memes

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[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I don't think it's possible to agree more.

Motor vehicles are designed to keep you safe in case someone else has a bad day and hits you, they are not designed to keep any other people safe if you hit them. It is, IMO a lethal device.

Irresponsibly using that device, so you can benefit at the risk of others (as many seem to do), should be criminally negligent at best. It's selfish and self centered. Anyone with a shred of compassion for their fellow humans should avoid using such a device if it is unsafe for them to do so.

But people often downplay the risks and have more confidence in their ability to do something that they really really shouldn't do, with no justifiable reason to believe that they are capable of that.

I was very tired yesterday and instead of driving home on the little consciousness I had remaining, I deferred to my S.O. to take over and complete the journey home. I probably could have made it, and risk was mitigated because we were on country roads, but I'm not taking that chance. The remainder of the trip I dozed in and out of being awake and my mind started mixing dream images with reality as I was drifting in and out.

To be fair, I stopped trying to stay awake after I left the driver's seat (I got us about 1/3rd the way home before conceding), but if that micro sleep happened while I was still behind the wheel, I can't say I would have made it home no matter how much I tried. I also can't say that I couldn't have.

If I had been alone in the car, I would have stopped and taken whatever sleep I could before finishing the trip. I've been driving long enough that I know my limits, and I hit it hard when I pulled off.

I was so tired that once I got home, I slept from around 5pm or so, to around 11pm, then went back to bed before 1am and woke up at 7. I slept for nearly 12 hours and I still feel tired. I pushed hard to complete my task because I know my SO doesn't like driving very much, less so in unfamiliar areas, but I appreciate that they could, and did, take over when I just couldn't do it safely anymore.

I'm not trying to one-up anyone, and you're situation was very different from mine. But I told this story because it happened literally yesterday. Driving isn't just "I'm good" and you go until you get there, it's a constant evaluation of whether you are still capable of operating the vehicle safely; for you, your passengers (if any), for other road users, and for their passengers, loved ones and families, as well as any pedestrians or other people. If you cannot reasonably say, without bias, that you are capable of operating the vehicle safely, then don't. It's just that simple.

But, like I said, most tend to be biased that they can do anything, which makes it difficult to get people to do the right thing sometimes.

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[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 point 1 year ago* (3 children)

I am not even yet 40, and basically, 80% of the people I've ever known in my life have at least once, driven drunk or high or while on prescription drugs that make them considerably uh, dulled, or as with your scenario, overly exhausted and fatigued.

I don't drive any more, barely at all.

America's roads suck shit, and the drivers are fucking astoundingly unsafe.

But, because our mass transit generally sucks as well, we are stuck in a destructive feedback loop, we are running our cars and our minds and bodies untill they just totally give out.

Anyway, completely agree with your perspective on driving, you would think that would be common sense, but evidently not.

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[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't like the term "common sense" because anytime is used, the sense that is in question is almost always, not very common.

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[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

I agree, which is why I only use the term in a kind of negative reference: this knowledge is evidently not common place.

Err... well ok, unless it is the proper noun form, directly referring to Tom Paine's revolutionary war era pamphlet... which... I think is the sort of proximal etymylogical / cultural origin of the phrase as we use it today?

Either way, yes, its a bastardized term now, like how 'literally' now also means roughly 'figuratively + extremely' in certain contexts, from certain speakers.

I think that back in 1770's English, 'common' was also often used to mean something ... simple, unremarkable, basic.

Not just uh... plentiful, easily found in many places.

So then, 'common sense' would roughly translate to modern English as something like 'basic logic'.

And to loop that all around, I would say that people who ... do not treat driving a car like they are operating a ton or two of mass that can move up to 80 or 120 mph or whatever... you know, as that, well they actually are not excercising what I would call basic logic.

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[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

I get it. I miss when words meant something specific.

The one I'm still unhappy about is jealousy. It used to just be the fear of losing something you have. Now it also means wanting something you don't have.

Envy is a term that always meant, wanting something you do not have.

Over time, people have used the terms so wrong that the definition changed.

I think it says something about society that we have a word that means something, but we used another word to mean that thing so much that we changed the definition of the word to fit the usage.

Oh well. This is why we can't have nice things.