Near Miss of the Day 649: Driver makes close pass on cyclist – then gets out of car to confront rider

It doesn't really upset me per se. It just seems wholly inadequate.

The idea that one race is naturally superior to another and the idea that hard work should reap rewards don't really seem like equivalent philosophies.

Especially given that in one scenario your status is fixed at birth and in the other it's entirely decided by your own ability and work ethic.

Rich_cb wrote:

It doesn't really upset me per se. It just seems wholly inadequate. The idea that one race is naturally superior to another and the idea that hard work should reap rewards don't really seem like equivalent philosophies. Especially given that in one scenario your status is fixed at birth and in the other it's entirely decided by your own ability and work ethic.

Both philosophies are predicated on the concept that inequality is a good thing.

As an aside, both race and ability have genetic components, no?  Why is is not good to discriminate against people based on their race but it is good to discriminate against them based on ability?

I think that's fairly self explanatory.

You can't change your race (whatever race actually means) but you can change your ability.

Outside of some niche professions hard work and practice are what begets success with genetics playing a very minor role if any.

Rich_cb wrote:

I think that's fairly self explanatory. You can't change your race (whatever race actually means) but you can change your ability. Outside of some niche professions hard work and practice are what begets success with genetics playing a very minor role if any.

I disagree. I think intelligence and therefore educational attainment have a strong genetic component for instance, the same as manual dexterity.  Plus the family and environment you are born in to also has a profound effect on life chances and again these are things you cannot control. 

stomec wrote:

I disagree. I think intelligence and therefore educational attainment have a strong genetic component for instance, the same as manual dexterity.  Plus the family and environment you are born in to also has a profound effect on life chances and again these are things you cannot control. 

Intelligence and educational achievements are surely highly affected by the environment and the wealth of the supporting family. Also, probably largely affected by environmental pollutants such as cake frosting: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10/toxic-frosting-children-poisoned-with-lead-copper-from-cake-decorations/

Very much so.  An interesting take on it is Michael J Sandel's The Tyranny of Merit.  Well worth a read.

Strangely the view that intelligence is genetic is highly controversial.

Personally I think it's environment and opportunity more than anything.

Rich_cb wrote:

Strangely the view that intelligence is genetic is highly controversial.

Not least because we don't really have a good definition of what intelligence is to start with - attempts to define and test for it tend to encode the biases of those defining them to look for some idealised version of 'people like me', which starts to beg the question as regards inheritance.

stomec wrote:

..intelligence and therefore educational attainment...

Quite a big assumption hidden there that intelligence is what determines educational attainment. For starters, other factors, such as access to information, stable home life, access to quiet spaces, whether your parents read to you in early years, etc., etc., have significant demonstrable effects on outcomes. But even with all those being equal, it's dubious whether ability to perform well in academic tests is the same thing as intelligence.

Rich_cb wrote:

It doesn't really upset me per se. It just seems wholly inadequate. The idea that one race is naturally superior to another and the idea that hard work should reap rewards don't really seem like equivalent philosophies. Especially given that in one scenario your status is fixed at birth and in the other it's entirely decided by your own ability and work ethic.

Ah - but even those ideas blend somewhat (with the possible exception of a few regimes like the Nazi one where the majority were absolutist about race - in the Third Reich if you were a jew only one destiny awaited). Even in societies with some kind of fixed rank-based inequality (which is most) there are areas of fluidity, or certain times or situations where that no longer rigidly applies.  On the ability and work ethic side there's an increasing number of studies which suggest that "accidents of birth" (both genetic and the social status of your relatives) may have the major effect on various measurable scores for health, "achievement" etc.

But being a libra you'd expect me to say that.

PS for reference

https://youtu.be/rWvpvlT9pJU

To be fair that is an absolute classic.

Rich_cb wrote:

They obviously believed there were hierarchies between races but the interesting thing is to look at their policies for the 'Aryan' people. Here the picture becomes less clear, from the Snopes link: "its rhetoric was frequently egalitarian, it stressed the need to put common needs above the needs of the individual, and it often declared itself opposed to big business and international finance capital" The planned economy, large state and limits on personal freedoms were also more typically left wing. It's almost like left wing policies for the 'Aryan' people inside a bubble of extreme nationalism. It's partly why I think the terms right and left wing are too simplistic for complex political structures. A proponent of a low tax, free market economy with a minimal state maybe be described as very right wing yet share absolutely no beliefs with an extreme nationalist who is also described in the same way.

This is why I hang around here and not on e.g. on BikeRadar - for content you don't get on other bike sites. A considered evaluation of the policies of the Third Reich - simultaneously critiquing a "simplistic" "left" / "right" categorisation while overall concluding that they were implementing "left wing policies".

As was rightly said, this is obviously not the place to be discussing this sort of thing.

It should go in the reviews section.

While it's always "more complex than that" I doubt that any *summary* of Hitler and his movement needs to spend too long on the "socialist" bit because the more power he gained the less socialist this looked. If you're into history the start is interesting though (see Beefsteak Nazi and National Socialist Program). Not that surprising though that in the (eventual) mass movement the burgeoning factions held a broad range of views. I imagine you'd find some non-uniformity even at a Trump rally or on a cycling forum! There were a notable range of opinions at the start of the Russian revolution of 1917 too - many of whom would later find their support for what turned out to be the winning side rewarded with prison and / or death.

It's almost like one of the tasks any would-be ruler / ruling faction faces is persuading enough of the population that said ruler(s) will best serve their particular interests. At least until they've consolidated enough power to start dictating.

The socialist angle seems to have become a distraction.

I'm more interested in where they are placed on a right-left axis and why?

Rich_cb wrote:

The socialist angle seems to have become a distraction.

As opposed to the other 100ish comments?

I quite enjoy it when these discussions go completely off piste.

Rich_cb wrote:

I quite enjoy it when these discussions go completely off piste.

That is obvious!

I don't know if you and Rendel could live without each other now.

I think of myself as the occasional third wheel in Rendel and Nige's partnership.

Rich_cb wrote:

I think of myself as the occasional third wheel in Rendel and Nige's partnership.

Does that make you trisexual?

I don't run or swim thank you very much.

Rich_cb wrote:

I don't run or swim thank you very much.

It's okay, there's no judgements here (well, maybe a few judgements about politics, helmets and roadcraft)

(Try not to think about it don't picture it don't picture it)

Hahahaha!

I think Nige should be the Captain, need someone courteous and polite upfront.

Sniffer wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

I quite enjoy it when these discussions go completely off piste.

That is obvious!

I don't know if you and Rendel could live without each other now.

Shipped, most definitely.

I think there might be someone else who is eaten up with jealousy for Rendel's affections though. Actually, that might explain a lot....

Rich_cb wrote:

I quite enjoy it when these discussions go completely off piste.

What about when they get stuck on the nursery slopes?

Just shout "Sadiq Khan's Brexit Helmet!".

Should get things progressing nicely.

I should worry Rendel, Racist Boo who suggests cyclists should be punched by ex-professional boxers, agrees with another poster who suggested a cyclist coming into a farmyard to have a word wouldn't have walked back out again, and even seemed to indicate a fellow Tory in Andrew Gilligan deserved to be knocked off his bike deliberately because he supported LTN's, is now looking into all your tweets. And Flintshire is again supporting this as well. Like lots of his instant support of Boo and strangely, someone who once wrote he would be shagging 14 year old pupils if he was a teacher, he might want to look into the persons actions before throwing the instant support.

I suppose you could always ask Boo what was the racism that got him banned before as well. 

Weirdly, his misquote of you could just as easily be applied to some of the recent drivers as well. I mean 
"These people are scary, it seems they've been bottling up their hate for decades and suddenly feel licensed to spew it all out at once because some people have suggested they shouldn't attempt to kill me because of my choice of travel."

Your right if the driver had been courteous and waited patiently behind the cyclist until it was safe to overtake then it all would have been avoided and the driver would have probably have got to his destination quicker.

"Yes the driver was in the wrong for close passing, but people just need to take a deep breath, suck it up, and report it to the police when they get home."

1. This is what I do but I don't think any action would be taken by the police for the close pass. In this incident though they may take action for the drivers actions after the close pass so may be I'm wrong to keep quiet.

2. Unless the police start doing something about these close passes it may not be a question of "when they get home" but "if they get home"

3. Was this reported to the police?

It would be nice if the addage 'revenge is a dish best served cold' was true and we all went home reported these incidents in their thousands and all the drivers were sent FPNs or even went on courses. We would then see positive results as angry entitled drivers changed their behaviour or were removed from the roads. Unfortunately, their is no evidence that this will happen. So forgive us if our frustration can get the better of us.