how to change the world (without really trying)
Being a programmer of sorts, I am an exceptionally lazy person. In a way. I can spend two hours researching a script that'll do work that would have taken a half hour manually. So whenever something can be done without breaking a sweat, and preferably without jostling my beer, all the better. Here comes the tangent.
We've got these asshole cyclists here in L.A.: a couple self-righteous bike groups that routinely mob busy city streets, slowing traffic to a crawl, drinking, howling, kicking cars, and patting themselves on their hipster backs for not driving that night. Technically speaking, cyclists have the same right to the paved surface streets that cars and motorcycles do; and the ostensible purpose of these groups is to spread awareness of this fact. But, the flip side to this is that those same cyclists are obliged to obey the same traffic laws as their fuel-burning counterparts; which would exclude their regular habits of running stop lights, going against traffic, weaving between parked cars, and all that. My impression of these people first is that they're idiots, second that they're the new jocks, and third that their "awareness" campaign of inconveniencing motorists is equivalent to throwing red paint on old ladies in furs.
All that being said, it does occur to me that, in spite of whatever I think of this imbeciles, I am helplessly more aware of bikes. In time, perhaps, the pain of being late because of them, and the dumbness of their quasi-activism will fade, and I'll only have this greater awareness of bikes. The adage says there's no such thing as bad publicity. Maybe, in spite of themselves, they're going to cause affect change of some kind.
So I'm thinking maybe it doesn't matter what we specifically do to spread awareness of atheism, as long as whatever it is creates some kind of impression. Maybe arguing is good, maybe protesting is good, maybe casually bringing it up is good; every overlapping layer making the idea more familiar to the world until it is helpless but to accept it.
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Good point. I am not much of
Good point. I am not much of a cyclist, but I am an "atheist gone wild", I suppose, well so I've heard !
I am atheist, I am god, we are all the christ, fuck that god of abe and all his god types ..... blah blah ..... smash the tower of babel .... all ideas welcomed to promoting the "good word", which is Atheism.
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I think you may be onto
I think you may be onto something. I live in a town that is extremely bike-unfriendly. We only have bike lanes on roads where the cars go 40+ mph. To me, riding on those roads is not much different than strapping a bag of chum on my back, putting a blindfold on, and practicing my backstroke off the coast of Australia. Eventually, something's going to hit you very hard.
The other option here is to ride on the sidewalks, which is just about as bad, since they intersect with the ends of driveways, and nobody bothers looking for cyclists when they go from zero to thirty in 0.5 seconds just so they can slam on the brakes and wait for a break in the traffic to turn in.
Finally, when I do ride on the 10% of roads that are safe, I am constantly being harassed. I'm not breaking any laws. Hell, I drive and bike like your great grandfather, three years after he died. I'm Mr. Safety First. Anyway, I have empty cans thrown at me. I have people yelling at me. Cars swerve at me just enough to scare me because they think it's really fun to watch someone flip a bike at 20mph. When I do have to ride in crowded city traffic, I get yelled at for taking up a spot at the light, but if I didn't stay in the lane, I'd get yelled at for not obeying traffic laws.
The point is, America is a car culture. We love cars. Cars are awesome. Cyclists, on the other hand, are all elitist pricks who want to take away our drivers' licenses and make everyone drink soy milk with organic granola. Cyclists think Europe is better than America. They want everybody to change their lifestyles just so they can have the country exactly the way they want it. They're intolerant. They are arrogant. They think they're smarter than everyone else just because they have faith in all the scientists who say that global warming is real...
(If anyone hasn't noticed a parallel to atheism in that last paragraph, get your eyes checked.)
So yeah, I think there's a parallel. Just like there really are some angry atheists who just want to be assholes to theists, there are cyclists who are taking out their HGH injections on motorists. The thing is, the vast majority of cyclists never get noticed because they really are just trying to get to work, and they really do want cyclists and motorists to get along. The thing is, without some cyclists making a big stink, it's highly unlikely that city officials will ever build safe bike lanes. So.... yeah. Maybe a little vinegar does the trick when honey doesn't work.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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I would argue that it does
I would argue that it does indeed matter what we do, but that we cannot know ahead of time what the best strategy will be. Thus, we should use the old evolutionary strategy of 'try em all and see what works.' There are certainly better strategies and worse strategies. We just don't know which is which until we try them. Blasphemy challenge worked, and is still working to this day. Nightline debate was quite good. YouTube videos tend to get a good audience. Etc.
I think that thinking of this problem in terms of memes is a very productive way of looking at it. We have a set of memes we're trying to spread (rational thought). So, what other memes (modes of communication) will be effective in carrying our memes. The best way to find out is to evolve them. Generation, variation, and selection.
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