I mean, kind of, but the robber is the root cause. They have agency and choose to rob. If it was flood protection, yeah, can’t blame the water.

The Republicans deserve the bulk of the blame

If I leave my door open and someone robs me, that’s a little bit my fault. But it’s a lot the robber’s fault.

The Republicans have agency. They choose to be human shaped trash bags. They deserve the majority of the blame and scorn. They are the worst people on earth.

I don’t think laws mean anything anymore. There are too many bad faith (pun intended) people in positions of power.

NYC transit I think caps at $34/week, which I don’t hit because I walk most places.

When I lived in the suburbs I did some math about the cost. I was paying like $300/mo for transit into the city, plus all the other car coats. Moving in meant rent went up some, but I got rid of the car. Big win, in my case.

There’s that bit in Baldur’s gate 2 where some NPCs decide they can take you on, die, and then reload the game.

If ww3 happens to the tune of the US collapsing, there’s good odds it ends in a nuclear wasteland. There are too many religious nut jobs in power that probably believe nuking new York City means Jesus will come back or something.

The bullets don’t have to be silver. The GOP aren’t werewolves.

It’s like when people say they hate obamacare but they love the ACA. They don’t know what they’re talking about, but they have a well worn heuristic of “what does my in-group say?”

Or it’s like that spongebob meme with patrick and the wallet

“So you want workers to be treated with respect” : “Yep”

“And they should be paid a fair wage for their work”: “Sounds good to me.”

“And vital services like health care should be provided to everyone” : “Of course”

“So you’ll vote for the left wing candidate” : “No, I don’t like left wing policies”

That’s not what corner case means.

And that’s not what city life is. There’s music, food, art, museums, cinema, theater, street fairs, cultural events. All of that fits in a city, in a few square miles, because cities are dense.

Why do you think city life is just work and home?

Droll? You’re saying New York City, one of the cultural capitals of the world, is droll?

Most people aren’t going spelunking every day. They go to work. They go to the grocery. They go out to eat. They go out for drinks. You shouldn’t need a car for that. You definitely shouldn’t drink and drive.

No one is seriously arguing for getting rid of all cars for all people in all case. The focus is making them no longer the default. People who do need to drive for whatever reason will have a better time because there would be less traffic.

But really this conversation goes the same way it always does. People propose mass transit to solve the day to day for most people most of the time, and some people say it won’t work because of corner cases and “I don’t want to change anything”.

I don’t understand how some people who are moderately wealthy are so bad at money.

If I was making 300k for ten years I’d probably be able to retire.

Fucking rich people complaining about poor people spending $2 on candy when they’re blowing all their money

My elderly parents historically have been middle of the road democrats. Hated Reagan, hated bush.

Today my dad said “the radical left takes things too far”. My mother said, “I don’t feel safe in new york city! they’re targeting old white people!”

I don’t know what sludge they’re consuming but it’s not factual.

He then said, “there are people who don’t work at all that get more money from the government than what we earn, why should they get money?”

What kind of insane welfare programs does he imagine exists?

Unemployment in new york, for example, caps out at $440/week for six months. That’s $22,880/yr, ignoring that you only get half a year. That’s under minimum wage here.

For comparison, entry level software jobs at startup here are easily $100k.

Meanwhile, the wealthy can take loans out against their stock or other collateral to access their wealth without paying taxes.

Sometimes people will be like, “Poor people should work for their money!” But none of those people seem to be upset that a lowly 10-millionaire can comfortably live on an extremely safe investment portfolio. Like, bringing in mid six figures on bonds and index funds without doing a damn thing.

Have you ridden trains? Like, commuter trains? the NYC subway handles millions of riders per day. The trains have many doors.

I’d be okay with people being ticketed for driving trucks with only 1 passenger and not using them for hauling anything.

Well, we agree on this at least. I live in NYC and most of these huge trucks are a unnecessary menace.

And have you seen the types of people who take trains/busses? No fucking thanks.

That’s kind of a fucked up sentiment, honestly. I live in an area that has a working transit system, so it’s people of all walks of life. Rich assholes ride the train to their high finance job right next to the working class folks. People commute in from NJ and CT because it’s faster, easier, and cheaper than driving.

People who drive when there’s transit available, without a good reason, are assholes. “I don’t want to see poor people” is not a good reason.

Trains, and busses, are a huge tradeoff in time savings.

Also, lol. I can pay $3 to ride the train to midtown in ~40 minutes. Or I could drive, and deal with all the pain points of traffic and parking and take… ~40 minutes. I’ll take the train and read, thanks.

Are you the kind of person who thinks “Where’s the any key?” when the computer says “press any key to continue”? Like, overly literal, inability to parse intent and deep meaning?

poe’s law is real and i can’t tell if this is sincere. It’s so cliche I think it might be a joke, but some people essentially are sad little jokes so maybe it’s real.

There should also be something like “slop’s law” for “any post on the internet might be AI slop, or might be trash hand crafted by a person”

Why don’t these idiots ever suffer any consequences for being so stupid and/or deceptive? Probably because most people are also kind of stupid and dishonest.

“divisive” is such a stupid attack. It has no substance. Sometimes people are divided for good reasons!