Philosophy of Science and the Scientific Method


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Pink Dragon wrote:
KingOfAnything wrote:
A modern ethical dilemma.
Interesting read. The obvious solution is to ban cars and redirect efforts to mass transit, bicycling and walking.

From a utilitarian approach, that leads nowhere and so does nothing.


Pink Dragon wrote:
KingOfAnything wrote:
A modern ethical dilemma.
Interesting read. The obvious solution is to ban cars and redirect efforts to mass transit, bicycling and walking.

Obvious?! I hope you're not the sort of nerve gas farting pink dragon I've decide not to worry about . . .


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"Utilitarian"?!?

That's f&#!ing philosophy, Comrade BeeNee!


BigNorseWolf wrote:
Pink Dragon wrote:
KingOfAnything wrote:
A modern ethical dilemma.
Interesting read. The obvious solution is to ban cars and redirect efforts to mass transit, bicycling and walking.
From a utilitarian approach, that leads nowhere and so does nothing.

A fitter population and a cleaner environment, to name just the first two very utilitarian things that occurred to me.


Pink Dragon wrote:


A fitter population and a cleaner environment, to name just the first two very utilitarian things that occurred to me.

No, what I mean is you can PUSH for public transport but you can't get it, so pushing for it does no good. its simply not going to happen.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
Pink Dragon wrote:


A fitter population and a cleaner environment, to name just the first two very utilitarian things that occurred to me.
No, what I mean is you can PUSH for public transport but you can't get it, so pushing for it does no good. its simply not going to happen.

In the U.S. you are probably right. Elsewhere, much better chance.


Oslo bans cars.


Techinsider wrote:
The car ban in Oslo will reduce pollution and make it a safer city for those on foot.

The second part of this statement is an outright lie. With so many more bicyclists zooming around like they own the place, I expect that it will be nearly impossible for a pedestrian to move more than ten feet without being struck down.

Liberty's Edge

Tyranny of the stupid at its finest.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
Techinsider wrote:
The car ban in Oslo will reduce pollution and make it a safer city for those on foot.
The second part of this statement is an outright lie. With so many more bicyclists zooming around like they own the place, I expect that it will be nearly impossible for a pedestrian to move more than ten feet without being struck down.

yes but you get up from bike accidents.

The bike not so much.


The bicycles will be on the road and the pedestrians on the sidewalk. Further, being struck by a bicycle rider is less likely to result in a fatality than being struck by a car.

Edit. Ninja'd


BigNorseWolf wrote:
No, what I mean is you can PUSH for public transport but you can't get it, so pushing for it does no good. its simply not going to happen.

I loved talking to my wife's grandmother, before she passed away. "When I was a girl, no one who lived in a city needed a car. We took the trolley everywhere." She went on to explain that ALL towns and cities in the U.S. had a streetcar/trolley system, not just San Francisco. That was hard for me to believe, so I looked it up. Apparently at some point Ford Motors and a bunch of oil companies bought all the trolley lines and then shut them down, spurring massive automobile sales and turning city traffic into the horrific clotting nightmare it is today.


Pink Dragon wrote:
The bicycles will be on the road and the pedestrians on the sidewalk. Further, being struck by a bicycle rider is less likely to result in a fatality than being struck by a car.

I have never seen a bicyclist use a road -- no matter how deserted -- when there is a sidewalk that can be terrorized. If you have a 1 in 100 chance of being hit by a car, leading to a 50% chance of a fatality, is that worse than having a 1 in 2 chance of being hit by a bicycle, but with only a 1% chance of fatality?


I very much doubt your numbers are right. In any event, even with those numbers I suspect your chance of car death is higher.

Liberty's Edge

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Pink Dragon wrote:
The bicycles will be on the road and the pedestrians on the sidewalk. Further, being struck by a bicycle rider is less likely to result in a fatality than being struck by a car.

Ah, the comforting lies told by the unrepentant, inveterate criminal menace that is the bicyclist.


Pink Dragon wrote:
I very much doubt your numbers are right. In any event, even with those numbers I suspect your chance of car death is higher.

As a pedestrian, I've been hit by motor vehicles (including a large SUV), and by bicycles. The damage I took from the bicycle was a lot worse, because at least the vehicle slowed at the intersection. Near-misses from bicycles have been vastly more common, to the point where I'll avoid sidewalks entirely if there might be bicyclists present.


Krensky.

I don't ride a bicycle and I agree that there is a significant number of wacked bicycle riders (at least in North America). Still, getting hit by a bicycle is a lot less damaging than getting hit by a car. In fact, the bicycle rider is usually worse off after the accident than the pedestrian that was hit.


Kirth.

One incident does not make for a pattern.


Pink Dragon wrote:
One incident does not make for a pattern.

No, but two incidents (1 bicycle, 1 car) plus a staggering number of near-misses (almost all from bicycles) begins to suggest one.

Regarding injury, you're right for near-equal speeds, but I suspect a bicycle at 30 mph hurts a lot more than a car at 3 mph, and, as noted, pedestrians are most likely to be struck by cars at intersections (at very slow speeds), and by bicycles in the middle of the sidewalk (at much higher speeds).


I have never even had a close call with a bicycle or a car, and I walk everywhere. That may suggest something different than your experience.

Our personal experiences really don't mount to a hill of beans. What we need is science to be done - observation over a relatively long period of time in many circumstances with accurate recording and sound statistical analysis.


Pink Dragon wrote:
I have never even had a close call with a bicycle or a car, and I walk everywhere.

May I ask where you live? Having no close call with either suggests that it might be on the moon, or maybe out in a moor somewhere?

My struck-by bicycle incident was in NY; the motor vehicle in Houston, TX. Any number of bicycle near-misses in both places.

Re: "need" for scientific data, there will be a vast wealth of data in Oslo, comparing before/after the ban.


I have lived in the following places over my life and I give population numbers for when I lived there.

Winnipeg, MB, Canada - pop 350,000
Calgary, AB, Canada - pop 250,000
Saskatoon, SK, Canada - pop 180,000
Guelph, ON, Canada - pop 100,000
Toronto, ON, Canada - pop 2,000,000
Ottawa, ON, Canada - pop 600,000
London, ON, Canada - 350,000

Significant population centers, though not like New York. I've been to Houston and walked there too (from the Galleria to the Zoo) and had no problems either.


Hmmm. I've spent a fair amount of time in Toronto and had no problems with either cars or bicycles there, either. It may be that the U.S. is simply far less pedestrian-friendly a place for some reason (maybe because Canada is covered in snow for seemingly 2/3 of the year)? In that respect, Oslo would likely be more similar to GTO than to Houston, or so I'd think.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Kirth Gersen wrote:
Hmmm. I've spent a fair amount of time in Toronto and had no problems with either cars or bicycles there, either. It may be that the U.S. is simply far less pedestrian-friendly a place for some reason (maybe because Canada is covered in snow for seemingly 2/3 of the year)? In that respect, Oslo would likely be more similar to GTO than to Houston, or so I'd think.

This is the country that greenlighted two versions of Death Race 2000, after all. :) You know the movie where pedestrians and especially old ladies are point scores.


LazarX wrote:
Kirth Gersen wrote:
Hmmm. I've spent a fair amount of time in Toronto and had no problems with either cars or bicycles there, either. It may be that the U.S. is simply far less pedestrian-friendly a place for some reason (maybe because Canada is covered in snow for seemingly 2/3 of the year)? In that respect, Oslo would likely be more similar to GTO than to Houston, or so I'd think.
This is the country that greenlighted two versions of Death Race 2000, after all. :) You know the movie where pedestrians and especially old ladies are point scores.

Don't you get extra points for bikes? They move faster.


Car traffic in city centers is one of the few examples of negative speeds in the physical universe. Cars make noise, too, so it is easier to notice them. You also need a driver's license to drive a car. The only near-misses I have had are with bikes. I am NOT convinced cars are more dangerous in city centers. Total, of course, they are far more dangerous.

Regarding the US situation, maybe designing entire cities to be navigated only by car is not a good way to get less car accidents? We Europeans are often surprised by exactly how much a car in needed over there.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
Techinsider wrote:
The car ban in Oslo will reduce pollution and make it a safer city for those on foot.
The second part of this statement is an outright lie. With so many more bicyclists zooming around like they own the place, I expect that it will be nearly impossible for a pedestrian to move more than ten feet without being struck down.

I think that if you're going to claim that a pretty well-respected journalistic outlet is outright lying, you'll have to back that up with some statistics. While this doesn't pertain to pedestrian deaths from bicycle accidents, it does seem to imply that an increase in bicycling leads to a drop in bicycle accidents; I think that less cars on the roads being the reason is a valid hypothesis, though I'd love to see more data on it.

Liberty's Edge

Of course those numbers don't cover bicyclists injuring or killing pedestrians.

Nor do they discuss how many bicycle accidents would or should be adjudicated as the bicyclist's fault.


Krensky wrote:

Of course those numbers don't cover bicyclists injuring or killing pedestrians.

Nor do they discuss how many bicycle accidents would or should be adjudicated as the bicyclist's fault.

All the numbers I've seen suggest a lot more bicyclists hurt or killed by cars than pedestrians hurt or killed by cyclists. And the cycling injuries tend to be much less serious.

Liberty's Edge

Kirth Gersen wrote:
She went on to explain that ALL towns and cities in the U.S. had a streetcar/trolley system, not just San Francisco. That was hard for me to believe, so I looked it up.

...and yet continued to believe it?

Most major cities yes... all cities, not even close. Towns, almost none.

That said, yes mass transit in the US has long been suppressed by the automobile and gasoline industries. That will likely change as the strength of those two industries wanes over the coming decades.


Krensky wrote:

Of course those numbers don't cover bicyclists injuring or killing pedestrians.

Nor do they discuss how many bicycle accidents would or should be adjudicated as the bicyclist's fault.

That is true (and it would be very hard to get statistics for the second of those measures) but doesn't take away from my point: If one is going to claim that TechInsider is lying, it'd be nice to provide some kind of evidence of one's claim.

So far I've seen very little data, but the data I have seen seems to fit better with TechInsider's claim than Kirths. If we have little indication of X, and no indication of not-X at all, it seems we ought not to claim people saying X (who may also have data we don't) are lying and that not-X.


Gaberlunzie wrote:
I think that if you're going to claim that a pretty well-respected journalistic outlet is outright lying, you'll have to back that up with some statistics.

Hyperbole requires no stats. In place of "lying," try reading something more like "seems to be baselessly speculating that..."

Just like, when I mention a ten-foot distance before being struck by bicycle, I'm not actually implying that I've checked every instance of bicycle-pedestrian accidents in all of history and derived a mean distance of 10.00001 pedestrian-feet.

When I mean things literally, I use the word "literally." (Even though I now most often see people using it indiscriminately to mean, "not literally, but I just like the way it sounds.")


Canada, where even the bikers are polite

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
CBDunkerson wrote:
Kirth Gersen wrote:
She went on to explain that ALL towns and cities in the U.S. had a streetcar/trolley system, not just San Francisco. That was hard for me to believe, so I looked it up.

...and yet continued to believe it?

Most major cities yes... all cities, not even close. Towns, almost none.

Even places like Paterson had them... but then again Paterson was an industrial town from it's founding. The Jersey Ave Bus Depot still has places where the old trolley tracks stick through. Newark still has it's trolley, now upgraded to a light rail system.

Liberty's Edge

LazarX wrote:
Even places like Paterson had them... but then again Paterson was an industrial town from it's founding. The Jersey Ave Bus Depot still has places where the old trolley tracks stick through. Newark still has it's trolley, now upgraded to a light rail system.

True enough... though my recollection is that there was a gap (a decade or so?) between the end of the Newark trolley system and opening of the light rail.

And apparently we have similar stomping grounds. :]


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Kirth Gersen wrote:
Gaberlunzie wrote:
I think that if you're going to claim that a pretty well-respected journalistic outlet is outright lying, you'll have to back that up with some statistics.

Hyperbole requires no stats. In place of "lying," try reading something more like "seems to be baselessly speculating that..."

Just like, when I mention a ten-foot distance before being struck by bicycle, I'm not actually implying that I've checked every instance of bicycle-pedestrian accidents in all of history and derived a mean distance of 10.00001 pedestrian-feet.

When I mean things literally, I use the word "literally." (Even though I now most often see people using it indiscriminately to mean, "not literally, but I just like the way it sounds.")

This is for you.

Liberty's Edge

Coriat wrote:
Kirth Gersen wrote:
Gaberlunzie wrote:
I think that if you're going to claim that a pretty well-respected journalistic outlet is outright lying, you'll have to back that up with some statistics.

Hyperbole requires no stats. In place of "lying," try reading something more like "seems to be baselessly speculating that..."

Just like, when I mention a ten-foot distance before being struck by bicycle, I'm not actually implying that I've checked every instance of bicycle-pedestrian accidents in all of history and derived a mean distance of 10.00001 pedestrian-feet.

When I mean things literally, I use the word "literally." (Even though I now most often see people using it indiscriminately to mean, "not literally, but I just like the way it sounds.")

This is for you.

#wordcrimes

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
CBDunkerson wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Even places like Paterson had them... but then again Paterson was an industrial town from it's founding. The Jersey Ave Bus Depot still has places where the old trolley tracks stick through. Newark still has it's trolley, now upgraded to a light rail system.

True enough... though my recollection is that there was a gap (a decade or so?) between the end of the Newark trolley system and opening of the light rail.

And apparently we have similar stomping grounds. :]

The gap wasn't that long. The trolley had shrunk down to a single line running between Penn Station and Franklin Ave... which included the ridiculously short distance between the Heller Park and Franklin Ave stations.

There was a gap which was the transition between the Newark City Subway and Newark Light Rail...the whole electrical system was redone and the line itself extended to Bloomfield. and the new line made to run to Broad St. train station (which has a new ridiculous short gap between Roosevelt Stadium and the Broad St final stop.) That was after Light Rail systems were built to connect Bergen to Bayonne and Hoboken, and the River Line which connects Trenton to Camden. The latter is unique in the state in that it uses a diesel version of the same train.

And since Paterson was at one time the "Detroit" of rail, having four locomotive and train car builders in it's industrial area, it's not that much of a surprise that it was so trolleyed up at one point. Chances are that if you eat at a railcar diner, it was built in Paterson.


LazarX wrote:
connects Trenton to Camden

Why would NJ want to do this (as opposed to, say, nuking Camden from orbit)?


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Kirth Gersen wrote:
LazarX wrote:
connects Trenton to Camden
Why would NJ want to do this (as opposed to, say, nuking Camden from orbit)?

HEY! I'm in that fallout cloud! I do NOT want to be pelted by peices of Camden. Maybe a giant magnifying glass and burn it from orbit.. youknow.. an environmentally friendly solar doomsday device.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Kirth Gersen wrote:
LazarX wrote:
connects Trenton to Camden
Why would NJ want to do this (as opposed to, say, nuking Camden from orbit)?

Because despite tropes, and it's generally poor economic shape overall, Camden is still one of the most important cities in the state, being directly opposite from Phileadelphia. It also gives that region direct access to state mass transit.


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More on trolleys


Kirth Gersen wrote:
Hmmm. I've spent a fair amount of time in Toronto and had no problems with either cars or bicycles there, either. It may be that the U.S. is simply far less pedestrian-friendly a place for some reason (maybe because Canada is covered in snow for seemingly 2/3 of the year)? In that respect, Oslo would likely be more similar to GTO than to Houston, or so I'd think.

The US is extremely bike-unfriendly, which helps worsen cyclist behavior.

In NYC from 2007 to 2010, there was a 15% decline in pedestrian-cyclist injuries requiring medical attention (4 deaths from 2006-2013), but there was a 50% increase in cycling activity. This is the same period when the city starting making more bike lanes.

In comparison, pedestrians account for roughly 14% of motor vehicle deaths every year in the US. That's about 4,000 every year, or roughly 12 a day.

During the period of 1996 to 2005, there were 11 deaths in NYC, but that number seems to have declined.

Edited, found some better numbers.

A major part of the problem really is that our streets are designed entirely for traffic flow and car usage. Streets are not designed for safety of pedestrians or cyclists. There are fundamental flaws in our traffic laws that increase the danger to pedestrians.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Irontruth wrote:
Kirth Gersen wrote:
Hmmm. I've spent a fair amount of time in Toronto and had no problems with either cars or bicycles there, either. It may be that the U.S. is simply far less pedestrian-friendly a place for some reason (maybe because Canada is covered in snow for seemingly 2/3 of the year)? In that respect, Oslo would likely be more similar to GTO than to Houston, or so I'd think.

The US is extremely bike-unfriendly, which helps worsen cyclist behavior.

In NYC from 2007 to 2010, there was a 15% decline in pedestrian-cyclist injuries requiring medical attention (4 deaths from 2006-2013), but there was a 50% increase in cycling activity. This is the same period when the city starting making more bike lanes.

In comparison, pedestrians account for roughly 14% of motor vehicle deaths every year in the US. That's about 4,000 every year, or roughly 12 a day.

During the period of 1996 to 2005, there were 11 deaths in NYC, but that number seems to have declined.

Edited, found some better numbers.

The NYC Citibike program was recently extended to Jersey City. Not knowing when I was going to fix my bike, I took advantage of an early bird membership. At the same time many of our one way streets have received bike lanes.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Jean-Paul Sartre, Intrnet Troll wrote:
More on trolleys

ABSOLUTE FREEDOM!


Radical freedom, indeed.

Here's my girlfriend playing D&D:

Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophers III: Ladies' Night


My gal pal DMs again:

Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophers VI: The Angsty Dragon of Angst

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