Yeah I’m only 10 lbs more than my wife and she is 5’ tall. I was the last in a long line of tall, usually thin, men for her. It’s definitely a type for some.

I am 6’ 6" and most of my life I’ve been between 145 to 165. So incredibly skinny, always under weight. I never struggled with women as an adult, but I also didn’t chase too many shallow women. When I was young i certainly got told by a few that they weren’t into skinny guys, but it was almost always by people that were incredibly socially controlled people, the type to “keep up with the Joneses” so to speak. Once I stopped chasing after people for the wrong reasons things improved dramatically.

Do you have close friends that are women? I wonder if there is a communication aspect to this if not. Do you date outside your culture? I grew up around mostly white rural Christians and they were more judgy about being skinny than other cultural groups, in my experience. Maybe something about rural people doing a lot more hard labor and it being culturally homogeneous.

Well it’s not completely hopeless. One of the primary things keeping those places as Republican as they are is young non-voters. South Dakota is not about to flip parties, but it could improve greatly if people didn’t give up and still voted, especially in off year elections when a lot of Dems stay home.

The key is who you’re lobbying. If you’re in a hard right or hard left district with a rep that is inflexible your lobbying will be ineffective. But every vote has a handful of politicians that have no strong opinions or ideological grounds on that vote and are movable. With proper organizing one can target those districts and call citizens of those districts to then call their representative.

But as citizens who haven’t organized, if everyone contacts their representative at least some of those communications will be with the politicians that can be moved.

I’ve done the former and the latter and been part of bills getting passed that otherwise probably wouldn’t have. Cynicism is the strongest barrier to progress. It doesn’t mean it will work every time, but it absolutely works.

Citizen lobbying is incredibly effective. A lot less people contact their congress person than people envision. If you can get a few hundred people to call or write your representative about something it absolutely can change a vote. Money isn’t the only thing that talks, politicians ultimately just want to get reelected.

It’s called a level crossing in this case. The purpose of a level crossing is for safety of pedestrians and makes perfect sense. The only problem here is as the title says, that they didn’t do it for the street as well. Nothing wrong with the one in the bikeway.

I’m not a fan of lawns but I have a huge lawn that does none of these things and looks fine. I don’t irrigate and my lawn is greener than the neighbors. I let anything grow and cut it long with an electric mower. Plenty of shade /w 20+ oaks covering the whole property. No idea about nitrogen, but I don’t fertilize, everything that drops from trees gets mulched back into the lawn which keeps everything healthy. At least there are ways to avoid these things if you care.

Realistically it’s only those 1-2 days after snowing when things are still being cleared that it’s an issue. I bike commute 52 weeks a year in Minnesota and there were only 3 days this year I regretted biking. 2 snow days and one heavy cold rain. I can always supplement another option on those days.

I do and it’s honesty much better than those 33+ c days. When it’s below freezing, I wear thermal high tops, snow pants, down jacket, face mask and ski goggles. Its perfectly comfortable.

I don’t doubt anything you are saying, but it’s worth mentioning that (iirc) 80%+ of severe injury and death on a bicycle is caused by motor vehicles, or complications of motor vehicle involvement. People very rarely have severe injury or death on dedicated bike infrastructure. The primary risk on bicycles is motor vehicles. If you remove motor vehicles, there is still risks, but someone might decide that risk is low enough to forgo a helmet. I don’t feel those people should be called stupid for their choice.

There is considerable evidence that everyone wearing a helmet in a car would save vastly more lives and prevent severe head injury, and yet pretty much no one even considers that as a normal thing to do. The bike helmet thing is therefore just as much a cultural attitude, as it is about safety.

I still use a helmet, and more importantly, visibility gear, on my bicycle in 100% of my rides. I’ve never worn a bike helmet walking or driving in a car, even though my cousin died from a head injury getting hit by a car while walking and my grandma-in-law died of a head injury in a car…

A helmet is only needed if you intend to spend significant time in traffic. Most of the world doesn’t use one.

The math behind using one is a lot more on the margins than people realize. In order for it to save you, it first has to prevent a head injury, and then prevent one that is in the range of severity that makes it useful. The vast majority of bike injuries won’t fall in that range, they’ll either be related to another part of the body, or in the case of high speed crashes from a car, too severe for a helmet to matter. But helmets do give people a false sense of security. Statistically people ride faster and take more risks with a helmet on. Lastly, again statistically, the visibility gear you put on yourself while riding does more to keep you safe in traffic than a helmet. Lights, reflectors, reflective vest, etc.

All this to say, the religiosity with which people proselytize helmets is misplaced. I still wear one, but I don’t judge people who choose not to.

I used to always do that until my carpet guy told me the oils from my feet directly on the carpet accelerates it’s end of life. He suggested keeping socks on or using indoor shoes (slippers, etc).

You are way overestimating how often antibiotics are needed. I’ve used them once in my life and it was only a precaution, probably not needed. People who get antibiotics for every little thing are largely responsible for their loss in effectiveness.

Seriously, that was my only comment and now I’m also a rapist according to you. This is something else, I can’t say I’ve ever encountered someone this toxic on Lemmy since I’ve been here. You extrapolated all sorts of things I never said from 2 sentences.

Not that you are remotely deserving of a respectful response at this point, but I’ll still give you my thoughts:

I’ve been sexually assaulted and have had people close to me be sexually assaulted and raped. The insinuation that I am a rapist would be personally harmful to me and retraumatizing if I wasn’t aware that you are doing this because you are unable to articulate your opinions on the matter effectively, so you resort to insults. I totally understand the visceral need and desire for vengeance and justice when you or someone close to you is the victim of vile acts. There is someone I grew up acquainted with that if I saw them again in person I would have an intense desire to cause physical pain because of what they did to people close to me. I totally understand the desire for vengeance, and I suspect everyone else on this thread does too.

With that said, when societies make rules you have to decide what the goal is. Is the goal vengeance and punishment, is the goal a better future for society in general, or is it a little of both. We have the sum total of human experience to look back on, we can see what societies systems of punishment result in better outcomes for society at large. We know what systems of punishment result in recidivism more often, what systems result in rehabilitation more often, and we know what systems perpetuate a cycle of violence that never ends. We don’t rehabilitate criminals and sex offenders for their sake, we rehabilitate them for societies sake. Because we can conclusively show that if systems of punishment make it their goal to rehabilitate instead of get vengeance, it usually breaks the cycle of violence whether it be physical or sexual. You’re basically saying you would prefer vengeance, even if it is at the expense of sexual and physical violence being perpetuated through society generation after generation.

I strongly suggest you read this article: https://www.firststepalliance.org/post/norway-prison-system-lessons#:~:text=Prisoners in Norway lose their,crime rates in the world.

Norway has the lowest recidivism rate in the world exactly because the treat their criminals like human beings. Guess who wins, all of the non-criminals that enjoy one of the lowest crime rates in the world.

When did the person you responded to say they were friend with rapists. When you resort to ad hominem attacks on peoples character, you’re signalling to everyone you have already lost the argument and have nothing of value left to say, just take the L.

Having been around melting ice a lot I think this is closer to the right answer. Also decomposing things give off heat. Any vegetation that is decomposing will accelerate ice melting.

Putting in a brand new lawn is work as well, but a native plant garden is actually less work usually once installed because you don’t have to mow all the time.

Think about how many times in the last year you had heavy rain hitting your windshield while driving a car. Certainly light rain in most places might be more common. I’ve been bike commuting for 1700 miles so far. I have only been caught out in heavy rain once, moderate rain once, and light rain twice. I live in a place with fairly average rainfall. It’s probably rained several dozen times during some other part of the day many of the times I’ve commuted, but the commute itself is 38 minutes (10 miles) and I have usually been lucky. I had a lot of apprehension about weather when I started, but I mostly barely think about it at this point. Just check the radar, and wear appropriate cloths. One thing I mean to get is waterproof rain pants, but it hasn’t really mattered that much so far. I have water “resistant” casual pants, and they work well enough for light rain.