So glad Musk personally banned the account that was tracking his flights. This country would have transformed into a communist dystopia if it was allowed to operate any longer.
Twitter implemented the blue check originally due to impersonation issues. You can read the history on wikipedia, but Tony La Russa sued Twitter over it and the blue checks where the outcome. I'm not an attorney, but it seems not black and white.
This is conflating two separate concerns: a private company can do whatever it wants with its own user handles. Sell them, seize them, delete them. Impersonation, on the other hand, can be challenged in the court of law.
Twitter will certainly prioritize the sale of short handles, single word handles, common name handles, and not something like @apple (just because of the volume of squatted and unused handles that can be easily monetized). If they seize and sell @apple, and the new account will impersonate the company Apple - that's a totally different legal situation. If the sold account will just post pics of apples, I don't think the crime of impersonation would be relevant.
The problem is peoples handles aren’t arbitrary placeholders. Musk may want to resell NPR’s old accounts to some sock puppet, but that runs into criminal impersonation etc.
They are exactly arbitrary placeholders absent branding and use. The National Pumpkin Resellers could make use of an NPR handle just fine. If National Public Radio came back onto X with the NPRorg or NPRadio handle, they’d get no shortage of followers and quickly exceed the follower count of the pumpkin mongers.
Wouldn't the pumpkin folks (or the broadcaster) have a broader problem than just the Twitter handle? I worked for Jama Software, and it was determined that the word Software was required in all communication to avoid (further?) legal action by JAMA (the medical journal one). If one of the two has a claim, they deal with the other one directly, not with Twitter?!
You’re saying the legal name was Jama Software, correct? Had they registered a business name / DBA for the name “Jama”? Representing themselves as a different name in legal documents does seem ripe for issues. I’d imagine that even with the word “Software” the JAMA organization was still not too pleased about that name. Might get uglier if the software produced was for the medical industry. However, just because someone brings up a trademark infringement issue doesn’t mean they’d win. As a lawyer always asks, “you may be right, but is it worth a million dollars to prove it?” Often it’s better for all parties to not go to the mat on such issues and come to terms privately.
But I’m not sure that’s a good analogy for a Twitter/reddit/discord handle. A better one though not great is the domain name dispute resolution process. If JS owned and used Jama.com, I think they’d survive the domain dispute resolution process if they were serious about defending it.
A better analogy still might be Reddit. If they were using Jama as their official Reddit account, they’d likely be in a good defensible position legally so long as they billed themselves openly as the software org and took other steps to surface their branding to make it obvious that there was no association with the journal.
Again, legally, but Reddit the org is a different matter. Let’s say JAMA approaches Reddit and says they want the Jama username because they think the current user is creating confusion amongst customers, etc. There’s a slight undertone of taking action against Reddit if it doesn’t get resolved. Now Reddit has an interest in telling you, look - we got this asshole saying he wants ur username because trademark. Can you give it up or do you think you have a valid reason to keep it? Reddit will probably stay involved for exactly two rounds of back and forth before they make a summary decision turning on politics, commerce, and risk mitigation (do I want to piss off Amazon the corp or Beavis McMurdle in Iowa who has u/Amazon? Is it good to have Amazon corp engaged on my platform? What benefit does Beavis bring?). If the decision isn’t easy, I imagine Reddit will try to redirect the parties to work directly with each other (leave me out of it) or they’d give it to whichever party offers them solid indemnification (okay Amazon I’ll give you the username but send me a letter saying you believe you have legal claim to it and that you’ll pay all legal costs arising from Beavis McMurdle suing us).
It’s slightly more interesting if Beavis paid $20k to Reddit for the u/Amazon username. Is Reddit going to indemnify Beavis against any and all trademark claims as part of the sale? Absolutely not! Guaranteed part of that sales agreement will be something to the effect of the buyer attesting that they have a legal right to use the name, will indemnify Reddit(!) against any and all claims, and to not do so will be considered breech whereupon buyer forfeits purchase cost, etc., etc.
Reddit would likewise attempt to bind other parties (Amazon corp) by saying that as a condition of using the platform they’d agree to this dispute resolution policy, leave Reddit out of it where possible, etc. It would be pretty weak sauce, however, because Amazon mega corp could certainly bring a claim in court against Reddit claiming that they were aiding in trademark infringement, especially if Beavis started selling books with that username.
So it’s a pain threshold issue. How long will Reddit tiny corp go to bat for Beavis against Amazon mega corp? Not long. Their primary defense is some judo to redirect Amazon and Beavis to resolve their issues directly and leave Reddit out of it.
Elon of course is a different matter. Elon may go to the mat for some rando user cuz he likes to slay dragons - didn’t he say he would cover legal costs of users who get fired for a tweet or some such?? — but he may as quickly decide that having mega corp Z engaged on the platform is in X’s best interest. He has the money to stand up to mega corp plaintiff, but you can see with a private org how much the outcome is really just up to their pain tolerance. Ordinarily all orgs will operate in their own financial interest at end of day.
I just assume that this would only be resolved at the Supreme Court level. Any local court decision would be challenged by Twitter.
Re: @Microsoft. I am not convinced that’s the case. If I build a public website with user handles it doesn’t automatically give all trademark owners the right to the matching handle.
> I just assume that this would only be resolved at the Supreme Court level. Any local court decision would be challenged by Twitter.
That's not how the Supreme Court works. The Supreme Court only agrees to consider a small number of cases every year, which are usually cases that could have a significant impact on constitutional law. If the Supreme Court refuses to hear a case, the decision of the lower court (federal appeals court) would stand.
That maybe true - I don't know much about the legal system. However, my guess is that the implications of being able to lock down vs seize and sell user handles in private companies are more far reaching than some of the recent cases the Supreme Court did agree to consider, e.g. whether "Trump too small" can be trademarked.
It's resilient due to the wide prior adoption. For example, I rarely see Threads or Mastodon embeds in new articles, it's still mostly Twitter. Changing that will take years.
The numerous competing platforms that want to replace it are all competing for users, which prevents a migration to a single alternative platform.
And that buys time for X to improve, which IMO it is. I may be wrong but I think long term it’s going to come out on top. At this point it’s getting tough to bet against Musk.
A quick search on Algolia is showing a lot more links to twitter, but only a minority of them with enough points to have made the front-page. By contrast, the majority of links to fosstodon.org and hachyderm.io have front-page worthy scores, and mastodon.social is 50/50.
Not to sound like a gatekeeper, but it feels Twitter is still appealing for the /r/startups crowd, "indiehackers" influencers and wannabes. The center of "real" tech talk has moved away from twitter.
I don't know if that's true yet, but there are a lot of FOSS and infosec and other software people on Mastodon. Centrist politics seems to be gradually migrating to Threads; lefty politics seems to be going to Mastodon. I'm starting to see Mastodon and Threads embeds where you'd expect Twitter embeds on mainstream sites.
Twitter isn't dead yet, but it's no longer the universal town square, and the longer Musk controls it, the further away from that it will get.
This might be true for very few very selective clubs like Berghain, certainly not true for all Berlin clubs. In the case of Berghain, it obviously doesn't suffer from losing customers—your comment confirms this point.
Berlin clubs are a scene, it's highly recommended to do prep work before going out. Personally, I would love for these clubs to be more accessible, but understand that Berghain has a very specific reputation that it works hard to maintain. It's an exclusive techno club considered by many to be the best in the world.
> It's an exclusive techno club considered by many to be the best in the world.
Being exclusive is really against the ethos of techno in Berlin. The "exclusivity" at the door is usually about achieving a fun mix of people and keeping out the ones who cannot behave.
As an occasional clubber in Berlin, these "best" things are ridiculous. The "best" kebab place with the long queue is nothing special at all, and Berghain is, apart from the building and the (mostly gay) sex stuff (which don't do much for me) a club like many others. It's never been my favorite - the vibe can be surprisingly aggressive and the music is often not that good for my taste. I used to go there for specific acts or along with friends only. Haven't bothered for years now. Nowadays it's also become expensive, cashing in on its dubious status.
There is a thing that the "best" kebab place and the "best" club have in common: kebab places and clubs are both very good in Berlin, so if you go to the one that the tourist guide / TikTok recommended, you're probably going to have a good time - but maybe you don't know that there are many other just as good or better places.
I've noticed this too about things deemed "the best." They often are susceptible to diminishing returns. For example, I go to a lot of Michelin-starred restaurants, but many of them are really not much better than I could make at home. Sure, they may have more exclusive ingredients, but the raw flavor potential is not significantly increased in Michelin-starred restaurants versus those outside of that group.
If you're not that impressed by Michelin-starred restaurants, why do you go?
As for how restaurants compare to making food at home, I don't think almost any restaurant can do better than a good chef at home. Someone at home can concentrate on making a top-quality meal for one or two people (maybe a couple more at the most), and doesn't have any real time pressures, or needing to share kitchen resources with meals made for dozens of other customers. It's pretty much the ideal environment for cooking, assuming 1) the equipment available is good and 2) the chef is skilled enough. Of course, #2 is a big one, so while some people who are confident in their cooking skills can claim "I can cook better meals than most Michelin-starred restaurants!", lots of other people can't cook meals that require more skill than "put in microwave for 4 minutes" so most restaurants can easily beat that.
I go because there is always something new to discover, in the way they cook, plate, and serve their foods, which I then use in my own cooking. Plus, I am hoping that one of them at least will impress me someday. As for home cooking, I agree with you, but oftentimes even other restaurants can beat Michelin-starred restaurants on flavor, so it's not just skilled home cooks. I view Michelin-starred restaurants as one would view high fashion and their shows, pieces of sensory art rather than pedestrian fare.
You need to know how to look and set the right expectations if you want to experience the most highly regarded techno club in the world. If you show up there with a group of drunk mates wearing sweatshirts or office attire - don't expect to be admitted. It's not that hard really, exclusive places have special rules.
> If you show up there with a group of drunk mates wearing sweatshirts or office attire - don't expect to be admitted.
Why not? I was at a heavy metal concert in Shibuya last May, and the place was full of 50-something guys in full office suits. It was a Monday, so I guess they just finished work and went directly to the concert. It was quite amusing to be honest...
You're comparing apples and oranges. A metal concert isn't an exclusive club; anyone can buy a ticket and go. And yes, most salarymen in Tokyo wear office suits every day, so since it was on a Monday, they just didn't bother bringing a change of clothes. I see men in such suits all the time on weekdays doing whatever, because those are their work clothes.
It's unfortunate that the rock and metal crowd is mostly middle-aged people these days; the young people seem to be listening to rather bland pop music, idol music, etc.
Anecdotal, but I have a 100% hit ratio at Berghain and have never done any kind of prep work. Most of the times bh was not even part of the plan and we would just show up there, sometimes still with the backpack from work, laptops and all. Maybe two or three of us, sometimes on my own. I think it sucks that so many people are rejected at the door, but the approach clearly works once you get inside and feel the vibe.
I was rejected at Kater Blau once though, for who knows what reason. It's the way it works, if you get bumped you can get angry at the system or just forget your ego and go elsewhere and enjoy the night.
That's genuinely nothing to do with why the Berlin clubs with strict entry policies are great. The experience inside doesn't feel exclusive, it's beautiful - people being free and really immersed in the music, supporting and taking care of one another, creating myriad moments of connection and joy, and a very much lower rate of people being obnoxious or in conflict than in a regular club. It's totally unlike being in a club that doesn't have the same kind of entry standards, and each club has a unique culture that is upheld in part by their door staff.
Exactly, I feel like people who complain about this have never experienced anything close to what you describe. Strict door policy benefits the club goers. If you want to go pick up girls with some sweaty dudes looking for a fight - that's fine, there are many clubs like that in any European country, including Germany.
That's 100% the thing. KitKat for example has recently been taking hits to its reputation because there have been instances of groping in there and they've been ignored by the club stuff. Now that they let Till Lindemann in a few weeks ago even though there have been active accusations of sexual harassment against him, they are completely done for with anyone who cares. In contrast, places like Berghain are blind to fame - there have been stories of celebrities like Björk being turned away at the entrance.
Been away from Berlin for 7 months or so and I'm really saddened and surprised to hear that about KitKat. It's a complex line to navigate in there always but that's part of the beauty of it - I've had plenty of uncomfortable or challenging experiences in there but always felt fundamentally safe, and know many of my friends, especially women, find it a safe (but sometimes challenging) space. It really does depend on the whole culture participating in holding the line, and it sounds like it's faltering recently.
My experience of KitKat is that unwanted attention of any kind (which depending on the night might not be super rare) is quickly shut down by the people in the immediate area before the staff even get close, and then the staff respond very quickly to it, especially if someone who is a regular calls attention.
I've only heard great things about KitKat even from people who live in Berlin. It's a bit of a Mekka according to the people in the scene here.
The scene is prone to issues and what we do in my town is not allowing new people unless they have a fet account and/or accompanied by a regular. There's also a blacklist of known offenders. Not sure if that's the case over there.
I really hope I can visit it one day but I'm really afraid of travelling all the way there and being refused..
Ps regarding Lindemann I'm not a big fan of cancelling people before the facts come out. I absolutely abhor abuse but I'm also very much in favour of innocent until proven guilty.
It wouldn't really be a risk of him misbehaving because there's so many eyes on him. But I know it's a tough line to draw. Glad I'm not a club manager.
Sisyphos is selective in this way but also plays the most normie pop and house music you're liable to find in Berlin outside of maybe the couple Schlager clubs that manage to survive outside of Bayern.
I don't fully follow the anecdata in this article. They mention that Berghain had to raise its cover charge to "deal with rising costs" (understandable, considering the inflation), not that they have fewer patrons.
And even if, if one club closes down it hardly means the end of the club scene as a whole. I qm not familiar with Berlin that much, but back the day the club in Munich was P1. Now not anymore, doesn't mean others didn't take P1s place so.
Right. It's a form of segregation. A place whose roots are in Bohemian, black, gay and trans clubs with specific focus on welcoming outcasts should be explicitly inclusive.
Traveling to Asia, South America and Europe to meet with electronic artists I've never had any interest in attempting to go to the segregated clubs of Berlin. I find it offensive.
Here just to share that I think "segregated" night clubs are essential for creating a publicly accessible and safe + positive vibe club experience.
Your other options are (a) let anyone in and you get a**** and total dilution of cultural values (quick death of the institution) or (b) it's a private party and you're not invited.
For accessible and good, you can stay on your toes and find new, smaller clubs and scenes that haven't had time to die yet, but that's its own exclusiveness: if you don't know, you don't know.
Counterpoint: Hacker News, CDMX EBM scene, goth scene, LA underground art scene, SF renegade rave scene, Latin bars, gay clubs like the EndUp, which have been open and welcoming since 1971, gay black scene, free software movement, gay Asian scene in any city, bear bars, salsa clubs, martial arts clubs, drag bars, anime scene, furry scene, hiking groups, Trekkies, adventurer clubs, punk scene, bicycle riders groups, astronomy groups, ball room dancing groups, central american danza cultural groups, alcoholics anonymous... Even prestigious universities have countless open proseminars where you can just walk in off the street to a graduate symposium. I've gone to many, you really just walk in the door.
I'd argue the majority of cliques and scenes are extremely accepting and people self filter. Having a discriminating door guy is just being an asshole.
Pay attention to the downvotes, and browse HN with "showdead" turned on, and you'll see that HN stays the way it is in large part due to aggressive exclusion of those who can't stick to society norms up to an including the metaphorical "door guy" (bans).
Self-filtering is a start. But pretty much all cliques and scenes also have lines you will get ostracised if you go past. The extent of their reaction if you will vary, and sure, there's a difference between proactively judging you based on appearance and retroactively judging you by actions, but in some scenes your appearance is part of the game. That sucks if you don't fit in, but it also sucks for those who want something specific if you're that one person who can't self filter and insist on ruing the experience for everyone else.
Exclusion based on contribution is different than exclusion based on discrimination.
It's a very important difference.
If I, just some random dude, submitted a correct mathematical paper solving a millennium or Hilbert puzzle to a prestigious journal, for instance, they would publish it regardless of the fact that I'm not so and so from Princeton. They wouldn't exclude my valued contribution.
Discrimination would be me submitting the correct solution but first having to find and tack on so and so from Princeton as the author in order to even get considered.
Now I'd probably have to wrangle them a bit to convince them, but that's just credulity, not discrimination.
That's quite different than say Hattie McDaniel, a black actress, being excluded from the premiere of her movie, Gone with the Wind and unable to accept her Oscar on stage because of discrimination.
Discrimination exists regardless of contribution for reasons ultimately unrelated to the nature of the contribution
None of the people you're arguing with here have been defending exclusion based on discrimination of the kind you're objecting to, so it's then unclear why you're making this argument.
The specific comment you replied to that I replied to did not argue for the kind of discrimination you're talking about here either.
I'm absolutely sure that the kind of discrimination you're talking about is also an issue with quite a few clubs, but they are two very different issues.
Sure but consequences come from systems, structures, and institutions and not from intentions.
You can tell me it's some vibe check but it's structurally set up to discriminate based on classic markers and there's been intentionally zero remediations to avoid it.
In fact, many reports of xenophobia, antisemitism and racism persist, just Google it, it's everywhere.
That's why we had to fundamentally re-form our institutions in the US in the name of inclusion and not just have better intentions.
Berghain and Tresor can to whatever the fuck they want, I don't care. But let's call a spade a spade and not pretend it magically turns to something else based on wishes and dreams.
Then attack the lack of remediation, and the lack of more objective criteria, not the notion that there are criteria for participation in all kinds of communities including in most of the ones you used as examples of inclusive ones.
> That's why we had to fundamentally re-form our institutions in the US in the name of inclusion and not just have better intentions.
Are you suggesting that worked?
> But let's call a spade a spade and not pretend it magically turns to something else based on wishes and dreams.
The problem is that you appear to call a spade something else entirely, and attack a position nobody has taken. I note that you have expanded on specific issues and pointed out another club that has specific policies that can be easily conformed to elsewhere, and that was a much more productive line of argument to take.
Some of the dead can be interesting as long as the discussion does not touch topics that send them off. Makes you wonder if you could create a discussion direction tag based partial shadowban.
You can go out to hundreds of bars in Berlin without any door policy whatsoever. Legendary bars, cool bars, gay bars, etc. It's not like the whole of Berlin is segregated.
But this approach just wouldn't benefit some popular dance clubs. Without a solid door policy clubs would be stuffed with people who come there for wrong reasons. To pick up girls, to get drunk, to visit an attraction for the sake of a visit (not because they enjoy techno music), to get into a fight, etc etc. Have you ever been to a poorly managed club? They don't have a community, don't focus on a holistic clubbing experience, have many people with really bad vibes. Would you want to stay there for a night and the next day (night time + day time raves)?
> underground cliques
Let's be honest, techno is not underground in Berlin, these clubs are a massive tourist attraction. Berghain is not a 50 person dive bar in SOMA.
So your argument is that it's a popular tourist attraction so instead of capitalizing on it by say opening a second, moving to a bigger space, having more events, selling tickets in advance or charging higher prices they instead openly and famously discriminate based on physical appearance?
In Germany. Let me guess, they look at your ID to check your name and nationality first. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I bet I'm not.
Btw, KitKatClub doesn't do that and they're equally famous.
I am reminded that we are on a tech forum :) Do they need to capitalize, scale, open franchise clubs all over the world? Techno clubs are not about that at their best.
Door policy is discrimination only in the sense that the very few people at the door have to make a swift judgment on whether your group will fit in. Can this be upsetting? Sure!
> In Germany. Let me guess, they look at your ID to check your name and nationality first.
By this logic liquor stores in the US also discriminate based on person's nationality since they check the ID.
KitKatClub has a strict dress code policy for their sex-oriented events.
Kitkatklub dress code is wacky. They're insanely serious about it but it's easy to conform to. It's a costume party.
As to the other point, you can separate the process to avoid the kind of blanket discrimination I think we can all agree is unethical. I bet they don't make the slightest effort. It's probably one guy that checks your ID and says yes/no and one guy that takes money. It could be 3 instead of 2 to avoid, just to be crazy, saying no to all the Jewish names, but it's not.
Next time I'm in Berlin, I'll try to remember to take a clicker with me and stand outside the place. I bet you'll start to notice a few interesting patterns that America has quite a few laws against. I've only heard them to be extremely proud of their bias so I'd be surprised if you didn't start seeing just classic discrimination because that's what humans appear to naturally do unless they work really really hard at it or have some structures to prevent it.
You could approach visiting Berghain the same way you do with KitKatClub. I don't recommend it, but you could. Treat it as a costume party - match the expectations, dress up appropriately, come with a friendly group.
If the community and friendly feel is the selling point, then no you can not really scale that way and simultaneously keep the community and relationships. You have to choose between the two.
I see your point, but a community venue and constantly wounding up and starting anew also don't mix. It's an unfortunate outcome of the scale and the system we live in. If Berghain was a XII century monastery in an inaccessible place it could have maintained a community venue for centuries. A large club in the techno capital of the world has to resort to a different approach if it wants to maintain at least some level of continuity, status, and quality for its community.
This is an exaggeration. All communities have something that make them a community, and not just an everchanging group of random people. Is being into techno a random or superficial reason for being a part of the techno community? Is looking and being friendly a superficial reason for being a part of an intentionally accepting community? This is the same argument people use in many other contexts where inclusion is conflated with having no rules and preferences. Should gay sex parties admit large groups of drunk aggressive lads just because gay parties are supposed to be inclusive? This approach ends up compromising the community itself, it really doesn't benefit the cause.
Ultimately, I agree, and have spent a lot more time in many of these scenes than at Berghain.
However, all of them are fairly self-selecting in different ways that I think are difficult or impossible to achieve in a long-running, ostensibly "for everyone" institution like a techno club.
I understand you feel that way but materially it's incorrect.
You can be exclusive for exclusive-sake and you'll attract the dolce & gabana crowd and maybe that's what they want - people who will spend $500 on alcohol.
But as far as techno I've met all the Belleville 3, two of them twice and each time it's been at tiny spots with like $0-$5 cover.
I've even been to warehouse parties with producers big enough to have Wikipedia pages that are just honor systems where you promise to venmo the promoter and there is no door guy. Highschool kids could just walk in doing hard drugs and to be honest they probably did.
But then again, there's certainly pop techno and non-pop techno. Tiestos YouTube has like 3.7 billion views. That's a different problem than say
Legowelt with 200k.
"I'd argue the majority of cliques and scenes are extremely accepting and people self filter. Having a discriminating door guy is just being an asshole."
Yes and it is a pretty good description of most Berliners. As a capital, that has mainly lived the last 30 years by sucking tremendous money out of the other federal states, as a city that has little industry and businesses left, as a place which administration has become dysfunctional, it gives the stupid arrogant little Berliner a feeling or superiority if he gets into a club but others must stay outside.
And before you donwvote me, for many years I loved this city. I caught a last glimpse of the post reunification Berlin, when basically all the good clubs had no license or whatever. Bars and clubs at the craziest places. Took the police years to close this down. And today, if you walk through Prenzlauer Berg or Oranienburger str. OMG.
> (a) let anyone in and you get a** and total dilution of cultural values (quick death of the institution)
The counterargument to your point is somewhat self-evident: all the great nightclubs in Berlin that have way more relaxed entrances than Berghain that aren't filled with assholes and aren't completely diluted of cultural values.
Often times it's the exclusivity that attracts the assholes who normally don't listen to that kind of music anyway.
Even further: debatable unproven good doesn't cancel out the immediate unmistakable bad. Sponsoring a regulation with stolen money is also self-serving (political influence), plus we don't have any data available to say that the regulation resulted in any societal good. We do know, though, that the stolen money negatively affected millions of people.
Equally: indentured servitude in restitution isn't a valid rehabilitation strategy. It doesn't deter nor contract ones thinking to doing criminal activities. The only thing we can do it weigh punishment to severity of the crimes. SBF will soon find out what value that is.
I have a growing concern that by engaging with this argument we are making it more acceptable. It's not OK to steal from "rich people". It's not OK to blame everything on the 1%. Online platforms are filled with garbage about the 1%, and most posters are Americans, all of whom actually are in this 1% globally.
If you own a car and/or a home - are you rich? Is it acceptable to steal your $1K investment and spend it on pseudo-EA causes? An argument so ethically bankrupt, I can't believe people even type it on a public forum.
My frustration about engaging with this argument is in agreement with you—sorry if I wasn't clear. The parent commenter made it seem like FTX only defrauded some abstract rich people, which, according to them, would somehow make it more acceptable.
> His actions made perfect sense from his utilitarian Effective Altruist worldview. He was stealing from rich people, and giving the money to what he saw as "worthy causes."
Clearly this is a false assumption. He was not stealing from rich people (as if stealing from reach people is a justifiable EA practice), and was not spending the majority of the stolen money on worthy causes (worthy by EA standards). He was buying property for himself and his circle, signing deals with stadiums, covering Alameda Research losses, etc. Even for a deluded man like SBF, don't think it's possible to interpret that as an improvement of the world's conditions.
Well, texting falls into the same broad category. The real cause is driver inattention. Banning right turn on red is a good way to ensure that distracted drivers endanger pedestrians less.
We should make it much rarer: part of why we have so many people killed or seriously injured by drivers is that we’ve been unwilling to enforce laws or take away licenses, and every bad driver knows that. If there was a high chance that, say, being seen texting, blowing a light, etc. meant your car would be impounded for 6 months it’d magically turn out that Tik Tok can wait until you’re out of the car.
Exactly. But instead, we steal from ALL drivers to inexplicably pander to the unredeemable. People who can't or refuse to drive properly should be removed from the road, period.
This is a toddler argument. Driving is a time-consuming chore in most cases, so people zone out, get distracted, don't pay attention to things that are harder to notice and are much more vulnerable than the vehicle itself. We depend on driving for better or worse, doesn't mean we can't make roads safer for pedestrians.
When compared to the EU (no right turn on red), US stands out as an extremely unsafe country for pedestrians, with pedestrian deaths actually increasing year-over-year. Sure, it's not all attributed to the right turn on red law, multiple new regulations are needed.
And that's a pandering-to-the-toddlers argument. Don't want to pay attention on the road? Then we will remove you from it and let the grown-ups go about their business unimpeded.
That's... what this suggested legislation is about. Not banning driving, but making it illegal to turn right on red, presumably punishing drivers who do. Maybe I am misunderstanding your argument.
You're misunderstanding it intentionally. There's nothing wrong with turning right on red. Turning right WITHOUT PAYING ATTENTION is wrong, as is ANY driving without paying attention.
Again: Take inattentive drivers off the road; don't punish everyone all the time with more piecemeal bullshit.
By this argument there is nothing wrong with texting while driving. Or drinking. Why did we make it illegal for all people to drive under influence instead of just punishing those who become inattentive?
You are talking about attention as if we can detect inattentive drivers by measuring their chakra energy from a mile away. No. There are inherently more dangerous situations on the road, right turn on red being one of those. We have the data to prove it, no need to sacrifice pedestrians in order to make the road—eventually—safer. Why do we need traffic lights at all? Let’s just all pay attention and punish drivers who are inattentive.
The suggestion to punish drivers who hit pedestrians is great. Oh wait, we are already doing that.
I notice all the time how dangerous the shared right turn/pedestrian GO green light is. Both as a driver and as a pedestrian. Would be interesting to see stats on these accidents too.
