5 ms·

What? I am sometimes pissed at cyclists, but to think "they're not [fully] human" would imply significant cognitive deficiency.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Unfortunately human beings do have many significant cognitive deficiencies, some of which have severe impacts on those around them.
bertil 5y ago
Why are you pissed at them for? Using the same road as you?
- danmur 5y ago
  Doing things that are annoying, just like every other class of human? Exactly the same way cyclists get pissed at drivers, or pedestrians, or other cyclists.
  - bertil 5y ago
    Cyclists get pissed at drivers because they dehumanise them, threaten and murder them. I don’t think that’s the problem that drivers have with cyclists.
- sampo 5y ago
  > Why are you pissed at them for? Just like some car drivers feel entitled to "own" the road and feel that if they hit a cyclist, it was the cyclist at fault, also some cyclists feel entitled to "own" the shared pedestrian and cycle paths, and occasionally hit pedestrians and then blame the pedestrians.
  - drran 5y ago
    Even pedestrians occasionally hit pedestrians and then blame pedestrians. Very high maneuverability makes pedestrians unpredictable. The only way to avoid a collision with a pedestrian is to keep distance between you and a pedestrian, or accept that they will step right in front of your bike sometimes, or hit you on the side, when you're passing them slowly, or bump into you, when you're standing or walking with a bicycle. When on foots, I can avoid a collision with another pedestrian easily, but when I'm on a bike, I cannot do that, even when I drive at pedestrian speed.
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  Using the same road as me, at a fourth of my speed, thus risking a potentially dangerous situation for everyone involved, while obviously mistaking a public road for a sports arena (as evidenced by the outfit), while there is a perfectly good bike lane ten meters to the right of them. No sane person hates the random civilian cyclist who rides inner-city to his place of work, on bike lanes where available, and who acts in a predictable manner (give hand signs when making a turn, stopping when the traffic lights say so, ...). But those wannabe-Lance-Armstrongs on the country road, I can understand how they can make someone's blood boil. Even worse when they do everything to be as invisible as possible (for example, wearing mostly black).
  - _Wintermute 5y ago
    > Using the same road as me, at a fourth of my speed, thus risking a potentially dangerous situation for everyone involved Sounds like it's you with the heavy fast moving object that's creating the danger in that situation.
    - HPsquared 5y ago
      It's like a person walking on train tracks - the train is the big, dangerous fast-moving thing, but the danger comes from mixing the two. You expect to see trains on a train track, indeed they can't go anywhere else. Pedestrians should walk on the pavement, not the train track. That's the "pro-car / anti-bike" angle, I think. If cars had been invented first, it would probably be illegal to ride bikes on the road. They basically were grandfathered-in.
    - charcircuit 5y ago
      If a car went 10 mph on a 50 mph road I would be just as mad as if it was a biker.
  - Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
    > a perfectly good bike lane Let's see it. Street View link, please? You'd be amazed how inconvenient or dangerous many "perfectly good bike lanes" turn out to be.
moritonal 5y ago
It's been shown often that people are very capable of thinking of others as not human. Now wrap them in a nice metal bubble (car), and put the other human into a weird pose on a metal frame (bike) and the division is even easier. I'd then also imagine it's a coping mechanism for the guilt/stress drivers face worrying about cyclists, given the difference of damage in a crash, so they think of the cyclists as "a cyclist who decided to ride up next to me" rather than "a human on a bike trying to get to work".
Broken_Hippo 5y ago
...to think "they're not [fully] human" would imply significant cognitive deficiency. I mean, it is one the world has been plagued with. You can find past examples in constitutions viewing slaves as lesser and forbidding Jewish folks from a country. In modern times - at least in the US - folks use it for immigrants and prisoners and to a lesser extent, poor people. And sure, a deficiency, but I'm pretty sure it is one folks choose part of the time. Admittedly, however, I think what the article refers to is kind of a mental shortcut folks do unknowingly - one of those things that usually just helps us process the world around us. A car isn't full of people, it is a thing. A bike is a mini car on wheels. Walking folks, even with a bike, are people, though.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
“The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles...when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones.” ― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

Unfortunately human beings do have many significant cognitive deficiencies, some of which have severe impacts on those around them.

bertil 5y ago

Why are you pissed at them for? Using the same road as you?

danmur 5y ago
Doing things that are annoying, just like every other class of human? Exactly the same way cyclists get pissed at drivers, or pedestrians, or other cyclists.
- bertil 5y ago
  Cyclists get pissed at drivers because they dehumanise them, threaten and murder them. I don’t think that’s the problem that drivers have with cyclists.
sampo 5y ago
> Why are you pissed at them for? Just like some car drivers feel entitled to "own" the road and feel that if they hit a cyclist, it was the cyclist at fault, also some cyclists feel entitled to "own" the shared pedestrian and cycle paths, and occasionally hit pedestrians and then blame the pedestrians.
- drran 5y ago
  Even pedestrians occasionally hit pedestrians and then blame pedestrians. Very high maneuverability makes pedestrians unpredictable. The only way to avoid a collision with a pedestrian is to keep distance between you and a pedestrian, or accept that they will step right in front of your bike sometimes, or hit you on the side, when you're passing them slowly, or bump into you, when you're standing or walking with a bicycle. When on foots, I can avoid a collision with another pedestrian easily, but when I'm on a bike, I cannot do that, even when I drive at pedestrian speed.
DocTomoe 5y ago
Using the same road as me, at a fourth of my speed, thus risking a potentially dangerous situation for everyone involved, while obviously mistaking a public road for a sports arena (as evidenced by the outfit), while there is a perfectly good bike lane ten meters to the right of them. No sane person hates the random civilian cyclist who rides inner-city to his place of work, on bike lanes where available, and who acts in a predictable manner (give hand signs when making a turn, stopping when the traffic lights say so, ...). But those wannabe-Lance-Armstrongs on the country road, I can understand how they can make someone's blood boil. Even worse when they do everything to be as invisible as possible (for example, wearing mostly black).
- _Wintermute 5y ago
  > Using the same road as me, at a fourth of my speed, thus risking a potentially dangerous situation for everyone involved Sounds like it's you with the heavy fast moving object that's creating the danger in that situation.
  - HPsquared 5y ago
    It's like a person walking on train tracks - the train is the big, dangerous fast-moving thing, but the danger comes from mixing the two. You expect to see trains on a train track, indeed they can't go anywhere else. Pedestrians should walk on the pavement, not the train track. That's the "pro-car / anti-bike" angle, I think. If cars had been invented first, it would probably be illegal to ride bikes on the road. They basically were grandfathered-in.
  - charcircuit 5y ago
    If a car went 10 mph on a 50 mph road I would be just as mad as if it was a biker.
- Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
  > a perfectly good bike lane Let's see it. Street View link, please? You'd be amazed how inconvenient or dangerous many "perfectly good bike lanes" turn out to be.

moritonal 5y ago

It's been shown often that people are very capable of thinking of others as not human. Now wrap them in a nice metal bubble (car), and put the other human into a weird pose on a metal frame (bike) and the division is even easier. I'd then also imagine it's a coping mechanism for the guilt/stress drivers face worrying about cyclists, given the difference of damage in a crash, so they think of the cyclists as "a cyclist who decided to ride up next to me" rather than "a human on a bike trying to get to work".

Broken_Hippo 5y ago

...to think "they're not [fully] human" would imply significant cognitive deficiency. I mean, it is one the world has been plagued with. You can find past examples in constitutions viewing slaves as lesser and forbidding Jewish folks from a country. In modern times - at least in the US - folks use it for immigrants and prisoners and to a lesser extent, poor people. And sure, a deficiency, but I'm pretty sure it is one folks choose part of the time. Admittedly, however, I think what the article refers to is kind of a mental shortcut folks do unknowingly - one of those things that usually just helps us process the world around us. A car isn't full of people, it is a thing. A bike is a mini car on wheels. Walking folks, even with a bike, are people, though.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

“The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles...when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones.” ― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman