BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

sigh. they sound so civilized over there.

I don't want no commie grabbing my bike and filling it with just any old commie air. I need capitalist air in dees tires!

Dang, thought this thread was going to be about edwardm's overseas adventures...

I was going to write an extremely right wing post about how useless this job is, but instead I will be nice.

This is really cool, and I wish that our economy could support such useless work everywhere, but since we don't have the funds to finish a crushed rock trail that connects Pittsburgh to Homestead I highly doubt we have the money to pay this guy to do whatever it is that he does.

This is the tamed version of the angry republican inside me I wish we could all be socialist hahaha

They should just give tickets to the people who park illegally to pay this guys wages.

I think the point of the story (click the link) is actually to get people to change their behavior, recognizing that sometimes you catch more flies with honey &c &c, I mean, that it might be more effective to gently correct people than to punitively ticket them. It was an experiment anyway. The article is from last year, with the program ending in January. Did it work? Maybe, maybe not. I don't think you should use this article as an example of pointless wasteful European socialism.

"They should just give tickets to the people who park illegally to pay this guys wages. "

Actually, they probably pay his wages with taxes. We could have nice transportation infrastructure as well if people were just willing to pay they fair share.

I highly doubt we have the money to pay this guy

We're a rich country. Of course we have the money.

The difficulty is that many of our voters object to having their tax dollars spent on things that might benefit the community as a whole, or perhaps even someone undeserving!

So we have very low tax rates and infrastructure that's falling apart.

I did not get to read the article because I am at work and it got blocked lol. I truly love the idea, but I was making a point about useless spending, and without the article I was just assuming, making an A$$ of myself. The angry right-winger in me only comes out once in a blue moon, this was that moon

you'll be happy to know the next blue moon isn't till august 12 2012, and that will be the last one till the world end on december 21 2012.... yayyyyyyyyyyyyy

@mphm we don't have the funds to finish a crushed rock trail that connects Pittsburgh to Homestead

Plenty of money, just priorities.

High priority - Tax breaks for billionaires and corporations. Invasions of 3rd world countries. Lube jobs for tanks.

Low priority: Public transit, bike paths, education, public safety, health, lube jobs for illegally parked bicycles.

@ mphm I wish we could all be socialist

You've refrained from using our socialist public roads? Our socialist public school system?

Good for you!

It wouldn't work here. More people would begin parking illegally to take advantage of the free service, I guarantee it.

It's not a matter of "catching more flies with honey". The Danes are culturally ingrained to feel ashamed of even the appearance of the individual not carrying their own weight in society (granted, in a much more homogeneous society), and this program utilizes that sense to motivate with shame.

The U.S. used to be like that, but the people with that point of view, a sense of the greater common good, are old and are quickly dying off. Our culture now is all about grabbing what you can for yourself, by any means necesary. I think that's called "objectivism". Americans have no shame.

"Anonymous said...

And what happend if the bike is locked with a chain. do they break it?

Anonymous said...

People in Denmark rarely chain their bike to anything"

Talk about pissing off the right-wingers!

The U.S. used to be like that

when was this?

I love forums, so many different views on everything. An i sure am looking forward to the next blue moon because that is my birthday! I don't care to argue about politics or silly things like this, so I am sorry to all that were offended. I love you all

I don't think anyone was offended. People just wanted to point out that the angry right-winger in you was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Obligatory xkcd.

When was this?

1789.

HV - I would say my parents generation and their parents, so for many people, your grandparents and great-grandparents. My parents were always involved in community activities, American Legion, parades, cleaning up community parks, school functions, etc. My guess is that is how communities used to function on budgets that are the fraction of what they are now, people would step up to do things that needed to be done, without being asked, and without being paid for it. And the unspoken assumption was that people that didn't step up were just slackers.

If you haven't, read "Bowling Alone" by Robert Putnam.

"It is no longer simply the merchant prince or the aristocratic monopoly, or even the employing class, that is exploiting the world: it is the nation, a new democratic nation composed of united capital and labor."

-W.E.B. Du Bois 1915

I was re-reading a little of exerpts from "Bowling Alone" just to refresh, and fortuitously happened across this, regarding ways in which the internet may NOT contribute to civic engagement:

"Third, the technology encourages cyberbalkanization: ever more specialized groups talking about a very specific problem. In such groups individuals are flamed for off-point comments. One of the great virtues of more traditional group get-togethers (like Bowling Leagues) is that no conversation was considered off-point."

Further validation that BikePgh! is bloody awesome. My ridiculously random guess is that the board is about 25% "on-point". At best.