this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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the_dunk_tank

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It's the dunk tank.

This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 11 months ago (3 children)

ignoring all the cars parked on the pavement, have you considered picking it up and moving it 1 metre

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Or just walking around it lol

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago

I had to walk five extra steps around a bicycle, billions must die.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Reality is like a lazy vidya game made circa 2006, this person cannot go that way; it is completely blocked

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Mobility aids are a thing.

And yes, the cars need keying as well.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I move these things, and those god forsaken scooters, all the fucking time.. they start beeping at you like you're stealing them lol

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 11 months ago

Getting off my bicycle, putting the kickstand down, and taking a picture of it so I can post angrily about it on the internet

[–] [email protected] 37 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Those rental bikes/scooters are stupid though. I see them block wheelchair ramps and sidewalks all the time. And yes I did pick it up and throw it in the bushes.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago (2 children)

You're wrong about the bikes. Inexpensive rental bicycles are a great solution to a myriad of problems. And for every bike parked in a wheelchair ramp there is 10 cars blocking handicap parking.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They're great when they're run by the city and there's designated spots to park/charge them. Our city does have one such program, but that doesn't stop the bazingabrains from littering the sidewalks with their versions. There's also the issue that they externalize all the losses by "renting" the bikes to 3rd parties who have to go around at night charging the things and eat the losses when they get broken/stolen.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I disagree, my city has the dedicated drop off zones and guess what, they're ALL on the sidewalks. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if pedestrians were more than an afterthought (compared to cars). Ideally, the rental bikes should be allowed to park wherever, including (especially?) in car parking spaces.

Not sure why you take issue with a company's profits being centered around maintaining the bikes. "Externalizing the losses" is not a meaningful expression - both companies are profiting from the relationship.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They're right about the bikes. It's mainly tourists that make use of them, and - unlike with in-person rentals - the people renting are given no course on road safety or how to signal. So you get a bunch of drunk people with no knowledge or respect of trafic barreling thru bikelanes way too fast, only to then ditch their bikes on the aforementioned bikelane, because they do not own the bike and they give no fucks about the place they're at and there is no system of accountability. I see this all the time, it sucks and I hate it.
The bike is also way heavier than a normal bike.
A bike rental run by the city is a good thing, but these private "disruptions" are just leeching off of good public infrastructure whilst making it worse for all involved.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (7 children)

The bikes aren't stupid; they didn't block anything, their riders did. They work great in places with good infrastructure and a conscientious community.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

and a conscientious community

So the majority of the west is eliminated from consideration

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Probably up to localities to legislate that rental bikes must have designated return locations and fine the companies for violations. Hitting the techbro's bank accounts is the only way to make them think about externalities.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

The only socially acceptable way. Giving every tech bro a e-biking funeral where they get cast off to sea on a raft of lithium ion batteries would certainly be satisfying

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The bikes are stupid because money spent to ride them is going away to a foreign (i.e. American) tech company. It is another marker of the corporate encroaching itself into public property. Often these vehicles arrive on the streets unconsensually.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Don't most if not all vehicles?

I'd rather a nonconsensual shared bike on my street that I can use than a nonconsensual private car that I can't.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Good point let's destroy all cars

olimar-point pikmin-carry-l skeleton-motorcycle pikmin-carry-r pikmin-onion FWIIIIII ^hee^ ^hoo^ ^hee^ ^hoo^

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The bikes are stupid because they were designed to be left on the sidewalk instead of having designated charging/parking areas. The city bikes are better and were designed to be left at docking locations, which also solves the charging issues.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Why do you figure that is?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Because the rental companies were all created by bazingabrains who don't care about externalities and never contacted the communities they just dump these things in. There aren't designated zones in place to park these things and even if there were the market is oversaturated by a bunch of VC subsidized companies. The app has the ability to detect when you leave them in a bad spot but won't actually enforce anything.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There aren't designated zones in place to park these things and even if there were the market is oversaturated by a bunch of VC subsidized companies.

Bollocks to that, you could replace every 10th parking spot with bike / scooter parking and that'd be an entirely solved issue. The thing is if you park them somewhere that people think of as car parking space, so most of everything, they'll just huck these things on the sidewalk.

All your other points apply to cars, too, is the point. Sure, at best these'd be a municipal service instead of 10 carbon copies of the same business running them at the same time, but looking at the above picture and thinking "boy those rental scooter / bikes sure are stupid" is missing the forest for the trees here.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Cars and rental bikes can both be bad. The fact that all arguments applies to cars too isn't an argument for bazingarental. If the arguments are the same, then it shows that these rentals aren't in fact a good solution, since they still have the same issue.
I agree that it would be good if car parking was converted to bicycle parking.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Not dunk worthy imo. Telling bazinga Techbro compamies to pick up after themselves is good, if ineffective. One bike blocking a sidewalk is a minor nuisance, sure, but if you don't complain about it it'll just keep happening and maybe even get worse since the company will increase distribution.

There's a instinctive desire to defend bikes, but this is conceptually not much different from Uber leaving a delivery bot parked on a sidewalk or something. Bikes are good and bike sharing schemes can be good, but this is obviously not s good system.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

There's a instinctive desire to defend bikes, but this is conceptually not much different from Uber leaving a delivery bot parked on a sidewalk or something.

It's also not conceptually different from all those parked cars, including ones that protrude onto the sidewalk, to which the twitter post seems to take no offense.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

The systems work great if they have proper infrastructure to support them (see China), but governments aren't going to build good infrastructure if the systems are sabotaged first by people throwing the bikes in canals or whatever.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago

I'm posting as hard as I can, but the bike still isn't moving

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

This is a private corporation who owns these bikes and they are encroaching on public land for profit

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Cars are bad. But rental scooters and bikes being thrown all over the place and blocking pedestrian infrastructure because the bazinga companies owning them are not being held accountable is a public nuisance.

Able-bodied persons can move the damn thing or step over them and only be mildly inconvenienced but doing that is not so easy if you are disabled, elderly or if you're just walking with a stroller. Also, a scooter or bike littering a bike lane can be dangerous in poor lighting or other poor visibility situations.

A type of system where people ride their own bikes or scooters and can bring them on public transit is much to be preferred as people care about those and park them sensibly.

Quick idea: Give everyone their own bike and charge tourists a mandatory tax that gives them a rental bike for the duration of their stay, that they are responsible for returning.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

David should trying crying about it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

The parking situation in the UK is becoming atrocious. People just park their cars all over the fucking pavement and on verges, blocking wheelchair users and low-mobility people. I see driveways with six cars and then more cars parked outside on the pavement like holy fuck how many cars do you need? Roads that could easily accomodate cars driving in opposite directions five years ago are now effectively one-way roads because cars block up an entire half of the road.

And you can't key them or let the air out of the tyres any more because of the doorbell surveillance network people have opted themselves into, or there are cameras on the cars themselves.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

It's the worst when they are parked in the middle of a bit path, and so I really hate lime, but c'mon dude you're a pedestrian! Those cars pose a bigger problem

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

sees red line painted on the asphalt

I hope there isn't a fire anywhere near there, those firetrucks might not hesitate to wreck any vehicles that get in the way of putting out a fire.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

I hope the fire truck doesn't suffer too much damage.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

David Harvey's Anti-Cyclist Chronicles

[–] Dra 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I will never forget watching some youths throw one of these on the DLR tracks in the early days

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Good. Techbro "disruptor" companies that take up public land with no way to be held accountable should not be welcome anywhere

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Bad take. Welcome the bikes; private transport infrastructure is better than no transport infrastructure.

Shitty move to block DLR rails either way.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (7 children)

Private transport infrastructure is worse than public infrastructure. These bike rentals exist in place of a public option and can only function due to the public infrastructure, which they make worse in a great many ways - among others the fact that they have no function of accountability, so they always end up cluttering the bike paths and their drivers are reckless tourists not knowing or caring for local rules

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Then pick it up and move it you lazy bum

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They're heavy as fuck. They're genuinely difficult to move.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

Especially if you are elderly or disabled

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)
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