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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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Based on this explanation, the kids were 100% in the wrong, and the nurse 100% in the right. They might not have been trying to steal her bike and make her pay the lost fee, but they were still entirely at fault for the whole interaction.

The entire point of public bikes is that anyone can reserve them. When the kids returned the bikes they no longer had a claim on them and the nurse had every right to try to rent one for her own use. That she was pregnant and came off a 12 hour shift doesn't even have anything to do with it: the boys had not rented any of the bikes, and did not want to rent any of them at this moment, which meant they had absolutely no justification for stopping the nurse from renting one.

their version is that if they'd given up the bike, one of them would have had to find some other way to get back to the Bronx

This is a pitiful excuse. First, that's not her problem in the least. Second, this has an obvious solution: the final guy just waits until someone else returns another bike.

Even if you accepted that there were only X bikes and X+1 people needing to get home. Shouldn't one of the healthy able-bodied teenage boys walk home rather than the obviously heavily-pregnant nurse?

In conclusion, according to your version of the story, the boys were selfishly abusing the system. This is why we can't have nice things: assholes want to benefit from the system (free rides), but don't want to play by its rules (after a certain amount of time, you either start paying or return the bike so someone else can rent it).

In conclusion, according to your version of the story

This is my interpretation of the story they are presenting. I am not trying to construct my own narrative.

  • -20

I'm not accusing you of fabricating anything. I'm just saying I find your conclusion baffling, according to the facts as you present them.