How about instead of nets, we instead install a functioning mental health care system. This has ‘put bulletproof vests on school kids’ written all over it.
this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
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Why not both haha. But yes I agree. 2k people killing themselves off this since it's open is insane
This says 4000 people died by suicide in California in one year. 2k people over almost 100 years isn't crazy. These nets won't make a dent in the yearly total.
Damn. We gonna need a lot more nets then
We'll need nets around every handgun.
The question is how many of those suicides were conducted by jumping off the bridge. And don’t say “they’d just choose another way to end themselves”. Studies and historical evidence shows that making suicide even slightly less convenient to perform actually does save lives. People get fixated on a method that seems easy. When that method is no longer easy, it gives them a chance to not go through with it.
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Bulldoze the bridge and exterminate everyone.
No more suicides.
Judge Death approves.
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Mental health care, but also better wealth distribution/quality of living for everyone.
Yeah, all the mental health care in the world doesn't mean jack shit when you're living paycheck to paycheck your entire life.
Mental health care professionals and their shills will of course say otherwise, though.
It's always about the money.
All the mental healthcare in the world doesn't make the world a more acceptable living space.
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The US government is going to do literally everything it can other than provide universal Healthcare until the country collapses.
Wait you're telling me this isn't what they meant by safety nets??
The physical, not social kind. "We'll catch you when you fall... this is not a metaphor."
I'm pretty sure California is in the process of implementing its own state-funded healthcare system.
It's the way to do it, just like with legalizing drugs.
For real. It would be interesting to see the average financial depth of the people who attempt suicide in the US.
Nets are cheaper than mental health care.
This reminds me of the time San Francisco decided to do something about it's human-feces-in-the-BART-escalator-wells problem, not by making public restrooms available to unsheltered folk, but building stupid awnings to keep people from pooping inside. The awnings cost more than the toilets would have and people just pooped on the sidewalks instead. ℹ️🫶🌉😀
Curious since I'm not familiar, how do the awnings prevent this? I went to SF a few years ago and there was a giant pile of human shit every 4 blocks so I'm not too surprised.
They basically close off the street level entrance when the transit isn't running. The escalators used to be open at the top and closed at the bottom during off hours, making a lovely little private pooping tunnel. The city budget people didn't GAF about the bio hazard or human dignity issues, they just didn't like that all the excrement kept breaking the escalators.
Old article from before they implemented them (the article mentions the budget proposal being $4 million, it's turned into $64 million and counting).
Friedenbach balked at the canopy proposal. “I find it interesting that they’re spending this much money on canopies when they could be using it to keep their bathrooms open.” More so, the money could be used for keeping the high-traffic drop-in centers operational. A few years back, San Francisco, under former-mayor Gavin Newsom’s authority, sought to cut over a million dollars in funding for many of the city’s highest-traffic drop-in centers. The Coalition for Homelessness wouldn’t stand for it. “We’d already seen almost half of the centers close,” Friedenbach recalled, “so we figured out how many pounds of feces the public facilities kept off the street.” Friedenbach and company estimated that the cost of cutting back or getting rid of drop-in centers altogether would be over 58,000 pounds of human feces on the streets of San Francisco.
[...]
Regarding the four million dollars spent on the canopy proposal, Friedenbach said, “You could capture a large amount of feces [with bathrooms], instead of the one shit a night you might be staving off with this.”
This guy Friedenbach sounds like he knows his shit.
Old article from before they implemented them (the article mentions the budget proposal being $4 million, it's turned into $64 million and counting).
$4 million for one canopy.
FTA:
The canopy, still in prototype form, would be designed and built over the next two years at a cost of almost four million dollars, with the first installation scheduled for 2015 at the 19th Street station in Oakland.
The project is expected to cost $4 million per entrance.
https://www.ktvu.com/news/bart-seeks-public-opinion-about-planned-improvements-for-sf-stations
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Reminds me of that Bojack Horseman poem.
"But this is it, the deed is done silence drowns the sound. Before I leaped I should've seen the view from halfway down.
I really should’ve thought about the view from halfway down. I wish I could've known about the view from halfway down—"
It's a fucking amazing poem and had me in tears the first time I saw that episode.
People falling that 30 feet and being stopped in the act may help them see that jumping, or suicide in general is not the answer.
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Love the NIMBY ass “we don’t want effective barriers to keep people from jumping because then we cant see the view, so put in an invisible torture device that will horribly maim and punish people already so far gone they’ve decided to end it” approach. Really sums up San Francisco. Why don’t they just install a fucking Suicide Booth at each end of the bridge. They clearly aren’t after stopping attempts, they just don’t want to look at it. Easier to find a corpse in the human fishing net 20 feet down than trolling the bay.
Exactly. I'm sorry for their view, which is an undeniably beautiful view, isn't as nice and I'm sorry that the historic bridge is less attractive now, but this is going to stop people from dying for fuck's sake!
Some people would see the nets - a lifesaving device put there by the sheer force and willpower of a community who care so deeply about helping people survive their worst struggles that they pushed the powers that be to design, construct, and pay for it to be put in place and save human lives - and find that a really fucking beautiful sight.
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We make fun of China for installing similar nets on their buildings. Maybe we can consider some time actually doing something about the cause of suicide rather than just stopping the action. Healthcare, especially mental healthcare, poverty, housing. But no, just nets.
Ok, I feel dark for making this meme.
I for one, love it. Nice work. The subject is uncomfortable, but this is absolutely a valid criticism of the system and the outcome in this case.
The fact that you used a meme based on a pawn shop - an institution that tends to take advantage of people on hard times - makes this dark and pithy. The only thing more fitting would be a payday loan center, but thankfully that hasn't made it to reality TV just yet.
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The nets — placed 20 feet (6 meters) down from the bridge’s deck — are not visible from cars crossing the bridge. But pedestrians standing by the rails can see them. They were built with marine-grade stainless steel that can withstand the harsh environment that includes salt water, fog and strong winds
20 foot drop onto "nets" made of stainless steel? I feel like this may still be a fatal fall.
Edit: I'm not negative on the idea, but it sounds like you are still having a pretty bad time if one of these nets saves your life.
Stainless steel can be woven into a net that would break the fall, I don't know if that's how it works but it would be possible.
I just read a guardian article about it, it's actually kind of fucked up:
The nets are meant to deter people from jumping and to curb the death rate of those who still attempt to jump, though they will likely be badly injured.
“It’s stainless-steel wire rope netting, so it’s like jumping into a cheese grater,” Dennis Mulligan, the general manager of the bridge district, told the Associated Press. “It’s not soft. It’s not rubber. It doesn’t stretch. We want folks to know that if you come here, it will hurt if you jump.”
Notice it says CURB the death rate, which sounds like they anticipate some people will still die? Jesus ffs.
Yeah that's pretty fucked up. Sounds like the punishment for trying to kill yourself is intentional maiming or possible death. Sheesh.
Now I am kinda negative on the idea.
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meeting resistance from people who did not want to alter the iconic landmark
Well this attitude leads to not only increased homelessness, buy I guess also suicide rates 🙁
I mean, there's a solution that doesn't involve altering the landmark, but would those people support actually fixing the problem?
Ensuring people's basic needs are met and they have access to mental health support is a lot more difficult than putting an unsightly band-aid on the problem.
Good point. I apologize for a fairly off the cuff remark about this. We really do need better mental health support in the US.
So, now you just need to jump from the net after it catches you? That does not seem like much of a barrier.
Think of the first fall as a "proof of concept". If after falling ~20 feet to a chain link fence, you still feel like dragging your injured self to the edge of the fence to finish the job, then it's highly unlikely anything will stop you from killing yourself. The fence is kind of a "try before you buy" thing.
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Well, there goes my vacation plans this year.
Does the bay bridge have nets too?
No but you can’t walk out onto the bay bridge as easily as with Golden Gate.
The new eastern span has a really nice pedestrian walkway and bidirectional bike path between Oakland and Treasure Island.
The old western span does not have a walkway, so you need to enter from treasure island or Oakland / Emeryville.
Took a century near enough, didn't it?
... sure hope the contractor doesn't install razor-sharp steel net by mistake to spaghettify (french fry cut?) anything falling on it ...
It's steel wire, this is gonna turn some people into french fries a la Cube
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