domain:city-journal.org
yofuckreddit
6hr ago
DD says they require SSNs and IDs. Account Sharing seems rampant - their own algorithms flag more than 100,000 accounts right now to have to "reverify identity* every shift, and they're incentivized to maladjust the algorithm in their favor.
You'll almost certainly never get the real data. Instead, I'd use someone's inability to understand English as a sufficient proxy for what I'm suggesting. It's a severe enough problem on Uber (for people driving cars under a regulatory regime) that I just can't reasonably play along with the theory that the problem is reduced or eliminated when it comes to bicycles. I'm going to believe my lying eyes and ears.
Normally traditional hot "zones" of money-making became overly saturated with drivers out of nowhere, he added. He said he often chats in Spanish with foreign drivers, many of which tell him they are from Venezuela.
"[Us drivers] run into each other all day long at these various businesses and restaurants and so forth," he said. "We chat it up. I chat with the migrants, too. I'm a grandson of an immigrant. I'm sympathetic for them but I'm a rules guy first."
Preston said he personally met countless "unqualified" individuals—estimating that the senators' concerns about hundreds of unverified or illegal drivers could be understated on a national scale.
He alleged "fraudulent" accounts are commonly sold or shared via the dark web or openly in Facebook groups. In August, Preston said he hadn't been re-identified by the app in over two years.
Corvos
7hr ago
This would have been my next step but a relative (who had used them in anger) told me that they stank and to use electric lights and be grateful for them.
I was going to spend a week without electric lights (plus no PC etc.). Partly for the romance of it, partly because I thought I might sleep better and be perkier if I let myself go with the natural day/night cycle.
I bought a lantern and some slender beeswax candles, and didn’t realise that this was good enough for mood lighting but not nearly enough for anything practical.
kky
7hr ago
Jones Act
I don’t think that’s true. The Act doesn’t put any restrictions on US shipping, only foreign shipping, and US shipping was strong for about a half century after it passed. The decline in US shipping instead seems linked to the decline in US industry post-war. Unless you’re taking that decline as a given and talking about the death of small American ports that can’t be serviced by foreign shipping?
TIRM
7hr ago
But also: there is an obvious problem with some bicyclists thinking that stop signs, red lights and all other forms of traffic control don't apply to them. I'm glad to hear their terrible behavior is not killing many pedestrians. Which makes sense since I would not expect getting hit with a bike to be commonly lethal. This is unrelated to concern about food delivery scooter people.
This morning I saw a bicyclist veer into the street even though there was a dedicated empty bike lane and an empty sidewalk. He was in one of those bicyclists suits. He was going really fast, but not as fast as cars approaching him from behind. No idea what was going throughout this guy's brain. One of the many bicyclists who seem to think their bike has an integrated forcefield generator. See that kind of baffling behavior with some regularity. I rode my bike to school from 3rd grade to college. I never did stuff like that.
Right. I like to ride my bike for fun and exercise, so I have sympathy here, but the reality is that due to entirely-understandable factors having cyclists on the road generates a huge amount of unpredictability, which is one of the worst experiences as a driver and which raises the general level of danger.
People operating motor vehicles need to know what to expect! And with cyclists, one never does. Never mind that because of their combination of maneuverability and vulnerability one must always keep an eye on them, which means that one isn't free to watch the rest of the road nearly as well as one should.
We put up with this as a society because tradeoffs but let's not pretend that cyclists on the road aren't hazardous by nature. To themselves and everyone around them.
AnonymousActuary
7hr ago
honestly even from a completely materialistic worldview, the idea that spending some time every day focusing on things you are grateful for, letting go of things you are worried about, and thinking about things you want to have happen could have positive impacts doesn't seem far-fetched.
EDIT: probably should add for the sake of debate I have also had (less dramatic than OP) experiences of immediate and hard-to-explain things happening after prayer on multiple occasions. Not impossible to explain, but felt quite meaningful at the time to me.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
7hr ago
I’m not sure all of the behavior is antisocial on purpose. Cyclists are in a difficult position— too fast to be considered pedestrian, but also much too slow to really safely ride with cars and certainly don’t have the same kind of rider protection that cars offer. Some of the bad behavior might well be because following the rules is sometimes worse than not.
Tenaz
7hr ago
Based on a few interactions on this forum, I think everyone who brings up the problem of evil is personally pretty troubled by it and convinced it's a big problem. It may also be an argumentative tactic, but not a disingenuous one.
doglatine
7hr ago
I do think a lot of the conversations that used to happen here have moved to TPOT and postrat twitter. It’s a great space and there are surprising number of present and former mottizens there. Mostly pseudonymous of course but occasionally it’s come up in PMs or via dogwhistles. The notable thing with Trace and Kulak is that they kept their pseudonyms constant between here and there. A lot of people either have separate aliases on twitter or just post under their real name. I’m still trying to figure out which of you here is JD Vance.
TitaniumButterfly
7hr ago
One good thing about the potential future absolute surveillance state is that punishment for such behavior would (hopefully) be much more frequent and fine tuned.
Unless it's disproportionately non-whites doing it, in which case that's a non-starter.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
7hr ago
He didn't get an official warning of the kind that goes on the mod record, despite me putting the mod hat on. We don't officially have rules against AI content, though we're in the process of drafting them up. It was more of a polite but firm suggestion rather than punishment.
Besides, I quoted that bit specifically for a reason.
I don't think @gafpromise was necessarily disputing the "immigrant" part, so much as the "illegal". You can certainly look around any major city and see that most DoorDashers are non-white and probably immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants. Bit harder to judge whether their papers are in order on sight. While the number may plausibly be high, I would be fairly surprised if >50% of immigrant DoorDashers were illegals, let alone 100%.
ThisIsSin
Cainanites and Abelists
7hr ago
is that punishment for such behavior would (hopefully) be much more frequent and fine tuned.
Well, it will be if you do it.
celluloid_dream
7hr ago
When driving, I'm more frustrated by pedestrians than cyclists. Pedestrians cheat busy downtown intersections constantly, and this exacerbates congestion. The streets in my city are designed for timed flow patterns, and would work wonderfully if everyone would just respect the "stop crossing" signal. Pedestrians know they can get away with it (count on it, even) because it's the driver's responsibility not to hit them. Fine, I'd rather people not die, but this is pretty selfish. They also pay very little attention. The number of times I've been turning right into an alley with a pedestrian not looking up from their phone is too damn high. "I could have KILLED you! - you could have DIED! Don't you want to know about that? at least see it coming? At least shoulder-check!"
When cycling, again, pedestrians most of the time because despite having the clearest field of view and moving the slowest, they're paying the least attention. They are liable to step into my path without looking, then jump back like they've seen a bear and scowl like it's my fault.
When walking, cyclists and drivers in equal measure. It's not that they're doing anything wrong - it's that I don't want to have to be paying attention to them. I just want to have a chill walk and think about something other than road safety.
ThisIsSin
Cainanites and Abelists
7hr ago
“No one is illegal on stolen land!” in discussions about the LA riots.
Translation: "Only Blue Tribe has the right to determine who deserves what land."
TIRM
7hr ago
In Mexico I filled prescriptions by taking the slip of paper to a farmacia of my choosing. Just walk in and get it. Such a better system.
The LDS model is that God is not conceptually omnipotent. He is not capable of preserving human agency and simultaneously allowing us to grow of our own free will. We can remain like Adam and Eve, in an innocent, childlike state forever, or we can venture out into the fallen world, separated from God, with all the suffering that entails, and grow in the process.
The reason suffering exists in this fallen world is due to the absence of God--because God is voluntarily choosing not to constantly exert his power at all times in all areas. God in our view did not create the universe ex nihilo or invent concepts such as good, evil, joy, or suffering, and the universe in its natural state (without God) is one of evil, disorder, and suffering.
If God were to exert his power more, not only would the suffering disappear, but our freedom would as well. There would be no meaningful distance between action and consequence. In this world, evil actions are often rewarded. In a world closer to God, they would be punished instantly, and good actions would be rewarded. We would remain children, lacking any opportunity to exert ourselves physically, intellectually, or spiritually. I'm not sure we'd even know what exertion is; nor would there be any reason to try to do anything, since God would provide for our every need. The Bible hints at this (1, 2), but it's a primarily LDS belief as far as I know.
There would be no need for effort in the first place. We wouldn't even be capable of exerting effort. Effort is intrinsically tied to suffering, after all.
"But it doesn't have to be"
Remember that I'm talking about LDS beliefs here, not broader Christendom. Our God can't reinvent concepts at a whim.
"But can't God at least step in for the worst suffering?"
If he steps in too much then he limits our agency and our ability to grow. But I believe both that he does step in, and that suffering is very, very rarely so bad as to be intolerable. I struggled with severe ulcerative colitis for nearly a year, and found that even at the very worst moments, if I just focused on taking it one step at a time, life was still significantly better than neutral. Even in the throes of physical agony, things are basically fine. I expect this follows for literally any level of physical pain.
The worst pains we experience are losses of joy. The loss of a loved one hurts much more than any amount of physical pain. I think it should tell us something that life is, for most people, so good that our worst moments are when we lose just one of the many sources of joy given to each of us.
And then we die, our proximity to God increases, our suffering and ability to improve as people are greatly diminished, and we enter what's been aptly called a "rest".
"What about dead children? Why is a human lifespan eighty years instead of a thousand or a million?"
I can go into more detail here if you want, but suffice to say that there will be other opportunities for moral growth, and I have faith we're all given what we need to flourish.
"But what about animals?"
They have spirits too. We don't know as much about why they need to be here (it's not nearly as relevant to us humans) but they probably do have some degree of agency, and thus moral growth, and they definitely have the capacity to distinguish pleasure from pain, good from bad, on some level. They're learning just as we are. Anyways, their main form of suffering is physical.
With that out of the way. My wife read what I wrote here and told me (in nicer words) that I was being excessively callous and autistic. Sorry about that. What I wrote was not even correct, really--God doesn't ever want his children to commit suicide. But he'll also never make a choice on our behalf. His ability to step in without harming our agency is ultimately pretty limited.
In the end I have faith that your friend will be okay, faith based not in high-and-mighty philosophical arguments from first principles, but in my personal experience with God's love. I understand if you don't feel the same. Probably the most consistent response I have seen to prayer is when I have asked for relief. I can't think of a time I was suffering greatly and asked for relief and it was not quickly given to me. I sincerely believe that if you take a minute to say a prayer now, and ask for relief, or ask God if he loves you, you'll feel peace and comfort. This is nowhere near proof of anything I've said--but it's a start.
WhateverHappenedToNorman
7hr ago
The New York Police Department (NYPD) has started issuing criminal summonses for bike riders committing a slew of seemingly low-level fouls. Now, if caught running red lights, stopping in the pedestrian crossing or wearing headphones, wayward cyclists must appear before a judge, even if they are not contesting the fine. If they do not, they risk arrest.
I think this is counterproductive, because the operative phrase here is "if caught". Cyclists are terrible because their antisocial behavior doesn't quite rise up to the level of justifying sticking a rod between their spokes or arrest them, and they don't have license plates (that I know of), so it's hard to retroactively punish minor infractions. That's why they keep on annoying everyone around them.
One good thing about the potential future absolute surveillance state is that punishment for such behavior would (hopefully) be much more frequent and fine tuned.
Throwaway05
7hr ago
In ye old days we gave you a physical prescription that you could take with you, show up the pharmacy and shout "gib dis" and if they said "no have" you could take the same piece of paper to another place.
Now we mostly use electronic medical records and we ask you what your pharmacy is and send the information directly to that pharmacy.
Why do we do it that way? Likely things like "regulatory burden" and "let's not accidentally D-DOS the pharmacies with all of these requests."
Now I personally prefer paper script pads for some types of things and ask for them myself, but if your doctor does not allow that it likely it is because whoever owns them (large hospital system or PE firm) does not permit them. We don't complain too much because handwriting a prescription is a pain the ass and our handwriting is more ass.
dr_analog
razorboy
7hr ago
I used to do this with reddit.com but always ended up removing the entry after a few days.
I do appreciate your sincerity, and your honorable attempts to explain the gospel remind me of the valiant and zealous missionaries of the past, as shown in movies like Black Robe (1991). Growing up, I thought Mormons were really weird, and you are another in a long string of non-weird Mormons who challenge that stereotype. I thought the same about Catholics, as well, until @SubstantialFrivolity made a post giving quite the steelman of the branch. Like him, you are perfectly willing to wade into the difficult stuff.
No problem. To be honest, you did articulate something that it is not polite to think, yet I think many people think it privately to themselves - that some unpleasant lives would be better off if they were not alive. It is humanitarian to strive for the best for everyone, and that they continue living for as long as possible, but in many cases, the thought springs up anyway. If we actually take that thought seriously, we get some scary hypotheticals, like "at what point is it acceptable for lifelong chronic depressives to just give up and step into traffic", or "maybe you should kill your kids so they don't get a chance to lose the faith as adults". And if it was okay for her, as an abuse victim who was awfully messed up herself, to take her own life, then that has bad implications for other people who struggle with chronic depression or bad childhoods. I shouldn't have gotten mad at you, though, especially since you realized your mistake later anyway.
I hope she will be okay too, but an entire childhood of fundamentalism telling me that people who commit suicide go to hell and unbelievers go to hell cannot be washed away by the same fundamentalists backstepping with "God is perfectly just, so you can trust Him to make the right decision". You didn't say that, but there are so very many interpretations of the Bible that many people who genuinely were looking to God to give them the interpretation came to it. All of them genuinely feel their way is the right one and can cite scripture and cite their own internal spiritual uplifting upon praying. For Mormonism, the problem is even more acute, as @TracingWoodgrains found out through testing Moroni's Promise on an open minded Christian.
For these reasons, and more, I am afraid my faith is permanently disrupted. I don't think it's a good thing, so I appreciate your defense anyway.
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