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Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

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Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#291

Post by b112 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #281
b112 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, people used to have non-gender, non-racial terms for people. For example, a person might be called an 'asshole' or 'bonehead', and this could be a person of any colour, any sex, age, etc. Yet now, it seems all sorts are labeling people based upon sex, colour, ethnic background, etc. It is, quite literally, the definition of sexual, racial, age discrimination. It is linking "external characteristic" wi…

> Just call someone what they are. "Asshole" has worked fine for millennia. Except that Karens and assholes are different. Karens can be assholes, sure, but a Karen is a specific type of asshole. Football hooligans may be assholes but they're generally not Karens. It means something different, and there isn't another word that means the same thing.

Unless a 'Karen' can be an elderly aging Asian man, it's sexist, ageish and racist. Here's a few other such terms:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs

A lot of these terms link specific behaviour, to specific ethnic/sex/cultural groups. I guess they're OK too?

I find it utterly disgusting, that some people think some things are 'one way'. That racism is OK, but only "one way". Sexism is OK, but only against men. The list goes on.

Let's see how long you last, if you see a lazy black person (they exist, like lazy people exist everywhere)... and you spout out "Bluegum!" Is that OK?

No?

Then why is it OK with 'Karen'?

You'd don't cure social ills by creating more of them.

"An eye for an eye, leaves the whole world blind." is highly accurate, I think.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#292

Post by throwaway0a5e »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #268
pjc50 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know anyone in this country, urban or rural dwelling, who can't walk to a shop or a pub The average walking distance to a pub has gone up a lot in recent years due to closure, and walking on rural roads at night where there is no footpath is horrendously dangerous even if you carry lights. It's a nice idyll but it's no longer really true. What you say about Simcity is absolutely true though. It doesn't corr…

Is it true that walking on rural roads at night is horrendously dangerous? I was thinking less traffic means its probably safer than the collisions that happen when pedestrians step off the pavement in town. I found something that kind of supports this notion but isn’t really conclusive https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Wonder if you have a link to share?

>Is it true that walking on rural roads at night is horrendously dangerous?

No. It's not. You just can't expect drivers to see you so you have to take care and step more or less off the road if there isn't a wide shoulder available for your use at that spot. It's not a big deal because cars aren't that frequent.

It's really no different than any industrial workplace where it is expected that the lighter traffic will make way for the heavier traffic.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#293

Post by buran77 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #275
impendia wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Karen isn't derogatory to women, it's only derogatory to Karens. I would dispute this point. The term is, at least, derogatory to women who are named Karen -- whether or not they are "Karens".

Being a Karen has nothing to do with your actual first name. What you're really doing there is showing why it isn't sexist even though it's implicitly female. The detail is only there for color, not as a core component of the archetype.

It is insulting via the sexist, racist, and stereotype routes simply because you meant it to be insulting. You explicitly use the "image" of a white woman in a stereotypically unflattering situation as an insult. In this case it's your implication that [quoting you] "a specific type of asshole" must be associated with the image of a white woman as represented by the name "Karen".

Only a serious level of bigotry would make someone pretend it's not racist or sexist if the word can also mean something else, in this case a simple name. It's what you meant by it and what you associated that with that matters.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#294

Post by tannhaeuser »

pjc50 wrote: post #264
barnabee wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, "zoning" is just a bad idea. There's no such thing in the UK [1] and it still surprises me that it's quite a common approach. (As a kid I thought it was a game device employed to make urban planning in Sim City manageable. I still wonder if that series of games hasn't increased its prevalence.) Instead, in the UK you require 'planning permission' to change the land use of any building. This is d…

> I don't know anyone in this country, urban or rural dwelling, who can't walk to a shop or a pub The average walking distance to a pub has gone up a lot in recent years due to closure, and walking on rural roads at night where there is no footpath is horrendously dangerous even if you carry lights. It's a nice idyll but it's no longer really true. What you say about Simcity is absolutely true though. It doesn't corr…

AFAIK, there's no such thing in city planning as "Medieval mixed walkable". Rather, business of the same guild worked in close proximity, so that one wouldn't undercut the others (AKA a price cartel). It's why we have meatpacking districts etc. Maybe it's different in UK, though.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#295

Post by jacobush »

nitrogen wrote: post #177
PakG1 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the heck? How would they even know? Neighbours reported seeing them carrying new cabinets in? The store reported it to the government? That's just weird.

Neighbours reported seeing them carrying new cabinets in? Something like this actually happened to a former colleague of mine. They installed a safety rail on their front porch. Someone complained.

That’s at least outdoors

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#296

Post by qwerty456127 »

Matt3o12_ wrote: post #223
qwerty456127 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of separating business and living into distant zones and forbidding trading within residential areas has always infuriated me with its absurdity. Who could possibly come up with it? It only makes sense when it's about noisy and air-polluting businesses, grocery/whatever stores and offices are absolutely great to be dispersed within residential areas!

> It only makes sense when it's about noisy and air-polluting businesses, grocery/whatever stores and offices are absolutely great to be dispersed within residential areas! Grocery stores (even small ones) can be very noisy, especially with extended business hours these days. I used to live In an apartment above a grocery story with a small parking lot for a long time. This was also in a mixed zone area (mostly resid…

> At 6am, trucks start rolling up and delivering food (although they are only supposed to do that at 7am, on some days they’ll start at 6). That means very loud beeping from the trucks backing up and shouting to the grocery employees above engine noise.

Exactly the same takes place in purely residential areas anyway because of garbage trucks. That's no problem if you shut your window however, modern windows isolate noises pretty well.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#297

Post by Nasrudith »

b112 wrote: post #291
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just call someone what they are. "Asshole" has worked fine for millennia. Except that Karens and assholes are different. Karens can be assholes, sure, but a Karen is a specific type of asshole. Football hooligans may be assholes but they're generally not Karens. It means something different, and there isn't another word that means the same thing.

Unless a 'Karen' can be an elderly aging Asian man, it's sexist, ageish and racist. Here's a few other such terms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs A lot of these terms link specific behaviour, to specific ethnic/sex/cultural groups. I guess they're OK too? I find it utterly disgusting, that some people think some things are 'one way'. That racism is OK, but only "one way". Sexism is OK, but only ag…

For what it is worth I have seen Karen used as aggressively agender and aracially like referring to an obnoxious customer who was a black man as a "Karen".

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#298

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

coffeeling wrote: post #289
brobdingnagians wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone explain how the term "Karen" isn't both racist and sexist at the same time? I hadn't heard of it until a few months ago, and now it seems everyone is using it to refer to a certain kind of "middle class white woman". A term like that to describe a certain kind of middle class asian or black man would be very offensive. Are the days where we try to exercise civility and empathy gone? It feels like society h…

I've always seen it as referring to a certain kind of insufferable, entitled customer that demands to see the manager. Usually presumed to be a middle-aged white woman, yes, but the weight was on insufferable behavior, not demographics, at least originally. Suddenly people have started complaining about it as being heavily about race/sex and being bigoted, when the original was just codeword for asshole.

There are too many people named Karen for it not to become offensive to those people at least.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#299

Post by AnthonyMouse »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #279
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I see a term that is derogatory towards black people, I have every right to object even though I'm not black. Karen isn't derogatory to women, it's only derogatory to Karens. There is no implication that women are all Karens, only that Karens are contemptible. > In fact you seem to be claiming, in this case, that you would only ever object to the term "Karen" if you actually have the characteristics that the ter…

You're right "little black men" isn't quite analogous, I couldn't think of a first name that as obviously belongs to a specific race as "Karen" is obviously female. A sibling comment gave a great example of "Mohammed", but instead of their example imagine that Mohammed was being used exactly like Karen, just for someone unnecessarily obstructive. And then someone uses it claiming, oh no, just because I used that name…

> And then someone uses it claiming, oh no, just because I used that name doesn't mean that it's meant to refer to Muslim or Arab people necessarily. Oh really? It was just a total coincidence? Come on, clearly not.

Suppose I use "Shaq" as a stand in for a generic basketball player. I'm obviously making reference to a specific famous basketball player who happens to be a black man, so is that racist and sexist? Asians can play basketball. Women can play basketball.

It's not chosen at random, it's chosen as an exemplar of the category. The original Karen (from /r/FuckYouKaren) was a real person named Karen.

> historically, it is sadly a stereotype that women's opinions are more petty and unimportant than men's. The use of the word "Karen" for someone with unimportant, ill-informed opinions is directly playing into an existing stereotype. And it is totally avoidable.

I don't think it is avoidable. If using a woman's name is sexist then so would using a man's name. Either way it would cause the reader to be more likely to picture the person with the contemptuous attitude as that gender. But so would not specifying one at all, which we know generally causes people to picture a male. So you have to make a choice one way or the other.

And if it's "fantastic" to select a female in the contexts where the subject is a meritorious student or engineer, sometimes it goes the other way too.

Re: Put tiny businesses back into residential neighborhoods

#300

Post by lazyjones »

Tiny businesses aren't disappearing because of zoning, it's the economy of scale and heavy taxation/regulation that made them (or the lower-margin ones) unviable in places where they used to be common (like big European cities).

One of the more memorable stories about a tiny waxing studio giving up here in Vienna was them being required to have employees working in rooms with windows only and the only big enough window was the storefront one.

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