*Don’t actually drive fast unless you’re a racer on a racing track
Its a scientific fact that I can’t drive 55.
I used to have a “driving CD.” It started with that song, and the second track was “Highway to Hell,” followed by “Highway to the Danger Zone.”
Surprisingly, while I do have 3 racing licenses, I have never gotten a speeding ticket.
Just drive fast in racing games, it is surprisingly not just safer but way more affordable than buying a sports car and paying for tires and getting speeding tickets…
Even a decent driving rig can be had for under a grand. Way cheaper than almost any car.
It’s also convenient that you can just press the reset button when you inevitably launch your video game vehicle into a fence at high speed. A single crash in a real car is real expensive when you gotta fix the parts of the track you just wrecked too. See: nurburgring barrier repair costs + towing
You can also still experience that strange calm people love that comes from driving at your limit, where there is zero room for anything other than your presence in the moment reacting to the road, your vehicle and what is coming around the corner……
But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right. . . and that’s when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it. . . howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica. . . letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge. . . The Edge. . . There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others – the living – are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.
But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it’s In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.
The above is a quote from Hunter S. Thompson on this odd but enchanting species of calm that he gets from driving his motorcycle too fast and though I am sure it is much more intense to do in real life, the fact is if you play a good driving game you absolutely go to a similar place in your mind. You face the same mental situation of the road coming at you so fast that all you can do is exist in the moment, except instead of the edge-y boy antics of almost killing yourself or someone else from driving like an asshole (and also burning fossil fuels for no reason, though with a motorcycle that point is moot they get such good gas mileage usually) you are playing a video game where a spectacular crash is part of the fun (looking at you Flat Out, Burnout and Wreckfest :P ).
That mental state that people who love driving fast crave is the same mental state gamers who like playing competitive games pursue (you ever see someone play quake multiplayer competitively? It is the same exact flow state even when it isn’t a racing game), it’s just one hobby puts human lives at risk and the other is a fun time no matter what.
Absolutely agree. There’s definitely a meditative aspect to driving on the edge; your entire brain is focused on doing one thing.
Dont worry, I keep it under 140 mph. And I only speed when I have a spotter.
Or you’re bootlegging.
Also try not to hit the wall at 180mph.
Damn that’s some solid advice, thanks! I’ll hear it for ~250
Or if you’re boozed up
echo ”for i in $FASCISTS; do /usr/bin/punchInTheFace i; done” > fa.sh
sudo bash fa.sh
Bottom center should be “make a sexbot out of some woman you saw online”
👂???
Leah Brahms
Who’s the bash the fash guy?
deleted by creator
As someone that grew up in the 90s watching NASCAR Dale was also hella legit. He hated the Confederate flag and was quoted as saying, “racism is a moral commitment to ignorance.” I miss when rednecks understood the fight and also hated cops. Now they suck and give the rest of us a bad name.
He was also a good guy in his community. A church called his number once by accident when asking for donations for reparis and he was like “hold on a minute” and went down to the church with a check for the full amount they had been trying to raise, telling them something like ‘I better not see a word about this in the paper’.
Absolutely a stand up guy
I love that quote, and it’s so reusable.
i grew up in a rural area where nascar is very popular (i personally never cared for it or paid much attention) and never understood the seemingly irrational hatred some people seemed to have for mr earnheardt, but that one quote makes it all make sense. thanks for clearing that up for me.
That is badass, I would define driving cars so fast that you are a celebrity and then using that celebrity status to stick a middle finger up to racism rampant in the fanbase and culture of the motorsport your career hinges on as “Living The Dream”.
NASCAR
That’s a small local car racing league in the U.S. btw ;)
Not just local cars. Toyota, Honda, and SAAb all had stock cars, or in SAAb’s case, trucks.
I kept wondering if it was because all nascar drivers do is turn left. But him being used as a meme is never explained directly or contextually.
It’s because he was extremely vocal about hating the Confederate flag, and also vocal about racism being “stupid.”
The dude was clearly left leaning in a sport that has mostly right leaning fans
Fuck yeah, turn left bash fash Les go
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Picking up wild animals which would much prefer to be left alone, so you can get your picture taken, is not loving them. Keeping animals in cages so you can have something on your shelf to look at, is not loving them. Most animal ownership is possession for the possessive, masquerading as caring.
I feel like I’ve seen this take a lot more in the past ~5 years than I did before. Not just that zoos are unethical, but that any animal ownership (or really interaction of any kind) is inherently abusive.
You’re certainly entitled to feel however you want about animal ownership and act accordingly, but personally I feel like it’s honestly kind of a weird take?
Humans are obviously not the only species that develops symbiolotic relationships with other organisms (in a diversity of power dynamics), but we are also not the only species who take on specifcally ownership or shepherd roles for other species (like spiders with frog pets, or fungus farmer ants, among many many other examples). Thus, the ontological position this opinion must operate from is that humans are somehow distinct and superior to nature, such that we have separate and unique responsibilities not to engage in mutualistic ownership with other organisms, on the basis that like, we’re somehow “above” that? That we’re so enlightened and knowledgeable that we exist in a category of responsibility distinct from all other organisms?
Of course, a lot of our relationships to animals can be described as harmful in other terms without needing to take this specific stance. Like, our relationship with many agricultural animals can be critiqued through the harm done to their individual well-beings and through the harm their propagation does to the global environment. Or irresponsible pet owners can be critiqued for how their unwillingness to control the reproduction or predatory abilities of their pets can harm local ecosystems, like an introduced invasive species might. Or valid criticisms of many zoos when they prioritize profits over animal welfare, rehabilitation, ecosystem restoration, and education. Or that the general public picking up wild animals is a problem because it disturbs their fragile ecosystems and traumatizes them, especially when done on the large scale of human populations (but distinctly not for ecological study, wild animal healthcare, education, etc., like Steve Irwin et. al) But none of these are specific criques of the mutualistic ownership relationship itself as much as problems with the way we handle that relationship.
Idk, I’m interested to understand your opinion, especially if it has detail I’m missing beyond “we shouldn’t have pets, zoos, or farms because we’re better than that”!
Behold, an abuse victim! /s
I know you meant this as a funny reply, and I’m sure your cat is very well taken care of.
…but I want to point out that the argument against pet ownership is more about the millions of animals in puppy mills, or on the streets, or abused by breeders, or bred with genetic issues for the sake of purity of breed. Your cat was extremely lucky to be adopted by you. But so many other cats are not. So many other cats die in shelters, or on the streets, or from euthanization, or in breeding mills. We create and fund the system that brings the unlucky cats into existence, for our own benefit.
The argument is that all those millions of cats and dogs that suffer and die so we can choose a few of them to pamper as pets, is not worth it.
Your cat isn’t an abuse victim. But all the other cats who weren’t so lucky, are.
Plus animal abuse is incredibly hard to discover: because animals cannot go to the police and report their owners. Lol. They don’t have voices. That makes them incredibly easy victims to exploit. Humans as a whole are really a hard group of people to trust with such vulnerable creatures, ngl.
I’m very fun at parties, I know.
the photos I take of my cat don’t help the case
Re. Your Username: Replicant Batty.
So you’re an artificial recreation of Batty Coda? Did you get Robin’s personality in there too?
It’s a reference to Roy Batty from Blade Runner. I didn’t know the name Batty Koda so I looked it up and I had completely forgotten about that movie lol
My most charitable interpretation of you bringing up that spiders have frog pets is that, because pet-ownership is a thing that other animals do, it’s okay/natural for humans to do them too. And if we argue that it’s not okay for humans to do it, it must be because we think humans are inherently superior or something. Hopefully it’s accurate because that’s how I understood you.
This leads me to say:
The difference between us and other species that develop ownership/shepherding/symbiotic/whatever relationships with other creatures, is that humans can conceptualize morality. (inb4 the “morality is subjective” line: yeah, it is. But if you agree that suffering, torture, etc is a bad thing then we’re on the same page here axiomatically.) Unlike spiders, or farmer ants, we understand that causing other creatures to suffer is wrong. Because we are smart enough to understand, we have the responsibility to act in accordance with that understanding.
Another point is: male lions kill the cubs of other lions. Dolphins rape each other. Rats eat their own babies sometimes. Cats play with the mice they catch before killing them. The natural world is full of animals doing horrific things to each other. If you are going to say that it’s okay for humans to keep pets (or whatever) because animals do it/it’s natural… why can’t humans kill and eat their own babies? It’s because we know causing others to suffer is wrong, and therefore hold ourselves to a higher standard. We ARE superior: in the sense that we’ve invented philosophy and morality. That’s not a weird take. And it’s not a take that’s incompatible with this argument.
Similarly, we don’t hold our own children accountable for their crimes to the same degree we hold adults. If a kid steals money, or beats someone up, our society doesn’t punish them the same way as an adult. Because we understand that their brains have not yet developed the capacity to fully understand empathy. To truly be responsible for the suffering they cause.
Animals are, a lot like human children in that sense.
Therefore, we totally can “exist in a category of responsibility distinct from all other organisms.” We literally already do when it comes to things like murder, rape, and torture. Why not add distressing and frightening animals to take photos with them, or keeping them in cages, or what have you; to the list of things we should take responsibility for?
I hope that helps clear up the confusion for you.
On “mutual ownership”. I’m not convinced that anything, whose agency has been removed through confinement, can be said to have equal weight in the decision to be owned, and thus be claimed “mutual”.
You give evidence of our like behavior with other animals, and claim that my position MUST operate from the belief of our “difference and superiority”.
Consider the inverse: Humans are not distinct and not superior. Therefor, all animal behavior is acceptable human behavior, for we are not but animals.
Its not exactly the society most would want to live in. People can and do use animal nature as means to justify horrible behavior. “Its a dog eat dog world, the villain proclaims”, as if the only surprise is that their victim would have expected it any other way. Mantises devour the male after copulation. Why then do you demand I not do the same?! Pointing to the way things are in nature as a means to find justification for human behavior doesn’t seem to lead to a useful foundation for ethics; maybe it even to to its dissolution.
So yes, I think we’re different. I think that in many ways our difference comes from our responsibility of stewardship. Because we do have knowledge, agency and control to the degree that we can destroy or restore environments.
Erwin and Attenborough didn’t believe either of those things.
Attenborough is a massive hypocrit who wants the poors to go plant based but refuses to, and also thinks the world is overpopulated but wont use fewer resources.
Erwin’s job was literally harassing animals for entertainment until one finally got the better of him.
Wild takes
What’s false?
wants the poors to go plant based but refuses to
I don’t know much about him, but poking around a bit shows him saying vegetarian or reduced meat consumption. He eats cheese and fish. Sounds like he’s doing exactly like what he’s recommending to others.
Attenborough is a pescatarian, and Irwin was specifically rescuing animals and transporting them to places that were more natural, and less human infested.
I haven’t heard anything about David Attenborough talking about plant based stuff so I won’t dispute it but he did help found and fund the zoology museum in my town, one that specifically tries to educate people on the dangers of climate change and making species endangered. From what I’ve seen of his filming they’re pretty conscious about not leaving any waste behind too.
“We must change our diet. The true tragedy of our time is still unfolding – the loss of biodiversity,” Sir David says in the film. “Half of fertile land on Earth is now farmland, 70 percent of birds are domestic, majority chickens. There’s little left for the world. We have completely destroyed it.
and yet
“I do eat cheese, I have to say, and I eat fish. But by and large I’ve become much more vegetarian over the past few years than I thought I would ever be.”
Sure he helps fund some decent shit. He’s rich, knighted, connected to aristocracy. He’s also a spineless twerp.
Do you drive a car? How about ride the bus? Use electricity?
Spineless twerp!!
Yeah, just because he admits to not being your idea of perfect, eating cheese and fish, doesn’t mean he isn’t trying. I see that comment about eating cheese and fish to mean he’s not eating steak every night, like others.
Yeah sure. Skipping the Camembert and buying a plant based really fermented one instead is just too hard for a multi millionaire. What an unrealistic standard! He only thinks the apocalypse is nigh.
I mean that’s like equivalent to like walking the 60 km commute you have to do. Be realistic, it’s not like you manage to be plant based on a budget that’s below median for your city or something. It’s not like you give up cheese entirely because you can’t afford the vegan replacements but recognise the cruelty of animal ag. What’s a millionaire famous guy to do?
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good?
What’s the good in this case?
Any reduction in the resources used from agriculture? If he could be eating red meat daily, but instead only eats cheese and fish occasionally… That’s good, if not perfect.
Vegetarianism (or in his case pescetarianism) is not inherently reductionarian, so him saying he’s become much more vegetarian isn’t really meaningful without knowing how much of that land based meat was replaced with fish and cheese. Dairy comes from cattle or other ruminants, just like red meat. Fishing is ravaging the seas like agriculture is ravaging the land.
he’s still a hipocrite… like yes it’s good that he advocates, it would be better if he followed through and used some of his staggering, mind meltingly large wealth to actually do something.
Instead he pays lip service while using an enormous amount of resources and being shitty. Is lip service better than no service? yes. Is it good enough for one of the most privileged individuals on the planet? no.
If even a billion people lived like him we’d destroy the world in a week.
Everyone is a bit of a hypocrite. Even you. It’s important to know when someone is being hypocritical but has a point and when they’re just being hypocritical. I think this is pretty clearly the former.
He’s also only a hypocrite if you believe the only possible outcomes are perfect success, and complete failure. He, by all accounts, seems to live by what he preaches. Not perfectly, but again, that only matters if the only marker for success for you is perfection, in which case no one will meet it.
He’s a multi millionaire who admits to still eating red meat despite having the funds to hire a professional chef to make delicious plant based meals every meal. He also admits to eating chickens while decrying it.
Fuck me for holding people with more power to higher standards I guess.
He’s also intensely classist and has deeply problematic views about overpopulation. Doing the very British thing of talking about too many African people while completely ignoring the massively asymmetric resource consumption that he takes part it.
I just think if you’re one of the most privileged people on the planet and you think the world is dying you ought to live a life which if the average person lived would be sustainable. Not do some token effort, far below that of your average poor person, and claim that’s all you can manage.
Hypocrite*
You’d help your lack of a case here if you’d learn proper spelling. It’s hypocrite.
Nice argument there, but you see you typed something wrong at 2 am therefore I will not engage.
I am so smart and cultured.
So you’re upset because he makes a valid point, and lives by that point, but isn’t 100% of the way there? So it’s either perfect or don’t try?
What the fuck are you on?
If saving the planet means giving up cheese, you have to start wondering if it’s worth it.
Erwin routinely relocated animals from areas that had high human interaction to conservation or animal refugee. He never used tranquilizes while showing the animals of left alone, were no threat.
The one that “got him” only got him because he didn’t believe in harming animals and he could have easily survived it.
Erwin? Erwin who? Erwin Rommel? Erwin Schrödinger?
Obviously the Erwin in the picture 🤦♀️
Steve Irwin, not Erwin lol
There is no Erwin the picture, is my point.
If you and op are dead set on smearing a guy based on his South Park impersonation, at least get the fucking name right.
No Erwin found, boss 🤷
Steve Irwin.
The poster is delusional.
People aren’t ready for the truth
they hated the rat because she made them think critically about social responsibility.