Aapje58
23d ago
But what if an upstanding and polite civil society is the very thing I want to preserve?
Then the left needs to learn that their ratfucking has eroded civil society and they will suffer for it as well. Perhaps then they will want to rebuilt it.
If I want to preserve traditional Western morality and institutions
How can you preserve something that no longer exists? Morality and institutions have to be rebuilt.
I find it hard to believe surrendering a political movement to a figurehead who is hostile to its very principles is the winning play to bring about those principles.
The problem is that the left has gotten addicted to hatred and oppression, and even if the right would put forth a Gandhi, he would be treated like a Hitler.
Trump's willingness to burn down institutions is a necessary harsh lesson to the left that the right won't let themselves be put into the reservation. Either the left makes institutions that the right is a part of and that they can support, or the right will keep attempting to burn them down.
Aapje58
30d ago
The courts alternatively pretend to be pure objectivity or to have a heavenly mandate in their subjectivity, but the mundane reality is that just like with kings, the pretense requires sufficient popular support, or the (figurative) guillotine comes into play.
Aapje58
2mo ago
It's more similar to the native American situation. Yield land to appease the colonists and they will just come back to claim more once their needs grow, until only a fraction of land is left that is not worth the effort to take.
Aapje58
2mo ago
I got to wonder if NDT doesn’t have some MeToo skeletons in his closet that he is desperately trying to keep hidden with all this claptrap
The simpler explanation is that he's a grifter who abuses his charisma to earn money by playing the role of a scientist, and he's been gradually expanding his repertoire to have more business opportunities.
And with the media being mostly far-left, pretending that far-left nonsense is scientifically valid, is the way for him to get more shows and such.
Aapje58
2mo ago
Why would you need 'experts' (often captured by ideology) or even worse, upvoted posts (virtue signalling), rather than just look at the hard data? Nearly all sports allow for intergender competition and/or have an objective measurement of performance (often timings). In most sports the gaps are so enormous that there is no doubt at all.
Aapje58
3mo ago
Tyrannies are problematic because there's rarely a good plan for what comes next. Once a tyranny ends (i.e. tyrant dies) there is chaos or more tyranny.
No, this is why hereditary monarchy was invented.
Aapje58
3mo ago
He doesn't wear blue contacts. You can see that he has blue eyes in images of him as a pubescent youngster.
Aapje58
5mo ago
Cycling absolutely requires a helmet.
Yes, that's why there are no people who cycle without a helmet for their entire life and live. Oh wait.
That helmet saved my life.
It's impossible to say whether that is the case, since depending on the quality and design on the helmet, and how you landed, the helmet could have reduced the energy transferred to your head anywhere between almost zero to a significant amount. And even if you had been worse off, that doesn't mean you would have died.
You really should improve your reasoning ability, because the statement you made is closer to religion than to fact.
Aapje58
5mo ago
At least with a sidewalk or a separate path, you’re not blocking cars.
Why would a cyclist care about that? This is like trying to convince a Democrat to emigrate, so Republicans can govern the US as they want.
And cars block other cars quite a lot, so by your reasoning, people should stop driving and walk instead (which has the minimum amount of blockage).
Aapje58
5mo ago
I think the solution for most (nearly all?) of these scenarios is for the cyclists to go slower.
If you are a car in a crowded city you should not expect to be able to travel very fast, and certainly no where near the maximum capabilities of your vehicle and personal reaction times. Some cyclists seems to have this expectation.
That's because the speeds that cyclists expect to go are still not as fast as drivers expect to go in the city. Cars do not have the right to go faster in the city just because they are completely overbuilt for that environment.
I rode a bicycle on a university campus for 3 semesters until it got stolen. Its basically nothing but super crowded sidewalks constantly, with occasional glimpses of open space where you can go a little faster. I never hit anyone during this time. I also wasn't trying to go ~18mph.
Having mixed use like this is a way in which infrastructure can be designed, as can prevent accidents due to a sense of entitlement. But it only really works in certain situations, mainly involving 'last mile' traffic close to people's destination. Long haul routes cannot be designed this way.
Aapje58
5mo ago
If some space must be carved out of somewhere for the sake of cyclists, I think sidewalk space should be carved out before street space.
In the Netherlands, there are a lot of non-urban bicycle paths which are also used by pedestrians, runners, etc. This is generally fine (although pedestrians behave more poorly than cyclists), since the paths are suitable for cycling speeds and nicely flat.
And that cyclists should be held to sidewalk rules rather than street rules, since they can more easily follow sidewalk rules.
I think that sidewalk rules are worse to cyclists than a 10-20 mph zone is to drivers. At least the drivers get decent roads in that case.
Aapje58
5mo ago
The danger is stupid drivers who think that there is room when there isn't, and when they have a choice between hitting a car (low chance of injury) or the cyclist, they plow into the cyclist.
Aapje58
5mo ago
You're entirely correct but ... aren't large expenditures of your personal physical energy half the point of biking?
The other half is going places, the joy of the ride, etc.
Also, a cyclist tends to plan to use a certain amount of energy by picking a certain route. Going over budget is not necessarily preferred.
Aapje58
5mo ago
(1) A speed limit is not a minimum. (2) You are supposed to be able to stop even for stopped traffic, not depend on magic escape routes to get you out of trouble. (3) You are supposed to drive in a way that is suitable for the circumstances.
And bike trails can be quite short, unsuitable for a racing bike, not linked to other nice roads that one might use, etc.
Aapje58
7mo ago
Cults should not be spied on either, unless they are a criminal organization.
Aapje58
11mo ago
The president declares "No-knock warrants are now classified as potentially lethal force," what changes?
Federal courts have decreed that police violence should be justified by the circumstances, primarily the risk to officers and others, so they would presumably need to be able to argue some proven risk.
Which in this case seems to be absent.
All organizations had to be explicitly communist, even for doing hobbies, which is definitely totalitarian.
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