shrug Where I live, cars feel (and know) that they’re invincible and likely to suffer no punishment if they kill someone.

Drivers like to think that they can do no wrong all the time, not just when it suits their purpose.

I’ve never heard of transpire being used for the first definition. Perspiration is the act of sweating, and it comes from Latin I think? High school was so long ago.

An ex-coworker of mine recommended Mango Languages, which is supposed to be much better and also if you have a library card, you can usually get a subscription for free through them! The lessons are probably a little longer than 30 seconds, but not too much longer. I’d say a minute tops.

This might be survivorship bias. If you get hit by a cyclist, you might - worst case Ontario - break a limb or something if they send you flying into something else. If you get hit by a driver, you are definitely going to break something and you will most likely die.

As for how likely it is that you actually get hit - do you think it’s easier to avoid a 2’ x 6’ object moving at 15 mph or a 8’ x 16’ object moving at 45 mph?

You’ve waited years for this moment, haven’t you?

Indeed it is. :) At least I don’t have a space in my name. That’s how you know who the real bots are.

Especially not with a fucking adjective-noun username.

Good catch. In my haste to be mad at Florida as a state, I overlooked that.

Nah, didn’t you hear? This is all Biden’s fault, actually.

They want those things so they can claim that they’re being bullied. It’s Christianity all over again - a group of people who historically have been pandered to and coddled claim that everyone is being mean to them and so we should be instituting some sort of theocratic state. That’ll show them.

I’m not arguing with them, though, am I? I’m making the argument to you and others who (seemingly) aren’t all the way down the rabbit hole.

My overarching purpose with all these comments is to dispute the idea that the left is somehow responsible for how the right has gone full-on fascist over the past 4 election cycles. The right is responsible for their own logical and moral failings.

I didn’t say you did, but I can see how you got there.

That’s anecdotal, but it does display the frustrations that people have with what they perceive as injust wokeness.

I think it’s important to mention that shitty people are everywhere and in all shapes and colors; these two may just stand out because he does feel like he has to walk on eggshells around them.

What I will say is that I think it’s a mistake to assume that people who are minorities or other discriminated classes are also progressive by nature. In a perfect world, your race and gender would have nothing to do with what political ideology you subscribe to, but we live in a far from perfect world.

I don’t know about extremely targeted, but… Tallahasee? They’re probably safe there.

Re: coherent answer, that’s okay. I’m rarely coherent.

Cancel culture is most certainly a thing. It has the effect of saying to people “hey, if you don’t change your views, then your life is going to be a little more unpleasant.” You’ll get dirty looks when you order coffee with your MAGA hat on, or get laughed at when you drive your Cybertruck down the street. No one is entitled to not have these things happen to them, so in my mind they’re fair game.

The reason cancel culture has largely failed is because instead of hearing numerous people say “hey, your opinions and actions make me a little uncomfortable to engage with you as I normally would another person, and so I’m going to not engage with you”, conservatives have instead retreated to their own corner (think treehouse that says No Girls Allowed) to all gather and complain that no one else will play with them. In short, they’ve taken the wrong lesson from it.

The way that podcasts and other methods of engagement have changed the way shame works is an example of this, not evidence that it doesn’t work. I would argue that if your identity is built largely on being disrespectful of certain groups of people and looking down upon them, your identity doesn’t really deserve to exist. I disagree that Trump “understands” just about anything he says. He has ridden a wave of podcast bros, crypto fanatics, undercover racists, gun nuts, and other people who have taken the wrong lesson from the admittedly annoying moralizing that people have sent their way.

Fascists have most certainly taken advantage of the landscape to boost recruitment and foment dissatisfaction and anger, but I think once again, we’re learning the wrong lesson. We need to stop being so tolerant of those who do not in turn show tolerance.

I appreciate the anecdote, because I think it’s happened to all of us. I had a similar interaction with someone who balked at my usage of the word “homeless” (I live in a city, so it’s come up once or twice), insisting that I should instead call them “unhoused”.

I think the important point in your anecdote is saying “it’s unsettling and angering to be called out for doing/saying something racist when you in fact are not racist”. My stance on this issue is that everyone’s a little bit *-ist. Instead of concluding “people can do and say racist things while not being racist”, I think a more helpful conclusion would be “people do and say racist shit all the time without meaning it because we have a lot of racism built into our brains”.

I agree with you on the othering, however. I dislike when people try and put racists, sexists, etc. in a timeout corner, mostly because it seems to be with the aim of declaring themselves A Good Person rather than actually affecting any social change. I think it’s more helpful to say “hey, look, we’re all born with a lot of baggage from our environments and parents, and we don’t get to choose how our brains are molded”.

Okay, let’s go down this road. I think you’ve touched on something important, so I genuinely want to get this.

How have the left played a “huge emotional role” in the polarization? I suppose you could argue that “the libs” or progressives have essentially started to shun those who they find don’t agree with them on certain key issues (abortion/birth control, immigration, etc.).

But how does this differ from how political discourse has been for the last few decades? People want to act like cancel culture is this new thing that Millenials invented, but societies have utilized shame in order to shun unwanted or undesirable opinions forever. Really, the only thing that’s changed from my perspective is that people have started drawing lines in the sand, and conservative reactionaries stamp all over the lines, then go Pikachu-face when they’re boycotted.

So your argument is that stupid people are falling for really transparently disingenuous PR stunts and that neither those perpetuating those stunts nor the ones falling for it have played a huge role in it.

It’s extremely disappointing to me (admittedly in the US) that Covid seems to have obliterated any chance for a large-scale investigation on payment processors’ stranglehold on our financial systems. The fees that Visa/Mastercard/etc. charge, especially for tiny merchants with insanely low transaction numbers, are criminal.

Turns out you don’t become one of the world’s richest men by not being a fucking selfish coward.

Reserving judgment, but “unfiltered” places on the internet usually tend to veer one way.