bonsaii
3mo ago
Are you on good-to-neutral terms with any other neighbors who might share your sentiments? It might be more effective if police are receiving complaints from multiple sources.
It really saddens me how little importance is placed on noise ordinances. There's probably a decent societal level productivity loss from concentration and sleep disturbances by having that one asshole on every block.
bonsaii
3mo ago
Have you considered Singapore? Developed, English-speaking, short flight to India for visiting relatives, great food.
bonsaii
3mo ago
Are you going at this from a soft sci-fi angle or hard? I struggle to think how speeding up any cell types locally results in anything but disease states. Any rapidly dividing cell: tumors, CNS neurons: seizures, cardiac myocytes: arrhythmias, any endocrine cell: hormone imbalance. Not to mention, the increase in metabolic rate means your characters would need to be eating non-stop to keep up with energy demands. I could maybe see an argument for having all cell types uniformly and globally sped up might work (if you also locally distort time so things like diffusion rates for gas exchange in the lungs also increase), but going into specific cell types seems like a hard sci-fi coating on a concept that fundamentally only works as soft sci-fi.
bonsaii
3mo ago
I think about it often, but at the end of the day it's hard to let go of being in walking distance to work. >95% of my neighbors are great. I just wish it were easier to coordinate making that 100.
bonsaii
3mo ago
Then you're just one of those people who think "the courteous thing is to let people do what they want", which is perfectly fine. I just want to live around people who believe otherwise.
It costs me nothing to not have dogs or subwoofers or cigarettes. In fact, I strongly prefer not doing those things (certainly nothing approaching walking on eggshells). All I'm saying is that I'd like to find a few dozen others who agree to live together and keep the ones who disagree out.
I am actually planning a soundproofing enhancement, but nothing's going to fix the fact that opening a window at any point means I'm assaulted by some combination of dog piss and cigarette smoke from the balcony two below mine. Not much I can do about that.
bonsaii
3mo ago
I'd echo what others have said about locality. There are tons of behaviors for which my deontological side wouldn't necessarily support a national ban. Unfortunately, on a practical level, there are often so few options for local bans my consequentialist side wins out and gets me wishing for a general ban.
There seems to be a spectrum of positions on any given nuisance ranging from "the courteous thing is to not make the nuisance at all" to "the courteous thing is to let people do what they want". I'm on the rather extreme end of the former on a many issues (no one should have to hear your dog bark, smell your cigarette smoke, or feel the vibrations of your subwoofer from within their own homes).
Most people, in my experience, seem to lie moderately in that direction (they'll deal with a dog barking for a few minutes or a subwoofer for an hour in the afternoon without getting too annoyed). These people usually act responsibly without needing a ban to force them. Unfortunately, in an apartment building, all it takes is 1 inconsiderate tenant to ruin it for everyone else.
Frankly, I would pay double to live in a neighborhood of likeminded people who agree that barking, smoking, and subwoofers just don't belong in a shared building at all. Let the people who want those things live in their own building and deal with the constant smells and noise. The problem is it's actually really hard to find a place willing to actively exclude the latter type of individual. The best you'll often find is noise ordinance that is "enforced" by a half-hearted "warning" but rarely any real consequences for offenders.
bonsaii
10mo ago
This doesn't track with personal experience or with any polling I've ever seen. Indian Americans are the Asian American group that is usually most consistently supportive of Democrats (e.g. 2020 and 2012). It's possible that East Asian Americans are just less likely to engage deeply in politics overall, so your observations may just be a variance effect.
How much of this is just a leftward shift in the definitions of social "liberal" and "conservative" rather than a rightward shift in beliefs themselves?
20 years ago, "social liberal" mostly just meant supporting abortion, gay marriage, and teaching evolution in schools. Today it seems for many the term is linked to positions with less popular support, like defunding the police, reparations, drag shows, etc.
bonsaii
11mo ago
I know nothing about MMA. If all weight classes were abolished, would it essentially just be the heaviest fighters at the top? Is weight such a dominant factor that there's no point where some combination of diminishing returns, weight/agility tradeoff, and the larger population in the lower weight classes would yield a smaller top ranked fighter?
If you could choose anywhere in the US to settle down, where would it be and why (ignoring job/family ties for present purposes)? I'm thinking of making a move and have a preference for proximity to major urban centers and despise humid weather. Unfortunately, (maybe I've spent too much time online) recent news on crime and the like has got me feeling rather bearish on the futures of NYC, LA, Chicago, and SF.
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