thejdizzler
17hr ago
So what are you reading?
Working on my annual re-read of Battle Cry of Freedom and staring the Stormlight Archive.
thejdizzler
17hr ago
One of the more impactful books I read this decade was Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. The books argues that our media environment, primarily TV in the time that this book was written, encourages political infantilization, rhetorical deskilling, and an obsession with appearances rather than substance of policies and candidates. Parts of this argument are undoubtedly true: Postman gives the example of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 where people stood for 7 HOURS to listen to the two politicians duke it out over the nitty-gritty policies related to slavery as an institution at that time. I couldn't see very many people today, much less your average social-media addicted normie (probably the equivalent of a rural Illinois farmer in the 1850s), paying attention to anything for 7 hours, much less grasping complex policy arguments.
But at the same time, I wonder how rose-tinted Postman's perception of political culture in the antebellum period was. I'm doing my annual re-read of Battle Cry of Freedom, and this time around it really struck me how much heavy-handed, or even blatantly-illegal shit that the pro-slavery faction of the nation in the 1850s got up to in the lead up to the Civil War. The Filibuster invasions of sovereign Central American countries were sanctioned by many politicians in the South, and the individuals responsible got away scot-free because of the bias of the jurors. The Fugitive Slave Act and related Dred Scott and other Supreme Court rulings were attempts to basically force the North to accept slavery throughout the whole country. Pro-slavery forces from Missouri tried to falsify elections in Kansas to force admission of that state as permitting slavery, despite a nearly 10:1 ratio of yeoman farmers:slaver holders in the territory. And this isn't even getting started on the morality of slavery itself. Of course the more extreme abolitionists also got up to some indefensible stuff (mainly thinking John Brown and his backers), but the majority of the insane policy prescriptions and rhetoric came from below the Mason-Dixon Line. All this is to say that basically, it seems to me that the undoubtedly superior attention spans and verbal reasoning skills in general didn't seem to do much to help policy-makers decide the slavery question. In the end force of arms had to do that.
I see a lot of parallels between the South's position in the 1850s and perhaps surprisingly the pro-immigration crowd in California/other Blue States. Of course there are perhaps more moral parallels with the extreme abolitionists, but in terms of contempt for the constitution, federal authority, and inability to understand the game theory of their opponents, the anti-ice protestors remind me a lot more of Jeff Davis and Robert Toombs than William Lloyd Garrison or Abe Lincoln. In both cases, it doesn't seem that attention span, or verbal IQ helped either side convince their opponents or find a peaceful solution to the problem.
Are there other examples that you can think of where the attention span and deep thought that Postman aspires to have helped cities/nations get through tough political challenges? Or are these tools only really useful in justifying what one already believes in a slightly more pretty way, leaving the actual battles over fundamental differences to be fought on the battlefield.
Postscript: One difference that I do think is real between today and the 1860s is the willingness of young men to actually put their lives on the line for what they believed in. Say what you will for John Brown, or Stonewall Jackson, but they were willing to die to fight against (or for) slavery. There were quite a few university professors and students in the Union Army. I don't think you would see this kind of behavior today from either side of the political divide, but especially from the left.
thejdizzler
2d ago
I like this framing!
thejdizzler
4d ago
So does NoFap/Semen Retention actually do anything? Or is it all a bunch of bullshit?
thejdizzler
5d ago
I wonder if it's because cyclists in general hate stopping. Decelerating and accelerating again on a bike is really annoying, and being forced to do repeatedly might be the source of the annoyance. Not that makes this acceptable behavior in a pedestrian space.
As a cyclist I think most of these interactions could be avoided if the roads were made safer for none cars. I'm not going to zoom through a public park if I can use a nearby road without feeling like I'm going to die.
thejdizzler
5d ago
Again, more anecdotes, not actual statistics. I don't doubt that you have had and continue to have these terrible interactions. But the statistics show that cars have at least 8x the rate of this behavior on average. Maybe we just don't notice because it's been so normalized, but the statistics don't show that ill behaving cyclists are any worse than the worst drivers.
thejdizzler
5d ago
I was hoping for a reasonable discussion from this place, but nope, once again the cyclist hate is out in full force in the comments to this very reasonable and balanced top-level post. Not one actual statistic about the actual danger from cyclists to pedestrians (vs. cars), just anecdotes about the one time a cyclist was really reckless and dangerous on the road that really pissed the poster off. As you state, cars are 8x more deadly to pedestrians (and this is not including to other motorists). And cyclists are supposed to be the arrogant, crazy, and entitled ones?
And that's also missing the fact that the real problem seems to be E-bikes, as you suggest, not analog bikes. Ebikes/mopeds/etc. are fundamentally different from analog bikes because you can easily reach much higher top speeds (whereas this usual requires being pretty experienced on an analog bike), you don't have to expend enormous amounts of energy stopping and starting (because you have an electric throttle), and your vehicle weighs much more, meaning it represents a much bigger risk to pedestrians than a 10-20 pound analog bike. Lumping analog bikers in the same category as those electric motorbikes is insane.
I understand the appeal of cars. They are fast and convenient and give you a lot of independence. But as a national form of transportation, they are incredibly wasteful of resources and space, kill tons of people, and make our cities and communities dysfunctional. And in a future on the downslope of fossil fuels, they won't be possible at the scale that they are now. I wish we would consider how to reduce our car dependency when we still have the surplus energy to do so, but I don't think these kinds of issues are on many people's radars here or in the wider world, so I doubt that this will happen.
thejdizzler
6d ago
Can you link the video? Sounds like something I need to hear.
Interested to hear your thoughts on Stormlight. I don't think I'm going to like it, but I promised my friend group I would read at least the first book.
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