Apparently we are antisocial bastards...
Discussion
Suckmychrsitmas said:Recently the noble Lord Hunt of Wirral, and previously the Rt Hon Tony Blair MP, disagreed with you:
If that action incoveniences, offends or poses a risk to someone else, then, yes, there's a good argument for it being banned.
Hansard 25 October 2005 said:
The right to cause offence is infinitely more important and fundamental to our way of life than any right not to be offended.
The other points you raise can be dismissed as barely worth comment - every action one person takes has some risk to themselves and to others. Every year about 800 people are treated in hospital A&E departments for injuries caused by cotton wool, risk is difficult to quantify and is an essential part of a normal life, who except a safety fascist would seek to do as you suggest?
Inconvenience? What scale would you use? Is mildly irked not OK? Totally kissed off very not OK? What angle of onlooker eyebrow raising would do the trick? And who would decide - you? Your line of reasoning on public bans and restrictions is unworkable and unwarranted. Kindly make plausible comments in future posts, your petty minded approach to limiting others' individual freedoms is offensive and it inconveniences me having to type in posts to draw attention to the nonsensical nature of your arguments, not to mention the risk of high blood pressure after reading more and more totalitarian control freakery
Suckmychrsitmas said:Making laws is risky and might cause offence, but better safe than sorry though eh
What scale would you use?
Everything is relative.
Why bother with laws at all, for that matter?
As to the suckmychrsitmas theory of relativity, your ideas are unworkable for the very reason you outline. Thank goodness our beloved government isn't full of control freaks with views like that
Suckmychrsitmas said:
Filthy diseasels must be scrapped no matter what and there is no reason to encourage empty buses regardless of power source.
You're saying that public transport in and of itself is a bad idea?
Yes bus travel is a bad idea.
I am saying that the private car is a great transport system, it takes people where they need to go 24/7/365.
Yawnblahblah takes people from somewhere they must travel to, to somewhere near (perhaps) their eventual destination. It helps spread germs and diseases while soaking wet people quietly steam in frustration at their lateness. 50% of the population will not use it after dark for fear of attack, the other 50% are still in fear of violence but use it anyway. Busses get in the way of first class travellers in cars and generally cause chaos. It is yeaterdays news as are the current trains. The whole lot should be closed down and the subsidies scrapped. Investment in ultra high speed inter city trains is a great idea provided there is some advantage for the end user Ie shorter travel times than cars. For the highly impoverished there is obviously a need for some basic transport system. I would prefer to make it entirely paper based and just let people use taxis. Public sector schemes are always failures when large scale logistics and hardware are required. Too many agencies and empires have been built on the back of yawnblahblah hence lets get rid.
GregE240 said:
For the highly impoverished there is obviously a need for some basic transport system. it, let 'em walk, get some of the lard off they've scoffed watching Tricia.
Sheffield had a lengthy bus strike a while ago.
Travellers found that 3 or 4 in a taxi was cheaper than bussing it....
And the air was clean and sweet......
Suckmychrsitmas said:Juxtaposing two fundamentally different examples is an old rhetorical device that never worked, and still doesn't, so let us not waste time on the target practice bit.
You may feel it's acceptable to drive a V12 with a massive exhaust creating significantly more than the legal limit through a residential neighbourhood or take in some target practice with your handgun in at the local park, but unfortunately there's going to be a lot of people that don't agree with you.
With respect to driving one's "V12 with a massive exhaust creating significantly more than the legal limit through a residential neighborhood..." - significantly more of what, and what is the nature and history of that legal limit?
If we take the obvious candidates,
- significantly more emissions: if people were to stop taking jet planes on holiday and superfluous business trips (which together would account for at least 95% of all jet travel), and were willing to lower their home thermostats by a meaningful amount, and to cease consuming the acres of manufactured crap of which I personally do not approve, then I would commit to never drive a V12 with a massive exhaust through a residential neighbourhood. Alternatively, for
- significantly more noise: if people were never to rev motorbikes to more than 50% of max rpms in town, and never to play music that I do not like within my earshot, and to disable all car alarms, and to put proper silencers on all buses, coaches and lorries, and to muffle all construction noise so that it is completely inaudible, then I would commit to never drive a V12 with a massive exhaust through a residential neighbourhood.
All of the above restraints are physically practicable. All of the above sources of gas and sound emissions are voluntary actions that individuals deem to be in their self-interest. None of the voluntary actions is essential to human life, but all of them make life better for someone.
It depends on whose ox is being gored, doesn't it?
flemke said:
It depends on whose ox is being gored, doesn't it?
I was referring to noise, for what's it's worth.
You feel that it's unreasonable that there should exist regulations restricting how much noise a car may make? It seems reasonable to me.
I take you point about other sources of noises to be found in your typical city and, yes, it'd be nice if the pneumatic drills emitted no noise, but they do I would imagine that it'd be difficult to reduce that significantly, and the occasional car alarm does grate, but that's what car alarms are designed to do: make noise. A car can be made to be quieter without compromising its performance too much and I don't see that as being too unreasonable.
Suckmychrsitmas said:
but people telling me what i can and can't do offend me, pretty much is the basis for half the complaints from people on these threads. So would a ban on new rules be a good idea?
please see my thread from a while ago re: common sense, seems to be some missing here.
This is getting tiresome. One of the pesky downsides to living in a civilised society is having to put up with laws, i.e. people telling you what you can and can't do.
Of course
But those laws should be based on logic and reason not ignorance and prejudice.
Suckmychrsitmas said:
You feel that it's unreasonable that there should exist regulations restricting how much noise a car may make? It seems reasonable to me.
A car can be made to be quieter without compromising its performance too much and I don't see that as being too unreasonable.
Fine within reason
In my experience buzzing motorcycles create far more noise in the urban environment, so why is the focus of your attention the sports cars of the rich?
Suckmychrsitmas said:
It depends on whose ox is being gored, doesn't it?
I was referring to noise, for what's it's worth.
You feel that it's unreasonable that there should exist regulations restricting how much noise a car may make? It seems reasonable to me.
I take you point about other sources of noises to be found in your typical city and, yes, it'd be nice if the pneumatic drills emitted no noise, but they do I would imagine that it'd be difficult to reduce that significantly, and the occasional car alarm does grate, but that's what car alarms are designed to do: make noise. A car can be made to be quieter without compromising its performance too much and I don't see that as being too unreasonable.
Does this mean that the current out dated, and antiquated buses could be made quieter? I can think of a pretty simple solution in just clearing them off the roads.
and
compromising performance 'too much' any compromise on the performance of an engine will affect the levels of pollution caused, cutting out one pollutant (noise) will have some level of negative effect on emmissions, or economy, with the dwindling resource do you consider that to be a valid solution.
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