SwingingTheLamp
@SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
- Comment on Car crashes have killed and seriously injured roughly the same number of people as shootings in Chicago this year. Only one of these things is treated as a safety crisis in the media 12 hours ago:
Of course, I drive (I kind of have to because of the way our landscape is designed to mandate it), so I have to include myself in this. It’s well-established by psychological research that drivers have very little empathy for other drivers, but especially little empathy for bicyclists and pedestrians, viewing them as less-than-human annoyances. Add in that driving in a city requires that one subject other people to the noise, the pollution, the danger, and the arrogation of space by one’s vehicle, and you pretty much have to suppress any empathy for the people who live there, otherwise it’d be unbearable to do. That lack of empathy is textbook sociopathy, induced by the activity of driving. It just happens to be widely normalized, but we still see posts even here on Lemmy from new drivers who are struggling to suppress those thoughts.
- Comment on Car crashes have killed and seriously injured roughly the same number of people as shootings in Chicago this year. Only one of these things is treated as a safety crisis in the media 16 hours ago:
Putting the shoe on and loudly announcing that it fits?
- Comment on Car crashes have killed and seriously injured roughly the same number of people as shootings in Chicago this year. Only one of these things is treated as a safety crisis in the media 2 days ago:
Getting trapped in a building with a mass shooter is something very, very unlikely. On the other hand, I face the danger of death by automobile at least twice a day, on my ride to work, and my ride home. More, if I go other places. It may seem not that bad because it’s so normalized. Dying in or under the wheels of a car is something that happens to people every single day, and it barely rates a mention in the local news. Sometimes the victim doesn’t get even get a name. By contrast, the stochastic nature of mass shootings makes them scary, like plane crashes or terrorist attacks, the natural order of things is upended. Death is death, though, and I wouldn’t be less dead if it were a texting driver rather than a gunman.
And the texting driver is a whole hell a of a lot more likely. So, yes, it’s entirely logical that I’m afraid of that. Not being able to understand and denying that fear is exactly the kind of car-induced sociopathy that I’m talking about.
Throwing insults is not a discussion, by the way.
- Comment on Car crashes have killed and seriously injured roughly the same number of people as shootings in Chicago this year. Only one of these things is treated as a safety crisis in the media 2 days ago:
You don’t understand what fear is like?
- Comment on Car crashes have killed and seriously injured roughly the same number of people as shootings in Chicago this year. Only one of these things is treated as a safety crisis in the media 2 days ago:
They’re not the same. This is privilege speaking, I know, but gun violence mostly occurs between people who know each other. I’m not in those circles or neighborhoods, so only the occasional mass shooting might affect me.
But cars? They’re omnipresent. There’s a steady stream of them in front of my home, so I can’t avoid the danger. My life is threatened by cars every damn day, and my quality of life degraded by them. And you can’t tell me that driving a car around a city is anything but sociopathic disregard for the well-being of others, because that’s what it amounts to.
Cars as bad as guns? No, they’re worse.
- Comment on Car crashes have killed and seriously injured roughly the same number of people as shootings in Chicago this year. Only one of these things is treated as a safety crisis in the media 3 days ago:
An automobile, at the end of the day, is a luxury item. A toy. Humanity existed for most of its history without cars, and even today, you can get to work or the grocery store without one. (Granted, often not easily, but that’s only because we’ve made it difficult to get there any other way. But making it difficult was a deliberate policy choice designed to exclude poor people.) One could argue that the automobile is an anti-tool, as its use is making our lives materially worse (traffic violence, health impacts, pollution, ecosystem destruction, climate change, the burden on government and personal budgets), but that ignores a car’s major function as a cultural identity marker, and for wealth signaling. We humans value that a lot. Consider, as but one common example, the enormous pickup truck used as a commuter vehicle, known as a pavement princess, bro-dozer, or gender-affirming vehicle.
In that way, they’re exactly the same as firearms, which are most often today used as a cultural identity marker. (Often by the same people who drive a pavement princess, and in support of the same cultural identity.) Firearms are also also luxury toys in that people enjoy going to the firing range and blasting away hundreds of dollars for the enjoyment of it. But beyond that, the gun people have a pretty legit argument, too, that their firearms are tools used for hunting and self-defense. They are undeniably useful in certain contexts, and no substitute will do. One certainly wouldn’t send mounted cavalry with sabers into war today.
- Comment on Add it to the pile of reasons to hate 'em 2 weeks ago:
It’s even sillier when you realize (hah!) that -or came from Latin, and -our came from Old French, and both had been used interchangeably in English for at least a century when Samuel Johnson decided to use -our in his dictionary, and Noah Webster decided to use -or. So Britons and Yankees are equally (in)correct.
- Comment on I'm gonna mute this one 3 weeks ago:
Personally, I’d go with the idea that the Democrats are the ones who fight for brightly-colored warning signs, guardrails, and PPE for the operators of the orphan crushing machine.
- Comment on Has Slavic engineering gone too far? 4 weeks ago:
Brilliant! Just put your pillow in the wash on spin cycle while cooking your risotto to save a lot of effort.
- Comment on The Faculty, any day 5 weeks ago:
Freaky! For the most part, name a movie, any movie, and I haven’t seen it. But I’m one of the few people who saw Space Truckers in a theater. Stuart Gordon went to school here, so he had screening of the film at the student union, followed by a Q&A session, back in '96.
Yes, it was a hoot! Gordon was a founder of an experimental theater company here which has the improv mentality of treating goofy ideas seriously and just going with them. That sensibility shows through in the movie, for sure.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
That’s the leftist ideal. (Which, true, few people fully reach.)
- Comment on Explains crossfit 1 month ago:
Meanwhile, there’s me wondering why hockey is all of sudden so popular in the middle of the summer.
- Comment on The hills are alive with the sound of music! 🎶🎵 2 months ago:
- Comment on What programs do you wish a good FOSS alternative existed, but doesn't or most of the FOSS alternatives simply aren't good? 2 months ago:
That’s amusing to me. Back around 2010, I used a lot of state legal forms that they only released as PDF files, but not fillable. It was annoying to print them and fill them by hand, and terribly fiddly to use the PDF annotation tool on the computer.
So I just used OpenOffice.org to create almost-pixel-perfect versions of the forms, with fillable text boxes, then exported them as PDF. Word couldn’t do it at the time.
Now, at work, I use Microsoft365 because that’s what everyone uses because of the site license. I wish we’d switch to something else, because Outlook fails so hard at basic email stuff.
- Comment on A bit of salt makes it taste more savory 2 months ago:
The first time I had ever heard of the word “tankie” was on Lemmy. It’s just not a thing that about anybody I know offline is, or has heard of. So I don’t understand the obsession with them. Even if they’re doing every evil thing claimed, it’s a) the metaphorical tempest in a teapot, and b) not even working, based on the number of people here who seem to make hating on tankies part of their identity.
- Comment on From a purely political perspective, if you oppose the US tariffs as a US resident, should you buy or avoid buying products subject to tariffs? 2 months ago:
You get thrown out of a farmer’s market if you show up naked, though. Probably thrift stores, too.
- Comment on What efforts would it take to strip the name Americans from the folks inhabiting the US? 2 months ago:
Does that make the rest of the world Themians?
- Comment on What efforts would it take to strip the name Americans from the folks inhabiting the US? 2 months ago:
Each of the 50 states has a somewhat unique name, and residents of the state therefore have a unique demonym. Use those instead?
If that’s too many names, Colin Woodward has identified 11 culturally-distinct nations in the US. That would actually promote a lot better understanding of why the country is the way it is. I’d be a Yankee.
Changing the collective name demonym Americans would be confusing during the transition, and for what benefit? Is this really a concern for residents of other countries in the Americas? Are Colombianos really scrambling to be called Americans?
Instead, I suggest taking Pres. Sheinbaum’s suggestion, if you want to do something: Call the continent Mexican America. Everybody would know what you mean from context right away. No confusion, no need to get anybody else to play along.
- Comment on From Cleaner Bathrooms to Fewer Trailers, 5 Movie Theater Owners on Ways to Bring Audiences Back to Cinemas 3 months ago:
Only one of the interviewees said location. That would be key for me. If the theater was close by and integrated integrated into daily life, I’d probably go a lot more often. Instead, all of the theaters are way out on the edge of town, often in some grotty commercial area where the land is cheap enough for the obligatory huge parking lot. It’s a commitment to get there, as in, you intend to go to a movie and only to a movie, because there’s nothing else to do nearby. No dinner and a movie, no random matinee as a break from the office grind, no movie followed by hanging out with friends at the bar across the street. I might as well watch at home.
- Comment on Inching closer to the grave every day 3 months ago:
I’ll be happy to leave it to anybody who reads this thread to figure out what the problem here is.
- Comment on Inching closer to the grave every day 3 months ago:
That’s a reading comprehension problem, I’ll wager. I said Target had it like it was a common thing.
- Comment on Inching closer to the grave every day 3 months ago:
What the hell? Why are you telling me what I think?
- Comment on Inching closer to the grave every day 3 months ago:
As an aside, the Target store near me carries Polaroid film and vinyl records. With everything virtual and touchscreen these days, some kids value the kinesthetic experience.
Heck, I’ve been cell phone-only since 2003, but I’ve been thinking about setting up a landline phone from my childhood with a VoIP adapter just because it has such a satisfying heft in the hand, and tactile buttons.
- Comment on Thinkpad for the win 3 months ago:
Goddamn, thank you. I needed the laugh this morning, so I went back to watch the video.
- Comment on Murica 4 months ago:
If it’s me on the bike, know that I’m pitying you. -6°C is nothing. I drove a lot of miles as a delivery driver, and saw a lot of faces behind windshields in that time. Very few happy faces. Driving makes people miserable.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 4 months ago:
Enough farmland? I suggest reading up on the Ogallala Aquifer. Also, where the best climate zones for agriculture will be 50 years from now.
- Comment on Over 20M 'people' listed as 100+ years old in the SS database? 4 months ago:
I feel like Betteridge’s Law of Headlines applies here, too. If Leon had found fire (fraudulent benefits), he would have posted fire instead of smoke.
- Comment on Good morning. 4 months ago:
Borrowing is not an option?
- Comment on [deleted] 5 months ago:
Compare the situation to all the noise and outrage, but nobody shows up.
- Comment on Why do some laws exist if everyone is expected to just break them? 5 months ago:
Given those conditions, everybody drives the speed of the slowest driver.