Post a controversial opinion

Yeah, that was a bit confusing. I meant driving is fun in general, and having driven for years in Boston, I don't get particularly nervous when on narrow 2-way streets. But I don't really miss driving in Boston. Every time I visit, I'm reminded of how aggravating it can be to just do something simple like drive from one side of the river to the other.

xp

i love driving tbh even though I look back at my teenage years driving 100 mph on country roads and look at the car crash fates of my best friend from high school, my other best friend’s gf, the guy who sat in front of me in English class, and the homecoming queen and I feel I wasn’t skilled but lucky. Rural driving is terrifying, my mom every other week will offhandedly mention that a “fatal wreck” happened on one of the roads I used to peel down.

blasting music in a car with the windows open is really fun

music & driving just go well together.

cars can be really fucking cool too. all kinds of history, aesthetics, style, personality in them. i bought a new car in february and i love driving that thing. it is not even a fancy or special car by any means. a couple of my in-laws are really into classic cars and they've driven so many cool cars.

that said driving definitely scares me, especially after i got in two car accidents within six weeks this winter, now i am terrified every time i get in the car. hearing that awful sound of metal-on-metal crashing that immediately signals dread, hassle, and major expenses (at best, that's assuming no one got killed or injured) is such a terrible experience.

biking is sweet, i'd love to bike to work, i want to start doing it at least a few times a month. it'd be about 12 miles

even though i hate driving with all my heart i loved my car

some bike nerds will inveigh endlessly against helmet laws as discouraging bike riding and helmets themselves as unlikely to mitigate most of the ways you can get hurt on a bike…idk I don't really ride bikes these days because Seattle has hills and I'm not fit enough but y'know if there's a nonzero chance that a helmet will protect me from a head injury I don't mind the helmet.

Also people from mostly flat places (Netherlands, Illinois) criticizing people from hilly places (San Francisco, Albany) for not biking more = NAGL

I have intentions of riding my bike more often but I live on a hillside and I can barely get up it without thinking I'm going to have a heart attack.

I was always in awe of people who could commute via bike in London. I have no idea how it's possible to do that and a) not get killed and b) not arrive a complete sweaty mess. I know some offices have showers but that is not the norm in my experience.

I'm also supposed to be trying to learn to drive again because it might come in handy with my wife being ill. Think that may be futile to attempt given I failed the test 6 times when I was 21/22, it's supposed to get harder as you get older, and the test itself is supposed to be much harder than it was then. Tbh I have no idea how anyone passes their driving test in this country.

I am in awe of people who can commute regularly to work. I get so nervous on my bike that I end up walking it half the time because of erratic drivers.

To get back on track with controps: for large swathes of the workforce, going to work at all is a waste of time.

For professions that can be done remotely, telework should be the norm and commuting should be the exception. Employees should not be making the case to be "allowed" remote work; the burden of proof should be on employers to make the case why a job must be done onsite.

YES I am aware how much privilege is baked into that. YES I am aware of the extent to which white-collar knowledge work is telework-friendly and the extent to which service-sector and foodservice jobs must be done in person.

That acknowledgment of privilege does not change the fact that the whole world would be better off with fewer total people commuting (regardless of how they do it).

Xps what’s the point in mandating helmets when half the people I see wearing them have them on incorrectly and won’t be saved from head injury? So many ppl wearing them perched on the crown of their heads, loose straps.

I biked to work for awhile after I moved to the US, but the semi-regular harassment led to a lot of anxiety so I eventually stopped.

Xps what’s the point in mandating helmets when half the people I see wearing them have them on incorrectly and won’t be saved from head injury?

melbourne share bikes come with crappy helmets that never fit properly and feel like sellotaping an eski to your head, just so they can tick a legal box

Telework is pretty challenging in an apartment with small kids. Main reason I rarely work from home.

YMP OTM. Absolutely nothing about my job necessitates a two-hour daily commute. It's frankly ludicrous.

Trump has always trafficked in stupidity, crassness, and lies, and like the rich daddy's sociopathic spoiled brat that he is, he's been allowed to get away with it. He really is a perfect match for today's GOP.

wrong thread

lol

so not controversial, qualmsley

I'm watching Neon Genesis Evangelion for the first time in 16 years and the English dub is honestly great.

American culture is so shot-through with narcissism and exceptionalism that there is nobody-who-is-raised-in-USA who is not a sociopath

I made a bot for these https://twitter.com/LeastPopularBot

^^^ this is great. Although the Legally Blonde one is truth and not controversial.

Legally Blonde is better than at least 95 percent of all movies

^^^ this is great

otm

I am glad that sensitive, personal admissions have been turned into content. I have eaten nothing but corn for the past two weeks.

Tom Petty has never made anything close to a great album and even some of his hits are just plain lousy

Petty was very mercurial, like the Who -- the peaks were very high but a lot of bad/wtf stuff

id run over tom pettys peak/s without raising a heartbeat. shite.

u heartbreaker u

Paul Ponzi OTM! and rip I agree about The Who, but imo Petty = No tracks

America is substantially more evil in every conceivable dimension than Canada, and to suggest anything else is silly hyperbole. it would take a lot more than Ontario electing Doug Ford or Trudeau nationalizing a pipeline to change that

controversial? you could put that on a petition and 90% of ILX would sign it.

opinion probably controversial amongst leftist Canadians

i use this thread bc i'm too chicken to subtweet yea

Our superiority complex is such that we can't stand feeling inferior to our neighbours when it comes to evil deeds.

I used to like to watch Anthony Bourdain and I've always admired his advocacy for food and cultural experiences. I've also struggled with depression since adolescence. But I could never get over how Bourdain talked about vegans like they were a plague. He never once showed any understanding or respect for the idea that some people consider not harming animals to be more important than traveling around the world and eating seal eyeballs with the Inuit. So when I heard he committed suicide... I felt nothing and I still feel nothing. I don't know why.

canada is made to look good merely sitting beside the asshole bully that is america, and has very much benefited by america's assholeness . . . but yeah otm anyway

I used to like to watch Anthony Bourdain and I've always admired his advocacy for food and cultural experiences. I've also struggled with depression since adolescence. But I could never get over how Bourdain talked about vegans like they were a plague. He never once showed any understanding or respect for the idea that some people consider not harming animals to be more important than traveling around the world and eating seal eyeballs with the Inuit. So when I heard he committed suicide... I felt nothing and I still feel nothing. I don't know why.

― cr.ht (crüt), Friday, June 8, 2018 9:04 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm sad about Bourdain's death, but I admit, I had a similar thought. Reading people talk about his wide-ranging compassion made me think about how little compassion he had for the animals he cooked and ate, and his open contempt for a lot of people who did care.

don't use napkins

don't use disposable, paper napkins

He did really appreciate India's ability to do good vegetarian. I am mostly vegetarian/spouse reformed decades vegan but vegetarians/vegans are super annoying as a class so I get his thing. It's like religion; it's fine to believe whatever you believe but please, I don't need a TedTalk on it. And if you are going to eat an animal I do appreciate people eating every single item on the animal.

vegetarians/vegans are super annoying as a class

my typical experience as a vegetarian is everyone else manufacturing a crisis about the possibility that i might not be able to eat something at a restaurant and how that's gonna piss me off, while i say "it's cool, i'm not worried about it, there's always something for me to eat, seriously, don't worry about it"

karl otm

admittedly, though, i have occasionally ran into the kind of veggie person that makes everyone else go way out of their way to satisfy their own eating preferences, and it easy pretty annoying. but honestly, for every 1 person who is like that, there are 40-75 people who are just loudmouth dipshits who ruin dinner by their mere presence at the table

Yeah, my spouse was vegan for over a decade and now eats fish and won't refuse butter or a little ricotta in pasta. People used to try to make accommodations for him but we've always told them it's fine, bring our own dish or just make sure he eats a lot beforehand. I eat veg at home but will eat anything that someone prepares for me because meat and organs are delicious (except kidneys, but I would still eat them). Being able to strictly stay veg or vegan in a lot of places with not much income is a privilege, although it's gotten a lot better in the last decade.

yeah the strict part is key, i guess. not being as strict definitely makes things a lot less of a hassle. one time i was a little out of it and got really fixated on the word "bleu" and ended up ordering a burger, forgetting that the patty would be meat. i was by myself and was too embarrassed to send it back when i realized my mistake, because they didn't do anything wrong. so i ate the burger and went home. nobody's perfect

I had a friend who has been vegan/freegan for 2 decades and I get it. It's kind of a good way to be.

America is substantially more evil in every conceivable dimension than Canada, and to suggest anything else is silly hyperbole. it would take a lot more than Ontario electing Doug Ford or Trudeau nationalizing a pipeline to change that

― flopson, Friday, June 8, 2018 5:10 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Speaking as an American, I don't understand how this even a little bit controversial.

(It might be more controversial if you'd used 'America' to describe all American citizens rather than our default approach of attributing the actions of the rich + powerful to an entire country full of people.)

America sucks.

As a Canadian it’s annoying how your country is more news worthy and all we hear about.