domain:city-journal.org
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
5hr ago
I'm not that confident! I also believe from my own personal experiences with chronic pain though, that taking disability is not a good way out for the majority.
fmac
5hr ago
Lets you think and go on autopilot, making up for lost speed.
You might be on to something here. We should replace all trans-atlantic flights with ships again. It's so simple, the passengers can just think and that will pass the additional time, they won't even notice!
Walking to my office is a 1hr 25 min walk, or 28 minute bike. I would vastly prefer to not wake up a full hour earlier, and no amount of extra "thinking" time will make up for that...
Syncs with other forms of transport well, no restrictions on taking a non-existent bike with you.
Solved by bike rental/bike share programs in most major cities.
Can easily head into a shop without having to tie up a bike.
This is significantly easier and faster (or equivalent, if there is ample parking) than parking a car. This takes 30 seconds? How is this a barrier?
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
5hr ago
If you've been on twitter in or around the tpot space the last few days, you may have seen Aella blowing up and deciding to go private. I won't recount the whole story, but it is in screenshots in the link earlier.
Suffice to say, apparently she searched her name and saw a ton of vitriolic attacks and discussions around her online presence. She claims that the worst part is the "overwhelming hate with nobody defending me. People are ashamed publicly to support me, they don't want to be called a simp or cringe."
Long story short she basically said that she is heartbroken, is "so sad the world is shaped this way," and decided to quit twitter and go locked for the foreseeable future.
For some quick background, aella is a prostitute. She is extremely successful, and has built up a huge presence on twitter as well as a cult following in rational spheres. She does data science work as well, and claims to be autistic. She is polyamorous and openly promotes and campaigns for that lifestyle, as well as doing drugs. Some of her stunts include things like tattooing her name on the body of men who have sex with her, having orgies while sharing details of who got to get in, etc.
A few darker claims are that she pushed her two younger sisters into sex work (one of them, by her own admission on twitter, was doing camgirl jobs before she turned 18.) She has also said some... problematic things that are edging around support for pedophilia, although she's canny enough not to come right out and say it.
Now as I'm sure many people here agree with, I don't exactly agree with aella's views or lifestyle. That being said I am still torn, the world is a cruel place. At the same time, aella has probably caused harm to a lot of others with her lifestyle and especially her approach to promoting it online.
This equivocation points to an actual underlying tension/confusion I have around liberal expression. On the one hang I think polyamory, sex work, and some of the.... encouragement aella has around minors watching point &c is quite bad, and should not be allowed to happen in the public square. I think a certain amount of shaming is absolutely good and necessary.
However, perhaps I'm frail hearted or something because it does hurt to see so many attack her so viciously, when they clearly have so much hate in their hearts. Perhaps it's Pollyannaish but I wish that we could do our shaming in a more dignified, and less clearly antagonistic way. It seems that most of the people shaming her, from my read at least, clearly enjoy looking down and judging someone harshly, seeing themselves as better than her. From my perspective, that's not just as bad as what she's doing, but still bad.
I'm wondering, I suppose, whether there's a way we can employ shame in a truly good way as a society? Can we somehow shame people without turning into monsters ourselves, in order to protect our children and especially young girls from (imo) degenerate and overall unhealthy lifestyles?
fmac
5hr ago
"we designed a huge majority of the land use of the built environment for only one modality of transportation, and now that modality is the dominant form. Checkmate atheists"
You're not exactly working with a control group here...
sun_the_second
5hr ago
Would you have liked all those indie hits if the artwork and text copy were noticeably AI generated?
fmac
5hr ago
Today there are people who ride bikes as back then but the public discussion is dominated by a new group who are Cyclists. Ie. people who make cycling a replacement for a car and a core part of their identity.
What a lovely strawman.
In my major North American city, basically every pro cycling person I see and hear has opinions like "my building has 0.3 parking spots per person, and I want to get to work faster than walking/transit" or "I like biking to my soccer league but the current layout of roads makes me fear for my life"
The vast majority of cyclists I see passing by my apartment window are on city rental bikes, which are 30 minute time limit (you only use for A>B, not recreation) and are super heavy so you can't go fast.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
5hr ago
I think I agree Theres a bit of a moral hazard in too much welfare, especially uncoupled from the need to push people to do what they can, and to avoid bad behavior. If someone is generally capable of working, I don’t think they should starve. That’s insane. But if the person is clearly making bad, antisocial decisions, cutting off the gibs would force them to behave. Or for that matter force them to make their kids behave, attend school and do their homework. They should contribute as they are able, and they should be making sure their kids get a decent education. And staying out of crime, drugs, and so on. If you’re doing those kinds of things, im perfectly willing to pay to keep them from starving. If they’re sitting home on gibs, doing drugs, not making sure their kids are getting educated and not getting into trouble, they don’t get the gibs. It should be a hand up to hopefully being self sufficient, not a hand out to keep them comfortable doing nothing.
sun_the_second
5hr ago
One to two.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
5hr ago
Thank you so much for finding the link, favorited! Man, I know Alone is super cynical (maybe from all the rum) but I can't help but love his devastating writing style:
Don't say that taxes needed to be higher because it was never about funding it, it was always about temporarily buying their apathy. Truth be told, it stayed solvent longer than it was supposed to-- one of the benefits of having a reserve currency, aka a private meth lab. But you knew that, didn't you? Temporary measures, just like a psychiatry that is for the "management of acute symptoms"-- or are you going to tell me you expect/want it to look like this in 30 years? Then why is it like this now?
And so this is the terrible, awful truth of it all: we created the system only for us, and will last for as long, but only as long, as we are alive, and that was as far as anyone ever thought it out. That means that any kids under 10, rich and poor, will be left to make do with rubble-- on purpose. That's what they will inherit from the Dumbest Generation Of Narcissists In The History of The World, who say with not the least bit of irony, "may as well spend it because you can't take it with you!" No kidding. You've created a gigantic Ponzi scheme which is not just morally sketchy but downright mean to your kids, but what do you care: you'll be dead.
fmac
5hr ago
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.
what is the difference between a bike lane on a road and a bike lane on a sidewalk that was expanded onto the road?
I think you prefer the sidewalk bike lane as there is grade separation. It's possible to make nicely separated bike lanes in roads too. Not all bike lanes are painted lines, American cities just don't build nice ones.
fmac
5hr ago
Have you seen a sidewalk?
This is such a bad idea. Sidewalks are full of stuff like signs, trees, children, dogs, people moving in any direction at any time because inertia isn't a thing when you're walking.
The only sidewalks it's possible to bike on functionally would be completely empty ones near strip malls or residential neighborhoods in suburbia, at which point, sure, bikes can go crazy on those. But the second there's more than a handful of people per block this gets incredibly stupid.
atelier
Jimmys: unrustled
5hr ago
It's also partly the federal government time limiting most benefit programs supplied by federal grants and making SSDI the best option for permanent support. That sets a single national standard for benefits and keeps users from flocking to the most generous state just for the benefits (not great for the generous state's population in the long run.
wayfarer
6hr ago
I also don't see cars on the sidewalk driving aggressively towards pedestrians outside of rare one off events.
Also for cyclists it is one off events, and cumulative danger is vastly greater with cars/trucks given that in collision they will squish pedestrian - while cyclists may cause deadly harm to pedestrians but it is absurdly rare
(for life-altering but not deadly harm - cars on sidewalks also cause greater danger than cyclists)
wayfarer
6hr ago
It's not safe and it is illegal and bikes break the law at much higher rates than cars do (with the exception of highway speeding for the obvious reasons).
why you think that yield on stop is bad and highway speeding is good?
fmac
6hr ago
Interesting.
The rental price drop makes sense, although seems a bit handwavey. Although rental prices are set by the market (supply/demand) anyway so I'd imagine they'd have a hard time arbitrarily going up.
The DVD analogy really bugs me though, I need to think about why.
Partially it's because DVDs are a luxury item consumed for enjoyment and places to live are a hard requirement for life to not suck. I don't understand why renters aren't entitled to any "philosophical rewards" despite also being humans who need to live somewhere, who have any number of reasons to not want to buy a home (either voluntary, or involuntary). That part doesn't sound very fair.
There's also the fact that renter FairTax paid >>> homeowner FairTax paid over basically any period. Again, seems quite unfair, although I'll need to think on this more. I don't remember how deadweight losses imposed by taxes work but I'm curious how that plays in this specific scenario.
wayfarer
6hr ago
Because people aren't qualified to determine what is or is not safe.
So why you feel qualified to say that Idaho stop is not safe?
fmac
6hr ago
"I hate when cyclists break the law, it's so bad!!!!! Cars breaking the law is fine though because that's normal"
Bravo sir, excellent argument.
fmac
6hr ago
What about cutting me off on a highway?
I also meant cars not taking turns at stop signs, resulting in multiple cars entering the intersection simultaneously because people refuse to wait their turn or were not paying attention to who's turn it was.
Finally, the whole point of my comment was to point out that just listing your personal anecdotes about something as if they are demonstrable facts and not pure undiluted confirmation bias is silly and anyone can do it, hence why I started doing it too.
You need an argument stronger than "sometimes I see things that make me unhappy"
Southkraut
Vibe of vibes, saith the Preacher, vibe of vibes; all is vibe.
6hr ago
SSDI abusers are generally past prime reproductive age, so the impact on long-term demographic dysgenics is nearly zero.
True. Which is why I prefaced this entire tangent as such; an excuse to ride my hobby horse of the more general public welfare topic.
RenOS
something is wrong
6hr ago
Tbh this is just as bad a take imo as the fanatics wanting to get rid of cars in the countryside said bc they "just need better public infrastructure". Yes, cars are superior for rural regions and public infrastucture is just not feasible there, but for well-designed suburbia and especially for smaller cities, bikes are also just better in many circumstances. It has nothing to with hobbies, hippies or fitness fanatics (though regular exercise is one of the benefits of bikes!). They need so much less space, they're cheaper, more flexible, less dangerous for pedestrians, etc.
Reducing cars in the suburbs to pedestrian speed and giving them the blame for any accident is great, it means even smaller kids can run, play, and bike through the suburbs without me needing to worry much, It means I can walk and bike there without having to be attentive all the time, and as long as it is properly designed even if I need to drive through it's just a minute or so of slow driving.
In cities car culture is also awful, the smell got better but everything is just so clogged and noisy. Worse, the danger means that even if you want to bike, it makes you choose the car bc a single idiot can cost your life. When I was living in London, almost everyone biked for a while, and those who stopped always had an incident with a crazy car driver. I myself also had several such situations. The counter here is usually crazy cyclist, but crazy cyclists are merely annoying, even a collision will usually not even seriously hurt you (though I get very pissed when small kids are involved, but even there I can literally just jump in front & stop the bike if needed); Crazy drivers can kill you with frightening ease, and there is absolutely nothing you can do. There's a lot to dislike in the EU, but well-targeted car bans are great.
SSDI abusers are generally past prime reproductive age, so the impact on long-term demographic dysgenics is nearly zero.
The decision to treat never-married single mothers as deserving poor was, in the UK at least, both conceptually and temporally separate from the decision to bureaucratise poor relief. I agree with you that it hasn't produced good outcomes.
Under the Old Poor Law, the deserving poor were generally understood to be:
- People with a record of contributing to society who were now too old and frail to earn a living by manual labour.
- Cripples and lunatics (although in practice the resources simply weren't there to support them)
- Widows and orphans.
Wounded or disabled veterans were increasingly considered deserving poor over the course of the 18th century, although they were not legally treated as such by the Poor Law system so if they didn't qualify for the Royal Hospitals at Chelsea (for the Army) or Greenwich (for the Navy) then they often ended up on the streets or in the workhouse.
Lizzardspawn
6hr ago
Ahh yes. Cleaning - such a gentle load on a person's back.
It's a bit personal, but I am quite confident in it. Read this article on Sarno if you're curious to start going down the chronic pain rabbit hole.
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