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Comment by tomjen3 | Hacker News Reader

>But he hadn’t worked to go that fast.

I can't explain what I think about that without getting banned on this forum, but that feeling seems to be the center of the article; basically hipsters crying about smart use of technology.

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I swear there's a pervasive feeling among bicycle and mass transit advocates that if the experience is too convenient, it's not morally right. A bicycle is morally right because it takes effort and gets you to work a bit slower than a car. An e-bike is morally wrong because you don't have to work as hard and you get to work just as fast; you're not sacrificing anything by not taking a car, you're not a hero. Similar reasons behind buses/trains vs. ideas of self-driving electric municipal cars.

You don't have to involve these kinds of morals do to prefer a practical solution that exists now to a science-fiction concept that doesn't.

This is true of any community where the barrier to entry has rapidly eroded. The old-school members who bought their way in with hard work and perseverence (and also usually luck or money) react negatively to recent arrivals who don't understand the community's norms -- which are now suddenly out of date. Meanwhile, the new arrivals often see the old guard as a prickly, up-tight clique. I'm thinking of Endless September, D&D, Anime fandom, model aircraft, music scenes, Old Money versus New Money, Lisp Machine hackers versus Unix folks, Unix folks versus OMGUbuntu... the variations are endless, but they're all the same.

And yet, try as I might to be philosophical about it, my gut tells me that people passing me on e-bikes are vile cheaters.

As someone who has killed deer with a bow and arrow (not on a regular basis: it's difficult and I don't always have the time required), I feel the same way about the new rule change that allows people to hunt with crossbows in archery season. I have sympathy for people who can't or won't draw a bow, but I don't see what's wrong with them just hunting during gun season as they always have.

Did they give a rationale for the change?

I'm kind of curious, since my understanding is that America as a whole is not hunting "enough" (to keep deer populations at a sustainable level), if it isn't an explicit attempt to thin deer populations more.

It's meant to help out feeble people, but it will probably help population management as well. Deer populations are really only out of control in suburbia, where crossbows used over a long hunting season might make the biggest difference. No one is going to call the cops because they heard a crossbow go off.

While that feeling is present, I think there's an undercurrent you're missing.

NYC has a lot of bicycle infrastructure that is designed and managed for use at bicycle speeds, and under the physicals constraints bicycles face. The style of electric bicycle favored by delivery people (and many others) is significantly heavier, faster, and quieter than an unpowered bicycle, so it's easy to see it as an abuse of the infrastructure.

There's also an element of classism and in-group/out-group bitterness involved. The people most commonly using these bikes for deliveries are predominantly lower-class immigrants, under heavy pressure to go quickly, and are generally not involved with the (wealthier) "bike culture".

There's also a comradery of effort that goes along with riding a bike, the sense that the other people on bikes are putting in the same effort as you. It's granfalloonery at its finest, but I don't think it's fair to attribute this to luddism.

What makes you say electric bikes are quieter than unpowered bicycles?

... I'm not sure.

Since they're almost always powering, the freewheel never comes in. The motor is also quieter than most chain sets end up being under the abuses of the city.

That's fair.

+ the lack of lateral movements of the rider,

+ the regularity of the 'effort' around the crankset, not "pressure on the left, then pressure on the right and so on".

It's not just the physical labor to get up to that particular speed at that moment it's the countless accumulated hours of training and commuting and general bike riding to develop the capacity to produce the power to go that fast.

Along with that time spent in the saddle the non e biker also develops the bike handling and traffic skills, the innate almost unconscious understanding of how the bicycles and cars will move at different speeds, how to calculate multiple vectors, how to process the traffic patterns for safe and fast transit.

My biggest gripe with most e bikers is that they don't have the skills to handle the speed.

If you had read past the first paragraph you might've noticed that the article is primarily about the author acknowledging the illegitimacy of his bias and concluding that ebikes are 'a force for good'.

Fucking hipsters.

If it even lightly pisses off the sheltered sniveling types from uptown Manhattan, I approve of it.

I have a petal assist I go up 200ft eagerly day and I still sweat. Anyone trying to equate effort with morality to legislate away an effective and convenient way of transportation needs to be burned alive.

I was with you until "burned alive." Come on! You don't need ridiculous violent hyperbole to make your point.

I have no regrets.

True, HN can't tolerate unpopular or controversial opinions. Agree with the echo chamber or be silenced.

Source: Currently rate-limited on my main account for pointing out HN's abusive, opaque moderation tactics.

How ironic...

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