Nougat

Society and politics work only when people agree to abide by the same general set of rules. When a sufficient amount of sociopolitical power stop agreeing to rules, it all falls apart. Most importantly, that sufficient amount is not anywhere near a majority. A large enough minority behaving with disregard to existing rules and norms, and only in their own self-interest, will overwhelm the ability of the rest of us to manage a functioning society. Not only are the disregard of rules and selfish aims a threat, the unpredictability is, too.

Driil, drill, drill?

Because what two foreign powers decide to do is totally Biden’s responsibility?

“Religion” is not the reason 9/11 happened.

If the lane being used is still open for forward traffic, that is a completely legitimate zipper merge, although it would be safer to match speed more gradually and, of course, wait for an appropriate space to merge into. As a hypothetical, that’s a borderline case, and it’s certainly possible to adjust the details of the hypothetical to make the merging driver into the dick. But I’m not sure that’s a useful pursuit.

If you’re passing a bunch of people, you are using the open lane to travel. By the time the lane you are in comes to an end, you then modulate your speed to match traffic in the slower lane, and merge. Because cars have brakes.

The United States has a strong general culture of “I got mine, fuck you.” That is certainly playing a part in this thread.

We’re talking about two different things then. Open road, light fast-moving traffic, lane ending - the “merge zone” lengthens with that speed and space.

Heavy slow-moving traffic, lane ending, use the lanes which are available and zipper merge at the end. Merging too soon in this situation does create congestion.

If you see an opening, merge over sooner than later to prevent disruptions to traffic.

This actually creates disruptions in traffic. Use all lanes, zipper merge at the end.

That’s not an example of zipper merging but there’s tons of people who I’ve seen argue that’s acceptable behavior.

We agree that that’s not what we’re talking about, and those people are wrong. That wasn’t hard at all.

Do you mean “rush to zipper” as in “using an open lane to move forward and then zipper merge into the remaining lane when that one closes?” That is precisely what you should do.

The problem is the selfish people who refuse to let those people actually zipper merge, like OP.

You should be using all lanes of traffic, and zipper merge at the end.

I understand that nationalizing oil companies in the US is not going to be a palatable solution for a lot of people. I’m not entirely sure it’s the right solution, but I know for sure it’s not a politically feasible one.

We’ve had decades upon decades of subsidizing the rich. It’s always easy for the government to figure out how to do that, so we know they know how to give subsidies. Why don’t we try subsidizing the people who need the subsidies for their basic needs? In the context of fuel, it would be relatively simple to create a federal tax credit for fuel usage (which would arguably include a version for electric vehicles and their charging).

Banks, yeah I agree with that. Oil is more complicated. When oil prices go up, the price of everything goes up, sometimes dramatically.

I’m not saying oil subsidies are a good thing, just that a lot more care needs to be taken with eliminating them.

No, I’m sure that’s a “silent majority” of users who support everything that Reddit The Company does banding together to stamp out the minority of noisy rabble-rousers. /s