Walking in Waterloo Region

[Bytor]

I can understand, if you misrepresent that general intent of that statement, how you might call it sexist. But homophobic?

The "general intent" of that statement, regardless of any debate on the exact type of insult it was, is that it was intended to be an insult with which to dismiss the presented opinions and facts about how SUVs affect pedestrian safety and how their adoption has been encouraged by government policies and corporate greed rather than try and refute them in a good faith discussion.

Don't participate in the derailing by arguing the exact type of insult it was, just hold Ac3r to account for the insult and bad-faith actions.

[Rainrider22]

Why in the world would you care so much about what someone says on a forum ? Just curious..

[ijmorlan]

https://xkcd.com/386/

[Bytor]

Re: the assertion that Europeans are buying the bigger vehicles that North American's buy:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C35gEIvIoA0/

Look at the two different pickup trucks at the start of the video and see how big the most popular pickup in North America is compared to the most popular pickup in the U.K.

It paints a different picture to the assertion made.

[danbrotherston]

Re: the assertion that Europeans are buying the bigger vehicles that North American's buy:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C35gEIvIoA0/

Look at the two different pickup trucks at the start of the video and see how big the most popular pickup in North America is compared to the most popular pickup in the U.K.

It paints a different picture to the assertion made.

It's not just that...we are having a conversation here...this is a community of sorts.

This isn't a drive by rando on a public twitter thread.

If we aren't allowed to have a conversation here, then you basically reject online spaces as a meaningful concept...

Edit: To clarify, by "conversation" I mean, care about what people say.

[ac3r]

Why in the world would you care so much about what someone says on a forum ?  Just curious..

Sometimes it seems like a lack of real life social interaction a few people here suffer from. I really don't know who else would dedicate so much time of their life trying to arguing with complete strangers on the internet. I forgot I even posted about SUVs until I was clicking around unread threads a few days later and noticed the usual suspects have spent half a week straight arguing with themselves. Now, a full week later, they're still going on about nothing and have filled a thread about walking with 3 entire pages of nonsense.

Bizarre, that's all I can say.

[dtkvictim]

First of all, you don't have to defend anyone...nobody is forcing you to, you're welcome to just say nothing...just because you feel someone is wrong on the internet™️ doesn't mean you have to present a defence. And in fact, doing so would be the fastest way to move past this conversation and get back to actual discussion (you see what I mean when earlier I said that ac3r's disrespectful and derogatory rhetoric degrades the conversation here).

You're right. Usually I skim past ac3r and Bytor's provocations or unpleasant manner of communicating. I don't know why I chose to bite this time.

Second of all, you're just wrong. I mean, I agree, homophobic isn't the right word, sexist/misogynistic is however.

Again, it's not a secret, it isn't a surprise, we all know that NJBs audience, and this forum is largely dominated by male voices. I'm sure ac3r also knows this.

"fanboy" might be a neutral term, but "fangirl" is clearly not (that too is unfortunately part of the inherent sexism of our society but it's true). Their choice to use "fangirl" rather than any neutral term is not an accident. Now the only question remains one of motivation.

So yeah, maybe they're just a quirky person who likes to say weird things and it's just a chaotic choice...but given their record of spewing emotionally charged and largely negative, even hateful rhetoric, there is no reason to ascribe a chaotic motivation rather than an intentional one. They intended, as Bytor put it best, to use a sexist insult to dismiss the views of a group of people (us in this case).

To use a metaphor, you are hearing a dog whistle and you are insisting that there is a dog...and there ain't no dog to be seen.

You know, I wrote out a whole reply to this and then considered your other post:

It's not just that...we are having a conversation here...this is a community of sorts.

This isn't a drive by rando on a public twitter thread.

If we aren't allowed to have a conversation here, then you basically reject online spaces as a meaningful concept...

Someone asking why you care what other people post doesn't shut down conversation and harm sense of community as much as the way some people choose to engage in conversation with others, not excluding opening an (unconvincing) argument with "you're just wrong", especially as a pattern rather than a one-off. The irony of progressive ideology that's inevitably present in an urbanist group is how illiberal and intolerant it is of having the wrong opinion or viewpoint, which seems at best to present itself not as engaging in conversation and debate, but lecturing and talking down. Maybe it's not ideology but a lack of socialization, or maybe it's just hard to understand how people will interpret our writing on the other side of the screen, I don't know. It doesn't just matter if what's being said is right, it also matters to do it in a way that is pleasant and encourages engagement. Otherwise you don't end up with a community, you end up with a blog.

If the definition of community to most others here is more along the lines of repeating the same agreed upon statements over and over, and subtly making offhand remarks about outgroup members until you're convinced their ontologically evil, then maybe this isn't the community for me.

Don't feel a need to reply. I'll read it if you do, but aside from this reply as a courtesy to your direct response, I won't engage in at least this conversation anymore.