221–228 of 228 posts
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Is this a joke about how Americans sue over everything?
No? If someone does that to you, publishing a bunch of lies and defrauding the government to shut down your business, then suing them is the correct response.
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What was the social media before social media? TV?
Probably news, on TV, or in the paper, or radio. I imagine also we had more connection socially in areas like coffee shops, the library, bars, etc. What was before that I wonder? Your thoughts?
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A transit system has a different cost and is actually paid for by majority of users: the fact that few abuse it is not going to break it (as long as we keep it immoral to do so — note that there may be valid reasons to do it, when someone is in some sort of urgency and eg. ticketing machine is overcrowded or broken: it's not on us to judge even if we might be right 99% of the time). Here, we are talking about things…
This is, to some extent, precisely what happened to most of the internet. Things run for passion withered away; things run for profit remained. New people grew up surrounded by only for-profit things, and believed that was just the way things were supposed to work. They've never seen a personal website. When I was 5 or 6 my dad helped me make a web page about the Star Wars movie I just saw and didn't really understan…
The web I grew up with was clearly built by regular people, for fun, and anyone browsing it knew that they could build on it, too, whether they were interested to or not.
Today's mainstream impression of the web is that it's a corporate "content" service like TV or Spotify, with some of them offering the cool additional feature of allowing some limited user contributions.
The old idea of the web ruled. The new idea is garbage.
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> it’s unfortunately become deconstructed and politicized to the point where it’s impossible to exist as a meaningful cultural phenomenon. I think greed and corruption (cheating) by politicians and government employees has an outsized effect on this. Whenever you hear about it you lose trust and may even feel justified to cheat the system in turn. Basically they got there's, so I'll get mine. IMO the penalties for co…
> IMO the penalties for corruption in public service jobs (all the way to the top!) should also be outsized to match the damage it does to society. Tough to do when those who write the laws are a part of the problem. What do you suggest to make this so?
I think this is a little bit oversimplified and I don't know that it's even true at all. It's basically the opposite story of what's told by "Bowling Alone". That book was written in the year 2000, when the author observed that institutions that previously provided social fabric were all dying. The United States used to have a robust web of institutions that provided social fabric and they have mostly all gone away,…
Created an account just to echo this. I don't agree with the author at all . I moved to Seattle about a year ago and it's taken just as long to build something that vaguely resembles a small board game community, and I still have issues with people ghosting or refusing to play anything other than what they brought. And despite having multiple regulars, none of them have ever invited me to anything. Not even other gam…
I think the core issue is what kind of event you organize. A structured board game night is a bit the same mental category as attending a conference or practicing a sport. People mainly do it for selfish reasons, they want to get better, learn something etc. I would argue that serious bowling is the same thing, but unserious bowling is not.
Personally I mainly do random hangout nights. Tell people to bring whatever and do whatever. Some people just talk, some play board games, some get slightly drunk for fun, some do wine tasting and everyone usually mingle around, switch table and group. Great way to get to know each other and figure out that person X also like Y, then you say ”we should do Y together sometime” and 50% will say ”absolutely”, and now you start having a new semi close friend you can hang out 1 on 1 with.
Fast forward a few years and you will have maybe 1-3 persons that are your closest friend but you still continue to invite 10 people to the hangouts for the whole community but get more and more time with the smaller group.
Also work on your personality. I have met some people that are lonely and clearly want some friends but there is nothing more awkward than someone trying too hard, really wanting a friend, really trying. It is strange because in my experience I get new friends when I am not thinking about making friends, just about having fun and enjoying the time regardless of outcome.
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There are probably some savings in externalities not accounted for as well. Seems to me mass transit could reduce road maintenance costs, parking infrastructure, and such. Not to mention reduction in pollution and increase in desirability. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to “capture” those savings explicitly. So it ends up looking like a taxpayer funded charity program…
I can't remember what the paradox is called but it has a name - in any big city, public transit sets the speed of car traffic. Cars always go at the same speed as public transit, door-to-door. If you want to eliminate traffic jams, improve the metro.
If transit is slower than cars, people will be willing to pile into the car for an incremental trip, and this will continue congesting the roads until the times (including parking of course) are within the margin of error. If transit is faster, it puts similar downward pressure on the drivers, who will try to find a way to shift trips to transit when possible, to save time, decongesting the roads.
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It's attitudes like that let that stop any and every public transport being built. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0s86kEUxxak
I don’t understand how you could possibly get that take away from my comment. Not maintaining existing public transportation and making it dirty, difficult or dangerous to use is what prevents the construction of more. Voters vote against throwing more money into what seems like a lost cause or at least something they wouldn’t use if they had any other option. In the US any class besides the lowest classes typically…