They. Do. Not. Care.
February 1, 2025 2:58 AM Subscribe
I could continue in this vein for another few pages, but it would be boring and you get the point. We are surrounded by antisocial bastards. Some of them like the people who don't pick up after their dogs are legitimately just assholes. Others, like the bureaucrats in the city who mess up our lives in more indirect ways are more victims of The System. But they are still guilty of lacking the personal agency to fight it or leave in protest, and I still — potentially unjustly — condemn them. from Nobody Cares by Grant Slatton
Have you been to the DMV? It sucked?
No, literally never. Every piece of government admin I've had to do with driving or car ownership was done effortlessly by mail or online.
So I decided to psychologically nope out there. I stopped reading a few paragraphs after.
posted by ambrosen at 3:17 AM on February 1 [12 favorites]
No, literally never. Every piece of government admin I've had to do with driving or car ownership was done effortlessly by mail or online.
So I decided to psychologically nope out there. I stopped reading a few paragraphs after.
posted by ambrosen at 3:17 AM on February 1 [12 favorites]
To be clear, it was the aggressive incuriosity of it that bothered me, the failure to understand that overcoming the existence of whatever it is that in person DMVs do is all about having people who can build consensus of all the people necessary to change things, because actually one overprivileged egotistical computer programmer who only works with software isn't a representative of human experience and the built environment.
posted by ambrosen at 3:21 AM on February 1 [29 favorites]
posted by ambrosen at 3:21 AM on February 1 [29 favorites]
We only have DMVs because we allow people to travel around at high speeds in murder machines.
We could simply limit speeds at the manufacturer instead: 15 kph = 10 mph for personal motor vehicles, provided you've some justification for even owning one. 25 kph = 15 kph for pedal assisted vehicles, like unlicensed ones in Europe now. And no limit for purely human powered. Voila, no DMV necessary. :)
posted by jeffburdges at 3:27 AM on February 1 [12 favorites]
We could simply limit speeds at the manufacturer instead: 15 kph = 10 mph for personal motor vehicles, provided you've some justification for even owning one. 25 kph = 15 kph for pedal assisted vehicles, like unlicensed ones in Europe now. And no limit for purely human powered. Voila, no DMV necessary. :)
posted by jeffburdges at 3:27 AM on February 1 [12 favorites]
Or people could be more curious about why in person DMVs exist.
I for one, have no idea why, and also benefit from being 75% less likely to be killed by a driver than a US citizen, so it doesn't feel like it's about preventing violent killings.
posted by ambrosen at 3:37 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
I for one, have no idea why, and also benefit from being 75% less likely to be killed by a driver than a US citizen, so it doesn't feel like it's about preventing violent killings.
posted by ambrosen at 3:37 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
His central thesis seems to be that if the people at the bottom really cared then they would simply individually overcome the overwhelming systemic forces that prevent them from doing the right thing and, my dude,
posted by parm at 3:47 AM on February 1 [62 favorites]
posted by parm at 3:47 AM on February 1 [62 favorites]
This is such a bad essay.
posted by parm at 3:51 AM on February 1 [26 favorites]
posted by parm at 3:51 AM on February 1 [26 favorites]
i wish people cared less
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 3:56 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 3:56 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
But you know who cares? Elon Musk! He just wants what’s best for everybody!
posted by Robin Kestrel at 4:06 AM on February 1 [10 favorites]
posted by Robin Kestrel at 4:06 AM on February 1 [10 favorites]
hey asshole. I hate poop-droppers and no-turn-signalers and public-transport-noise-shitweasels, and (a few, many fewer than your broad brush paints) genuinely lazy bureaucrats.
but you don't care about a BUNCH of shit - see systemic inequities that literally power and pay for your life. why should you get a pass on not giving a shit about those, when you care about building fucking spreadsheets that likely power these inequities.
i think it's because you think, deep down, that this is just a matter of personal willpower; if only we all cared RIGHT, society would be good.
the corgi sez "help me"
posted by lalochezia at 4:33 AM on February 1 [12 favorites]
but you don't care about a BUNCH of shit - see systemic inequities that literally power and pay for your life. why should you get a pass on not giving a shit about those, when you care about building fucking spreadsheets that likely power these inequities.
i think it's because you think, deep down, that this is just a matter of personal willpower; if only we all cared RIGHT, society would be good.
the corgi sez "help me"
posted by lalochezia at 4:33 AM on February 1 [12 favorites]
I had a recent need to use the in-person DMV in Maryland (it uses a different acronym I can't remember). It was perfectly friendly, and had short lines. The DMV in my southern, red* state, has long lines (though the clerks are friendly once you reach them.)
The civil service works if it has enough resources.
*"red* because gerrymandered.
posted by Vegiemon at 4:39 AM on February 1 [15 favorites]
The civil service works if it has enough resources.
*"red* because gerrymandered.
posted by Vegiemon at 4:39 AM on February 1 [15 favorites]
So, a little more to the point of the posted article:
* Elon does NOT care. He tried to wreck passeneger rail in California. He is building
crap tunnels in Vegas. He polluted our skies with his satellites.
He is wrecking our government. He is a selfish bastard.
* Yes, people do seem to care more in their retail jobs in Japan.
I don't know why.
posted by Vegiemon at 4:50 AM on February 1 [6 favorites]
* Elon does NOT care. He tried to wreck passeneger rail in California. He is building
crap tunnels in Vegas. He polluted our skies with his satellites.
He is wrecking our government. He is a selfish bastard.
* Yes, people do seem to care more in their retail jobs in Japan.
I don't know why.
posted by Vegiemon at 4:50 AM on February 1 [6 favorites]
The last time I went to the DMV it was GREAT!
As soon as we got there, the Gatekeeper civil servant talked to us and asked us why we were there. And we told her that we needed to renew our licenses and get enhanced ones. She told us what kinds of ID we'd need and checked that we had it, and gave us the forms to fill out, and gave us numbers and said have a seat and fill out your forms while you wait.
And then we filled out our forms, and not long after we finished our numbers came up and we talked to the Keymaster civil servants and they took our forms and pictures and said our licenses would be in the mail. And they were!
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:55 AM on February 1 [18 favorites]
As soon as we got there, the Gatekeeper civil servant talked to us and asked us why we were there. And we told her that we needed to renew our licenses and get enhanced ones. She told us what kinds of ID we'd need and checked that we had it, and gave us the forms to fill out, and gave us numbers and said have a seat and fill out your forms while you wait.
And then we filled out our forms, and not long after we finished our numbers came up and we talked to the Keymaster civil servants and they took our forms and pictures and said our licenses would be in the mail. And they were!
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:55 AM on February 1 [18 favorites]
Hm. I think there's something to some of this. It's pretty much always misguided to say that the solution to a problem is "simply" for everyone to get their act together... and yet there is something sbout the American culture of individualism that can foster a huge amount of what the essay complains about, the leaving of dog poop and pathetic tips and so forth.
And of course the whole thing comes off as self-important; I'm sure there are plenty of things the writer overlooks himself caring about. But. Something I personally have had trouble contending with in life is just how little people have a Rawlsian instinct, that but for the grace of the universe each of us would be someone else. And I think this context provides some explanation for the current political moment — remember "I Don't Know How to Explain You Should Care About Other People"?
(I thought, maybe wrongly, that the intended point about Elon is that he cares more about evil than others do about good. But that is indeed completely, wildly misguided — Elon is exactly as lazy as Trump, spends every spare hour posting online and shows zero impulse control in general. The evil that results from his actions is more a product of the system they happen in than of his "caring".)
posted by InTheYear2017 at 4:57 AM on February 1 [8 favorites]
And of course the whole thing comes off as self-important; I'm sure there are plenty of things the writer overlooks himself caring about. But. Something I personally have had trouble contending with in life is just how little people have a Rawlsian instinct, that but for the grace of the universe each of us would be someone else. And I think this context provides some explanation for the current political moment — remember "I Don't Know How to Explain You Should Care About Other People"?
(I thought, maybe wrongly, that the intended point about Elon is that he cares more about evil than others do about good. But that is indeed completely, wildly misguided — Elon is exactly as lazy as Trump, spends every spare hour posting online and shows zero impulse control in general. The evil that results from his actions is more a product of the system they happen in than of his "caring".)
posted by InTheYear2017 at 4:57 AM on February 1 [8 favorites]
But you know who cares? Elon Musk! He just wants what’s best for everybody!
posted by Robin Kestrel
eh, no.
the judgement that is placed on elon is that - even if you believe he wants every awful thing in the world (which I do) that because he invests his time, money and effort into those awful things and I mean *really* invests effort in to bringing about those awful things, that he is demonstrating how much he cares about doing those awful things. He does those awful things about as efficiently as that guy in Germany cared about keeping the trains running on time.
posted by Nanukthedog at 4:59 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
posted by Robin Kestrel
eh, no.
the judgement that is placed on elon is that - even if you believe he wants every awful thing in the world (which I do) that because he invests his time, money and effort into those awful things and I mean *really* invests effort in to bringing about those awful things, that he is demonstrating how much he cares about doing those awful things. He does those awful things about as efficiently as that guy in Germany cared about keeping the trains running on time.
posted by Nanukthedog at 4:59 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
The reason people don’t care is because they understand they live in a society that doesn’t care about them, but the entire point of American existence is to serve the rich and extract wealth from the communities that you live in. Countries that have even vestigial social systems of community have people who care about that community because they are presented with clear evidence every day that care is a two-way street, and it’s worth it.
The extent to which the United States has been hollowed out in service of its “rugged individualism” ethos of pretending people don’t need each other can be measured by how much people don’t care.
posted by Jon_Evil at 5:06 AM on February 1 [28 favorites]
The extent to which the United States has been hollowed out in service of its “rugged individualism” ethos of pretending people don’t need each other can be measured by how much people don’t care.
posted by Jon_Evil at 5:06 AM on February 1 [28 favorites]
So tangential to the article, but we are all selfish or careless in certain ways. We probably don't notice it, or write it off to having a bad day. The thing is, I think that there is a certain group of people *gestures broadly* that notices this and uses it like a cheat code on life to just not give a shit about anything and be a huge pain in the ass. Most of us (MeFites, and like honestly reasonable people generally), hopefully understand that things happen and we are all doing our best.
Simple example, I hope everyone here is against littering, but (my personal example) I have been carrying this empty coffee cup for ages and here is a big pile of trash, so just let me add to that. And I know that the trash pile was started by someone just like me who ditched their empty coffee cup there and then someone else came and thought it wouldn't be so bad if they put their cup next to that one and now it is a mountain of trash, and of course it is systemic issues like why aren't there more public trash receptacles, but it also boils down to individual laziness and selfishness. I could have held on to that coffee cup, but I didn't, and just because there is a pile of trash there I feel like somehow me disposing my cup is somehow different than that first guy, but come on.
So anyway, in this situation there is us, who I believe feel guilty about the situation and want to make it better so we don't have to throw away our coffee cups like this and we hope for changes on both a personal and systemic level, and then there are these other fucking assholes who go and get their 17 year old broken sofa and add it to the pile because they honestly don't give a shit about us or anyone else.
posted by Literaryhero at 5:08 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
Simple example, I hope everyone here is against littering, but (my personal example) I have been carrying this empty coffee cup for ages and here is a big pile of trash, so just let me add to that. And I know that the trash pile was started by someone just like me who ditched their empty coffee cup there and then someone else came and thought it wouldn't be so bad if they put their cup next to that one and now it is a mountain of trash, and of course it is systemic issues like why aren't there more public trash receptacles, but it also boils down to individual laziness and selfishness. I could have held on to that coffee cup, but I didn't, and just because there is a pile of trash there I feel like somehow me disposing my cup is somehow different than that first guy, but come on.
So anyway, in this situation there is us, who I believe feel guilty about the situation and want to make it better so we don't have to throw away our coffee cups like this and we hope for changes on both a personal and systemic level, and then there are these other fucking assholes who go and get their 17 year old broken sofa and add it to the pile because they honestly don't give a shit about us or anyone else.
posted by Literaryhero at 5:08 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
The McDonald's touch-screen self-order kiosk takes 27 clicks to get a meal. They try to up-sell you 3 times. Just let me pay for my fucking burger, Jesus Christ. The product manager, the programmer, the executives. None of these people care.
Started falling apart for me here. They VERY MUCH CARE about your upsell, are you kidding? It's designed that way because it nets them more money. How is that not caring? Of course a company doesn't care about your feelings.
The guy on the hiking trail is playing his shitty EDM on his bluetooth speaker, ruining nature for everyone else. He does not care.
Even ones like the above - it's a miserable way to live. I can help, come on down and try playing...
THE EMPATHY GAME!
Maybe the guy on the trail lost his ear buds. He is actually cringing inside about playing his music loud but its the only thing that keeps his thoughts off his currently dying loved one during his much needed hike.
The person not paying attention while merging is about to lose their job, the one they are headed to now, to open a store, even though they closed it the night before. Their significant other shouted at them this morning. Their child cried all the way to daycare. They have a migraine.
The guy at the gym doesn't re-rack the weights. The lady at the grocery store leaves the cart in the middle of the parking lot.
She felt dizzy and headed for the locker room. The lady at the grocery store, every other time has put her cart away but you didn't see it. Today she didn't. The only time she didn't was the time you saw.
Be GENEROUS with other people in your head, not miserly. It costs you nothing and it's less aggravating.
Someone else has thought that YOU don't care. When instead you were only human-ing.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:11 AM on February 1 [47 favorites]
Started falling apart for me here. They VERY MUCH CARE about your upsell, are you kidding? It's designed that way because it nets them more money. How is that not caring? Of course a company doesn't care about your feelings.
The guy on the hiking trail is playing his shitty EDM on his bluetooth speaker, ruining nature for everyone else. He does not care.
Even ones like the above - it's a miserable way to live. I can help, come on down and try playing...
THE EMPATHY GAME!
Maybe the guy on the trail lost his ear buds. He is actually cringing inside about playing his music loud but its the only thing that keeps his thoughts off his currently dying loved one during his much needed hike.
The person not paying attention while merging is about to lose their job, the one they are headed to now, to open a store, even though they closed it the night before. Their significant other shouted at them this morning. Their child cried all the way to daycare. They have a migraine.
The guy at the gym doesn't re-rack the weights. The lady at the grocery store leaves the cart in the middle of the parking lot.
She felt dizzy and headed for the locker room. The lady at the grocery store, every other time has put her cart away but you didn't see it. Today she didn't. The only time she didn't was the time you saw.
Be GENEROUS with other people in your head, not miserly. It costs you nothing and it's less aggravating.
Someone else has thought that YOU don't care. When instead you were only human-ing.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:11 AM on February 1 [47 favorites]
(As far as a country caring, yes. When a country cares about its citizens, maybe THAT trickles down, at least a bit. We are all aware of how the U.S. treats its non rich citizens.)
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:15 AM on February 1 [5 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:15 AM on February 1 [5 favorites]
This is water.
posted by whatevernot at 5:18 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
posted by whatevernot at 5:18 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
In Japan, there is almost no littering (on the streets: I am told however that the countryside is full of littered junk cars.) It takes only a few days as a tourist in Japan to get used to that, and to feel the urge pick up what little trash there is on the street.
So I don't even think it would take a huge societal shift! I saw someone yesterday picking up the litter on the median here, and they were not part of a Adopt a Highway crew, they were just cleaning their neighborhood.
posted by Vegiemon at 5:19 AM on February 1 [5 favorites]
So I don't even think it would take a huge societal shift! I saw someone yesterday picking up the litter on the median here, and they were not part of a Adopt a Highway crew, they were just cleaning their neighborhood.
posted by Vegiemon at 5:19 AM on February 1 [5 favorites]
> I was with him right up until “say what you will about the tenets of national socialism, dude, but at least it’s an ethos”.
I am not defending the statement, just pointing out that it is a direct quote from The Big Lebowski (and in its original context quite humorous).
posted by STFUDonnie at 5:37 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
I am not defending the statement, just pointing out that it is a direct quote from The Big Lebowski (and in its original context quite humorous).
posted by STFUDonnie at 5:37 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
The Big Lebowski quote isn't in the article, it's a paraphrase.
Which I guess makes this comment exonymisterical, or at least would if I'd have meant it unkindly.
posted by ambrosen at 5:41 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
Which I guess makes this comment exonymisterical, or at least would if I'd have meant it unkindly.
posted by ambrosen at 5:41 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
apathy to resistance is a continuum
posted by graywyvern at 5:53 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
posted by graywyvern at 5:53 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
Even though this is a sloppy essay overall, he does have some sound observations. LED lights, for instance, are shitty; anyone who actually lived in an urban area would know what a bad fit they are for one; anyone who spent enough time with one to see what happens when it burns down would learn in addition that an LED streetlight doesn't simply burn out but turns into a strobe light that is in fact spectacularly dangerous, as it not only doesn't do its basic job of lighting the fucking street, but triggers epileptic seizures. I have seen these fucking lights blink for literal months before replacement. They are awful, and indicative of decisions made not simply by people who don't give a shit, but haven't bothered to find out if there is a shit for them to give.
Incuriosity, rent-seeking, main character syndrome, pathological narcissism -- these are all antisocial traits that have come to predominate the American character. I think that we would be wise to identify them as toxic traits and both set out to overcome them in ourselves and condemn them in others. I don't think this essay does a good job of any of that, but I think his frustration is very real, and justified, and shared, by me, probably by you, and I appreciate that he took the time out to express it.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:53 AM on February 1 [6 favorites]
Incuriosity, rent-seeking, main character syndrome, pathological narcissism -- these are all antisocial traits that have come to predominate the American character. I think that we would be wise to identify them as toxic traits and both set out to overcome them in ourselves and condemn them in others. I don't think this essay does a good job of any of that, but I think his frustration is very real, and justified, and shared, by me, probably by you, and I appreciate that he took the time out to express it.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:53 AM on February 1 [6 favorites]
Anyone who thinks LED streetlights are bad simply doesn't care about how bad cities are for walking in. So I guess it depends what you mean by living in an urban area.
posted by ambrosen at 5:57 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
posted by ambrosen at 5:57 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
I'm confounded by this statement. I live and walk in a city -- a poorly lit city of blinking lights that no one ever bothers to replace.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:01 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:01 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
Sometimes you have to remember to take a deep breath. Nothing will ever be perfect but you do the best with what you have. My DMV in a smaller town has improved by using a screener upon arrival and a queue system showing where you are in line. You can even book appointments. On the other hand we were supposed to get our curbing improvements done for better drainage. My curb has been covered by asphalt over 20 years - and they always seem to forget about my street - so water pools at my driveway.
posted by Upon Further Review at 6:02 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
posted by Upon Further Review at 6:02 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
As someone who lives in a small town full of red state degenerates and blue state cost of living refugees, I at times feel this exact sentiment. Daily, even.
I’m sorry to say: It’s a trap. Let me explain.
We can mistake our lack of autonomy and influence on others as a breakdown in the altruistic balance of society. Watching others disregard (presumably) that which you care about can be demoralizing, angering, or even comical. It’s easy to go down the rabbit hole and declare ‘if everyone cared more’ and not be wrong. But this is, in and of itself, a fleeced temper tantrum. Others around you will mock, ignore, argue on principle. It’s whining.
‘Nobody cares anymore’ declarations are a form of not caring. You fail to care about the culture surrounding you. You fail to understand the objectives of those who offend you. You fail to grasp the systems that caused your anguish. You fail to do something about it.
We all fail all the time. This is not the problem.
Reflecting our agendas on others is the problem. Just stop doing that. It’s a shortcut to feeling like you’re the superior being, but you’re not. None of us are. That mentality traps us into cycles of anger, disgust, ungratefulness, passing judgement. All of these take away from our ability to engage in building a better world.
posted by WorkshopGuyPNW at 6:17 AM on February 1 [12 favorites]
I’m sorry to say: It’s a trap. Let me explain.
We can mistake our lack of autonomy and influence on others as a breakdown in the altruistic balance of society. Watching others disregard (presumably) that which you care about can be demoralizing, angering, or even comical. It’s easy to go down the rabbit hole and declare ‘if everyone cared more’ and not be wrong. But this is, in and of itself, a fleeced temper tantrum. Others around you will mock, ignore, argue on principle. It’s whining.
‘Nobody cares anymore’ declarations are a form of not caring. You fail to care about the culture surrounding you. You fail to understand the objectives of those who offend you. You fail to grasp the systems that caused your anguish. You fail to do something about it.
We all fail all the time. This is not the problem.
Reflecting our agendas on others is the problem. Just stop doing that. It’s a shortcut to feeling like you’re the superior being, but you’re not. None of us are. That mentality traps us into cycles of anger, disgust, ungratefulness, passing judgement. All of these take away from our ability to engage in building a better world.
posted by WorkshopGuyPNW at 6:17 AM on February 1 [12 favorites]
WorkshopGuyPNW, diagnosing the problem is important. I am not sure at all what you mean by "reflecting our agendas". My agenda includes staying healthy and keeping my family safe. There are people whose agenda includes making me sick and keeping our community dangerous.
posted by Vegiemon at 6:22 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
posted by Vegiemon at 6:22 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
No offense, WGPNW, but that basically sounds like an argument for passivity. "If you don't like this, you're whining!" I mean, that's not really even an argument, it's pretty much just saying "shut the fuck up." If you really believed we should all shut the fuck up, you wouldn't post here, or anywhere. It sounds like what you actually want is for other people to shut the fuck up so you can talk.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:29 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:29 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
* Yes, people do seem to care more in their retail jobs in Japan.
I don't know why.
Because Japan has a culture where there are social expectations of workers to concede to the whims of customers, no matter how unrealistic they are - and this is a mentality that (as I pointed out in a previous thread) has a body count.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:34 AM on February 1 [9 favorites]
I don't know why.
Because Japan has a culture where there are social expectations of workers to concede to the whims of customers, no matter how unrealistic they are - and this is a mentality that (as I pointed out in a previous thread) has a body count.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:34 AM on February 1 [9 favorites]
I live in Michigan, where we have the Secretary of State that handles car registrations, licenses and the like as well as other things. In recent years, the SoS has become awesome through the advent of online appointment scheduling. You make your appointment, and as the time approaches you get reminder texts, including updates if they're running late for any reason. Usually, in my experience, they aren't. When you get to the office, there is a greeter who makes sure you have your paperwork and helps guide you through the process. You can be in and out in minutes, sometimes.
Based on sitting for a bit and waiting for my turn when I've been early, it seems like this makes it faster for walk-ins as well. The cavernous waiting room used to be nothing but rows and rows of chairs chock-full of people getting increasingly cranky, and now there are only a couple of rows of chairs, and they're usually not packed full when I've been there.
I can't speak to how other offices in Michigan work, and certainly not how things work at DMVs in other states, but this is a very humane and efficient system here.
posted by Well I never at 6:39 AM on February 1 [7 favorites]
Based on sitting for a bit and waiting for my turn when I've been early, it seems like this makes it faster for walk-ins as well. The cavernous waiting room used to be nothing but rows and rows of chairs chock-full of people getting increasingly cranky, and now there are only a couple of rows of chairs, and they're usually not packed full when I've been there.
I can't speak to how other offices in Michigan work, and certainly not how things work at DMVs in other states, but this is a very humane and efficient system here.
posted by Well I never at 6:39 AM on February 1 [7 favorites]
Maybe the guy on the trail lost his ear buds. He is actually cringing inside about playing his music loud but its the only thing that keeps his thoughts off his currently dying loved one during his much needed hike
Nah, trail music guy is a fucker. He should turn off the goddamn music or else have his day ruined. Which? I don't care.
posted by surlyben at 6:46 AM on February 1 [19 favorites]
Nah, trail music guy is a fucker. He should turn off the goddamn music or else have his day ruined. Which? I don't care.
posted by surlyben at 6:46 AM on February 1 [19 favorites]
Mod note: One comment removed. Please avoid making demands of other members.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:58 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:58 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
This thread is so depressing with all the quick dismissals. He literally leads off by saying he's writing a rant, and that it is not to be taken too seriously. As a rant, it's quite good and enjoyable, even if, were it a more serious argument, I'd argue with him pretty strongly. It's good to rant once in awhile. I need to do it myself every now and than.
I especially appreciated him pointing out the crappy and dangerous ending to a downhill bike lane. As a disabled person who gets around with a mobility scooter, one of the things I am most likely to rant about is things like this, that are sort of notionally "accessible" but fall far short of being as good as they should be, because nobody is thinking about pedestrians, and, even if they are, they're not thinking about people like me who are using the same infrastructure as pedestrians but can't just, for instance, walk around an obstacle on the sidewalk or climb over the berm of dirty snow the plows have left in front of the curb cut or get to work when my township doesn't regularly clear the sidewalk that gets me from my apartment to the bus stop, even if the snow is the kind of depth people can generally take in stride if they're wearing boots or decent shoes.
He seems like a pretty good guy, overall. Sounds like he's done his thankless bit to make things around him a little bit better. No wonder he needs to let off steam every now and then at the people who not only won't do the same, but will make things just that little bit worse.
posted by Well I never at 7:22 AM on February 1 [10 favorites]
I especially appreciated him pointing out the crappy and dangerous ending to a downhill bike lane. As a disabled person who gets around with a mobility scooter, one of the things I am most likely to rant about is things like this, that are sort of notionally "accessible" but fall far short of being as good as they should be, because nobody is thinking about pedestrians, and, even if they are, they're not thinking about people like me who are using the same infrastructure as pedestrians but can't just, for instance, walk around an obstacle on the sidewalk or climb over the berm of dirty snow the plows have left in front of the curb cut or get to work when my township doesn't regularly clear the sidewalk that gets me from my apartment to the bus stop, even if the snow is the kind of depth people can generally take in stride if they're wearing boots or decent shoes.
He seems like a pretty good guy, overall. Sounds like he's done his thankless bit to make things around him a little bit better. No wonder he needs to let off steam every now and then at the people who not only won't do the same, but will make things just that little bit worse.
posted by Well I never at 7:22 AM on February 1 [10 favorites]
Certainly starting this essay with a rant about the DMV seems like a dumb, cliched choice. Dude, I've been to DMVs in several different states, for several different reasons. Despite the reputation for Kafkaesque cruelty they have, almost all of those visits have involved waiting for a shorter time than I did for a typical doctor's appointment, in an area which typically had the seating and cleanliness of a well-maintained train station, to transact business straightforwardly and in a friendly manner with a desk worker who seemed to be handling cases at least moderately efficiently.
The one exception is the time I went to get my real-ID here in Louisville. For whatever reason, they have different offices for that, and the closest one to my house is in a (poorer, disproportionately black) western neighborhood. There, people were standing in line, out the door of a room which had an inadequate queuing system and only a few desks serving clients, out into the hallway and into a dingy stairwell. The staff were nice though, so even the human face of my worst experience with the DMV was pretty good. But my take-home from that isn't anything to do with this author's take on individual responsibility, because AFAICT that particular inadequate experience was the result of deliberate systemic starvation rather than the neglect of indifferent individuals. I bet in the eastern suburbs they have seats and a take-a-number doodad. Other than the fact that they squeezed it into too small a space, the west-downtown DMV could also have both of those things for fairly minimal expense. The shitty DMV is shitty not because people there are self-absorbed and uninterested in their work; it's shitty because a specific systemic choice was made that the people that particular DMV serves don't matter and should be reminded of that fact.
posted by jackbishop at 7:29 AM on February 1 [14 favorites]
The one exception is the time I went to get my real-ID here in Louisville. For whatever reason, they have different offices for that, and the closest one to my house is in a (poorer, disproportionately black) western neighborhood. There, people were standing in line, out the door of a room which had an inadequate queuing system and only a few desks serving clients, out into the hallway and into a dingy stairwell. The staff were nice though, so even the human face of my worst experience with the DMV was pretty good. But my take-home from that isn't anything to do with this author's take on individual responsibility, because AFAICT that particular inadequate experience was the result of deliberate systemic starvation rather than the neglect of indifferent individuals. I bet in the eastern suburbs they have seats and a take-a-number doodad. Other than the fact that they squeezed it into too small a space, the west-downtown DMV could also have both of those things for fairly minimal expense. The shitty DMV is shitty not because people there are self-absorbed and uninterested in their work; it's shitty because a specific systemic choice was made that the people that particular DMV serves don't matter and should be reminded of that fact.
posted by jackbishop at 7:29 AM on February 1 [14 favorites]
When I'm my best self, I try to make the kind of allowances for other people's foibles that tinyfryingpan recommends. A lot of the time, it isn't even hard: people being grumpy in a checkout line (I've been there), etc.
But you know, we all run into a lot more than that. Pretending to recycle plastic (for decades!): that is not someone having a bad day. Not processing rape kits, is not because the police chief was sad. Putting gun magazines at kid level at the grocery store: that's fucked up.
posted by Vegiemon at 7:29 AM on February 1 [8 favorites]
But you know, we all run into a lot more than that. Pretending to recycle plastic (for decades!): that is not someone having a bad day. Not processing rape kits, is not because the police chief was sad. Putting gun magazines at kid level at the grocery store: that's fucked up.
posted by Vegiemon at 7:29 AM on February 1 [8 favorites]
It may seem that Nobody Cares because they're assholes, but it's deeper than that. The author even touches on the real reason—incentives—but dismisses it too quickly. I believe that the problem is that there are no consequences, good or bad, to your behavior.
If you're a good citizen, there is no reward. If you're a bad citizen, there is no punishment.
After enough slaps in the face, or instances where you get away with things, everyone devolves to their most basic animal instincts. It's the tragedy of the commons peppered with societal malaise, economic inequality, and general exhaustion.
I get what he's saying, and I'm surprised people are picking on one example or another to tear him down, while ignoring the overall message. And, he clearly states at the beginning, it's a rant, not a well-considered essay.
posted by Cobalt at 7:32 AM on February 1 [9 favorites]
If you're a good citizen, there is no reward. If you're a bad citizen, there is no punishment.
After enough slaps in the face, or instances where you get away with things, everyone devolves to their most basic animal instincts. It's the tragedy of the commons peppered with societal malaise, economic inequality, and general exhaustion.
I get what he's saying, and I'm surprised people are picking on one example or another to tear him down, while ignoring the overall message. And, he clearly states at the beginning, it's a rant, not a well-considered essay.
posted by Cobalt at 7:32 AM on February 1 [9 favorites]
I've had to use the DMV here in metro Atlanta half a dozen times in the last year and a half or so: my own license renewal, getting it updated for an address change, my wife having to do the same thing, Daughter 1's permit and now license. Every single experience has been just great. Friendly, helpful clerks; speedy, efficient and courteous service; low fees. Four stars, at least. This guy's picking mostly the wrong things to rant about, though the bike lane thing at the beginning is spot on. Atlanta does not do bike lanes well, though it's way better than it used to be.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:35 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:35 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
Started falling apart for me here. They VERY MUCH CARE about your upsell, are you kidding? It's designed that way because it nets them more money. How is that not caring?
I'm with him on the McDonald's ordering kiosk. They don't even have pictures of all of their food (they are missing basic ones, not the obscure stuff), and their screen designs are terrible. Whoever designed that does not care. They upsells are even careless - so they don't even care about that.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:41 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
I'm with him on the McDonald's ordering kiosk. They don't even have pictures of all of their food (they are missing basic ones, not the obscure stuff), and their screen designs are terrible. Whoever designed that does not care. They upsells are even careless - so they don't even care about that.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:41 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
Cobalt, I think that's an interesting take. Partly, selfishly, because I've been coming to similar conclusions about the state of things. Some of this is specific to the city I live in, but in general, it seems as though there's almost no consequences for anything, and when there are, they seem to be applied in a discriminatory fashion. But yeah, nobody actually gets fined for littering unless the cops are trying to profile someone. Running red lights, speeding, etc... so little enforcement that it doesn't seem to be a deterrent at all. All sorts of petty things that individually aren't that big of a deal, but when tons of people do them, it creates an obnoxious environment, while also normalizing that behavior. It's self reinforcing, as noted above with the coffee cup trash example.
On a larger scale, I feel like there are no consequences for the upper class. They are so far removed from basic human needs that no matter what they do, they won't be hungry, they won't be unhoused. They won't even be ostracized. They can make terrible decisions that affect many people because it's so abstract. Used to be you could show up at the mill owner's door and threaten them. Now the mill owner is 7 levels of management away and not even in the country.
posted by jellywerker at 7:53 AM on February 1 [11 favorites]
On a larger scale, I feel like there are no consequences for the upper class. They are so far removed from basic human needs that no matter what they do, they won't be hungry, they won't be unhoused. They won't even be ostracized. They can make terrible decisions that affect many people because it's so abstract. Used to be you could show up at the mill owner's door and threaten them. Now the mill owner is 7 levels of management away and not even in the country.
posted by jellywerker at 7:53 AM on February 1 [11 favorites]
Shoutout to the Connecticut DMV. Every transaction / in-person interaction Mrs. Zen, Zen Jr., and I have had with them (some of them pretty complex) have been great!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:54 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:54 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
Nah, trail music guy is a fucker. He should turn off the goddamn music or else have his day ruined. Which? I don't care.
You missed the entire point, which is not staying mad
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:56 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
You missed the entire point, which is not staying mad
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:56 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
I dislike these kind of rants because I don’t think they add anything. I mean, I guess the author feels better? Maybe? But has he helped or empowered anyone? No. Not really.
It’s also very much in that confirmation bias end of things. I feel shitty therefore I shall point at all the shitty things and decree that everything is shitty. But also, if you look, there are a lot of people who do care, and who do try and do the right thing as often as they can. No one is their best every day or even very moment of their day. But writing off the majority of people based on their not best moments doesn’t help anything.
Buddy is perfectly entitled to feel his feels - we all need to from time to time. He’s even entitled to vent his spleen all over the internet if he likes. But at the end of the day he’s just added to the noise.
posted by eekernohan at 8:16 AM on February 1 [6 favorites]
It’s also very much in that confirmation bias end of things. I feel shitty therefore I shall point at all the shitty things and decree that everything is shitty. But also, if you look, there are a lot of people who do care, and who do try and do the right thing as often as they can. No one is their best every day or even very moment of their day. But writing off the majority of people based on their not best moments doesn’t help anything.
Buddy is perfectly entitled to feel his feels - we all need to from time to time. He’s even entitled to vent his spleen all over the internet if he likes. But at the end of the day he’s just added to the noise.
posted by eekernohan at 8:16 AM on February 1 [6 favorites]
The way not to stay mad at trail music fucker isn't to excuse them for probably having a reason for being a fucker, it's to shrug and say “hey, that behaviour's unpleasant, but I'll do what I can to not affect me”.
And honestly, inventing a reason in your mind why that person might be forced to do that is absolutely not the way to inner peace. Saying “some people are just like that” to yourself is the correct level of minding your own business for society.
posted by ambrosen at 8:22 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
And honestly, inventing a reason in your mind why that person might be forced to do that is absolutely not the way to inner peace. Saying “some people are just like that” to yourself is the correct level of minding your own business for society.
posted by ambrosen at 8:22 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
You missed the entire point, which is not staying mad
I'm sure I did, because trail music guy is breaking a taboo that I am happy exists. He's right up there with litterers and people who pee under shade trees in my pantheon of irritating trail users who should know better. In any case, as you might expect from my username, "not staying mad" is not one of my overriding life priorities, particularly when it comes to things of little consequence either way.
posted by surlyben at 8:27 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
I'm sure I did, because trail music guy is breaking a taboo that I am happy exists. He's right up there with litterers and people who pee under shade trees in my pantheon of irritating trail users who should know better. In any case, as you might expect from my username, "not staying mad" is not one of my overriding life priorities, particularly when it comes to things of little consequence either way.
posted by surlyben at 8:27 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
In some alternate universe there might be a good version of this essay. The “nobody cares” knee jerk reaction is a relatable; we’ve all faced that frustration.. MetaFilter is bristling (rightly so) in this thread because the author tries to pin the blame on civil servants and in doing so reveals himself to have a bad case of HackerNews brain, but somebody else could write this and blame it on MBAs, bad incentive structures, and disenfranchisement, and it would resonate. Observations on why some societies might care more than others, and how to get people to care, would be interesting from someone wise.
I could cherry pick examples all day of how nobody cares, but I could also cherry pick examples of how people care deeply. This world is shaped by people who have cared.
I used to work with a guy who would pick up and throw away any garbage he saw while walking in the neighborhood. I want to hear his opinion on this.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:39 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
I could cherry pick examples all day of how nobody cares, but I could also cherry pick examples of how people care deeply. This world is shaped by people who have cared.
I used to work with a guy who would pick up and throw away any garbage he saw while walking in the neighborhood. I want to hear his opinion on this.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:39 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
The way not to stay mad at trail music fucker isn't to excuse them for probably having a reason for being a fucker, it's to shrug and say “hey, that behaviour's unpleasant, but I'll do what I can to not affect me”.
Both of these are the same to me except I dont see my examples as making excuses for anyone. Mine, The Empathy Game, uses a mental way to let it not affect me. It's not for everyone, but it helps me and I share hoping it will help others.
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:39 AM on February 1 [8 favorites]
Both of these are the same to me except I dont see my examples as making excuses for anyone. Mine, The Empathy Game, uses a mental way to let it not affect me. It's not for everyone, but it helps me and I share hoping it will help others.
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:39 AM on February 1 [8 favorites]
And honestly, inventing a reason in your mind why that person might be forced to do that is absolutely not the way to inner peace.
For you. For me, it works great.
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:39 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
For you. For me, it works great.
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:39 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
I only know the empathy game as a way judgy people stay judgy, so I very much stay away from it, personally.
posted by ambrosen at 8:58 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
posted by ambrosen at 8:58 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
I can't help myself
The Empathy Game?? And how consistently and assiduously is this empathy applied
An execrable gotcha from yet another MeFite spreading negativity but again: I cannot seem to help myself
posted by ginger.beef at 9:11 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
The Empathy Game?? And how consistently and assiduously is this empathy applied
An execrable gotcha from yet another MeFite spreading negativity but again: I cannot seem to help myself
posted by ginger.beef at 9:11 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
I don't care that other people care. I do care that other people don't care. I'm a carer, a caregiver and a caretaker. I'm careful, carefree, caressed and careless. I'm a Karen and I want to empathize with your manager. I'm careening into the cairn of George Care-lin's schtick. Bye for now, take care.
posted by zaixfeep at 9:16 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
posted by zaixfeep at 9:16 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
i’ve never had a bad experience at the dmvs i’ve been to in multiple major cities across the united states. i mean sure you have to wait your turn, and fill out a form, but that’s not what i would call having a bad time. i’ve often wondered what people are actually complaining about when they complain about the dmv and i’m pretty sure it’s that it’s one of the few places, like public transit, where you might have no choice but to sit down next to someone from a completely different class and social station and race as you and some people just cannot stand that
posted by dis_integration at 9:21 AM on February 1 [10 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 9:21 AM on February 1 [10 favorites]
I would much rather think 'That person may have xyz reason to have done that' than basically 'some people are just [jerks, essentially].' The former treats people like I would want to be treated, the latter feels like I would be just setting myself up as better than, or my needs up as more important than, other people. I'm sure that's not the intention there, but it kind of does seem like the impact, to me.
We are all "just like that" in some way or at some time in the sense that we all do sometimes break social taboos or act rudely from someone else's perspective ... but we are inside our heads and our personal experience so we might have a reasonable excuse that give ourselves permission. When I was pregnant having morning sickness (not showing yet) and taking a commuter bus to work, I tried to discourage people from sitting next to me. Am I "just like that" (no, not normally) or was I trying to minimize the likelihood that I'd throw up on that bus? When my Dad was losing his hearing, he would speak so loudly that it seemed like he was yelling and people would glare and get pissy that he was being much louder than was appropriate for the situation. Is he "just like that" or was he in the process of becoming deaf due to an inner ear disorder?
Imagining what those reasons might be for other people seems like a GREAT way to treat other people as valid albeit imperfect human beings. We are ALL "just like that" sometimes.
posted by fennario at 9:22 AM on February 1 [9 favorites]
We are all "just like that" in some way or at some time in the sense that we all do sometimes break social taboos or act rudely from someone else's perspective ... but we are inside our heads and our personal experience so we might have a reasonable excuse that give ourselves permission. When I was pregnant having morning sickness (not showing yet) and taking a commuter bus to work, I tried to discourage people from sitting next to me. Am I "just like that" (no, not normally) or was I trying to minimize the likelihood that I'd throw up on that bus? When my Dad was losing his hearing, he would speak so loudly that it seemed like he was yelling and people would glare and get pissy that he was being much louder than was appropriate for the situation. Is he "just like that" or was he in the process of becoming deaf due to an inner ear disorder?
Imagining what those reasons might be for other people seems like a GREAT way to treat other people as valid albeit imperfect human beings. We are ALL "just like that" sometimes.
posted by fennario at 9:22 AM on February 1 [9 favorites]
I have 2 Bissel products that are very poorly made and designed. I bought them because there is little to no competition for wet vacs for home use on hard floors and carpets. I can’t imagine how these got approved for sale not to mention have not been superseded by a better product. I don’t blame the engineers but rather the managers who are forcing fast release of undeserved products with cheap materials and quality control standards. I believe the fault lies solely on the higher ups.
posted by waving at 9:30 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
posted by waving at 9:30 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
(And, having some empathy for people's reasons doesn't mean we have to excuse the impact or outcome just because we can imagine a 'reason' from the person's perspective, but figuring out and addressing a correct reason may make it easier to fix the impact or outcome. I'm really talking about the kinds of behaviors that are best described as 'rude' so please don't read me as suggesting that people get a pass on the impact just because we can imagine a reason for them.)
posted by fennario at 9:30 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
posted by fennario at 9:30 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
Well, I let this comment sit too long. A lot of people have said what I was going to say already.
The only thing I have to add is how it is both embarrassing and utterly unsurprising to see one more successful tech guy reveal themselves to be deeply, profoundly incurious about the systems in which people find themselves, or operate between, or why those systems exist. I knew this guy would have something like "architect" in his title from the first three paragraphs, and there it is.
posted by mhoye at 10:29 AM on February 1 [8 favorites]
The only thing I have to add is how it is both embarrassing and utterly unsurprising to see one more successful tech guy reveal themselves to be deeply, profoundly incurious about the systems in which people find themselves, or operate between, or why those systems exist. I knew this guy would have something like "architect" in his title from the first three paragraphs, and there it is.
posted by mhoye at 10:29 AM on February 1 [8 favorites]
I work at the DMV and I can tell you that the guy running ours is quite dedicated to improving it, there's a modernization department, they have a lot of options for online service and kiosks. And frankly, the times I've had to go in person were just fine. They are aware of the rep and working to improve it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:35 AM on February 1 [8 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:35 AM on February 1 [8 favorites]
He's in Seattle and it's the DOL here, not the DMV, and the one I go to is fine. You can make an appointment, they have a good system for waiting, and every time I've talked to a clerk they've been friendly and helpful. I went with someone who was changing their gender marker and not an eyebrow was raised.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:05 AM on February 1 [5 favorites]
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:05 AM on February 1 [5 favorites]
If I had to say one thing about this guy, is that he must not have traveled much.
Americans are, by the standards of the world, very well behaved in public. Most people are raised with internal incentives to good behavior (a positive endorphin rush when you recognize yourself to have done good, unpleasant guilty feelings when not), and there's typically some good shaming and overt enforcement penalization for bad behavior.
American commercial and governmental "caring" is pretty darn good, to the extent that almost everywhere else is worse. He complains about McDonald's technology but as far as I am concerned the McDonald's app is one of the most consumer friendly things a big business has done in years. I can order in 25 seconds, get good discounts, and pick between counter, drive through or car-hop service. (That last is awesome now that age has compelled me to the bunless version of the DQP the consumption of which is unsightly in the dining room and infeasible while driving.) The NY DMV has gone in the 25 years I've been a customer from a dystopian nightmare to a nimble technology-enabled service organization. In the past five years my transactions have been a mix of three minutes online to at worse 15 minutes in the office, and smooth as butter.
The conscientiousness of Japanese consumer-facing workers reflects a thorough amount of vocational pride that I wish we could get here, but may be unique to Japan. My best meal there ever was at a place that did nothing but tempura, and whose chefs to a man had never done anything, since they were teenagers, but cook tempura, and most of whose sons were also cooks of that or some other specific Japanese cuisine. When tempura chefs are incentivized to, and do, care as much about the vegetable they are prepping to fry as a surgeon cares about the limb he's prepping to operate on, that's a good thing.
posted by MattD at 11:14 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
Americans are, by the standards of the world, very well behaved in public. Most people are raised with internal incentives to good behavior (a positive endorphin rush when you recognize yourself to have done good, unpleasant guilty feelings when not), and there's typically some good shaming and overt enforcement penalization for bad behavior.
American commercial and governmental "caring" is pretty darn good, to the extent that almost everywhere else is worse. He complains about McDonald's technology but as far as I am concerned the McDonald's app is one of the most consumer friendly things a big business has done in years. I can order in 25 seconds, get good discounts, and pick between counter, drive through or car-hop service. (That last is awesome now that age has compelled me to the bunless version of the DQP the consumption of which is unsightly in the dining room and infeasible while driving.) The NY DMV has gone in the 25 years I've been a customer from a dystopian nightmare to a nimble technology-enabled service organization. In the past five years my transactions have been a mix of three minutes online to at worse 15 minutes in the office, and smooth as butter.
The conscientiousness of Japanese consumer-facing workers reflects a thorough amount of vocational pride that I wish we could get here, but may be unique to Japan. My best meal there ever was at a place that did nothing but tempura, and whose chefs to a man had never done anything, since they were teenagers, but cook tempura, and most of whose sons were also cooks of that or some other specific Japanese cuisine. When tempura chefs are incentivized to, and do, care as much about the vegetable they are prepping to fry as a surgeon cares about the limb he's prepping to operate on, that's a good thing.
posted by MattD at 11:14 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
My experience with the main Asheville DMV is if you aren't in line a half an hour before they open you won't be seen that day. And you have to park next door at the Goodwill. When I got my Real ID I made an appointment and the first available was THREE MONTHS out. It's actually easier to drive to a DMV in one of the little towns out in the mountains (e.g. Marshall {which has been wiped from the map by Helene}). They did have privately-run places for plates in town that did provide pretty good service but I think those were closed.
posted by achrise at 12:04 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
posted by achrise at 12:04 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
Yesterday I spent about 3 hours trying to pay my car tax - for a few very boring and sad reasons this was complicated, so I had to go to two different buildings and the DMV twice to get this resolved. Every single person I interacted with went out of their way to be helpful and kind to me even though they had no reason to care about my problem. The woman I spoke to at the treasurer's office asked how I was and when I told her I was nervous she smiled and told me I didn't need to worry. I went to probate court and told an employee my situation and two other people behind the counter came over to help us figure out what to do. When I finally got everything settled and I was leaving the building, the security guard shouted, "Hey, have a good one!" to me from across the room. All of these strangers looked at me and saw I was having a hard time and they all decided they wanted to help. How can you say people don't care?
Maybe I'm biased because I've had the kind of life where I've had to ask for help a lot, but I feel like I'm constantly humbled by the lengths people will go to to care for others as much as they can. People have bad days or a lot of problems or they get things wrong or they just don't have the power to make the best choice. That's really different from just not giving a shit.
posted by birthday cake at 12:23 PM on February 1 [8 favorites]
Maybe I'm biased because I've had the kind of life where I've had to ask for help a lot, but I feel like I'm constantly humbled by the lengths people will go to to care for others as much as they can. People have bad days or a lot of problems or they get things wrong or they just don't have the power to make the best choice. That's really different from just not giving a shit.
posted by birthday cake at 12:23 PM on February 1 [8 favorites]
Per my DMV mailing list, North Carolina DMV is super short staffed, super underfunded, and struggling and begging the legislature for money. I don't super remember details right now, but if I see anything new on the list next week, I can mention it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:37 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:37 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]
Be GENEROUS with other people in your head, not miserly. It costs you nothing and it's less aggravating.
Repeated for truth. If you haven't seen This is Water by David Foster Wallace, well, now is the time.
posted by zardoz at 12:56 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]
Repeated for truth. If you haven't seen This is Water by David Foster Wallace, well, now is the time.
posted by zardoz at 12:56 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]
So, I have a sense of where he's coming from, because I too started working at a big tech company when it was a smaller "everybody cares" tech company and have remained there into the "oh hey there's our CEO at the inauguration" era and I will say, that transformation has been very alienating to watch. Specifically because it's not like people just spontaneously stopped caring. It happened a little at a time, for a lot of reasons, and each one of those reasons made sense at the time but they've added up into something really sad and really awful.
It makes you very cynical. Seeing how the incentive structures of modern American capitalism can take a group of idealistic people who wants to do great things for the world and just beat that out of them, bit by bit, over and over, top to bottom. Seeing people who go above and beyond get punished for it, because it wasn't the kind of above and beyond that moves quarterly results. Seeing how people you respect, and know to be moral and upstanding and kind and thoughtful and intelligent, just make compromise after compromise. And you understand, every time. You understand how they looked at their options and this was the obvious best one. You see yourself do it too. Seeing how "sorry, you have to file it in triplicate, see you next month" bureaucracies come into being, when you knew them when they weren't. It makes you feel bad about people.
I definitely tend more towards empathy than he does. But I get how he got where he is. Systems don't have to be this way. People don't have to act this way once they become part of those systems. It's more fun and more fulfilling not to. But boy, after a few stern talkings-to about how you spend your time at work and whether it's What The Big Boss Wants, it sure is easier to just shrug and throw away that form that only got filed in duplicate. It looks like not caring. But for a lot of the people doing it, it's despair.
posted by potrzebie at 1:27 PM on February 1 [10 favorites]
It makes you very cynical. Seeing how the incentive structures of modern American capitalism can take a group of idealistic people who wants to do great things for the world and just beat that out of them, bit by bit, over and over, top to bottom. Seeing people who go above and beyond get punished for it, because it wasn't the kind of above and beyond that moves quarterly results. Seeing how people you respect, and know to be moral and upstanding and kind and thoughtful and intelligent, just make compromise after compromise. And you understand, every time. You understand how they looked at their options and this was the obvious best one. You see yourself do it too. Seeing how "sorry, you have to file it in triplicate, see you next month" bureaucracies come into being, when you knew them when they weren't. It makes you feel bad about people.
I definitely tend more towards empathy than he does. But I get how he got where he is. Systems don't have to be this way. People don't have to act this way once they become part of those systems. It's more fun and more fulfilling not to. But boy, after a few stern talkings-to about how you spend your time at work and whether it's What The Big Boss Wants, it sure is easier to just shrug and throw away that form that only got filed in duplicate. It looks like not caring. But for a lot of the people doing it, it's despair.
posted by potrzebie at 1:27 PM on February 1 [10 favorites]
This guy’s skull is full of wet cat food. Bad things are happening to ME, and they are happening because OTHER PEOPLE ARE BAD AND MEAN.
How did I know that this is the kind of person who would spend time reading Charles Murray’s Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class? Let’s see:
- worked for AWS, but is writing an essay about how bad it is that people Don’t Care
I mean, I could stop right there. But then there’s:
“I had the pleasure of interviewing a few programmers”
“I had the pleasure of interviewing a few programmers who worked for [one] large healthcare company”
“I've met a few people that work for municipal governments”
“I told the director of the Seattle Department of Transportation that his engineers fucked up and I know better and then he didn’t take my advice and I am still mad about it”
“No one has ever written cogent critiques of white LED streetlights and the only reason why cities switch to them is because of Not Caring, not because of cost savings, longevity, or efficiency, and certainly not the pinched budgets that most cities are working with”
“People in public who don’t go out of their way to make me feel good are mean”
“Japanese order and subservience fantasy”
“Progress studies”
Literal savior complex, literally an adult human being complaining that the doo-doo bag dispensers he put up in his neighborhood have not ‘snowballed’ into a world that makes him happier and more comfortable everywhere he goes
“I want to live in a Rationalist group house, but with cooler people and my own house and somewhere I don’t have to pay taxes or a minimum wage to the people who clean my house and where McDonalds is staffed by people who smile and greet me kindly as I enter and leave”
This is a toddler. This child writes LLM poetry, has coined the word “beaurology” to describe his armchair evolutionary-psychology-flavored Elon-Musk-based unifying theories of “beaurocratic decline”, another super-culty faux-anthropology spiel about “building a culture” with town-wide songs and flag-lowering and cannon fire and uniforms and sacred meals and asabiyyah and ANNUAL SHARED SUFFERING
I am writing all of this because it gave me the ick right at the start and the first thing I read about this man is his Books page. He says that a book appearing here isn’t an endorsement, but this twit has read five, count ‘em, five books on anthropology, and twenty percent of them are Charles fucking Murray’s Human fucking Diversity.
Another twenty percent of the books this great thinker has read on anthropology is an evo-psych pop-culture book so obscure it doesn’t have a Wikipedia page, about how men evolved to be “warriors” and women evolved to be “worriers”, about which an APA reviewer wrote, “Benenson privileges male attitudes, skills, and talents, whereas she denigrates those of females. She provides ample citations to support gender differences, but does not present clear and convincing evidence that the differences are biological or essential. And she uses some of the evidence in questionable ways.”
Forty percent of the remaining books this profoundly ignorant man has read across the 150+-year and incredibly thorny history of anthropology are The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, and a similar book written 33 years later about brain sidedness and a sweeping theory of Western culture that was similarly critiqued by scientists who actually study brains and also scientists who study culture. (Guess what the two sides of the brain are like! One of them is characterized by “determined reductionism” and the other by an “insightful and holistic approach”. Two sides, one rational and one emotional, you say? A… warrior and a worrier, perhaps?)
The final twenty percent of the books that this person has read in anthropology, this person who has already written many thousands of words about the novel field of sociology that they dream of founding, is Guns, Germs, and Steel.
This kid has read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, y’all. AND The Stranger. AND One Hundred Years of Solitude!
Also Andrew Yang, Matt Yglesias, John McWhorter, specifically White Racism, the obligatory Seeing Like A State. Also a book from an ancient hard-core conservative whose counter-Marxist philosophical and political nemesis was the Machiavellian managerial class (the “see also” links at the bottom of his Wikipedia page are for a white supremacist, a paleoconservative, and Curtis Yarvin).
This person is a caricature of themselves!
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 10:45 PM on February 1 [15 favorites]
How did I know that this is the kind of person who would spend time reading Charles Murray’s Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class? Let’s see:
- worked for AWS, but is writing an essay about how bad it is that people Don’t Care
I mean, I could stop right there. But then there’s:
“I had the pleasure of interviewing a few programmers”
“I had the pleasure of interviewing a few programmers who worked for [one] large healthcare company”
“I've met a few people that work for municipal governments”
“I told the director of the Seattle Department of Transportation that his engineers fucked up and I know better and then he didn’t take my advice and I am still mad about it”
“No one has ever written cogent critiques of white LED streetlights and the only reason why cities switch to them is because of Not Caring, not because of cost savings, longevity, or efficiency, and certainly not the pinched budgets that most cities are working with”
“People in public who don’t go out of their way to make me feel good are mean”
“Japanese order and subservience fantasy”
“Progress studies”
Literal savior complex, literally an adult human being complaining that the doo-doo bag dispensers he put up in his neighborhood have not ‘snowballed’ into a world that makes him happier and more comfortable everywhere he goes
“I want to live in a Rationalist group house, but with cooler people and my own house and somewhere I don’t have to pay taxes or a minimum wage to the people who clean my house and where McDonalds is staffed by people who smile and greet me kindly as I enter and leave”
This is a toddler. This child writes LLM poetry, has coined the word “beaurology” to describe his armchair evolutionary-psychology-flavored Elon-Musk-based unifying theories of “beaurocratic decline”, another super-culty faux-anthropology spiel about “building a culture” with town-wide songs and flag-lowering and cannon fire and uniforms and sacred meals and asabiyyah and ANNUAL SHARED SUFFERING
I am writing all of this because it gave me the ick right at the start and the first thing I read about this man is his Books page. He says that a book appearing here isn’t an endorsement, but this twit has read five, count ‘em, five books on anthropology, and twenty percent of them are Charles fucking Murray’s Human fucking Diversity.
Another twenty percent of the books this great thinker has read on anthropology is an evo-psych pop-culture book so obscure it doesn’t have a Wikipedia page, about how men evolved to be “warriors” and women evolved to be “worriers”, about which an APA reviewer wrote, “Benenson privileges male attitudes, skills, and talents, whereas she denigrates those of females. She provides ample citations to support gender differences, but does not present clear and convincing evidence that the differences are biological or essential. And she uses some of the evidence in questionable ways.”
Forty percent of the remaining books this profoundly ignorant man has read across the 150+-year and incredibly thorny history of anthropology are The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, and a similar book written 33 years later about brain sidedness and a sweeping theory of Western culture that was similarly critiqued by scientists who actually study brains and also scientists who study culture. (Guess what the two sides of the brain are like! One of them is characterized by “determined reductionism” and the other by an “insightful and holistic approach”. Two sides, one rational and one emotional, you say? A… warrior and a worrier, perhaps?)
The final twenty percent of the books that this person has read in anthropology, this person who has already written many thousands of words about the novel field of sociology that they dream of founding, is Guns, Germs, and Steel.
This kid has read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, y’all. AND The Stranger. AND One Hundred Years of Solitude!
Also Andrew Yang, Matt Yglesias, John McWhorter, specifically White Racism, the obligatory Seeing Like A State. Also a book from an ancient hard-core conservative whose counter-Marxist philosophical and political nemesis was the Machiavellian managerial class (the “see also” links at the bottom of his Wikipedia page are for a white supremacist, a paleoconservative, and Curtis Yarvin).
This person is a caricature of themselves!
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 10:45 PM on February 1 [15 favorites]
MattD: Americans are, by the standards of the world, very well behaved in public.
Um.
Are you quite sure about that?
posted by Too-Ticky at 9:46 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]
Um.
Are you quite sure about that?
posted by Too-Ticky at 9:46 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]
Okay, I checked my old mailing list archives for the DMV struggles in North Carolina. Basically, they need more money to hire more staff, don't have enough people to staff, and are limited in how many they are allowed to hire.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:10 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:10 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]
Oh please
For one, not even taking into account whether anyone has the fucking energy to care after being ground down day after day. Jesus Christ.
posted by danhon at 5:55 PM on February 16 [2 favorites]
For one, not even taking into account whether anyone has the fucking energy to care after being ground down day after day. Jesus Christ.
posted by danhon at 5:55 PM on February 16 [2 favorites]
(And I looked at the other stuff he's written and He's Certainly A Guy. I can bet that he subscribes to the Unix philosophy of Worse is Better, too. Wonder where that fits in. Sorry, I'm tired.)
posted by danhon at 6:01 PM on February 16 [1 favorite]
posted by danhon at 6:01 PM on February 16 [1 favorite]
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posted by Jon_Evil at 3:07 AM on February 1 [7 favorites]