As a private school parent, I can say it (can be) a significantly better experience. I’m sure there’s different forms of poop you’ll be stepping in, but in general with my experience there poverty factor is removed (affluence has its own problems, but luckily they don’t tend to show up in the classroom) and the biggest key is the parents are engaged. Instead of blaming teachers for our kids failures, we partner with them to ensure success.
I am a firm believer that (lack of) parenting is the problem that most affects the other learning environments negatively. Parents are the key to any meaningful change. Parents should be responsible for all of it. Teachers are convenient scapegoats of bad parents.
As an alternative mode of transportation, that could/should replace car usage for many people, I think we need to separate the two completely as well. The throttle version needs to be regulated more like a motorcycle or moped. This would take it out of the hands of most kids and cause license suspension worries for young adults and other reckless users. I agree they are essentially death machines and governments generally have no sane approach to regulating them.
That said, I think the e-moto versions have more potential towards alleviating traffic or being an alternative mode of transportation as most people don’t want to peddle at all. E-bikes are great, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that would ever be on the average Joe’s list of feasible alternatives.
There is nothing standing in the way of electric motorcycles.
People get e-motos because it is effectively a motorcycle, except it doesn't have any road legality requirements. People treat them like bicycles that can just magically go 50mph.
Most people don't want a two-wheeler, period. Otherwise everyone would be riding motorcycles. People want a vehicle that will keep them dry, comfortable, and safe. Two-wheelers of all types fail at all of those things.
Plenty of people will ride two wheelers if the infrastructure is good. Most places in the world just have crap infrastructure for using bicycles safely and calmly.
Motorcycles already did that. E-bikes or E-motos do not bring any advantages compared to normal motorbikes, so you shouldn't expect many people to switch.
Cheaper, quieter, smaller footprint for storage, can be easily brought up a few stairs or put in the back of your car (by one person), slower (a perceived safety advantage by some, as most motorcycles can go highway speed), maintenance is less daunting (again, perceived), culture (perceived) as some people are quite turned off by motorcycle culture, and many many more.
One of the major problems with ebikes is the existence of cars and related infra.
Motorcycles have all those advantages against cars, except being able to bring them indoors. Yet people aren't all riding around on motorcycles. E-Bikes have their niche, but they're not going to replace cars, since motorcycles didn't.
Motorcycle culture is something you choose if you participate in. If you're a lady commuting to work on a scooter, few people will expect you to participate in that.
Is $$$ not an advantage? Motorbikes are at least triple the price AIUI, not to mention more regulated. The main advantage of an ebike is that it's basically a pushbike (in terms of cost) but it lets you be lazy and unfit while still using it successfully as if you were fit.
Yes, there's a few extra hundred bucks in cost, and there's an electricity bill for charging it, but frankly that's nothing. You can buy an ebike for 3 digits, and you could include the power bill in that figure and not notice.
Not all products will get abused, there’s better tools already (like matches/lighters/etc) or there’s just no good abusive use cases. Some products are just begging to be abused. You can’t really tit for tat with a household appliance here, these straw men aren’t of the same planet.
I use Amex as much as possible because it’s basically never a fight. If I dispute, I get my money back. Granted, I don’t abuse the power so maybe I’ve earned some trust over the decades.
Covid shutdown should have killed our economy, nothing short of government spending prevented otherwise.
So many people in the US live a paycheck to paycheck lifestyle, that the covid lockdowns without government spending would have likely devolved into zombie apocalypse territory where hungry people were ransacking homes in more affluent neighborhoods (yes, even occupied homes). This is why people also bought lots of guns and ammo during Covid. You may think those people are crackpots, but I feel we actually got very close to it happening.
My local food bank (big city) ran out of supplies just as they announced the first waves of stimulus or whatever they called it (the weekly checks). So I’m pretty sure we were literally only days away from that being a reality.
Do you think the food bank gives you all of your meals everyday? One day not open and people are eating each other.
They wouldn't ransack home in rich neighbourhoods for food for a million reasons (too far, too weak, roads are closed, rich homes have security, rich people have as much food at home or less compared to an average person). They would break into the supermarkets first, then each others homes around them before what was left would organize and go searching.
The checks helped and were the right call but we weren't close to a zombie outbreak.
I think it would devolve quickly and probably super markets would fall first, but let’s not pretend like you know exactly how it would play out after that. I live in a large metro and super markets run empty a few times a year (usually weather panics), so that isn’t a lasting source of loot. I wasn’t pretending that I knew exactly who would get targeted by it first, just that I know I’m the type of target I discuss and it’s for the same reason my neighborhood is a destination on Halloween; full sized candy bars.
Would love for you to tell me how close we were from it or how many days without food/work/income a large portion of our population could endure before they “would organize and go searching” - which by the way is exactly what I’m talking about.
You can’t be silly enough to build a product that enables things like mass surveillance to proliferate and then try to take a stance of “please don’t use it like that”. You invented a genie and let him out of the bottle.
One of our big exports. Germans were obsessed with American outlaws (Karl May). And I am of the opinion that this is what the Nazi's were thinking when they invaded Poland and Russia. They wanted to create and settle their own variation of the "wild west". Hard to explain to people in 2025 how captivating the American frontier was to a European in 1910.
I don't get your point, at least not in relation to the GP post. I agree with GP, parents need to be more accountable. We as parents, and We should all be concerned about future children/generations, should be demanding more regulation to help force the change we need on this topic. We as a society need to treat SM like those other addictive product classes. The fact SM is addicting and execs try to juice it more, is frankly to be expected.
Vilify them all you want, but same has been done with nicotine products, alcohol products, etc. and to GPs point, we SM as a toy for our children to play with. We chose to change the rules (laws, regulations, etc) because capitalists can never be simply trusted to do what's best for anything except their bottom line. That's a fundamental law no different than inertia or gravity in a capitalistic society. That's why regulators exist. Until you regulate it, they will wear their villain badge and rake in the billions. It's easy to be disliked when the topic of your disdain is what makes you filthy rich (in other words, they don't care what you or I think of what they're doing).
not social media, treat the entire internet as fundamentally hazardous to kids because it is, just like cigarettes alcohol and porn. check IDs once when signing the contract that is required for internet access and all these problems go away.
That’s fair. I do think they’re some point where it gets too broad though. The definition part will be a tough balancing.
As an example, I’ve been a fairly strict parent with devices and content access. But, I do let my son play Switch games with his friends which requires the internet. I feel it’s ok in moderation, he plays no more than about 3 hours a week.
Personally think it should not get refunded. There’s no sane way to get it back to its source. And no one group should be making profit from it. Best if it stays with the government like a federal forfeiture so in theory we all benefit from it as citizens , maybe it goes against the national debt or lessens our deficit next year.
I am a firm believer that (lack of) parenting is the problem that most affects the other learning environments negatively. Parents are the key to any meaningful change. Parents should be responsible for all of it. Teachers are convenient scapegoats of bad parents.
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