing webs malicious design. Point being, your metaphor is ineffective, because the basic structure of a web is decidedly malicious design.

i just disagree that just because a design did is job that it makes the design Malicious.

It's not because a design did its job that the design is malicious. What, is a window malicious design because it successfully brings me fresh air? The success or lack thereof of a given design is completely irrelevant to whether that design is malicious. The only thing that matters is the intent. If my intent in designing something is to hurt a given class of people, then, even if I fail completely, the design is a malicious one.

[Kish]

Some people seem to be treating "malicious" as having no meaning beyond a negative value judgment.

As eggynack says, if the design is to hurt a given class of people--that's malicious design.

[2D8HP]

Scandinavia......

Even there now?



Well that's disheartening.

[snowblizz]

Even there now?



Well that's disheartening.

The world intrudes everywhere. It's also more of an external issue to some degree. If I seem a bit coy here it's because it's an issue that has a very loud set of people with very unpleasant views I'd rather not encourage.

[2D8HP]

The world intrudes everywhere. It's also more of an external issue to some degree. If I seem a bit coy here it's because it's an issue that has a very loud set of people with very unpleasant views I'd rather not encourage.

I don't quite get your meaning, but I do get that it can't really be discussed here.

Anyway, more related to the thread topic and the Sub Forum it's in:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.d4bd9232a945

(the article quotes my former boss)

[Peelee]

I don't quite get your meaning, but I do get that it can't really be discussed here.

Anyway, more related to the thread topic and the Sub Forum it's in:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.d4bd9232a945

(the article quotes my former boss)

I choose to believe that the pee thing is an unintended side effect, and the city of San Francisco has declared war on rain.

[Goblin Slayer]

The only thing that matters is the intent. If my intent in designing something is to hurt a given class of people, then, even if I fail completely, the design is a malicious one.

you clearly do not get my point. the designer probably had in mind a bench that prevent people from lying down and occupying the whole bench preventing other people from accessing the bench. the mayor we can speculate saw that if could prevent people from lying down and used it again homeless people cause it just so happen homeless people wanna sleep on a bench. and i have stated many times that the mayor if he did it with the intention then i can agree that he is malicious. what i cannot agree is calling the design of the bench malicious when it was only meant to prevent people from lying only the bench and is doing its job.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Obstacles in Super Mario Bros accomplish the goal of making Mario jump. The obstacles are not malicious at all towards the player, they are smart and clever ways of making the player use the environment in a specific way. Seriously though, I find the objections to the name amusingly sad. Is there a name for that?

[LordEntrails]

...
It's not because a design did its job that the design is malicious. What, is a window malicious design because it successfully brings me fresh air? The success or lack thereof of a given design is completely irrelevant to whether that design is malicious. The only thing that matters is the intent. If my intent in designing something is to hurt a given class of people, then, even if I fail completely, the design is a malicious one.

Some people seem to be treating "malicious" as having no meaning beyond a negative value judgment.

As eggynack says, if the design is to hurt a given class of people--that's malicious design.

So by your reasoning, designing a house that has doors and windows that lock is malicious. Because the design is intended to prevent entry from a specific class of people. Therefore harming them since they can't seek shelter from the weather, they can't appropriate the items contained within to feed themselves.

Sure, if that's how you want to define Malicious Design, then Malicious Design is a good and necessary thing. Without Malicious Design (as defined by you), their would be no safety and security, their would be no personal property, we would live in a world of kender. There would be no reason to strive and excel for many/most people if everything is yours to use as needed.

[JNAProductions]

There's a difference between wanting to keep your own home and possessions safe, and doing what you can to achieve that; and trying to hurt people (or at least work against people) who are at their most vulnerable.

[pendell]

Obstacles in Super Mario Bros accomplish the goal of making Mario jump. The obstacles are not malicious at all towards the player, they are smart and clever ways of making the player use the environment in a specific way. Seriously though, I find the objections to the name amusingly sad. Is there a name for that?

Meanwhile, the obstacles in I Wanna Be The Guy (Delicious fruit that fall up, spikes that elongate to nail the player, evil save points that pursue and kill the player) are not merely malicious but a step above that; Vicious, perhaps?

Respectfully,

Brian P.