This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Are you proposing that drivers should be required to check sidewalks for cyclists and yield when turning left or going through an all-way stop? If not you are proposing a soft ban on cycling, in that cyclists are required to yield to everyone everywhere. If you are proposing that motorists should yield to cyclists in sidewalks when they would yield to cyclists in the road then you are proposing something that non-criminal motorists would find even more annoying than the status quo.
Fundamentally, primary safety (i.e. avoiding crashes altogether, rather than making them less lethal) requires cyclists to either be in fully segregated infrastructure (either grade separated at junctions as in Milton Keynes in the UK, or having their own phase at traffic lights as in Dutch cities) or to be in the road where drivers will see them.
In addition, a bike (ridden at speed by a competent adult cyclist) is more like a car than a pedestrian in that it can't stop safely if someone crosses its path without looking. The place where you are required to be paying sufficient attention to not cross other road users' paths without looking is the road, not the sidewalk.
If you want to ban bicycles (except as children's toys) in your community, that is a perfectly plausible tradeoff to make after considering the relative importance your community places on the health and fitness of the population, teenagers' ability to be independent, green goals etc. against a marginal speed improvement for drivers. But if there are bicycles in environments where the speed of car traffic is 30mph or less, they belong in the street. Society worked this one out while Henry Ford was still alive and nothing that matters has changed since then.
Bikes yield to everyone on nature paths and it has not effectively banned them at all. Instead such paths are filled with bikers.
I'd be fine with bikes only on streets in areas of less than 30mph speeds. As soon as it hits 35 though they are asking cars to generally slow down to accommodate them. At 45mph I think they are a danger to themselves and all other drivers.
I'm fine with effectively banning what I'd consider "racing cycling" this ain't the tour de France. Just like highways aren't NASCAR or formula 1. All people in shared commute spaces have to sacrifice the top speed of their vehicle for the safety of themselves and others.
As a cyclist, I avoid 40mph roads whenever I can. Unfortunately, sometimes they're the only roads going where I want to go.
Indeed, once you're outside an urban grid, there's often only one road (or two, where one is a limited-access highway) which goes where you want to go without going WAY out of your way. If you want to go from e.g. Urbana, MD to Hyattstown, MD (both suburbs of Washington DC) on a bicycle, MD 355 is it. Mostly two lines, mostly narrow/nonexistent shoulders, speed limit varies from 40 to 50 but mostly 50mph.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Nature paths don't have store entrances all along them for people to veer into or randomly pop out of.
Also frequently they are much wider than sidewalks.
They also don't have anywhere near the clutter (sandwich boards, planter boxes, utility poles) that sidewalks do. They also don't have as much pedestrian density (usually) as sidewalks.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link