Deleted Scenes
Readers will, I think, recall this eye-widening altercation, shared in the Ephemera of October 11, between a laid-back driver and a rather wound-up cyclist. The latter being a candidate, as Mags put it, for the title of World’s Most Annoying Human Being:
Average cyclist interaction in Utah. pic.twitter.com/od5i6a9dSX
— Dr Manhattva (@Manhattva) October 9, 2024
If you haven’t seen the exchange above, I do recommend watching it, if only as an instructional tale. Or a test of your own self-restraint. In the video, the cyclist, the aptly named Mr Peacock, goes out of his way to generate conflict, repeatedly, then descends into some paranoid fantasy, in which he is somehow both the hero and the victim. His fabulist construals of what is happening are quite remarkable.
As I said at the time,
The drama resulted in Mr Peacock, our high-maintenance cyclist, receiving a $160 fine for disorderly conduct, and the driver, Mr Kempton, initially being given a citation for passing too closely, which would have resulted in a $130 fine, based solely on the cyclist’s claims. This was subsequently dropped after reviewing the driver’s dashcam footage, which tells a different story.
Readers will, I suspect, note the almost comical difference in attitude. Mr Chill meets Mr Head-Full-Of-Crazy-Beans. In the video linked above, Mr Kempton, our low-key driver, says that he feels sorry for the cyclist being cited for disorderly conduct, despite his dishonesty and irrational behaviour, and even though at the time Mr Kempton felt in some danger. As one might when confronted by someone belligerent and neurotic, a raving fantasist.
Well, happily, Dicentra has brought us a second video, showing Mr Peacock’s exchange with the police officer. Again, it may offer both instruction and some amusement:
Y’all remember that Park City Karen cyclist that picked on that kid?
Enjoy this cinematic masterpiece. Nature is healing.pic.twitter.com/mj6SxeL4wA
— 𝕏ANDER GEOGRAPHIC | ᴛᴏᴜᴄʜᴇʀ ᴏꜰ ɢʀᴀꜱꜱ🏕️ (@actionxander) October 21, 2024
“Oh, come on, man,” says Mr Peacock. “I was the victim here.”
And as before, almost every breath is a lie.
Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
Thank you dicentra. I needed closure. 🤣
Watching the second video, I had to keep reminding myself that Mr Head-Full-Of-Crazy-Beans knows what actually happened, the choices he made, and he knows that his behaviour was recorded, and he knows that the officer has seen the video.
And yet he keeps on lying, and inventing new ones. Like it’s second nature.
It occurs to me that police officers, who must see this kind of thing quite a lot, must have a fairly wearied view of human nature.
Man, if that isn’t Douche of the Year.
And I feel the need to apologize as Peacock seems to be of my generation, i.e., late stage Boomer. This is something I have noticed among my chronological peers, the aggravating amount of entitlement. God help me if I ever wind up in some nursing home, I’m smoking some bitches.
For the most part, I’m an even-tempered chap, but just watching the thing, my patience was being tested.
Oh karma, how I love thee!
I vote stick.
Watching the first video again, the term clash of personalities came to mind. Over the years, I’ve encountered only a handful of people of whom I felt an immediate, quite visceral dislike. An unhappy resonance. And specifically, a sense that continued proximity would result in elaborate plans to somehow dispose of the body without detection.
I think first-hand exposure to Mr Peacock would produce that effect.
Oh, and that thing… That Thing That Never Happens… well, take a wild guess.
The world’s oldest four year old.
I wonder if aggravated mopery is on the books in Utah..
I’m not so sure. Maybe so, but the way narratives work is they organize the brain to only be able to see future events in the context of their narrative. I haven’t watched the second video yet but judging from the first one, he seemed 100% convinced he was right. If the group he lives amongst are like-thinkers, and I have known quite a few of these people and been around them in groups, they are convinced of their own moral superiority in any conflict with “cagers”. Which is not to say that they do not have some reason for their sense of victimization. Before this biking thing became a craze (Cio Papa!)*, I used to ride in 15 mile or so jaunts and the behavior of many drivers was atrocious. I got intentionally run off the road once, though that was more an act of anti-semitism. Usually it was a woman driver who was too timid to pass who would eventually get frustrated and make an issue of things.
I generally only rode out in the country or took mostly back roads in the city but you cannot avoid short uses of major roads in most places. I last rode regularly back in the 90’s but gave it up due to the overreaction of (again mostly women) drivers.
*Breaking Away
Plague of morons. Largely, you’ll notice, ladies of a progressive leaning.
Context.
Gentle, innocent soul, etc.
I always give cyclists a wide berth, for safety and for their peace of mind. But I do marvel at the large number of spandex-clad risk-takers on well traveled semi-rural two-lane blacktops where the speed limit is 55 mph.
That other kind of thing that never happens . . . has happened again.
(An insincere apology was made when he realized there might be consequences, but he made multiple expressions of murderous hate.)
I don’t much like saying this, but when Kempton said he felt sorry for Peacock, I’m afraid he was virtue signalling. And if he wasn’t it’s even worse: too much empathy.
It’s easy for a vulnerable cyclist to misperceive the proximity and velocity of nearby cars. But an adult is supposed to understand this and compensate accordingly.
That second video is beautiful; It really cheered me up.
I bring joy to the world. Been saying that for years.
What?
[ Does happy face. ]
Nothing is quite so feminine as male pattern baldness.
Seems odd, given the rote & tedious chant, they all sound as though they can’t remember the words.
From the article:
Just going to leave that there, I think.
What did you expect? He said he took a hypocritical oath.
Well, “hard-core Trekkie” is a red flag, or at least a yellow flag, for “maladjusted”. (Likewise any squee! level fan adulation.*)
However, I have subsequently seen items online refuting that correlation and reporting that the frequency of offense among Trekkies is not higher than the general population. So, shrug, I dunno.
* I have even encountered Robert Burns fans who were disturbingly worshipful.
An aspiring architect.
[ Does happy face. ]
Like this?
Note the Guardian link, in which the author tries to portray drill rap as innocent art rather than the depraved glorification of criminality that it is.
And I’m sure that I would find similar oddballs if I went looking for interest groups centered on pretty much any other writer or artist.
Saab shirt was a bad sign.
British leftists working with American leftists to “kill Musk’s Twitter”. (Via Insty)
In the name of science . . . or something.
Related:
Regarding the prevalence of sexual deviance among the various “fandoms” associated with the science fiction/fantasy genres, I have to point out a salient fact: Many, if not actually all of these people are to some degree or another maladjusted and out of alignment with the normal run of humanity.
That being the case, there’s probably little hope that you’re not going to find a whole bunch of bizarre paraphilias in that population. Factor in, as well, that if they’re of a predacious bent, that realm of conventions and get-togethers is precisely where they’re going to find a whole lot of similarly dysfunctional types congregating. So, you have that… Some of these so-called “Trekkies” are merely predators adopting camouflage to get up against the vulnerable.
The disturbing thing, here? Let’s get real: You normies don’t actually do much of anything. You never achieve, because you’re satisfied with the status quo.
Compare the normie-run NASA of the last few decades with the truly weird NASA where Werner von Braun was put in charge. Compare that all to SpaceX, with the nuclear-grade weirdness that is Elon Musk.
You want to get things done, like Brunel building his bridges and the Great Western, you have to tolerate the weird, the autistic, the damaged driven genius like Nikola Tesla or Alan Turing.
And, there’s gonna be a bunch of truly bizarre sexual antics right along with it. Genius isn’t stable; it’s not “sane”, and if you want to take advantage of it, you’re gonna have to tolerate the strange fetishes like furries and so forth. You would be truly appalled to learn just who some of those costumed freaks are, in their day jobs.
The trick here is that you have set limit-stops for these sorts, and then enforce them. Consenting adults, and all of that boring stuff. Stay away from the kiddies. leave the domestic animals alone… All that sort of thing. And, don’t be too damn surprised with the sad fact that a lot of these folks are going to be doing things that will make you sick to your stomach.
Price to be paid for progress, and all that. You want the benefits of having weird autistic types around to build you your toys, well… You’d better be prepared to put up with and control all the “strange”.
I’ve been around a bunch of legit “genius” types. They were all very high-octane thinkers, but… Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, did they have some decidedly “odd” personal lives. As in, “Dear Playboy, I never thought…” odd.
All of this is why I strongly suspect that the quality we name “intelligence” and test for in our various IQ tests actually represents something besides “Ability to solve problems and live in the real world”, because so many of the high-scoring types I’ve known just don’t seem to have what it takes for either usage.
You want genius? You have to accept the oddities, right along with it. Musk ain’t all that different from a lot of his ilk.
@pst314, who said:
See, I think you’re on to something with that “interest group” thing. There are people who’re mildly involved in things, who like them, but are not obsessive-compulsive with them. I mean, they’re interested in the subject, but…
The ones to really watch out for are the sort of obsessives that form groups, and want to run them. There’s a woman out there who breeds German Shepherds that I’m thinking of, and I’m here to tell you, after meeting her? I was convinced that if there were a pathological obsession with an animal breed classed as a disorder? She had it. Worse than anyone else I’ve ever met. I mean, I like German Shepherds… I think they’re cool dogs, and every time I see one it’s a bit like being a trainspotter, in terms of “Oh, hey… Working lines Schutzhund? No? Pet? East German lines… Czech…?”, but… I’ve never gone to the extent of setting up my own website, breeding them obsessively, and then marking anyone who disagreed with me about confirmation and breeding down as agents of the Antichrist.
You run into that sort of nutty obsession all over this space. No sense of proportion; you walk into their houses, and there’s German Shepherd everything, all over the place. Mugs, plates, knick-knacks (that are covered in dog hair…), and all the impedimentia you’d expect in a mental case like that. Sweaters with images of her favorite dogs, photos made into blankets, you name it.
Also, a woman of exceptional intelligence in a lot of way, just focused on her “thing”, which was German Shepherds.
I don’t think it’s necessarily the “thing” that does it. It’s the personality that is predispositioned to develop these fascinations and obsessions. When it’s something like a dog breed, that’s one thing; add in some paraphilia like “Lolita”, and you’ve got major problems with people going out of their way to commit sexual improprieties.
It’s like the way you’ve got your cars… Bog-standard Toyota? Plods along for decades without fuss or bother, engine doing its thing. Totally prosaic, simple transportation. You want to go a-racing? You need something high-performance, and that sumbitch is gonna be a totally different experience; the engine will do weird things, you’ll have to cater to it, and the fuel/oil specs will bankrupt you.
Same-same with the human mind. You want high-performance? Be prepared for there to be a distinct cost involved.
I may have mentioned before that I have found and connected to a number of such interest groups and then dissociated myself for precisely that obsessive-fanatical behavior.
I have seen that very syndrome, albeit with animals other than German Shepherds.
IQ measures abstract reasoning, which is not quite the same thing as problem solving ability. The former is necessary but not sufficient for the latter.
Who was the saint who said intelligence or cleverness is no help if one only uses it to travel more quickly down the wrong road?
I used to see a lot of Ford trucks with “Chevy sucks” stickers–and vice-versa.
Better version, “But ye fook one steeenking goat…”
See also:
Ten bucks, same as in town.
Rectum? Damn near killed ‘im.
The men usually just ride the camel into town.
That you Luigi? Si. *BOOM*
Not bad for a Catholic priest in a small parish.
Great pig like that, you don’t eat him all at once.
If you don’t like those, I have others.
My take on this is that a society needs stupid rules further beyond those limits. Silly rules about things that really aren’t a bother but exist to give certain low status but high-thinking people something to feel manly about breaking. No eating shell fish, no smoking, no pork, no marijuana, whatever. There’s a thrill, especially in the minds of young men, in doing something that they have been told not to do. If you don’t have such silly rules, they will start breaking the necessary moral codes or standards of behavior. They will even go so far as to invent monumentally stupidly new fetishes like furries or cooking and eating each other’s body parts or turning their bodies into walking junk yards.
And no, kids, you can’t leave.
Imagine the fun. Hours of it.
Laughed, not sorry.
How Trump wins the election in one easy step.
Hitting the sweeeeeet spot.
Kudos to the hunters for accepting him for who he is.
KISS and the folks.
Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life… or something.
Musk’s view of a more open Twitter was “dangerous rubbish” and was “the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue and modern-day robber baron on Earth.”
Because freewheeling speech with fewer controls is the quintessence of authoritarianism.
Well, quite. They’re Our Betters, you know.
And then there’s the conceit that recoiling from people who disagree or dare to ask questions is somehow a good look, a confirmation of one’s status as a Higher Being. And note that the academics recoiling from the filthy hordes are largely employed in what is laughingly referred to as the “social sciences.”
Question asked.
Mighty moralist of the left.