Originally Posted by jyossarian
I dunno about wimps. I think it's become a cultural thing that everything has to be made 100% safe and convenient before we'll consider using it. We're accustomed to remote controls for everything, window interfaces instead of command lines, and 24 hr access to our banks. How people lived 30 years ago w/o these conveniences is beyond some people.
Ever think that the numbers of cars has probably tripled in the 35 years since the 70's, while road infrastructure has only doubled or less? Instead of calling people lazy, spoiled, or wimps; why not look at their reasons for doing things as legitiment. The old foggies are fond of reminiscing about the "good old days" when such conveniences weren't around; but conveniences haven't made things easier on folk in the present; it's just enabled people to do more things during a day.
For instance:
Remote controls have made managing 200 channels manageable; access to information (even if it is just entertainment) is at a premium these days.
Windows interfaces makes it unnecessary to remember the names of all 4690 files I store in my computer at work. (and that's just 2 years worth; imagine my tally after 5...) This is not to mention that hard drives have increased from 100 Mb to 100 Gb or larger.
24 hr access to the bank enables me to make my money transfer from my computer at midnight when I think about it, and lets me avoid the trip to the bank the next day so I can fit in a trip to the bike shop instead in the 2 hours I have after I get out of work.
So yea, how people lived without the conveniences 30 years ago would boggle people's mind today; but how much we accomplish in a day in current times would boggle the minds of people 30 years ago.
To put this back onto bicycling; bicycling facilities are more necessary now than 30 years ago because there are many more cars and much denser car traffic than there was 30 years ago. The "good ol' days" argument is good for nothing except front porch reminiscing between old folk - the "good ol' days" are not now, and were probably not even so good besides.