I mean “no, look up zero knowledge proofs”

Yes. Look up “zero knowledge proofs”

LOL. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

I will assume you live in the midwest. Maybe some suburbia.

NYC is entirely different than suburbia and actually is also entirely different from SF, DC and Tokyo. I don’t know about other cities.

Within 30 seconds of biking from my apartment, I will already have seen.

1. A car go through a red light.
2. A car parked on the sidewalk.
3. A delivery truck parked in the bike lane, and part of the street.
4. Multiple people crossing the street randomly, not at crosswalks.
5. I will have passed maybe 3 other bikers.

Within a minute:

1. Massive construction on the street.
2. Cars parked in the road.
3. Dodged deep pot holes.

Within 5 minutes

1. Multiple cars going through red lights, I would maybe guess 5.
2. Multiple cars doing u-turns that are not allowed.
3. Maybe 30 people walking across the street in random places.
4. Some drugged up guy standing somewhere in the street.
5. Hit an area where the streets are purposely laid out so, if you want to go the “right way” you have to ground around multiple blocks. It’s a peculiar place.

This is the base line.

All of this works together because there are basically no laws. A car goes through a red light, as long as it doesn’t hit someone it’s ignored. Same for u-turns, same for illegal temporary parking. You want to gun your car, make the wheels squeal and accelerate as fast as you can until the next red light? Nobody will care if you don’t hit someone.

It’s a zoo. The normal thinking of laws doesn’t really apply. If you get upset about every car that runs a red light, you’ll be upset all the time. If you get upset at people doing stupid shit, you’ll be upset all the time.

I’ve been biking here for the last 20 years. (Before the bike lanes!) For me, basically 95% of bikers are fine. 5% suck. Just like cars.

I also hate the 5% of bikers that suck.

–

For me the 5% that suck aren’t because they go through red lights, or down the wrong way. I do this all of the time, and I’m never close to pedestrians. Pedestrians don’t even know I exist.

I don’t go on sidewalks, but I’m guessing that 95% of bikers on sidewalks are about to stop for a delivery and are going pretty slow.

The 5% that suck, for me, are the ones which do the “fly by” the commenter is talking about. Some biker going 25mph on their electric bike that gets within 6 inches of you.

This also happens with cars, and let me tell you, with a car, it makes my hair stand on end. It seems like the driver is saying, “let me show you how much I hate you.”

Years ago when a car would do this to me (when the bike lanes just started coming out, there were a lot of people who were super mad), it would trigger a fight response, and I would catch up and prevent them from moving - just make them sit there - they would go batshit crazy. In retrospect, that was probably pretty dumb to do.

I think the answer to the biker problem, is not threats against bikers, but basically, make some thoroughfares biker only. Like all of Broadway, and maybe 1st or 8th ave. Mamdani should follow through on his campaign to hold Uber eats and etc, accountable. And then some sort of marketing, “Don’t be an asshole - don’t buzz people - this means you, delivery drivers and Bros on city bikes!”

–

There are also some other undercurrents in play here. I wouldn’t assume leftreddit is in this camp, but a certain percentage of NYC is.

There is a segment of NYC’s population that “secretly” hates the immigrants and/or black people. Most of the delivery bikers are immigrants. And they are mostly black. It used to be most of the delivery bikers were Hispanic, but I think that has shifted. I don’t know real numbers though…

So, not only is this guy zooming past fast for a delivery, but he’s also an immigrant and he’s also black. Really triggers some people.

–

Anyhow…

I hope that NYC doesn’t go back to the anti biker stance. But I do hope they put weight and speed restrictions on bikes.

<-- A tourist.

I want to respond with something. But everything I write is so fucking dark and violent. Here goes, I’ll try again:

If I were in Nazi Germany, and I saw this go down- a Jew or disabled or protester getting disappeared- and these Nazi brown shirts were shot and killed, or beaten to a pulp with metal bars, fucking stomped to death, I think it would be just.

I don’t know exactly how to put this, but I feel personally embarrassed by this.

I think this is going to shift world order more than expected. Every country now must be nuclear. Trump is going to try to install himself as a dictator. I think violence will have to be the answer. Man it’s depressing.

Maybe the real problem is the AI slop, which is really just humans being lazy.

In my immediate neighborhood there are two pastry bakeries. One has lines of people summoned by the TikTok/Instagram, who take videos of themselves eating. The other is known to locals, but never self promotes.

You can imagine, that the non-promoting one has amazing pastries. The best I’ve ever had. The TikTok one does have a trendy fancy interior, made for videos.

People want to be seen at a pastry place. That fake pastry place wants to be seen as an awesome bakery, even though really, without the marketing they are below average. Some guy wants to be seen as writing pop music, even though he can’t. Another wants to draw, even though I won’t spend the thousands of hours required.

Art is really about understanding the effort. Human effort.

Somehow, I can just imagine having AI slop music, and AI slop movies, and AI slop everything.

If a movie house is going to be Steve Jobs Pixar, they are going to hire the best real artists and the best real writers, and do something that means something to be human. They aren’t interested in slop.

If a movie house is going to be just for profit, are they going to even pay for the generative AI to do a few more iterations. I think they will keep it at slop.

Anyhow, a bit too much babble. Must sleep.