How to modernize city streets

[fskimospy]

Have you ever wondered what inside you would cause you to say, 'you would have to pay me' or 'boring as fuck' or from what such sentiments might arise. These are simply your unexamined truths, things you feel you know instinctively. Conservatives have those too with the result you cant tell them anything. The same pointless effort would be expended were I to try, here, to argue with you. Such a pity.

The point I thought was central to my post was the business of the garden. I wonder, do they still have real flowers on the table in quality restaurants, or have they dispensed with such things, or gone artificial, to save money. No truth in the idea that much of city beautification and livability is focused on introducing nature to an otherwise sterile environment. Cities are called asphalt jungles not because they represent jungles but the savagery folk imagine rules there, no?

I spent lots of time in rural areas as a kid and from that experience I know they aren’t for me. There’s nothing wrong with this, everyone just has different preferences.

This is what confused me, how can someone be so oblivious to the world around them that they would pity people for living the life they enjoy? I guess it speaks to how self centered some parts of our society have become that they can’t understand their likes aren’t everyone’s.

Although now that I think about it this does make your desire to force everyone else to live like you make more sense. You have difficulty accepting that people might wish to live differently than you and so your solution is to force them to.

 

[Moonbeam]

This is what confused me, how can someone be so oblivious to the world around them that they would pity people for living the life they enjoy? I guess it speaks to how self centered some parts of our society have become that they can’t understand their likes aren’t everyone’s.

I would love to help but doubt that I can. I can only suggest that when confused perhaps it's best not to guess, but rather examine whether the assumptions that seen to make no sense are actually factual. Perhaps a different understanding would eliminate the confusion. Meanwhile I suppose you should keep a sharp eye out for my army. My machinations on how to force you back to the land are extensive and in an advanced stage of preparation.

 

[fskimospy]

I would love to help but doubt that I can. I can only suggest that when confused perhaps it's best not to guess, but rather examine whether the assumptions that seen to make no sense are actually factual. Perhaps a different understanding would eliminate the confusion. Meanwhile I suppose you should keep a sharp eye out for my army. My machinations on how to force you back to the land are extensive and in an advanced stage of preparation.

Again, this actually makes a lot of sense. You think your preferences are facts because you’re not able to understand how someone might value things differently than you do. This is why you want to force them to conform - the idea that you might be wrong is too hard for you to bear.

 

[Moonbeam]

Again, this actually makes a lot of sense. You think your preferences are facts because you’re not able to understand how someone might value things differently than you do. This is why you want to force them to conform - the idea that you might be wrong is too hard for you to bear.

Again with the force to conform. Why would I need force? You said all I had to do to get you to move to the country was to pay you. How do you call your likes and dislikes personal preferences when you don't even correctly identify what they are based on? What you would prefer over city life is money, no, if it could be earned that way. Do you think you would sacrifice your true hearts desire for money if you knew what it is? You would be a fool to do so, I think.

I think that what you call force is really just the fear that a challenge to your preferred truth might just prove to be unexamined assumptions. I don't begrudge you having them. I just found them, personally, to be a mental prison. You will feel perfectly free if you do not see that prison but I could not escape the feeling that something was wrong. The problem with seeing what is wrong is that you can't un-see it.

 

[fskimospy]

Again with the force to conform. Why would I need force? You said all I had to do to get you to move to the country was to pay you. How do you call your likes and dislikes personal preferences when you don't even correctly identify what they are based on? What you would prefer over city life is money, no, if it could be earned that way. Do you think you would sacrifice your true hearts desire for money if you knew what it is? You would be a fool to do so, I think.

Are you seriously pretending to not know what that phrase means?

I think that what you call force is really just the fear that a challenge to your preferred truth might just prove to be unexamined assumptions. I don't begrudge you having them. I just found them, personally, to be a mental prison. You will feel perfectly free if you do not see that prison but I could not escape the feeling that something was wrong. The problem with seeing what is wrong is that you can't un-see it.

This is pretty simple - from personal experience I found I like living in urban areas more than rural ones. I’m okay with having this preference and I’m okay with someone else feeling the opposite. You for some reason are not.

 

[Moonbeam]

Are you seriously pretending to not know what that phrase means?

No, I am seriously suggesting you don’t know why we find the expressing ourselves in that manner appropriate, just words with no psychological inner content. We come to this impasse quite often I think, your logical mind content with the superficial explanations for things, less penetration as to the motivation behind them. I believe, for example, there is also a motivation behind that, one also you would prefer not to see.

This is pretty simple - from personal experience I found I like living in urban areas more than rural ones. I’m okay with having this preference and I’m okay with someone else feeling the opposite. You for some reason are not.

What a wonderful thing, freedom, the option to live the life you prefer, if only you can avoid insight into motivation and the consequences of them. But what if humanity is infected by an invisible disease, an unconscious self hatred that creates an equally unconscious wish for death, and the style of civilization you prefer is our unconscious methodology to achieve it. What happens when humanity like mites who like cheese, devour enough of the wheel, it crashes down on them.

 

[MrSquished]

Have you ever wondered what inside you would cause you to say, 'you would have to pay me' or 'boring as fuck' or from what such sentiments might arise. These are simply your unexamined truths, things you feel you know instinctively. Conservatives have those too with the result you cant tell them anything. The same pointless effort would be expended were I to try, here, to argue with you. Such a pity.

The point I thought was central to my post was the business of the garden. I wonder, do they still have real flowers on the table in quality restaurants, or have they dispensed with such things, or gone artificial, to save money. No truth in the idea that much of city beautification and livability is focused on introducing nature to an otherwise sterile environment. Cities are called asphalt jungles not because they represent jungles but the savagery folk imagine rules there, no?

I don't have to wonder, I can tell you exactly why. I grew up in the suburbs and spent about 2/3 of my adult life living in suburban areas, and 1/3 of my adult life in a more urban setting. I know the suburbs are not right for me either. I totally get why people want to live in them, raise kids with a yard and more space, have a driveway and a garage, more space, etc...I but t's not for me, it's a bit on the dull side for me.

If I know the suburbs are generally too boring for me, thus I know the rural areas would be even worse for me. Far less options for food, you need to get in a car to do anything, nightlife is terrible, art & music are far less, and I get a lot of enjoyment from seeing random humans express themselves, etc... amenities a big and diverse city has in spades...

I enjoy visiting my friends in the suburbs and I enjoy going to see natural beauty in sparsely populated areas, I just don't want to live in either area. If anything, if I could afford a weekend getaway cabin in the Catskills, I would. But I would not want to live there. I mean I've been backpacking seven times, car camping a whole bunch, and love it and can't wait to go more, I have nothing against being in the woods or the garden, it's sublime those nights on the mountain with nothing around you. It's an hour minute drive for me to go to good backpacking spots, but I get to live in the area I want to live.

And yes, there is tons of greenery in the city. Green spaces are fantastic, new ones are being created as well, ever hear of the High Line or Little Island? Central Park isn't going anywhere either, there are a lot of green spaces in the city.

I can totally see why some people would not enjoy living in a city in smaller spaces. I have no problem with that.

I just have a problem that the rural areas are voting in fascists and like to take from the government coffers while pretending to be completely independent of the government and thus voting in people that are making governing impossible. For that they can all go fuck themselves, their schtick has run its course to me.

 

[fskimospy]

No, I am seriously suggesting you don’t know why we find the expressing ourselves in that manner appropriate, just words with no psychological inner content. We come to this impasse quite often I think, your logical mind content with the superficial explanations for things, less penetration as to the motivation behind them. I believe, for example, there is also a motivation behind that, one also you would prefer not to see.

This is entirely irrelevant to my point and you’re hand waving.

What a wonderful thing, freedom, the option to live the life you prefer, if only you can avoid insight into motivation and the consequences of them. But what if humanity is infected by an invisible disease, an unconscious self hatred that creates an equally unconscious wish for death, and the style of civilization you prefer is our unconscious methodology to achieve it. What happens when humanity like mites who like cheese, devour enough of the wheel, it crashes down on them.

Like I said, it’s this basic inability to understand how other humans think where you’ve convinced yourself the only reason someone would think differently than you is because of a subliminal death wish.

Speaking of pity though, it’s sad that the idea that you just don’t understand people is so threatening to you that you’ve created this world of misery to justify it. That’s got to be a hard place to be so I hope you’re able to get better.

 

[zinfamous]

^^^ I think they should build high rise, high density, low cost housing. Pack in as many people as possible. Keep them out of my rural space.

agreed. Your rural space can then be converted to the out-of-city parking garages for the people that live and work in the city, creating all of the value for the nation. Those displaced from their rural areas can be ground into life-sustaining nutrient paste to keep our economy humming, as the actual producers can keep on working!

 

[hal2kilo]

nm

 

[Moonbeam]

I don't have to wonder, I can tell you exactly why. I grew up in the suburbs and spent about 2/3 of my adult life living in suburban areas, and 1/3 of my adult life in a more urban setting. I know the suburbs are not right for me either. I totally get why people want to live in them, raise kids with a yard and more space, have a driveway and a garage, more space, etc...I but t's not for me, it's a bit on the dull side for me.

If I know the suburbs are generally too boring for me, thus I know the rural areas would be even worse for me. Far less options for food, you need to get in a car to do anything, nightlife is terrible, art & music are far less, and I get a lot of enjoyment from seeing random humans express themselves, etc... amenities a big and diverse city has in spades...

I enjoy visiting my friends in the suburbs and I enjoy going to see natural beauty in sparsely populated areas, I just don't want to live in either area. If anything, if I could afford a weekend getaway cabin in the Catskills, I would. But I would not want to live there. I mean I've been backpacking seven times, car camping a whole bunch, and love it and can't wait to go more, I have nothing against being in the woods or the garden, it's sublime those nights on the mountain with nothing around you. It's an hour minute drive for me to go to good backpacking spots, but I get to live in the area I want to live.

And yes, there is tons of greenery in the city. Green spaces are fantastic, new ones are being created as well, ever hear of the High Line or Little Island? Central Park isn't going anywhere either, there are a lot of green spaces in the city.

I can totally see why some people would not enjoy living in a city in smaller spaces. I have no problem with that.

I just have a problem that the rural areas are voting in fascists and like to take from the government coffers while pretending to be completely independent of the government and thus voting in people that are making governing impossible. For that they can all go fuck themselves, their schtick has run its course to me.

This is all true in your reality and because you do not know what boredom is. I don’t intend to imply you are ignorant. I offer you what I see as fact because I believe there is a negative price we all pay for ignorance. I think knowledge is like a bud. The wider it opens the more magnificent the bloom.

Long ago you were in heaven, relaxed and at one with the world, everything perfection, when out of the blue you were killed by being informed you didn’t deserve to be in that state. And every time you let down your guard, allow yourself to become too relaxed, you experience an intolerable anxiety that demands some new pleasured state of distraction, endless novelty to keep the monsters at bay. Like rats on a tread wheel, we must never stop thinking, least memory reawaken. Keep skating because the ice may thin.

there is one truth and it not that we have preferences. That is superficial. The deeper truth is that we are all the same and if you know yourself you know everything.

 

[MrSquished]

This is all true in your reality and because you do not know what boredom is. I don’t intend to imply you are ignorant. I offer you what I see as fact because I believe there is a negative price we all pay for ignorance. I think knowledge is like a bud. The wider it opens the more magnificent the bloom.

Long ago you were in heaven, relaxed and at one with the world, everything perfection, when out of the blue you were killed by being informed you didn’t deserve to be in that state. And every time you let down your guard, allow yourself to become too relaxed, you experience an intolerable anxiety that demands some new pleasured state of distraction, endless novelty to keep the monsters at bay. Like rats on a tread wheel, we must never stop thinking, least memory reawaken. Keep skating because the ice may thin.

there is one truth and it not that we have preferences. That is superficial. The deeper truth is that we are all the same and if you know yourself you know everything.

People like to live in different types of places if they are able to I'm not talking about people who live in places because they don't have the ability to move where they do. Rural, xurban, suburban, urban. We are not all the same. I'm happiest here. I know this about myself. Not sure why you refuse to grasp this.

 

[Moonbeam]

This is entirely irrelevant to my point and you’re hand waving.


Like I said, it’s this basic inability to understand how other humans think where you’ve convinced yourself the only reason someone would think differently than you is because of a subliminal death wish.

Speaking of pity though, it’s sad that the idea that you just don’t understand people is so threatening to you that you’ve created this world of misery to justify it. That’s got to be a hard place to be so I hope you’re able to get better.

The source of my pity is perhaps not the same as the source of yours.

 

[MtnMan]

That's because cities are being lazy and not keeping up with the maintenance side. Some cities in the Boston metro area have street sweepers and plows that are appropriately sized for clearing these lanes.

NYC has had its head up its ass for years - the Department of Sanitation has generally refuesed to buy equipment that could be used for clearing/cleaning those lanes.

Here we get 3 - 4 snows a year that mandate plowing the streets. Since no one (in their right mind) is riding a bike in snow, bike lanes are a great place to pile the snow when they scrape the streets.

 

[Brainonska511]

Here we get 3 - 4 snows a year that mandate plowing the streets. Since no one (in their right mind) is riding a bike in snow, bike lanes are a great place to pile the snow when they scrape the streets.

Where I live, plenty ride in the cold and in the snow, so keeping bike lanes clear is important year round; after all, they're using bikes as a means to get to and from work, or to and from mass transit, or just get around town without having to deal with parking. With the right gear, snow is NBD.

 

[MtnMan]

Where I live, plenty ride in the cold and in the snow, so keeping bike lanes clear is important year round; after all, they're using bikes as a means to get to and from work, or to and from mass transit, or just get around town without having to deal with parking. With the right gear, snow is NBD.

Do you also live where people have "winter tires" put on their cars?

The tires on the typical bike seen on the street are totally unsuited for anything but dry pavement.

Now once bikes are taxed to maintain the bike lanes, then that can pay for removal of snow, leaves, trash, twigs, sticks, etc. from the bike lanes.

OBTW, I remember as a kid trying to ride in the snow... yea, that's not a good plan, especially for an adult on a bike with skinnier tires.

 

[fskimospy]

The source of my pity is perhaps not the same as the source of yours.

I think that’s definitely true, haha. Your view here is to defend your psyche from uncomfortable ideas.

 

[fskimospy]

People like to live in different types of places if they are able to I'm not talking about people who live in places because they don't have the ability to move where they do. Rural, xurban, suburban, urban. We are not all the same. I'm happiest here. I know this about myself. Not sure why you refuse to grasp this.

His view is anyone who likes to live in a way different than him is the victim of mental illness and that the law should be used to force them to live in the manner he prefers. (No joke!)

It seems he’s unable to deal with the fact he doesn’t understand how humans work.

 

[Brainonska511]

Do you also live where people have "winter tires" put on their cars?

The tires on the typical bike seen on the street are totally unsuited for anything but dry pavement.

Now once bikes are taxed to maintain the bike lanes, then that can pay for removal of snow, leaves, trash, twigs, sticks, etc. from the bike lanes.

OBTW, I remember as a kid trying to ride in the snow... yea, that's not a good plan, especially for an adult on a bike with skinnier tires.

I live in the Boston metro area. Some people use winter tires for their cars, some don't. Some people also put fat tires on their bikes for the winter for those crappier days. But with clear lanes, you can get away without fat tires. And sometimes, they just avoid biking in the few days where it will snow, and then bike on non-snowing days.

As for the tax issue: gtfo with that nonsense. These people already pay taxes that cover roads, and their bikes do far less damage to them. And many also own cars. It's not like automobiles are really covering the cost for their own infrastructure.

 

[Moonbeam]

People like to live in different types of places if they are able to I'm not talking about people who live in places because they don't have the ability to move where they do. Rural, xurban, suburban, urban. We are not all the same. I'm happiest here. I know this about myself. Not sure why you refuse to grasp this.

I thought I just spent a post explaining I do grasp it. Maybe I should try a different angle:

People are more real in the country than people in the city. They have more ‘being essence’ to give name to something invisible to people who lack such understanding. Being is life so the more one is the better ones live. All of this is not owing to ant virtue in rural people vs anybody else, but because they have a more constant exposure to the living conditions in which we evolved and in which we were designed to function. You know in the Bible how people used to live 900 years? It relates to the subjective experience of time. Thought is time. In the country the demands of life leave less time for idle thinking.

In the city it is easier to lose a sense of ones natural self and become psychotic. I hear Bill Gates is buying farm land.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I dunno about that one moonie. There's plenty of "being essence" in urban areas. I'll give ya that it's different, but people bring the "essence" wherever they go.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I live in the Boston metro area. Some people use winter tires for their cars, some don't. Some people also put fat tires on their bikes for the winter for those crappier days. But with clear lanes, you can get away without fat tires. And sometimes, they just avoid biking in the few days where it will snow, and then bike on non-snowing days.

As for the tax issue: gtfo with that nonsense. These people already pay taxes that cover roads, and their bikes do far less damage to them. And many also own cars. It's not like automobiles are really covering the cost for their own infrastructure.

Yep, bike lanes arent for snow piling.

Sometimes we get winters that just bury us, and we deal. There's been times that a whole lane on a 4 lane road is used just for snow. I think we got about 100" total that year. Other years we get not so much

I guess mtnman wants to tag bikes now? Then I'll demand more perks and better patrol for crazy drivers.

 

[MrSquished]

I thought I just spent a post explaining I do grasp it. Maybe I should try a different angle:

People are more real in the country than people in the city. They have more ‘being essence’ to give name to something invisible to people who lack such understanding. Being is life so the more one is the better ones live. All of this is not owing to ant virtue in rural people vs anybody else, but because they have a more constant exposure to the living conditions in which we evolved and in which we were designed to function. You know in the Bible how people used to live 900 years? It relates to the subjective experience of time. Thought is time. In the country the demands of life leave less time for idle thinking.

In the city it is easier to lose a sense of ones natural self and become psychotic. I hear Bill Gates is buying farm land.

I think you are completely wrong. And so so badly wrong.

Humans are also social animals. That is also human nature. That can work better for many in more densely populated areas. If we all stayed in the garden, we would not have many great things we have now, from art to science and about a million things in between.

If bill gates grew up on a farm, will you tell me what he would have done with Windows and changing the world.

You are oblivious to the nature of humans.

 

[Moonbeam]

I believe that the inner yearning of the soul of man is better represented by the garden than by the city. The effort will always be to get back to that. I think too that the people in cities think little of country folk but the folk in the country feel a real sense of pity for the people who live in cities.

It would seem that saying country folk feel pity for city folk, something I happen to know you have heard country folk express, means that you also feel such pity. I guess someone needs to pay for that since it always seems to convey, not a sense of compassion but rather that the ones to whom such pity is expressed is actually intended to put them down as pitiful. I wonder where people picked up that anger they express whenever the notion they are pitiful gets triggered even if the presence of such pity is simple conveyed as from others and not, by you, personally expressed. One might almost imagine they may secretly hate themselves. Good luck telling them that.

 

[Zorba]

Do you also live where people have "winter tires" put on their cars?

The tires on the typical bike seen on the street are totally unsuited for anything but dry pavement.

Now once bikes are taxed to maintain the bike lanes, then that can pay for removal of snow, leaves, trash, twigs, sticks, etc. from the bike lanes.

OBTW, I remember as a kid trying to ride in the snow... yea, that's not a good plan, especially for an adult on a bike with skinnier tires.

Around here sales tax pays for city street maintenance, so bikers pay for road maintenance just as much as cars, except they do much less damage.