Yeah, I’m not old enough to have experienced the city in the 70s and 80s. I’ve heard stories but it’s hard to say how credible some of them are, but I believe the city is a lot nicer than it was back then.
Like, Bryant Park is a nice patch of green in Manhattan. They do yoga classes there. There’s a holiday market. People used to call it needle park because it had some a drug user problem.
Places change.
(for people that don’t live here, the path is basically another subway system that serves Manhattan and North Jersey.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_(rail_system)
)
Also remember that the subway is a flat fare no matter how long you ride. You can go from Coney Island to the Bronx on that $2.90. and back again. You only pay again if you exit.
I have had many, many, uneventful subway rides. Most of the time it’s just people sitting and/or standing quietly. Boring is a little more subjective- someone might find people watching interesting, but even then sometimes off-peak it can be sparsely populated. Sitting in quiet non-interaction for 25 minutes with an old lady reading, a middle aged guy dozing, and another person silently looking at their phone isn’t very exciting, but that’s a lot of rides.
Like, this is people’s daily commute. It’s not the warriors. It’s not whatever wacky video surfaced on youtube. Most of the time it’s just transit, and good transit is pretty boring.
This feels like the scared, naive, suburbanite’s take on cities and public transit. Like, do you really think a system with 3 million daily riders has constant brawls?
Cars bring out the worst in people.
Spite. Many people are no more emotionally advanced than a toddler. They’re mad about something (traffic, the looming spectre of mortality, queer people, being out of shape, whatever) so they lash out at whatever. Bike lanes are a symbol of things they don’t like, and easier to attack than the real sources of their unhappiness.
Yes, it’s very common. There are many reasons.
Sometimes I’m just excited to share something. Could be something trivial (“i saw a cat on the walk over and it looked right at me and said ‘meow’!”). Could be something bigger (“They finally fired Useless Bob at work”)
Sometimes people want to vent. Talking about something can be emotionally soothing.
Sometimes people want help or advice. “I can’t believe I’m spending $20 a day on lunch. The stupid sandwich I got wasn’t even good. What’s your strategy?”
Humans are social creatures.
Unless the conflict was like “someone close to me is giving birth” tier, he could have scheduled better.
Ah yes, the classic “these things share one property so they share all properties” argument.
Blinking closes your eyes. You can safely drive and blink. Thus, you can drive safely with your eyes closed.
Distracted driving is pretty irresponsible and dangerous.
Just this morning some guy blew through a stop sign and almost hit me. He had his cell phone in hand. Maybe he was on a meeting, too.
Yeah, but YouTube isn’t as credible. And if it was, I’d still rather read something than spend twice as long watching half the information. Tastes differ
I don’t know if the tempest is really top of the charts for classics. I doubt most adults have read it or even know it.
The Lord of the rings is probably a good one if you like fiction. It’s hugely influential on fantasy. 1984 is also a classic and timely. Lord of the flies, too.
There’s probably a lot of lists out there if you do some searching. Some of the options I’m seeing there aren’t my jam though.
To me YouTube is an untrustworthy platform owned by one of the worse mega corps. But also I just don’t enjoy video as a medium
I dare say books still exist
What are your goals, though? Do you want to understand more idioms and references? Learn more history? See other people’s perspectives? Read weird stuff?
The people who make decisions at Youtube clearly do not even use their own website or app and there is no way to give feedback either.
Ed Zitron, famously verbose web blog guy, wrote a post about how he thinks most of these big businesses are run by idiots that are out of touch with both the product and the users.
https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-era-of-the-business-idiot/
It’s simple: they neither know nor care what the customer wants, barely know how their businesses function, barely know what their products do, and barely understand what their workers are doing, meaning that generative AI feels magical, because it does an impression of somebody doing a job, which is an accurate way of describing how most executives and middle managers operate.
This is only me describing my personal taste, but:
Almost all video essays and podcasts I would rather just read. It takes half the time. Include pictures, diagrams, and animations if needed. But I can read much faster and retain much better reading than listening to someone talk. Listening at double speed is faster, but can be uncomfortable.
I can imagine some value in some other niches, like you’re saying, but the amount of slop and trash out there is too high for me, and the companies selling it are the worst.
Every time I see some parasocial YouTuber making That Face I just get irritated.
What are your goals, exactly?
And what is your current reading level (in English, or whatever language you want to read in)?
Oof I didn’t even notice the author
Author seems to be an absolute idiot.