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What are the changes? I still have my childhood copy of What Do People Do All Day and my daughter loves it, might get her some of the other Busytown books.

My work blocks Flickr links, but a set there is linked from https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/2wl35/richard_s... and I think that's the one I'm thinking of. Lots of changes for gender equality; I can't get too bothered about that, though "letter carrier" is probably going to lose some kids compared to "mailman".

But they got rid of the scarecrow (and the crow on it)! And a lot of little turns and phrases that were charming, as I recall. But take a look.


Thanks. Poor scarecrow, what did he do wrong?

Existed. Even from the cover, you can see gender substitution (fine). No need to stereotype gender roles.

But they messed with the art in doing so. Want equal representation of women? Cool, don't care. Just put Dad in the kitchen alone. Don't get rid of the scarecrow just to make room for a woman, because it messes up the whole image. And their art is not up to the original standard.


Maybe because they make your dinner so damn tasty you end up eating more than you should.


You can melt a tablespoon of butter and toss a bunch of vegetables in it, and it will taste delicious. But it only "cost" 100 extra calories, which is nothing. So go ahead and eat an extra serving of carrots, broccoli, green beans, lettuce, radishes, etc. You are extremely unlikely to get fat that way.

I find it quite strange that people think home-cooked meals have to be calorie-dense. It's food. Where you cook it doesn't matter. And if you have to keep your food from being delicious to control your portions... the problem isn't the food.


Guidance for most sedentary American adults (ages 31-50 [1]) is to consume 1800 kcal a day. 100 kcal is 5.5% of your daily caloric budget. You just consumed 5.5% of your daily caloric budget with that one extra tablespoon of butter.

[1]: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/how-many-calories-a-day-s...


Right, like I said, it's nothing...

Assuming you have 3 meals a day, and assuming you have 600 kcals per meal, and assuming your nutritionist has prescribed a diet with a 50/20/30 carb/fat/protein ratio, and assuming one of those meals (dinner?) has 100 kcals from fat, that means 16% of the meal was fat. If you eat a lean protein (with a tiny amount of incidental fat) and carbs with that meal, that's actually the perfect amount of fat.

You can also mix up your meals so that, say, breakfast has very little fat, and dinner has more fat, or vice versa. It's all about balance.


>You can melt a tablespoon of butter and toss a bunch of vegetables in it, and it will taste delicious. But it only "cost" 100 extra calories, which is nothing. So go ahead and eat an extra serving of carrots, broccoli, green beans, lettuce, radishes, etc. You are extremely unlikely to get fat that way.

Yeah, but only anorectic are able to keep eating this long term. Until they get to hospital with all kinds of body damage.


I know a lot of vegetarians who don't end up in the hospital from eating too many veggies, but I guess they're the lucky ones...


They eat more then just vegetables with little bit of butter. It is possible to survive as vegetarian, just not from the meal you described.

Nuts, sugar, cheese, eggs, actually also fruits ...


When I cook with lard, we all feel satisfied much sooner than usual. And it does taste better.


It was, then Amazon added streaming and jacked up the price massively. In the past 10 or so years of being a Prime subscriber I've used their streaming services probably less than twenty times. Not a fan of "everything" subscriptions because you inevitably end up paying for services you don't want or need.


>Build for people, not cars.

Do you mean build for pedestrians and cyclists, not motorists?


They mean building infrastructure that is able to sustain more trips per hour while also reducing the risk of deadly collisions, noise and air pollution.

By providing convenient and safe infrastructure for people who walk, take transit and bike around we gain safer more pleasant neighborhoods that also allow more people to get around in their neighborhood.


The risk of deadly collisions, particularly when most people are going 30-50 km/h in the city and driving modern cars, is already low.

Modern cars are also quiet with emissions nothing like the cars of our grandparents.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by trips per hour and how one is supposed to conveniently commute outside of one's neighborhood, particularly with small children and shopping?


> The risk of deadly collisions, particularly when most people are going 30-50 km/h in the city and driving modern cars, is already low.

The probability of a pedestrian being killed when a motorist strikes them with their vehicle depends very strongly on the speed of the vehicle. At 30kph the risk is less nearly 0%, but it rises rapidly to 50% when the impact happens at 50kph[0]. Would you take those odds? I wouldn't. Especially given that motorists tend to interpret speed limits as minimums rather than maximums.

> Modern cars are also quiet with emissions nothing like the cars of our grandparents.

I live next to seven lanes of traffic. Modern cars are not remotely quiet. Their emissions are not limited to what comes out of their tailpipe, either. You must include the microparticles that are emitted from the tires, the asphalt and the brake pads [1].

> Can you elaborate on what you mean by trips per hour and how one is supposed to conveniently commute outside of one's neighborhood, particularly with small children and shopping?

Public transit. Bicycles. Living in a neighborhood with mixed use buildings. I have never had a driving license and my family with two small kids has somehow figured it out with a combination of the above. Many others do the same. It is not rocket science. The first step is ditching the car.

[0] https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/relationship_between_speed_risk_...

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4315878/


How often do collisions with pedestrians occur at 50 km/h? If the pedestrian doesn't literally jump in front of the car from an somewhere he's visually obscured, there's usually time to stomp on the brakes. I've done it multiple times with cyclists riding in the wrong direction on the bicycle lane, over crosswalks where they should be dismounting, or just plain "jaycycling".

We clearly have different views on what's quiet and what's not. If I'm on my terrace I can hear cars when they drive past, but not inside my home and it being a 30 zone it doesn't bother me. Were you forced to live next to seven lanes of traffic, where I assume the limit is much higher than 30-50 km/h?

I don't have much to say about tire particles and whatnot. Are you just as much against microplastics in food and cosmetics?

If you've never gotten a license, it surprises me you're so against something you've never tried. I tried cycling for about a year and a half. I learned I don't like sweating profusely in summer, getting rained on in spring or fall, or riding on snow in winter. I can drive to work and drop my child off at kindergarten in 15 minutes, with a bicycle and a trailer it would take me more than 45 if the weather is good. I don't need to hurry home after grocery shopping and I only need to shop once every week or two, as opposed to two to three times a week if I'm limited to what I can fit into a backpack, and I don't need to drink tap water since I can fit a few crates of mineral water in my trunk. The risk of getting my car stolen is lower than my bicycle getting stolen, which has happened in the past. You're absolutely right, it's not rocket science. Foe me the choice is clear.

I still don't know what you mean by trips per hour.


> How often do collisions with pedestrians occur at 50 km/h?"

Enough to kill several dozen people every year in my city and severely injure over a hundred, according to official statistics.

> it surprises me you're so against something you've never tried

I have plenty of experience with what it is like to walk and cycle in busy streets, and I do not wish to force that upon my neighbors. Whether or not driving would be convenient for me is not the issue -- the issue is how it makes our neighborhoods dangerous, noisy and dirty. I don't want to be responsible for that.

Other people only care about what is convenient for themselves. I get that. I see it every day.

Trips per hour means exactly what it says. Single occupancy four-wheeled vehicles are the least efficient mode of transportation in terms of throughput (people moved per hour). [0]

> Are you just as much against microplastics in food and cosmetics?

Textbook whataboutism. Do you believe that I need to be some sort of monk-like hippy vegan to be opposed to traffic in my neighborhood? Or is it okay for some regular person to care about something that you don't care about?

[0] https://transformative-mobility.org/multimedia/passenger-cap...


You must live in a gigantic city if several dozen pedestrians die in car accidents every year. In the entire country of Germany last year a total of 177 pedestrians were killed in traffic accidents where cars were involved and the driver at fault.

https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Verkeh...

>I have plenty of experience with what it is like to walk and cycle in busy streets, and I do not wish to force that upon my neighbors

I wouldn't want to force people into things in general, period. From what I can tell, most people are just fine with a car-centric lifestyle. Barely anyone is evangelizing to cyclists that they should give up their bicycles and drive cars instead. I wouldn't want to force you to drive a car. I can tell you about the many benefits but I'll do so without moralizing or finger-wagging and ultimately the choice is yours. The same can't be said of many bicycle activists, they seem to be just fine with using any and all means to shove their lifestyle down everyone's else's throat.

You didn't respond to my question as to whether you were forced to live next to seven lane traffic, so I'll assume it was a choice. Why would you choose to move there in the first place if you hate the sound of cars so much? That's the rough equivalent of a car enthusiast deciding to move to Amsterdam and then complaining about the cyclists on the road.

From what data does your infographic draw from?

The "whataboutism" is to determine whether your particle concerns are limited to cars, which indicates an ideologically driven anti-car crusade, or whether particles of everything and anything in general disturb you in your everyday life.


On the other hand, in Berlin you also get entire blocks threatened with being forced to move out because the "temporary" covid-era bike path which never went away causes problems for the fire department in case of an emergency evacuation.

https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/streit-um-radwege-in-de...

(Article in German)


Kantstraße is a bit of an extreme case because there was previously no bike lane at all and it’s an especially dangerous area for cyclists. I’m fairly certain the solution is not to reverse all investment in bike infrastructure, it’s just a knee jerk reaction to win the vote of a certain demographic.


Yeah, current cities are not built to maintain all possible modes of transportation. And so you had a short interruption of a city favouring bikes and causing all kind of chaos, while everyone else had to suck it up. And so the pendulum swings, and someone else is trying to work out the city transportation problem. Personally, i wanted a privileged skateboard lane, but no lobby for that.


I usually find it amusing.

„Was meinst, kriegen wir das hin?“

„Safe Digga, das ist so was von easy.“

And they think they're so cool talking like that.

The part that irritates me though is when I try to pronounce Denglish stuff with a German accent and the Germans end up not understanding me. I made a joke about strippers once and got only blank looks, then one guy said, "oh, you mean strippers," pronouncing it the way you'd say it in English as best as he could. I had pronounced it schtrippas.


Was meinst, kriegen wir das hin?

what's wrong with this sentence? or is it just context for the example?


Yeah just context.


Sounds super legit. Were you also a member of the team behind the online breast examinations during lockdown?


How did you know?

Feminism is an endless struggle.


I would also like to know this. I got mine for 12€ a while back and it looks to be going for around 20€ now.


I don't get a seal on my respirator if I grow my beard out.


They could form a new political party or join an existing one and take part in the democratic process.


People have been trying to do that for several decades with little to show for their efforts.

Time has grown short, and conventional democratic means seem to deliver change at such a glacial pace it seems likely to outlast the glaciers themselves, so it makes sense that people who feel a sense of urgency will look toward direct action.


At what point would you draw the line for direct action?


"Draw the line" in which sense? "Beyond this line it is time to act", "action beyond this line would be unjustifiable", or perhaps something else?


No political party which takes climate change seriously could possibly survive, much less maintain power within a democratic system. People don't want to give up their comforts and luxuries and standard of living, and business interests don't want to do anything to interfere with profits.

If it were possible to address this problem through the democratic process, it would have been done long ago, when it might have been possible to avoid disaster. Now the best we can hope for is damage mitigation, but even that requires sacrifices no government would dare even suggest. Democracy doesn't work when people don't care.


What would you advocate for then in place of the democratic process?


They don't actually want a solution no matter how much they say they do - they simply want a moral cause with which to inflict pain and suffering against the world. They will openly say this in the language of "degrowth", a euphemism hiding the government culling of humans. That is why Just Stop Oil and the like are against nuclear power - they do not want solutions, just to increase suffering.


No, we don't just want to increase suffering, we do actually want a solution.

Unfortunately the world is full of people like yourself only capable of seeing those with whom they disagree as amoral monsters, thus no solution can or will be reached.


There are plenty of people I disagree with that are just that, people I disagree with. Members of the degrowth death cult are uniquely horrible. Your movement will be remembered in the same breath as eugenicists.


Nothing. We need to practice degrowth radically and globally. We need to deconstruct our technological civilization, limit growth, reduce energy usage and consumption, return to a stable, likely pre-industrial, level of existence and remain there indefinitely. That will never happen. Governments will never suggest it. People will never vote for it. Working within a system whose very existence is antithetical to any solution is laughable.


Personally, I'm trying to learn to accept the end of humanity in much the same way I hope to learn to accept my own eventual demise. It has not been easy for me.


Eeh, climate change isn't gonna cause the end of humanity within the foreseeable future.

We might see lots of people getting displaced, more deaths to draughts, heatwaves, more forest fires, decimated ocean wildlife etc... but the end of humanity? No, that's not gonna happen from climate change itself. At least not within the next several hundred years


How long is the future really foreseeable? The current trajectory is already dismal and appears to be accelerating[0]. Certainly humanity's carbon emissions increase inexorably; what can stop them? Human extinction is probably a bit hyperbolic, certainly within this century, but can you imagine what the world will look like to a child born today, turning 75 in the year 2100? I can't claim to have any certainty, but I expect I'll be happy to have departed by then.

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl6VhCAeEfQ


> but can you imagine what the world will look like to a child born today, turning 75 in the year 2100? I can't claim to have any certainty, but I expect I'll be happy to have departed by then.

Oh, absolutely. But climate change is going to be a minor issue for them. The social issues like wealth inequality, the continuous descent into a Low Trust Society and similar are most likely going to be way more pressing to them


Social issues certainly matter, but they can be reversed on human timescales. The changes we're making to the atmosphere and ultimately to the Earth cannot be. Calling it a minor issue for the future seems terribly naive at this point, though as I say, I wish I could share in that.


You're misinterpreting what I wrote. It's not a minor issue, it's a minor issue to them because they've got more pressing problems.

Let's say the sun is about to go supernova in... Let's say 30 years. On that theoretical planet we'll imagine a person that's actually enslaved and getting beaten whenever it's master feels like it.

Would you call the coming apocalypse via supernova the biggest issue from the perspective of the slave?

It's a gigantic issue, but on a daily basis... It's negatives are going to be outweighed by various other problems, like how he can survive for another day.

And I expect our societies to get significantly worse within the next 70yrs, which is why I expect the people living in 2100 to consider climate change to be less pressing then the fact they can't provide for themselves, can't get a home/can't afford rent, can't get a job, can't fight against injustice as very little equality will be left by then, etc.

do you honestly think people with problems like that will particularly care about the dying oceans and people getting displaced by rising sea levels, stronger heat waves etc?

And to loop back to my original comment: It's gonna take a very long time for climate change to get to a point for it to wipe out humanity entirely. Way longer then any our predictions have meaning, and other things such as rising tensions and potential wars are more likely to be the cause for such.


I appreciate the clarification and you make some good points. I have two thoughts on the matter. The first is that as heinously complex as the Earth's climate is, it is somewhat amenable to being modeled and we can say that things are bad and will get worse as more CO2 is added to the atmosphere. But I don't think that human society can really be predicted that way, and so the future is just more of a blank as far as I am concerned. You could be right about it though; there is little evidence to me that things have reason to improve.

My other thought is that while climate change is global, the effects are varied and local. I've lived in South Texas my whole life, and so I viscerally feel the heat and see the occasional story of someone dying of heat stroke. And I'd rank that as an even more pressing concern for an enslaved person.

Anyway, probably better to try not to think about any of it.


Certain level of nihilism and simply not caring does help a lot in the process. Life is only downwards from here in health, retirement is uncertain... Soo, why not have the little fun before the inevitable end...


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