theangriestbird

Not sure what you are trying to get at?

Welcome to any reddit refugees that might be reading these comments! we are cool beeple, i promise

yeah i mean i know my workarounds like old.reddit and certain third party apps that still work, but most users aren't doing that. Everytime i accidentally end up on the default reddit experience i am amazed by how messy, ad-riddled, and annoying it is to use. If that was the only way i knew how to use the site, I would simply open the site less.

what does he mean by "these reviews"? All the scores seem pretty positive to me?

As a Twin Cities resident, I'm definitely disappointed to hear this news. Everyone I talked to about this was excited about the possible conversion to a Boulevard. People have a lot of feelings about this stretch of 94 because there was a strong historically Black neighborhood (Rondo Saint Paul) that was demolished in the 50s and 60s to make way for this stretch of highway, and the city's Black community never really recovered from that devastation. Of course, the people that would prefer to keep it a freeway are also the type of people that wouldn't really pay attention to the news until it was imminently happening.

This was interesting:

MnDOT rejected designs to replace the highway with an at-grade roadway because the agency believes it would negatively impact mobility and create more safety issues by putting more cars on local roadways where crashes are more common. Barnes said MnDOT’s analysis projects that the design would bring more vehicle pollution to residential areas. The Star Tribune first reported that MnDOT ruled out those designs in December.

“We also know this alternative would make air quality worse for more people,” Barnes said.

"where crashes are more common" is interesting to me. Even if crashes are more common on city roads, I would suspect that the crashes that do occur on the freeway are far more deadly. So the boulevard redesign would have probably reduced traffic deaths overall.

However: I94 is the main highway connecting Minneapolis and Saint Paul, particularly in this stretch that was being studied. Currently, if you drive around the cities a lot due to work or whatever, you are almost always including 94 on your route. There are beltway freeways in the north and south of the metro, but those don't make sense to take unless you're headed north or south already. When they say that this would have increased travel times for many drivers, they are telling the truth.

Alternatively, we do have a light rail train and multiple bus routes that follow a similar route. But Minnesota is cold and it is hard to convince habitual drivers to wait out in the cold for public transit.

So: I can understand why MNDOT blinked. If they went through with the at-grade option, they would probably face more backlash than appreciation, even if the people that were excited about this were REALLY excited about it. backlash is a very dangerous thing these days. But I still feel pretty strongly that the at-grade option would have been better for the metro overall in the long term.

As long as FC and Ultimate Team keep being reliable money factories, you can expect them to continue half-assing everything else.

thx Pete <3

I think Rose hits this point pretty good:

It’s not that social media is fundamentally evil or bereft of any good qualities. Some of my best post-Twitter moments have been spent goofing around with mutuals on Bluesky, or waxing romantic about the joys of human creativity and art-making in an increasingly AI-infested world. But when it comes to addressing the problems we face, no amount of posting or passive info consumption is going to substitute the hard, unsexy work of organizing.

so keep doing it to have fun if it's what you do for fun! just don't make the mistake of thinking it is a substitute for direct action. Personally, I think good political memes might be one of the few things we can actually do online to change minds. a funny meme that also makes a good point will probably reach way more people than a well-written article that makes the same point!

Are you out there being the change in the Democratic party? Are you out there forcing change with your actions? Are you actually doing something to have a choice between something other than two parties?

Are you? I've been voicing my dissatisfaction with the party since 2016. As of this past election, I've been voicing that I think it's time for us to leave Dems in the dust and start a new anti-billionaire party. I've voted in every election that i've been able to, and besides 2016, the Dems have had my vote every single time. I am guilty of replacing direct action with online posting, and I will openly acknowledge that. But I don't think "vote Blue no matter who" is the "wake up" message you think it is.

right, but i'm saying the Dems allowed this to happen by spending four decades compromising with Republicans and allowing them to shift the Overton window rightward more and more. They spent all that time making decisions based on what was feasible, rather than doing the hard thing and making decisions based on what was right. Reagan set the trap, Clinton walked right into it, and the Dems have done little but accept their lot in all the years since.

i think the genocide joe libs were a strawman. everyone I know who was basing their decisions on the gaza genocide understood that Trump would be worse, and all of them decided to vote for Harris in the end anyway. If you personally know anyone who did actually abstain their vote over this issue, feel free to prove me wrong.

But to this point, you have to ask yourself: if Dems are doing almost all of the same evil shit as Republicans, but in a friendlier package, what is the point of voting for the Dems? If the billionaires have bought everyone on either side of the aisle, how can I trust any candidate to make votes that are in my best interest? Why should I be forced to vote for one of two candidates that are both bought and paid for by shitty corporate evil America? Trump isn't an abberation - we got here because Dems refuse to stop playing the SuperPAC game. By refusing to take any action that might scare off donors, they set the stage for our current crisis. They aren't the ones dismantling our government as we speak, but they ignored all the signs and continued governing as if we are still in the 90s, because none of the heinous shit they vote for actually affects them.

right there with you. but seeing them scrambling after being so smug about their overpriced product has been nice.