Bicyclists Behaving Badly

Posted on June 20, 2018 by Luke Ford

My experience with bicyclists in the middle of car traffic in Los Angeles is that they are horrible young men, and they feel no accountability to traffic law and common decency.

Steve Sailer writes: “But as bicyclists have become ever more the Establishment’s pets, their own behavior seems to be getting worse, such as running redlights. Cyclists often argue that they shouldn’t have to obey stoplights because accelerating is tiring for them, so they don’t bother with single most basic traffic law: stop on red. Of course, this makes them a menace to pedestrians, but pedestrians aren’t the fair-haired boys like cyclists.”

“Dedicated bike lanes with right of way so cyclists don’t have to cross intersections that cars are usuing are absolutely wonderful, especially in a scenic location, such as the 18 miles of Chicago lakefront bikepath, which I rode hundreds of times.”

COMMENTS:

* This is one of my pet peeves on the road. Cyclists seem to obey no law, but whatever suits their own convenience. Just today I saw a cyclist ride between two columns of car traffic while the cars were stopped on red. The cyclist then entered the intersection while still on red. As the light turned green and traffic began to flow both ways, suddenly he turned sharply left, making both the left lane of the same side traffic and the opposite traffic slam on the brakes and nearly causing a huge pile up.

This is not the first time I saw something like that. In another similar instance a couple of of weeks back, a cyclist was pulling a similar stunt and was hit very slightly by the opposing traffic. The cyclist stopped dead in the track, got off, and started to bang on the hood and the windshield of the stopped minivan, seemingly terrifying the woman driving that vehicle. When the rest of us started to get out of our cars to stop this lunatic, he got back on his bike and furiously pedaled away.

The woman got out to examine the damage to her car, and I saw that she had little kids inside. It was one of a very few times I wanted to give chase on the road and dole out a savage beating.

And I thought that driving cars made people feel stupidly invincible. Cyclists… ugh.

* It depends on how much work is done to add bike lanes. It’s hard to add that infrastructure. In Copenhagen and Amsterdam the separation between the bike lanes and car lane is more complete, often with a little raised divider, it’s hard to stray from one to another. It’s certainly not the same experience as in other places where bike lanes are hastily painted in onto the side of existing roads where there often isn’t space and bike lanes get chronically blocked.

If you ride a bike in Copenhagen and Amsterdam you never have to pay much attention to anything but other bikes, there are traffic lights just for bikes. It’s not stressful or potentially dangerous, it’s pleasant and fun; 99% of people don’t even wear helmets.

* In several decades and several hundred thousand miles of driving, I have logged exactly one accident. My car was parked, the key was out of the ignition, and after checking traffic behind me, I started to get out. The door instantly jumped off its hinges and a bent bicycle and a groaning man in cyclist kit mysteriously appeared on the ground several feet down the road.

It was night and the cyclist was pedaling along with traffic without a light, so he was invisible in the glare of the headlights he was amidst … until he hit my door edge-on.

The cops surveyed the situation and said they wouldn’t charge me even though it was technically illegal in that town to exit one’s vehicle on the driver’s side (which law they admitted no one obeyed).

I drove home with one hand while holding the bent door in place with the other.

* In countries where cycling is actually a common means of commuting, such as The Netherlands and China, cyclists obey the law. Enforcement works. Start ticketing cyclists for violations and they’ll do it here, too.

The problem here is that progressives treat them as a special class above such petty concerns as traffic laws. This is a shame, because it has made cycling primarily the domain of aggressive young men instead of a practical means of transportation for the masses.

* Dedicated bike lanes are desirable precisely because they keep cyclists off the sidewalks. In theory, bikes should be able to safely merge into regular automobile traffic and cars will accommodate, but in practice, too many people behind the wheel are playing with their cellphones or just plain drive like maniacs. I wouldn’t begrudge cyclists riding on the sidewalk for their own safety, except that most cyclists who approach me from behind don’t bother to ring a bell or shout a warning until they’re practically on top of me, and I have to essentially leap out of the way. I ride a bike occasionally, and find the most practical option for busy, gnarly intersections is just to dismount, walk it through the pedestrian crosswalks, and hop back on a little further down the road.

* I can’t help but think every bicyclist I see must have a death wish.

“The best thing you can do for the safely of cyclists is to separate them from cars in dedicated bike lanes. Not just stripes on the street that no one pays any attention to, but physically separated lanes. This is also safer for pedestrians because you know to look for bikes when crossing those lanes.

Cars and bikes are natural enemies – when I ‘m on a bike I hate drivers and when I’m driving I hate bicyclists, so the best thing to do is to keep the enemies apart.

Keep in mind though that in any car/bike conflict the car usually wins – you get a scratch on your car, the biker goes to the hospital (if he lives).

* My sister got off of the bus. Thing was, the bus stopped right next to a bike lane, and pedestrians have to cross the bike lane before reaching the sidewalk.

My sister is a 95 pound vegan and a cyclist rammed into her. She got knocked out and it shattered her clavicle.

If people want to ride their bikes around for recreation in the park, that’s great. But cycling is a horrendous form of transportation, unsafe for car drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.

People should establish a form of public transportation for SWPLs. Uber is filling that niche better than anything else right now.

* Bicycles are the perfect Left Wing Smug machines – passively aggressive in how the biker shifts the burden for his or her own safety to the vehicular traffic on any given street or road and incandescently obnoxious in impairing the flow of traffic according to the rider’s whims according to no rule or law.

Bicycle riders seem to take great pleasure in holding motorists hostage at 10-15 MPH. I’m sure in an urban environment many have had the experience of the bicycle rider in front of the flow of traffic slowing down at least one lane to his leisurely pace, and then you get to a red light and think “I’ll just blow by him when it turns green” only to find that he violates the red signal and winds up in front of you by the time the light turns green – over and over again.

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How I Conquered My Relationship Insecurity

Posted on June 19, 2018 by Luke Ford

Tracy Chabala writes for The Fix:

The pain prompted me to do some research on relationship insecurity—I had to know what the hell was wrong with me. That’s when I learned about attachment styles and the important role they play in romantic relationships. My fear of abandonment is a classic sign of an anxious attachment.

British psychologist John Bowlby began exploring what he termed attachment theory in the 1960’s, and he conducted further research alongside psychologist Mary Ainsworth throughout the second half of the 20th century. According to Bowlby, the ways in which primary caregivers relate to infants and children greatly influence how they relate to others in their adult lives. Contemporary psychologists have expanded on Bowlby’s theory, many writing about the huge impact our attachment styles have on our romantic relationships and even how we perform at work. There’s also a study underway to determine what role, if any, attachment styles play in opioid addiction.

Attachment theory posits that adults with secure attachment styles—around 50 percent of the population—had parents who were attentive, nurturing, calm, and, most importantly, consistent in this behavior. Those with anxious attachment styles usually had caregivers who were inconsistent, sometimes attentive, loving, and nurturing, and at other times distracted, distant, cold, or unresponsive to the child’s needs. Anxious attachments can also result from having overly-anxious or intrusive caregivers (this is probably how I wound up with an anxious attachment, as my mother often became too worried that something bad might happen to me.) Children who grew up with mostly aloof and detached parents typically wind up with an avoidant attachment style, those who crave intimacy but push it away out of fear.

Unfortunately, people with anxious attachment styles often gravitate to those with avoidant attachment styles, and vice versa, and this causes all sorts of heartache. Those who have secure attachment patterns are often already paired up—they’re the folks who are content in long-term relationships and forging lasting intimate bonds. This explains why spending lots of time on dating apps can sometimes lead to crushed hopes over and over again. If all the healthy folks are already in relationships, what’s left are a lot of people who may have some emotional baggage that begs sorting through.

If you’ve ever attended a SLAA meeting, you’ve probably heard of the “love addict” and the “love avoidant.” In many ways, the love addict mirrors someone with an anxious attachment style—the deep need for connection and intimacy is a quality inherent in both personality types. Naturally, the “love avoidant” described in SLAA mirrors the avoidant attachment style.

According to SLAA philosophy, the antidote to love addiction or love avoidance is the 12 steps, steps that require faith in a power greater than oneself, the admitting of character defects, and turning over one’s will to God as we understand Him. Though I’m not anti-SLAA per se, I do find it interesting that the terms “love addict” and “love avoidant” actually have roots in psychological theory, so the cause of the insecurity may have less to do with character defects and more to do with the way we were parented.

Though an insecure attachment style may sound like a curse for anyone who’s looking for long-term love, there’s good news: anyone can change their insecure attachment style to a secure one through psychodynamic therapy, being in a healthy relationship with a securely-attached partner, and also by becoming a parent.

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Jewstreaming – Jews & The Alt Right

Posted on June 18, 2018 by Luke Ford

I host a bunch of Jewish Youtube streamers (including Babylonian Hebrew, Glib Medley, and Jewservative) to discuss Jews, internet blood sports, asians at Harvard, and the Alt Right.

MP3.

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Trump’s Prospects For 2020

Posted on June 18, 2018 by Luke Ford

A friend says: In terms of analyzing Trump’s electoral victory, you looked at it, at least in part from the white identity point of view and whether the election was a reaction to the identity politics, excluding white men, from the Democrat party. I looked at the same group of “deplorables” who rallied to Trump as persons driven more by economic insecurity than cultural security or fear of cultural displacement.

Assuming that I am correct, the question arises as to whether persons who voted for Trump because they felt disillusioned that the government was doing anything to help them and disenfranchised (for racial and/or cultural reasons) for economic reasons in that wall street calls the shots regardless of what figure holds the presidency, will no longer support him with the same level of enthusiasm as the economy strengthens. I have a very difficult time ascertaining the true strength of the economy. I know the country is running enormous deficits while raking in enormous tax revenues, that manufacturing jobs appear to be on the rise, that there are more openings for workers than workers to fill them. To the extent that economically insecure voters were motivated to vote for Trump, if their economic status has improved will they continue to actively support Trump out of principle and gratitude or will they be less enthusiastic now that they are more secure?

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Let’s Talk Marijuana Legalization

Posted on June 18, 2018 by Luke Ford

BJ Dart posts:

I’ll begin by saying that I’m a currently recovering stoner. I’m not talking about a blunt or two here and there: I mean that I would do multiple dabs a night in addition to smoking several bowls and eating a couple edibles.

PMAN aptly compared marijuana to soma. Huxley’s soma kept a population passive, peaceful, and happy in his Brave New World. There is no more apt a description for marijuana than that. As a depressant, marijuana has a stultifying effect on a person’s mood. It slows down a person’s mental processes, acuity, affects memory, and has a numbing effect on the body. It leaves its user in a near catatonic state of passivity. In physical terms, potheads have a term for this: “couchlock”. When a body high is so intense that you feel you are glued on or locked into the couch. Weed also tends to not only slow down mental faculties, but it is associated with increased feelings of paranoia. This is most evident in strong sativa strains, and stronger body highs with indica strains.

It is worth mentioning that the old story about some pot smoking, free love Baby Boomer toking it up with a group of young guns and passing the f**k out because weed is so much stronger nowadays is more or less 100% true. What we have now is not the same Mexican ditch weed that Gary and Linda smoked at a Grateful Dead concert. These strains have been worked on for decades to produce more potent, tailored highs for the consumer. The good dispensary weed can usually be anywhere from 20-35% THC. That’s just bud. This is ignoring edibles and the various forms of concentrates. Once you get into concentrates, you are looking at 80+% of THC, easy. The Holy Grail of THC potency is a diamond dab: 99% or more. These little crystals will knock experienced smokers on their ass. Dabs are a concentrate so powerful that most first time users will need only a small speck on the end of their tool to get an intense high that really cannot be mimicked by smoking bud. These concentrates are getting more popular; largely because stoners looking to escape the doldrums of their daily existence are seeking out greater highs.

Marijuana use is, of course, no different than any other narcotic use. Stoners generally do not believe that they are drug users, however. “At least I’m not using like, hard drugs man,” is such a common retort by potheads that it is its own cliché. Pot smokers use drugs for the same reasons any person uses drugs. In today’s climate, this is primarily to escape the psychic anguish of living in a heavily atomized, SCALED society. I highly suspect that areas in which opioid use is high also see heavy marijuana use. If there is any doubt as to whether potheads are drug users, you need only witness him trying to score a dimebag at 1 AM on a Wednesday. But weed takes the edge off. The overwhelming state of numbness, both mental and physical, that is characteristic of marijuana makes it a highly sought after substance because it is a perfect coping mechanism. Anxiety disappears, worries float away, pain subsides, and euphoria sets in.

If there is truly a drug for our times, it must be marijuana. Not only does it have a pacifying effect on its users, but weed even encourages the consumption of a host of other ills that characterize the modern world. What is the stoner archetype known for? Sitting on the couch, watching retarded television, and eating copious amounts of chips. Physical inactivity. Mass media. Processed food. All of these are married perfectly in a vaguely remembered, slightly happy haze. Interestingly for a depressant, weed (or perhaps just weed culture) encourages users to continue to attempt to hyper-stimulate themselves despite being in such a relaxed state. This leads to a depressing cycle of constantly chasing highs while simultaneously indulging in many other destructive vices. While there may be an argument to be made about how smoking weed is a social activity much in the same way that smoking tobacco used to be, I don’t put much stock into it.You might pass a bong between a group of people, weed usually handicaps a person’s ability to engage in social activity. Again, even stoners make fun of the stereotype of a group of friends zonked out on the couch passively staring at a blank television screen. I’d say that getting high is rather an intensely personal feeling in comparison to something like drinking. It’s just too much of a depressant to really spur any kind of genuine social interaction.

Weed culture is its own curious thing. While the term pothead no doubt conjures up images of a red-eyed slacker wearing a beanie who buys Bob Marley shirts, increasingly pop culture is bleeding over into stoner culture. The two are now inseparable. Since I live in a state with legal recreational marijuana, we’ve had an explosion in glass blowing and headshops continue to pop up all over strip malls. What is immediately apparent is how much of weed culture is dedicated to pop/nerd culture. Most headshops will sell not just paraphernalia like glass pipes or bongs, but clothing or other various sundry bits of kitsch. All of these items are dedicated to things like adult cartoon shows or vidya gaymes. Naturally, Millennials make up the majority of the weed market so it is tailored to my generation’s arrested development. You will find butane torches with pop art of the Super Mario Bros. (high), you will find pipes made in Pickle Rick’s likeness (PICKLE RIIIICK), you will find bong bowls made to look like Pokeballs. This additional aspect of consumer culture means that weed use in Millennials is now intrinsically tied to the same corporate consumption goods that have dominated our lives. Only now as a legal adult, you can enjoy the same childish things but drunk and high.

Apologies if this is somewhat disjointed, but I felt like bringing up at least a few points of discussion was worth it. I do think that something worth looking into is what will likely be the increasing corporatization of the marijuana industry. There is money on the table there, and changing attitudes along with what appears to be society’s increasingly desperate need to seek out substances to combat psychic pain means that we will soon begin to see a greater corporate presence in this nascent industry.

I only see drug use/abuse increasing in the coming years. Only be restoring meaning into the lives of people will it begin to curb. Healthy societies don’t reach for psychoactive substances to push away the pain. I believe that this is primarily the cause for the drug epidemic that has been sweeping across America for decades. Truly happy, contented people don’t try to fill a void in their lives by using drugs.

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