Oddbean new post about login | logout had a sort of funny interaction today while out walking the dogs. i was distracted and walking on “the wrong side” of the sidewalk near the lake in austin. a lady on a bike just … came at me until she stopped and we were face to face. she says “you’re on the wrong side”, clearly upset im not following the unspoken rule of rights of way i just ignored her and walked around. the next biker we encountered did the normal thing and just routed around me. i was probably in the wrong but im not sure it mattered. do you get where you’re going or do you confront the obstacles in your path 🤣
You should have started speaking Spanish
To paraphrase some great advice, “do you want to get where you’re going or do you want to be right?”
Interesting. On a multi-use paths, faster moving parties should always yield to slower moving parties. Doesn’t matter the type of transport. The only rule of courtesy is to only occupy half the width, no matter the side. An interesting cultural difference I’ve noticed with North Americans - rights of way are co nsidered to be something to assert and to take, rather than to yield and to give. The example is the cyclist in your situation. It’s the complete opposite in other parts of the worlds, where traffic doesn’t have any ‘rules’ - everyone just wants to get to their destination safely.
She was mean to you. Rest assured we don't care about these things in Brazil. And I also ran over a guy "in the wrong side" (both biking) at night on the road in the snow in Binghamton when I was in grad school, I didn't judge him at all. We were both glad to not have hurt ourselves too much.
The difference of life in Germany vs South East Asia in a single note. Do you do things how "they ought to be" (high on ideology) ...or do you do things that work in reality to get the results desired (high on pragmatism). And somehow the pragmatists always seem so much happier than the ideologues ( constant mental pain from the gap between the world in their mind vs the world right in front of them).