the_Culture_is_great
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User ID: 3228
the_Culture_is_great
3mo ago
I don't care about the judgment of trailer trash - I care about the judgment of the "normal" people (which OP is presenting himself as) in each location.
I think the normal person in "methed up area" will have a harsher opinion on tattoos than a "normal" person in a large city. A couple of reasons:
- rural areas tend to be older and more conservative
- cities have more distinct subcultures that are both not-trash (to the typical PMC) and have frequent tattoos (e.g. LGBT folks are much more likely to be tattooed, and are not judged harshly by the PMC)
- the types of tattoos you'll see on people in the city are likely different, and on average will be more tasteful to PMC eyes
- more PMC people will know of "respectable" people who have a small tattoo that disappears under their white collar every day - there are fewer white collar "respectable" jobs in rural areas
I don't think the exact nature of judgement between cities and rural areas is central to my point though. My point is really just that local cultures differences exist, and so you can't make a blanket "Anyone who gets a tattoo is comfortable with associating themselves in this way".
the_Culture_is_great
3mo ago
basically no one walks in the area unless ...
I find it sad that so many places are like this. Mostly because the urban design sucks, but then even if you're willing to put up with that and walk anyways you're going to get judged negatively.
I'm weird in that I would want to walk places anyways (and have, on occasions where I'm outside my very walkable current location). It would be annoying to be judged for this.
I agree that you can add up all these little things together and make more accurate assumptions about less obvious things about a person. But basically everyone has a few non-standard preferences. By default you should avoid judging people on things that don't really matter, and they should do the same for you.
the_Culture_is_great
3mo ago
Oh probably the absolute rate is more or less the same, but what I was trying to get at is that the types of people who have tattoos, and the treatment of those who do are likely different in a large liberal city vs a "methed up rural area."
TBH it was intentionally flippant, sorry.
I think when arguments around what aesthetics are good/bad in general, arguments cannot be made on personal preference alone. It read to me like someone who hates broccoli, and wants us to judge people who eat it by saying "first off all, it's gross and ugly". Perfectly fine as a personal opinion! But you have to demonstrate your aesthetic principles are widely held, or justified in some other way.
I mostly agree with you about Pete Hegseth. I don't care that he has tattoos, but I very much dislike the content.
the_Culture_is_great
3mo ago
I think it's fully acceptable to take into account tattoos when judging people. However the blanket statements you're making seem way way too harsh.
First and foremost, they're ugly and I don't like them
K. Why should anyone care about your personal aesthetic preferences?
They indicate a higher level of criminality proportional to how many visible tattoos they have, along with other negative associations like substance abuse, domestic violence, and general "roughness"
This is true in a statistical sense. But the correlation is going to be noisy, and depending on your local culture entirely useless at the low end.
Anyone who gets a tattoo is comfortable with associating themselves in this way
This is only true if the local culture makes this association. My understanding is that Japan is like this to an extreme degree, to the point you get banned from bathhouses. The general association that a couple small tattoos have is nowhere near that strong in most places in NA, and even less so in most large cities.
Tattoos are expensive and painful to get and permanent
I'd argue that there's actually a positive correlation between the cost of a tattoo and the the quality of the character of the person in question. (As many "trashy" tattoos will be cheap flashes with no thought put into them, or done outside a regular shop on impulse with no thought for the future. Expensive tattoos are typically planned out with great care, discussed with a well-regarded artist beforehand, with the appropriate weight given to a permanent decision).
And painful? It's really not that bad (from my understanding, I don't actually have any myself). But lots of worthwhile things are painful in the moment.
They betray a significant deviation from my values (likes tattoos vs dislikes tattoos) and thus give me an "other" signifier for that person
This is just "I don't like them" again, and says more about you than them.
Again -> perfectly fine to judge someone for having prison-style, or face and neck tattoos, or having cheap offensive tattoos or way way too many. But the blanket statement is going to come off as rude because so many people have one or two tiny or hidden ones, that don't indicate anything significant about their character.
I myself have none, but my SO has a full sleeve, done with careful consideration and consultation with an artist. More are planned. My best friend has a quote from a classic novel hidden under his shirt. One of my siblings has a tiny symbol to commemorate a trip with friends hidden on the side of their foot. None of us are lower-class, we're all high-achieving in our lives, careers, and personal relationships.
the_Culture_is_great
3mo ago
I'm not disagreeing that adoptions can go wrong, and horribly so.
I'm saying that the "ghetto boy" bit paired with the "invasive species" metaphor is implying that black people specifically are the problem.
I guess I just think you should really stay away from species-based talk when discussing human subgroups, it's too easyr to be dehumanizing.
the_Culture_is_great
3mo ago
Maybe a bit pedantic, but your examples are also common idioms. The "invasive species" thing isn't, so I wanted why I felt it had such a strong negative implication.
But also if the comment implied that every black person in group of whites is a "wolf in sheep's clothing" I'd have the same issue. Those are both also very negative idioms to apply to people.
I think the "ghetto boy, invasive species" bits change the message from "be careful with adoption because you might get a bad seed" (the individual you might adopt could be bad and there's nothing you can do) to "don't adopt a black kid, they're all bad, and they're ruining everything".
I'm not going to disagree that black people as a group share common adaptations for warm climates, that's obviously true, and not the morally wrong part of the metaphor.
the fact that there are some nice invasive species doesn't change the fact that the typical attitude towards them in general is still very, very negative.
And finally any implication that subgroups of people are different species i.e. not human is also morally wrong, especially just dropped into an unrelated conversation (the original comment made no mention of race).
the_Culture_is_great
3mo ago
Black people are not a seperate species.
Sure make an argument about "we should stop subsidizing black people" (I especially agree with "don't subsidize people based on race specifically"). But don't do it in a dehumanizing way by calling them a seperate species.
the_Culture_is_great
3mo ago
The implication that a "ghetto boy" is a member of a "virulent invasive species" is both literally false, and metaphorically wrong.
I shouldn't have to explain why it's literally false.
The metaphor is wrong because in the typical understanding, the actions we should take against "invasive species" should be extreme, up to and including eradicating them from the "invaded" area.
You can make a nature/nurture point just fine without bringing these kind of implications into it.
the_Culture_is_great
4mo ago
They can't be the new Fedoras - some women actually like them
the_Culture_is_great
4mo ago
What, specifically, is wrong with these people? Is that really the best way to argue against them? Or is it just being kind of a dick when you make fun of people's appearances?
the_Culture_is_great
4mo ago
I would have said "leafs" or "canucks" but both of those are actual NHL teams (Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadians respectively).
Canucks are Vancouver, Montreal are the CanadiEns
the_Culture_is_great
4mo ago
- Yes for habit, no penalty if not
- Yes for cars, Idaho stop should be legal for bikes. A very slow rolling stop in a car is a minor sin though, many places would be fine with yields only.
- No, minor speeding is fine as long as safe for conditions - in sense areas traffic calming design is better, on highways limits should typically be higher. I'd prefer saner speed limits that are enforced to the letter in general rather than loosely goosy ones though.
- Yes, left lane is for passing (on freeways, streets are different due to turns). Riding a bumper is dangerous, but expected to happen if you're not passing on the left
- No, dangerous for everyone. Accept that the other person isn't considerate and merge safely later.
- No, despite the fact that some drivers can make better decisions, the rules should be universal for everyone.
- Bikes should take the entire lane if it's not safe to pass within the lane with >1m of space.
the_Culture_is_great
4mo ago
If you legalize punching the air around people's heads, I very much think that leafs to much more harm, due to inaccuracy and the tendency for that to start real fights. I don't have a source for this, but I think anyone reasonable would agree.
Legalizing the Idaho stop would not - as the studies done in places like Idaho and Delaware show.
the_Culture_is_great
5mo ago
People aren't qualified to determine what is or is not safe
This is nanny state nonsense - if drivers can be trusted at a roundabout or a yield sign, there's no reason that cyclists can't be at a stop sign
If I run up to you and punch the air around your face did I cause you any harm? No.
This is not equivalent to the Idaho stop. Treating a stop sign as a yield is not equivalent to violent threats.
the_Culture_is_great
5mo ago
No it's very related.
If the "bad" behavior doesn't cause harm, then how is it "bad"?
the_Culture_is_great
5mo ago
I think you're very much in a minority here. I would take walking around Amsterdam vs literally any major north american city, and above most European ones as well.
I agree there's a tradeoff, but Amsterdam demonstrably works as a walkable city, even if it's not somewhere you can just zone out and walk.
the_Culture_is_great
5mo ago
I don't care about "at times" I care about overall, statistically, after making this behavior legal.
The studies that have been done on this (start with the citations in the wiki article) show either no effect, or a positive effect. The people most concerned with a cyclists safety are typically the cyclists themselves, that's why the behavior is so common, it feels safe, and is safe. Stats show very low risk to anyone else.
And like you say you want cyclists to stop, but you actually don't. It's even more annoying waiting behind a group of cyclists all stopping then slowly getting back up to speed. Annoying enough that following the letter of the law has been used as a protest. https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/sf-cyclists-to-protest-stopping-at-stop-signs-with-stop-in/
the_Culture_is_great
5mo ago
The point is if you're just angry about cyclists breaking the letter of the law, then to be consistent you should be just as angry at drivers speeding.
If you're concerned about safety, then you shouldn't care about not coming to a full stop at a stop sign, it's a non-issue safety wise. Adopting the Idaho stop, and enforcing the letter of the law against cyclists who fail to even yield would get no argument from me. Enforcing that every cyclist fully stops at a stop sign strikes me as the same kind of thing as stopping every driver who's 2mph over - entirely a waste of everyone's time.
No cyclist wants to conflict with pedestrians - that's why they would prefer dedicated lanes. Would you support adding those to benefit both pedestrians and cyclists (and where there's enough space, it's a benefit to drivers too).
Yes, many poor or irresponsible people ride bikes or ebikes, probably higher than cars. That's not a knock against bikes it's a knock against the poor and irresponsible. In places with higher percentages of bike usage this is much less common. If cycling was nicer, with more infrastructure, this issue decreases as it becomes more attractive to those more responsible people.
the_Culture_is_great
5mo ago
Going from 0->1 lanes is a heck of a lot more impactful than going from 10->11 lanes.
Intercity rail isn't going to be on every street.
Ditto for light rail.
Sidewalks are for streets, not freeways.
In space-contrainses areas most people would absolutely sacrifice trees.
I get where you're coming from, more movement does have a benefit that's often ignored, but it's disingenuous to compare the request for a bike lane or a sidewalk to another freeway lane.
the_Culture_is_great
5mo ago
I mean *most, local laws do vary.
Even if it isn't illegal, it's usually also not illegal to not ride on the road, despite there being a sidewalk.
Somewhat more commonly laws mandate cycle path use, which in this case apparently there was. Though it could have been obstructed, or otherwise unsafe at his speed (certain paths are designed poorly enough that they're actually worse than no path).
I grant that in some areas, yes the cyclist could have been breaking the law. Still a minor infraction, not particularly dangerous (and what danger would be mostly on the cyclist), the biggest thing being a rather small annoyance to the drivers who had to wait to pass.
the_Culture_is_great
5mo ago
Why do cars get a pass for breaking the law for speeding? Because speeding on the highways is relatively safe?
Treating a stop sign as a yield while on a bike is also relatively safe, and is explicitly legal in many areas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop
I frequently see cyclists idaho stop, breaking the law in a relatively safe way. I see them straight up blow through lights at full speed a lot less frequently, about the same as I see cars.
And every car infraction is at least 10x more dangerous to others due to size and speed.
the_Culture_is_great
5mo ago
This isn't "twisted" logic. If the lane is too narrow to pass legally in, then cars have to merge to the other lane (or wait) anyways. Riding in the centre makes the cyclist more visible, and ends up being safer, while not disrupting traffic more than they otherwise would by being on the right. My region has official safe riding guides explicitly endorsing this.
If there is a large shoulder or bike lane, then yes, they should ride there. But drivers often are unaware, or uncaring of hazards that may not be visible to them on the far right. Debris, potholes, door zone of parked cars, trucks, etc are all situations that occur frequently, and nessitate a move to the left.
Obviously this should be done by signalling and moving over during a gap, waiting if necessary, and this isn't always done. It's nothing drivers don't do on the regular either though. (It is more dangerous for the cyclist in question if they do it unsafely, but that's a risk he's taking on, the actual risk to you in a car is minor).
Those aren't actual reasons.
This very much depends on what kind of people around you have tattoos, and what kind of tattoos they are.
Only if everyone around you is Christian. In my circles having a tattoo is whatever, but a religious tattoo is trashy
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