Do you have a source for your factual statement about what happened when speed limits were increased? I ask, because you write, "My life is about science and data," and I would have liked to see some links to some science and data in your comment. I was just Googling around with searches on open-ended questions like "effect of speed limit changes," and I found some links to official reports and scientific studies
that suggest that raising speed limits increases the rate of road fatalities, at least on highways that are not designed with the features of the Interstate Highway System highways. But perhaps you have found other studies whose methodology you would like to explain here that reach a different conclusion.
I am so glad someone other than me took the time to google this and post it here. People want everything spoon fed these days. They don't even want to take a few moments to say "Let me see if this guy has a point" and do a little research before running their mouths through the keyboard. Thank you for posting this limk.
How about it folks? You are not going to take back all those down votes and nonsense counterpoint posts, are you? You are not going to apologize and say, "Sorry, you were right", are you?
Of course you are not. You probably won't even take the time to read the PDF this person posted. No, it's much easier to hate those with opposing views and smash them down as hard as you can than to make an effort to understand and learn something.
What makes it so difficult to provide evidence for your own argument? I don't understand why you think that making a contrary point and then saying it "isn't worth your time" to corroborate the claim would persuade anybody.
Why do I have to? Why does everything have to be spoon fed?
Some of the most valuable learning I have done has been through researching topics out of my own interest, sometimes spurred by and idea or a couple of words I came across somewhere. You learn very little by being spoon fed. I am not here to spoon feed anyone.
If someone wants to refute what I said, take the time to go ascertain whether or not my point is valid. Googling is pretty easy. Until you (plural you) have done that, don't spew off a bunch of irrelevant nonsense that makes you (plural) look like a fool.
The punch line here is very simple: If you ready my original comment, there's NOTHING whatsoever on there that is false. Yet it was attacked mercilessly and down-voted to hell and back. And so was nearly every single comment I had to make after that to defend myself and my position.
Shooting the messenger is a sport around here.
And then someone really smart came along and he/she decided to take a few moments to actually and see if I was full of shit or not. And a link was posted. And, guess what, it corroborated absolutely everything I said about the transition from 55 to 65.
Yet nobody apologizes and the barrage of down-votes and attacks continues because, well, the kids just don't want to be wrong. Well, fuck you all. Grow up and go learn something.
HN sucks at this.
It is ruled by what I perceive to be a petulant mob of post-adolescents who just got free from Mommy and Daddy and now have to be right all the time in the face of reality. And don't get me started about the manure-filled ideas they soaked-up in college and took to be true without any thought, consideration or validation with reality at all.
Important? Not really. HN is mostly a waste of time as a participant exactly because of this mob of post-diaper members who make discussing anything just about impossible. The sport is to find holes in your comments and savagely attack them with comments, down votes or both. It's a true mob of bully's.
I've been pretty busy lately and have mostly ignored HN for probably months (don't really have a clue how long). I've picked up reading an article here and there from a quick browse of the first page but no discussions of any substance in a while. Frankly, not sure why I got into this thread. I'm on vacation, that must be why. And I actually regret it. I hate dealing with ignorant, entitled, petulant 20-somethings. And that's what HN is full of.
I'll phase myself back into read-only mode. I'll let the morons own the castle.
Of course this comment will be met with the usual dosage of savage come-backs and down votes. Have fun kids, whatever floats your boat.
> I was a college debater and enjoy many sorts of intellectual argument, but your posts do not advance an open objective of persuasion,
Welcome to the real world then! College debating is not equal to real life conversations.
> you seem to be concerned with the opinions of other HN readers.
I couldn't care less. I am concerned with bigotry and bullying. Even then, these people have little value in my life, as it should be, you should not let bully's gain value in your life.
> In fact, many of the points you raise are completely valid, but the manner in which you deliver them repel others from joining with your side.
Disagree. Firstly, the form of the message has nothing whatsoever to do with the validity of the message. I could say "Joe is an asshole and a thief" or "Joe is a man who exhibits nothing but condescension and lack of consideration towards others. He is also known for his lack of respect for property ownership rights and has been known to, at times, take other's property and use it as his own.". Both true. Both deliver pretty much the same message. One is VERY efficient. The other one could be an attempt to sound erudite and pseudo intellectual.
I go for brevity and clarity. I am not concerned with what people think about the form of the message. In fact, it says a lot about a person when they can discuss the merits of an idea without judging the form that stands in front of them. A homeless man in dirty clothes can utter just as valid a statement as a Wall Street millionaire in a $2,000 suit. The bigot is the one who is only interested in having a discussion with the $2,000 suit.
Go back and read my very first comment on this thread. This one:
Now, pray tell, what about that post "repels others from joining" my side?
Instead I got an immediate stream of attacks from people who didn't bother to go over to Google and type:
"effects of repealing the 55 mile per hour speed limit"
And, of course a bunch of FLAWED articles with opposing views.
And so, my post would have been a trigger for learning. Rather than me hand-picking links that only support my view of the universe it is left up to the reader to do a little work and try to understand where I may have been coming from. I mean, we are arguing over typing half a dozen words into Google and spending some time reading.
Instead these people prefer to immediately down-vote, post a bunch of one sided flawed links and, to use a term from another thread, pour hot flaming oil on the messenger. I call these people morons. And rightly so. I mean, in one case the poster listed a bunch of links and then admits:
"raising speed limits increases the rate of road fatalities, at least on highways that are not designed with the features of the Interstate Highway System highways"
Really? Really? C'mon. Look, I'm not a kid. I probably have 30 years on the average HN member. Please give me the benefit of the doubt when I say that a segment of our youth has lost touch with reality in a measurable way. Everything has to be spoon fed. Nobody wants to work for anything. Everyone is a genius. Nobody wants to get their hands dirty. Respect is an almost non-existing commodity. And critical thinking, well, we are far more likely to find Elvis in the building than solid critical thinking skills in the average population of 20-somethings, college or not.
So, yes, want to debate me? No problem. Go do the research and come back with trustworthy data --not nonsense-- and we can discuss the merits of my position at length with civility. I will NOT do the work for you. I, in principle, REFUSE to do that.
In this particular case I lived through the relevant period and was very familiar with all the arguments of the time. So I didn't pull my statements out of my anus. As verified by a bunch of links you can discover yourself, this happened (the insane political claims about raising the speed limit) and as early as a couple of years later they were all shown to be not a little wrong but monumentally insanely wrong.
So yes, what I said was, as far as I remember, absolutely factual. It just so happened it did not align with the post-diaper sensibilities of the 20-something HN crowd who only know about attacking the messenger and are obviously too fucking lazy to take just a few minutes to learn something before flapping their jaws. I am not saying this is you. I am saying this is "them", whoever "them" might be.
If you are interested in discussing the topic from a frame of reference where you have done the research to learn and come back to me with questions or objections I would be honored to do so. My life has been about constant learning. Nothing better than learning something new. Having an intelligent discussion with someone who is informed and not spewing nonsense is a fantastic way to learn. In fact, I engage in this all the time in real life by participating in a range of meetups from technology to business. Always neat to interact with people who are there to learn an not to put people down because of what they look like, who they are, how they say things, etc.
Right, exactly what I said about the HN cargo cult. So, this guy refutes me with a bunch of nonsense links to studies he admits are about "highways that are not designed with the features of the Interstate Highway System highways". Really? Any moron can understand that raising the speed limit on a road not designed to handle it will result in nothing good. I've travelled on the autobahn at 180 miles per hour (under the right conditions, etc.). I have driven the Nurburgring in an overpowered 911. None of our (US) highways are even remotely designed for that. Yet the transition from 55 to 65 or even 80 isn't a problem at all for the vast majority of our roads.
So I called the guy for doing exactly what the author of the 12 foot vs. 10 foot lane author is probably doing: Using bullshit or irrelevant papers to try to support a nonsense conclusion. And you cargo cult kids down vote me. Well done.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724439/
http://narc.org/uploads/File/Transportation/Library/NCHRP_Sp...
http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/speedmgt/ref_mats/fhwasa1304/reso...
that suggest that raising speed limits increases the rate of road fatalities, at least on highways that are not designed with the features of the Interstate Highway System highways. But perhaps you have found other studies whose methodology you would like to explain here that reach a different conclusion.