• @[email protected]
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      288 hours ago

      No offense to you personally, but I hate this kind of premature defeatism. Like… yeah, some people are jerks and try to take advantage of things. Put rules in place and enforce them as much as the people in charge care to.

      I know it’s strawmanning to bring this up, but people use the same argument to say "We shouldn’t have food stamps for hungry kids or welfare for needy families or subsidized housing for people without homes because people will abuse it. Yeah. Some people will, and others will suffer because of their greed. But so many more people will continue to suffer if we don’t even try because we are too scared of The Undeserving boogeyman. Not every tree will be taken advantage of, and as the sense of outreach and community grows, abuse of it will fall and it will be worth it. I guarantee it…

      • @[email protected]
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        57 hours ago

        Honestly it’s really telling on them.

        Like you can’t do nice things because X. So they don’t do it.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 hours ago

          That too. “I’m a fiscally conservative Republican who doesn’t believe in handouts.” Oh? How convenient that you can selfishly hoard all your money for yourself by hiding behind principle…

    • @[email protected]
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      167 hours ago

      Visit Portland. Lots of neighborhoods grow fruit trees.

      And the fruit falls to the ground.

      Nobody is going around selling them.

      • @[email protected]
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        67 hours ago

        As someone who lives in Portland, yes.

        People stealing fruit from trees is the least of my Portland worries.

      • ✺roguetrick✺
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        26 hours ago

        Watching the tree to see when the fruit is ripe and then carting around a ladder to pick it? That sounds like a fucking job.

      • Waldowal
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        37 hours ago

        How acceptable is it, if you can reach a plant / tree from the sidewalk, to pick someone else’s fruit? Would that be considered weird, or totally acceptable behavior?

        • @[email protected]
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          34 hours ago

          In Hawaii it’s quite funny to see, because it if can be reached, it can be taken. So there are these hilarious fellas who have these baskets on long poles, and at the end of it there’s this little hand/grabber thing. They reach out as far as they can over the fence, press the button at the bottom, and fwoomp! There goes the fruit from the tree into the basket. I remember my cousin staking out avocados waiting for them to get ripe.

          • Waldowal
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            37 hours ago

            And I mean just like 1 or 2 pieces. Not backing up a truck or anything. In case that changes your answer. Thanks

            • @[email protected]
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              26 hours ago

              My dream is that people could live in supportive communes or whatever, so this seems fine to me.

        • @[email protected]
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          26 hours ago

          If it’s overhanging public property it’s fair game. The owner has plenty of fruit on their side too I’ll bet. If they take issue with it they can guide their plant so it’s confined to their property. That being said I wouldn’t be reaching over the fence to yank a cucumber or apple.

    • M137
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      57 hours ago

      In the US, probably.

      Here in Sweden, there are public fruit trees and bushes, herbs etc. all over the place, and very very rarely does that happen. I live a 15-minute tram ride from the centre of the second-largest city and have within a 10-minute walking distance of my apartment several kinds of plums, cherries, currants, apples, pears, other berries and most common herbs, edible flowers and so on, all in random public places. We also have several “fruit groves” around the city, larger green areas specifically for publicly available fruits and more.