Aceticon

That requires political will to achieve objectives other than wealth maximization, or in other words a political philosophy other than Capitalism which, at least sometimes, is dominant over Capitalism.

The whole point of Neoliberalism from the beginning was eliminate those and make Capitalism the dominant political philosophy rather than just a trade philosophy, so almost 50 years into it the effects are all around us and painful to see.

In Capitalist nations, the further we are from the era of peak Unions and in general civil society movements (which was just after WWII) the slower infrastructure improves from one year to the next, something visible not just in trains but at all levels (even National Health Services for those countries which have them).

The same thing will happen in China now that they're getting more Capitalist than Socialist.

It was never the Capitalist part doing the kind of improvements that benefit most people, it was the stuff outside Capitalism (that used it as a Trade Philosophy only) constraining it and guiding it for policy ends which were independent of Capitalism.

This slowing of improvements of course itself accelerated with Neoliberalism, since that stuff is mainly about making Capitalism the sole definer of policy, or in other words make Capitalism the entirety of politics, hence unconstrained and unguided by interests other than those of Money, so ever less policy was done for the greater good.

Capitalism is reasonably decent at optimizing Trade in the short and mid-term, but is completelly shit for non-Trade interests such as Quality Of Life, as well as for anything which doesn't have direct and reasonably immediate action-consequence links such as situations where negative effects are very delayed in time (for example, companies enshittifying their products but keeping on going for years on the inertia of brand name) or emergent in nature (i.e. things that appear due to the accumulation of the actions of many actors, such as Global Warming).

People at the peak Dunning-Kruger point of intelligence - just above average intelligent enough to feel they're "above" most people but not enough to properly understand the full nature of intelligence and its limits.

It's my impression that people tend to be more attracted to the unusual, so if you've grown up surrounded by big booty latinas, they're not as appealing as otherwise.

As far as I can tell, most people out there have expectations about high IQ people which are straight out of Hollywood films and wholly unrealistic, so best just leave then with whatever de facto impression of brightness they have about you than mention a number and trigger the "Mental Superman" expectations.

Also going around parading your IQ falls straight into the rule "the more a person brags about some great personal quality, the less strong it is" - if you're really that bright, brave, strong, beautiful, confident and so on, there is no need to mention it since it's generally obvious to others.

Maybe he has huge hairy balls?!

I seriously suspect they're a psyops to help dissipate people's righteous anger - people are pissed of a something, sign a meaningless petition on something like change.org, get their "I've done something" psychological kick and, having satisfied their need to do something, don't actually go ahead and do anything effective.

Defusing the anger against injustices of the very people who tend to be more aware of what's going on and more concerned about it, before it turns into action or even causes civil society movements to rise from the bottom up, is a pretty useful mechanism for established powers in those countries which peddle the illusion of freedom to their citizenry.

Look up the psychology of using "but" - in that sentence structure you were justifying the former with the latter, hence why felt the need to emphasized that those two things are separate and one does not justify the other.

As for cyclists being or not reckless lawbreakers, my experience of almost 2 decades in 3 different countries and about 5 cities is that most are not. However there are a few cunts out there spreading a bad impression on the general population about the rest of us by being reckless, so I am totally in favor that those cunts get cracked-down on hard, even if they're not as dangerous as equally reckless drivers because they're not riding anywhere near the same weight of metal at anywhere near the same speed - simple Physics dictates that a reckless cyclist is much less likely to kill somebody than a reckless driver.

Besides, cyclists who couldn't care less about endangering others behave exactly the same behind the wheel of a car and at least in the West most cyclists are also drivers (and we're all pedestrians too) so in general, that kind of person needs to be convinced to behave differently.

This isn't the fucking "thin blue line" and frankly any moron supporting those cunts just because "we're all cyclists" needs to sit down and have a really hard think about what they're actually achieving with it.

Fair enough.

This article, however, is about New York, were none of that applies.

There is no justification for putting others in danger ~~but then~~. It has to actually be applied to all otherwise it feels arbitrary.

Fixed it for ya.

There is no justification to put others in danger, period. That applies as much to drivers as to cyclists.

The unjust and an uneven application of the Law is an unrelated affair.

I've cycled in places like London, back when few people did it and the cycling infrastructure was basically non-existent and what little there was, were mostly tiny lanes painted blue on the side of the road with no actual safety from the cars and which tended to have cars parked on top.

People still didn't cycle on the sidewalk there back then, even in places without cycling lanes.

The sidewalk is not a place for cyclists: it's filled with people who don't expect cyclists and fragile and highly unpredictable pedestrians like children and dogs.

In my experience cyclists are more likely to run red-lights in pedestrian crossings than in junctions and intersections, so they're not endangering themselves, they're endangering pedestrians.

I've commuted by bicycle regularly for almost 2 decades in 3 different countries and whenever I bought a new bicycle (well, I usually got them used), I would always make sure to have a forward and a back facing light as well as a bell.

The lights are almost self-explanatory, as you pointed out, but the bell is for the kind of pedestrians who don't properly look to both sides before crossing a road (they rely on hearing and peripheral vision, both of which don't work with bicycles which are silent and have a far narrower profile than a car), as well as drivers who will do the same in intersections (these are people who literally don't turn their heads fully to look at possible incoming traffic but instead only turn it just enough to have the intersecting road on the corner of their eye) - they're to warn then when I notice they're not looking suspect they might be about to just cross in front of me.

My ass has been saved multiple times by keeping a weary eye on people on sidewalks that looked like they were about to turn and cross the street and warning them of my presence with the bell.

Also works well in places were the cycle path and the footpath are shared (like often in Berlin) to notify pedestrians that you're coming to avoid situations were they do sudden moves to the side without looking.

Even in places with proper infrastructure (like The Netherlands), it pays to be defensive in your cycling, but that's even more the case in places like Berlin (were the infrastructures is mainly decent and people are used to cyclists, but sometimes it's kinda crap) and more so in places with almost no cycling infrastructure like London.