do you mean a small population on this community, or in life?

in life. most people in NYC have literally never experienced this one way or the other before NYC implemented it, and certainly aren’t seeking out the kinds of spaces that would be partisan on it in some way. their opinions on this are accordingly malleable based on “does this feel good or bad,” and you can see this in how there’s already been a large change toward supporting congestion pricing as the benefits have become increasingly tangible:

“A plurality of voters [40-33%] wants to see congestion pricing eliminated, as Trump has called for. Pluralities of New York City voters [42-35%] and Democrats want congestion pricing to remain, Hochul’s position,” Greenberg said. “In June 2024, voters approved of Hochul’s temporary halt of congestion pricing 45-23%. In December, voters opposed Hochul’s announced reimposition of the congestion pricing tolls, 51-29%.

“Having one-third of voters statewide supporting the continuation of congestion pricing is the best congestion pricing has done in a Siena College poll,” Greenberg said. “Additionally, support currently trails opposition by seven points, when it was 22 points in both December and June 2024.”

but I feel like the people who oppose congestion pricing / are pro-car operate on feelings and vibes.

you’re describing a small percentage of the population here–most people have no strong opinions on congestion pricing (because it doesn’t really have a prior in the United States), and as such it’s extremely important to write articles like this which can show them that it is working and it benefits them in every way

congestion pricing has been pretty consistently found to make air quality better for obvious reasons (fewer cars on the roads) so you can safely infer this is also the case here. unfortunately, there are several significant air quality variables outside of NYC’s control that are probably going to make reductions less obvious than, say, Stockholm or London. most recently, nearby and unseasonable wildfires caused the city to have several days of terrible air quality. back in 2023, those huge Canadian wildfires caused the same problems on and off for their entire duragion.

the only reason this is being kept up and locked and not deleted is to make it clear where Beehaw stands on Richard Stallman, which is: stop defending him, he is an awful person and he completely deserves to be put over the fire for his words and actions.

Aside for all his pedophile view points, he is correct about infantilizing 12-17 year olds.

…you’re just repeating my point back to me, and why Stallman is the worst mouthpiece for this position.

It kind of reminds me of ASD symptoms, not reading social cues properly, etc.

i know you mean well but, respectfully: having autism or another disorder (if Stallman even does) is probably not the reason why Richard Stallman has historically defended what amounts to pedophilia; why he continues to defend bestiality and necrophilia; and why he has extremely malformed opinions on what constitutes sexual harassment and sexual assault. and even if it is, that’s an explanation and nothing more. it does not excuse or make acceptable his behavior or the consistency with which it has skeeved other people out. he deserves to be strongly rebuked, as anyone else would, for his refusal to take accountability in this situation.

i mean, whom among us has not said such things, without retraction, as:

Cody Wilson [who at the time of his charging was 30] has been charged with “sexual assault” on a “child” after a session with a sex worker of age 16. […] The article refers to the sex worker as a “child”, but that is not so. Elsewhere it has been published that she is 16 years old. That is late adolescence, not childhood. Calling teenagers “children” encourages treating teenagers as children, a harmful practice which retards their development into capable adults.

Mere possession of child pornography should not be a crime at all. To prosecute people for possessing something published, no matter what it may be, is a big threat to human rights.

A national campaign seeks to make all US states prohibit sex between humans and nonhuman animals. This campaign seems to be sheer bull-headed prudery, using the perverse assumption that sex between a human and an animal hurts the animal. That’s true for some ways of having sex, and false for others. For instance, I’ve heard that some women get dogs to lick them off. That doesn’t hurt the dog at all. Why should it be prohibited?

and whom among us has not had to retract such positions as:

There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.

these are obviously positions that everyone would take the fall for if they had a blog.

Not defending pedophiles, but

you are about to defend pedophilia. rethink this and stop talking.

there was a time when 13 was considered adult.

and? Stallman is not talking about a previous time at any point here. also: that previous time was bad anyways. why would we want to–especially with respect to age of consent–go back to considering 13-year olds and younger to be adults? they cannot meaningfully consent to sexual relations with adults; it’s just child abuse. all of this is why Stallman’s words are abhorrent.

It’s still legal for teenagers to marry in most countries.

Stallman is not talking about teenagers. he explicitly distinguishes children (again, people <13 for him) from teenagers (people 13-17).

An anonymous hit job

it’s literally his own words all the way down here. if it’s a “hit job” it’s entirely Stallman’s own fault for being a freak with morally abhorrent takes. one of the first things mentioned here is that he had to retract the position that “voluntarily pedophilia” doesn’t harm children (a category of person he defines as anyone under about 13)! any reasonable person would find this abhorrent and Stallman a horrible person for ever having defended said position in the first place, because it is genuinely abhorrent to defend something like that. that’s just child abuse.

“A lot of times, people are not drawn in when climate is the top line,” Stone told me. “So I like to start with [a question like] ‘O.K., what’s affecting your daily life?’”

That question led her to write a story about bus stops that lacked shade structures, which meant people who relied on public transit would have to wait for extended periods of time in direct sunlight, which is a dangerous proposition during heat waves. That was a story that began at a very local level — people in a community were advocating for more shelters at bus stops — but allowed Stone to draw the connection to the larger, planet-spanning problem of climate change.

The various initiatives — known as Tempo 30 in German-speaking countries, City 30 across Europe, Love30 by the WHO and 20’s Plenty in the UK and the US, the latter referring to miles per hour — have been gaining steam in recent years. Paris and Brussels introduced a default speed limit of 30 kilometers per hour in 2021, Lyons in 2022 and Bologna in early 2024, with Milan and Parma planning to follow suit this year. Beyond the EU, Wales introduced a 20 mph limit as the default for all residential roads in September 2023, and a couple of US cities, like Portland, have begun reducing their residential speed limit to 20 mph.

if the social prescription to harassment of moderators is “quit because you’re a baby” then you’re going to have many fewer pleasant spaces on the Fediverse in which to exist—because yeah, a lot of people will just quit. i am agnostic on the public modlog overall, but this is an obvious concern with it that i’m not convinced can just be dismissed idly. i obviously have better things to do than a thankless, payless job in which harassment would be dismissed like that.

i think this is a very good illustration of how better things are legitimately possible, even in America where the infrastructure can be truly doom-inspiring.

i feel like, at most, it would be accurate to say “this has a rather bad crumple zone that is liable to turning you into chunky marinara on the interior of your car”. by modern standards it’s hilarious

self-regulation of industry like this is a lot more common than you’d probably like to think

And apparently, in the USA there is a whole party devoted to child marriage and other ways to have sex with minors. That might be the better point to start, because they actually have a say regarding laws on that matter.

i’m not sure why we’re acting as if condemning Richard Stallman and the Republican Party for their equally bad takes in this sphere are mutually exclusive of each other.

Instead of contributing to a project where only dessalines, lionirdeadman and nutomic dictate what gets approved, why not make a fork with the settings most people agree on?

rest assured: our admin here has basically no say over the project’s priorities, and we’ve also been fighting tooth and nail like the person you’re quoting to get anything productive done (including priorities we think are vital to the project’s long term success like better mod tools). cc: @Lionir@beehaw.org and @Penguincoder@beehaw.org for more details on that.

I don’t want to recap the FediDrama here (drama recaps have a way of becoming drama themselves), but I suspect it’s the reason he’s taking a break.

to be clear for those not in the loop, this would be the thing going around about Meta/Facebook and NDAs, correct?

this could have also gone in Food, but this to me is more about a new cool urban space than food necessarily, so i’m dropping it here