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PaperclipPerfector  3yr ago (text post)   34051 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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He may have been sitting on it, but he hadn't rented it, thus it was available it just had someone attempting to intimidate others from using it until the system allowed him to get another inexpensive turn. He can either pay to extend his rental or allow someone else to use the shared rental.

This seems far more like someone claiming that they're previous check out should give them priority over another being first in line after they return a highly demanded book to me.

Again, nobody is saying that the kids were in the right to do this in the first place. I agree that it certainly seems like they were in the wrong to try to monopolize the e-bikes the way they were. But, if we assume their account of things to be true, she acted poorly on her end as well. If someone is monopolizing a book at the library, the correct course of action is to report them to the authorities, not to take matters into your own hands and snatch the book off the desk in front of them.

This is what I'm talking about when I keep saying it isn't a zero-sum game. Assuming that the kids' account is true:

  • The kids were wrong to sit on the bikes and call dibs on them.

  • The woman was wrong to just scan the bike while the kid was sitting on it trying to call dibs, rather than just finding another option for transportation.

  • The kids were wrong to not just give up the bike they wanted to use so the tired pregnant lady could have it.

  • The kids compounded that wrong by filming the whole thing and trying to look like innocent victims.

At no step of this sequence of events did anyone act correctly. I don't need to overlook the kids' behavior to assess that the woman was rude in her own way under this view of the events.

  • -18

If someone is monopolizing a book at the library, the correct course of action is to report them to the authorities, not to take matters into your own hands and snatch the book off the desk in front of them.

Not analogous to what she did. And also a totally different situation. The relevant question for you is: How does she get home at the time she is legally and morally entitled to do so. The only correct answer is that rando teen #4 has to stop doing illegal things.

The woman was wrong to just scan the bike while the kid was sitting on it trying to call dibs, rather than just finding another option for transportation.

Incorrect. She judged that this was the cheapest and fastest option for her to return home. It is no different than if she parked her car in a parking lot an these teens thought it was cool to pose for pictures on her car and refused to let her use it to drive home.

the correct course of action is to report them to the authorities,

Which is a nice catch 22 since reporting black men to the authorities is a much bigger violation of norms since they're at high risk of being shot. This sounds to me like her option is to be a second class citizen who can't ever win.

The woman was wrong to just scan the bike while the kid was sitting on it trying to call dibs, rather than just finding another option for transportation.

It's an available bike, if the guy sitting on it wants to use it, he was welcome to check it out or extend his ride. Since he didn't it's now anyone's bike to claim. It's a shared resource. This is like saying that one person can sit in front of the crab legs at a buffet just eating them as the bucket is refilled, and anyone who reaches past them is violating norms and partly to blame. No, the person not letting others use the unclaimed bike is wholly in the wrong.

Which is a nice catch 22 since reporting black men to the authorities is a much bigger violation of norms since they're at high risk of being shot.

That's an idiotic norm and anyone who espouses it needs to be slapped so hard they get knocked into orbit. There's no catch-22 here, IMO.

This is like saying that one person can sit in front of the crab legs at a buffet just eating them as the bucket is refilled, and anyone who reaches past them is violating norms and partly to blame. No, the person not letting others use the unclaimed bike is wholly in the wrong.

Again, you're treating being wrong like a zero-sum game. It's not.

  • -13

That's an idiotic norm and anyone who espouses it needs to be slapped so hard they get knocked into orbit.

This is not the right way to express things around here.

It's not zero sum, but in this case 100% of the blame for this situation is on the kids tying to game the system not the lady using the system the way it is designed.

Yes, they bear 100% of the blame for their actions. And she bears 100% of the blame for hers (assuming the story we got is accurate, of course). Nobody is in the right here.

  • -17

She accessed an available shared resource and wanted to use the resource she paid for the use of that's not wrong.

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