Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Cat Hicks (grimalkina@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Oct-2024 01:05:58 JST Cat Hicks

   Having chronic lung issues really changed my attitude about all these people who post about how everyone should cycle everywhere. My dudes. 😭 I cannot express how scary getting around the world is when you know your lungs might crap out totally unexpectedly. 😭 It's all cute to be like "I am so noble because I don't own a car in the most aggressively car-dependent country" until you measure the chances of surviving by getting to the ER in a unit of minutes

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 07-Oct-2024 01:05:57 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     @grimalkina
     We have a dear family friend who is not just an avid cyclist, but founded an international bike tour company, has run child bike safety trainings for decades, helped organize to turn Ft. Collins into a bike-friendly city…. He’s now a few years into chronic, life-threatening respiratory failure, recently had a lung transplant that may or may not save his life. On top of not being sure how long he has to live, he’s had to give up the cycling that brings him so much joy.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 07-Oct-2024 01:09:20 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     @grimalkina
     That oversharing is all just to agree with the implied sentiment of your post. Cycling advocacy is great if and only if it’s not treated as a panacea. Transit advocacy should be about access, about better choices for everyone, not about ableist shaming. I don’t think that’s such an impossible needle to thread for those of us who are enthusiastic about cycling, if only we take the time to pay attention.

   • Embed this notice
     Cat Hicks (grimalkina@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Oct-2024 01:26:33 JST Cat Hicks

     in reply to

     • Paul Cantrell

     @inthehands 💯💯!! As with many such things, caring people would not for an instant make the same kind of mistake as people mouthing off about what "everyone" can do (or that if you're disabled you should just be cleverer than your infrastructure and you're a bad person if you're not!)

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 07-Oct-2024 01:26:33 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     @grimalkina
     Yeah. If there is a challenge here, it’s that there do exist barriers to cycling / public transit / other decarbonization strategies that •are• psychological and amenable to prodding. It really can be helpful to challenge people to get out of their comfort zones, or to say, “Yes! It’s possible!” But…making sure an implied and incorrect “…for everyone!” doesn’t creep in requires a little mindfulness. I appreciate you reminding me / everyone to be mindful!

   • Embed this notice
     Cat Hicks (grimalkina@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Oct-2024 01:57:08 JST Cat Hicks

     in reply to

     • Paul Cantrell

     @inthehands as you might imagine, being a psychological interventionist, I worry a lot about where we do v do not have the right or the knowledge to intervene without harm. Eg, brave change in one context is certainly peer pressure and bullying in another context. Is the aim of reducing anxiety in a dangerous context the right aim? These are big and in some cases testable questions! I believe in increasing self-efficacy but shaming is effective social control, not effective empowerment :)

   • Embed this notice
     Cat Hicks (grimalkina@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Oct-2024 01:57:08 JST Cat Hicks

     in reply to

     • Paul Cantrell

     @inthehands "it's possible!" And "here's what makes it possible for me and what I did!" TOTALLY different messaging imo than some of the moralizing claims

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 07-Oct-2024 01:57:08 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     @grimalkina 100%. Applies to software too. “Here’s the Right Solution” is a plague in engineering: people mimicking what Google and Amazon did because They’re Supposed To, because of impostor feelings / fear, etc.

     It can be hard to get to “Here’s the tradeoffs” — they’re super hard to identify! — but your “Here’s what made it possible for me / made it work for me” seems an excellent and realistic starting point.