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So last Saturday nite, somewhere between 3 and 5 thousand Portland bicyclists held the annual World Naked Bike Ride.
The stated goal of WNBR is to call attention to problems of car and fossil fuel dependency, and promote cycling as transportation in a fun and attention getting way. Many participantsm when asked did not actually understand WHY there was a naked ride, they just wanted in on the fun.
Question: Did WNBR, this year or in the past, get your attention about global warming/fossil fuel and car dependency? Did you watch or participate? any thoug\hts?
The stated goal of WNBR is to call attention to problems of car and fossil fuel dependency, and promote cycling as transportation in a fun and attention getting way. Many participantsm when asked did not actually understand WHY there was a naked ride, they just wanted in on the fun.
Question: Did WNBR, this year or in the past, get your attention about global warming/fossil fuel and car dependency? Did you watch or participate? any thoug\hts?
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Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Tue, June 16, 2009 - 6:36 PMWhenever I ride my bike, I feel a sense of freedom and empowerment. It's a good thing to get out of the car and experience the world around me. This event was a bit circus and a bit party and a bit social commentary. It is valuable, and I hope it keeps expanding. -
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Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Wed, August 19, 2009 - 2:16 AMAnytime you get folks out there on their bikes it increases the likelihood that they will ride their bikes again. Why? Because now there is a fun reminder and with WNBR an additional fun and funny memory to add in (for most riders).
For me, bombing the road on the eastside with no traffic made me in love with my bike, that's what gets more people to ride. Just as much if not more so than overt politics.
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Unsu...
Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Mon, October 5, 2009 - 5:37 PMthoughts...
I feel that "global warming/fossil fuel and car dependency" are symptoms of the over population of the planet Earth which cannot be cured by people riding bikes more often then driving their cars anymore then standing on a street corner with a petition asking for more government over-site on saving (insert pop culture cause) will. The amount of people populating the planet needs to be reduced to have a true and sustainable effect on these issues and many other similar issues and then as a matter of course such things will come into accord with the natural order of Earth. You may want to consider a "Negative Population Growth Rally" if you want to call attention to these issues and offer a statement of how the Earth may solve "global warming/fossil fuel and car dependency" as well as many other pop culture causes that are all the rage at intellectual cocktail parties these days.
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Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Mon, October 5, 2009 - 5:42 PMPerhaps we could all fuck with condoms, to be certain no one got pregnant. Or, we could have a pre-ride vascetomy party! Or, maybe a Jack-n-Jill-Off before the ride!
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Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Mon, October 5, 2009 - 6:33 PM"You may want to consider a "Negative Population Growth Rally""
Well, one can always romanticize suicide.
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Unsu...
Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Mon, October 5, 2009 - 11:18 PMen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over...population
how about a condomed jack and jill off followed by vasectomies while riding bikes and we all fuck without condoms in a twisted orgy of bikes and bodies? -
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Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Wed, October 7, 2009 - 2:28 PMThe world's poorest have zero or negative impact on earth's resources and have zero or negative carbon footprint because they re-use everyone else's waste.
The world's richest are the world's largest and most devoted consumers. Who else buys Hummers, yachts, . . . ?
It's not a population problems, it's a wealth distribution problem.
Kill the rich.
THEN ride a bicycle naked. -
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Unsu...
Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Wed, October 7, 2009 - 5:40 PMWhat do you know of killing? Did you know that you are a citizen of the richest country in the world and by default regardless of your income there are more people in this world that would point there finger at you and define you as rich then point to you and define you as poor?
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Unsu...
Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Wed, October 7, 2009 - 5:38 PMKilling the rich won't change anything in regards to the environment. The rich are simply a scourge of modern society and only account for 5% of the worlds population. As history has proven killing the rich cannot effect a lasting positive change for society since those doing the killing assume the position of the new rich class. Think about it killing the rich will only wipe out 5% of the world's population which currently have control of about 60% of the worlds wealth. If after the rich were killed and their wealth was redistributed nothing would change in regards to our ecosystem since only about 335,349,657 people will have been wiped out and the 6,371,643,494 killers would be marauding in the SUV they never had the opportunity to buy prior to the revolution.
I must disagree murder and looting of a small minority of the planet will help the ecosystem of our planet. Only a peaceful gradual reduction in the world's population of all nations races and cultures will bring this planet and its ecosystem back into balance. If we reduced our planets population by say 75% over the next 150 to 200 years through conscious breeding our planets ecosystem would be right itself and be able to keep up with processing the pollution of the human race. the current population of the earth is 6,706,993,152 after a 75% reduction there would still be 1,676,748,288 which is plenty of people considering this was the approximate population of the planet in 1900.
I must agree with you though Eric that there are other issues at hand as well which must be addressed along the way which I had not thought about in my original response, one will be the redistribution of wealth and the other will be a need for the nations of the western and first world nations to return to a more natural existence in balance with nature through the use of environmentally friendly technology and energy sources. Only a combination of all three of these issues as well as others will have any long term impact. -
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Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Thu, October 8, 2009 - 1:46 PMActually killing people, rich or otherwise was not my intent here. I wanted only to contrast such thoughts to the absurdity of a mass naked bike ride (which I may well join, next time around).
And population is not the problem -- the problem is the conspicuous consumption and waste by our richest 5%. Your accounting is a bit suspect, though, because they control (not just own outright) a good deal more than 60% of the world's wealth. Wealth redistribution by reforming the tax code and implementing a solid social safety net in the US would change the face of American society, and significantly for the better of all.
There's a reason why Norway leads the rest of Scandinavia (and those countries all lead the US) in longevity and standard of living. The very idea of business execs pulling in 300+ times the pay of the janitors in their office buildings is enough to make them laugh at the absurdity of it. Anyone seriously suggesting that their governments take the subsidies given to heath care and social services, and give it to their financial industry instead, as we just did to the tune of $3 trillion, would make them get their guns.
And I'm fully aware that Portland is a wonderful town to live in, and that I'm significantly better off than most of the world -- and so are most of my friends who live here. But those poor countries that you point to who "we" have stripped of their wealth, have without exception been so stripped by their own leaders and 5% wealthiest.
=Eric
</rant>
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Unsu...
Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Thu, October 8, 2009 - 2:57 PMIt is not my intention of the words which I have spoken here to "point at the poor". Quite the contrary I was pointing at the entire world population unilaterally when I say "population reduction" as in: all nations regardless of people per square mile statistics are over populated in my selfish egotistical opinion. Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle put it best when in the "Lost World" he wrote, "All the Blank spaces of the map are being filled in and there is no room for romance anywhere."
Examples:
The Portland Metro Area would still be the Portland Metro Area if its population could be reduced from 1,874,449 to 187,444
Mexico City would still be Mexico City if its population was reduced from 20,450,000 to 2,450,000
The Earth would still be the Earth if the current population of 115 people on average per square mile of land was reduced to 11.5 people per square mile.
Regardless of semantics, truths, lies and opinions you hit the nail I was waiting to see be driven square on its head when you said, "the absurdity of a mass naked bike ride". I too may join the charade next time around as who in their right mind could pass on such a non-nonsensical approach to saving the environment. Of course as one who believes, the sooner we burn our fossil fuels the sooner the problem of their use will go away, I am gonna drive my V8 one ton truck to the event with my bike in the back of it, and no I am not gonna car pool with others in my truck. I was wondering... Can I ride my gas motor assisted bicycle in the absurd mass orgy of bikes and bodies? or Would such actions be frowned upon by the militants that are gonna verbally stone me for such actions and probably more then likely light my truck on fire because they cannot understand satire unless it is a part of Burning Man? HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa! -
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Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Thu, October 8, 2009 - 5:11 PMAs one of my favorite authors (s.m. Stirling) is fond of saying, quantity has a quality of its own. A Mexico City of 2-million might be rather pleasant. The current version is a horror I avoid at all costs. Given that, I repeat that I don't believe that sheer population is our real problem -- it's distribution: of people, food, goods, and wealth. World population will (according to some sources) even out within the next few decades, and then possibly even decline. The distribution of people, food, goods, and wealth determine the distribution of education and systems of justice, which in turn seem to have a very large effect on population.
The looks you'd get from bringing your bike on the back of a large truck, and then riding a motor assisted bike in the naked ride, would be similar to the looks a Hummer owner gets at most any time on the streets of Portland. I just hope that the same feelings of absolute entitlement, and attitude of "fuck you Jack, I've got mine" would not be in play, as it certainly seems to be with the Hummer owners I've met.
Another way of putting it is to say that some forms of humor are more obscure, and more likely to arouse the natives, than others. And it's only been 150 years since the locals hunted Indians for sport, as if fox hunting.
=Eric
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.Unsu...
Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Thu, October 8, 2009 - 7:54 PMWhy hold a nude bike rally at all if such things are the case?
Why don't the radical environmentalist natives who believe as you do hold a hummer rally instead? Once the rally is under way the radicals could car jack, murder and rob the hummer owners and give the loot to the poor. The rich people would be dead, wealth would be redistributed, there would be less hummers on the road and society at large could become more aware of all of the issues at hand from the six o clock news.
Also I am not sure if I am clear on the whole entitlement thing, who is acting entitled, the person who owns the hummer or the person who tells the hummer owner how to live or is it both?
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Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Thu, October 8, 2009 - 10:38 PM"Why hold a nude bike rally at all if such things are the case? "
Because it's fun, of course.
And, y'know, when I ride a bike, that's me not driving my car, and I'm okay with that.
If you want to start a grassroots effort at massively depopulating the planet, start your own thread -- it's easy.
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Unsu...
Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Thu, October 8, 2009 - 11:57 PMI would have started a new thread Edward however, to be honest, I did not know I was starting a grass roosts movement when I placed my first post on this thread. I felt I was simply sharing my thoughts on the thread's topic as the originator had requested. At the time of my original post I also did not I realize that vague requests for murder were going to be the response to my thoughts. When they were I lost control of my ego and felt a great need for my beliefs to be acknowledged. When it became apparent that my needs were not going to be met I simply placed absurd posts to egg on the absurdity that either massively depopulating the planet or or murder followed by redistribution of wealth was going to change anything in regards to our planets ecosystem.
And, y'know, when I post my thoughts on a thread I speak what comes to mind, that's me expressing myself, and I'm okay with that.
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Unsu...
Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Thu, October 8, 2009 - 7:54 PM
Rage Anger Hate Resentment Violence Fight Murder Pain Suffering War Death!!!
Through the actions of a vile rogue this thread has been officially high jacked for entertainment purposes!!!
Enjoy. ;)
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Unsu...
Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Thu, October 8, 2009 - 11:57 PM"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history -- with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila." -Mitch Radcliffe -
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Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Fri, October 9, 2009 - 5:18 PMI believe we've all hijacked each others' concerns to push our own political and social obsessions. Not unusual in Tribe, where we are often more interested in making a point than in listening to someone else's point. To prove it, here's mine, again:
My concern was that it may be that population pressure (usually blamed on the poor) is not the true danger to life the universe and everything, but that the true danger is the consumption patterns of the rich, as exemplified by Hummers and the kind of people that I assume drive them.
Other than that, a naked Hummer ride doesn't cut it. Why would anyone care? For all I know Hummer drivers are always naked.
And further, I ride a bike *because* I'm a capitalist: it's cheaper. I walk, too, but rarely naked.
If I were a libertarian, I'd ride an aardvark.
=Eric -
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Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Fri, October 9, 2009 - 7:59 PMBikes as the ultimate capitalist statement: "i don't want to pay ANYONE for my fuel."
A few holes, but still fun. -
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Unsu...
Re: Worlds Naked Bike Ride
Sat, October 10, 2009 - 12:03 AMto =eric: Well said.
to Edward: Though probably not as fun as riding an aardvark. -
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Thanks folks!
Sat, October 10, 2009 - 11:31 PMI initially posted my question back in June and got minimal response. In the past week, the thread has taken such a perverse twist, from WNBR to class struggle, it almost makes my head spin. Not informative,but oh so very entertaining. -
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Re: Thanks folks!
Tue, October 13, 2009 - 10:09 AMA visiting friend from Colorado said that their NBR requires a genital covering. Now where's the fun in that??!
Well, maybe one of those multicolored condoms (perhaps with feathers and sparkly stuff, too?) for the guys. But what about the girls?
Perhaps a rivival of that ancient adornment, the merkin, would do.
Look it up, boys and girls. It is, and I say this as gently as possible, a pussy wig.
The term itself has also seen use as the name of the President of the United States, as played by Peter Sellars in Dr. Strangelove. His full name there was Muffly Merkin, just to drive the point home. I've used it in correspondence with various Brits and Europeans when referring to my countrymen or even to myself, as in "I'm a 'Merkin," or "all us 'Merkins."
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