Sociology
Welcome to c/sociology!
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. In simple words sociology is the scientific study of society. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. While some sociologists conduct research that may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, others focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of social processes and phenomenological method. Subject matter can range from micro-level analyses of society (i.e. of individual interaction and agency) to macro-level analyses (i.e. of social systems and social structure). Read more...
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- American Sociological Association
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Journals
- American Sociological Review
- Annual Review of Sociology
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- Criminology
- European Sociological Review
- Gender and Society
- Journal of Health and Social Behavior
- Journal of Marriage and Family
- Rural Sociology
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Other Useful Links
- Open Knowledge Repository
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- sciences.social (Mastodon)
- Marxist Internet Archive
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Cool victim blaming
If you're walking in the road at night wearing dark clothes, you're not a victim, you're a road hazard.
Closest I came to smoking a pedestrian was a black dude, like Wesley Snipes black, wearing all black, sauntering across a Chicagoland street at 10PM.
His white shoes were the only thing that saved his life. Saw little white flashes moving low, puzzled me so I dropped down from 55. Motherfucker just looked at me like, "What? Fuck you.", kept rolling. My heart was hammering out my chest.
See assholes in my hood dressed dark all the time. You don't gotta have reflectors on (I do have a strip on my pack), but FFS, wearing black at night?!
(Old man rant; I did that shit when I was a young punker.)
This happened to me recently, but with someone's pale white ass. Same thing, saw something oddly white in the inky blackness, it was someone's face crossing the road right in front of my car. (They were dressed in head to toe black with a black bag)
We need a law that all black overcoats need red reflective material built into the sleeves, back, and front. Make it stylish, but make it visible. Will improve safety on bikes, scooters, ski slopes and hiking.
Nope. Infrastructure problem. Why is the pedestrian walking in the road and not on a pedestrian path? There likely is none.
Because they refuse to walk further down (or up) to the crosswalk.
Nice assumption to make a straw man.
Here's an idea. Walk alongside the road. With the exception of those that have disabilities and for some reason can't be walking on grass, the rest of us can walk OFF of the road.
If you're driving you're a road hazard, not pedestrians
Explain your reasoning, please.
This is a common vibe from urbanists (spoiler alert: I'm an urbanist, myself). The heart of the message is this: in the US, our streets and cities have been designed to prioritize the car above all else, at the expense of all else. In most of the US, if you try to go anywhere by any other means, bicycle, walking, bus, you name it, it's downright hostile. In fact, it wasn't always this way, and we only arrived here after decades of consistent lobbying, political fuck fuck games, and influence campaigns by car makers. So, this is, in part, an effort to reframe people's thinking about streets from something that cars go on to something that cars share with others.
Oh, so you're one of those.
Roads are made for cars, and people shouldn't be walking on them at night with dark clothes on.
They're by definition a road hazard, no matter your personal beef with cars.
My cousin in Buddha, I've got no beef with you. You asked, I answered. Drive your car if it makes you happy, hell, I don't want to take it away from you even if I had a wish granting urbanism genie. But building our infrastructure to be car dependent, where the default state is cars, has been a disaster that's going to haunt us for decades, ecologically, culturally, and fiscally. It's the dependency part I'd like to change.
Yeah, no one is arguing against that, but you have to realize that you're no better than stoners 20 years ago talking about how weed should be legal.
Well, the stoners actually have a decent chance of their thing happening. There's absolutely zero chance the modern world that we're going to rip out millions of miles of road and dump trillions into infrastructure to make cars obsolete. Society would have to collapse first.
While yes, a car-less society would be good, bringing it up literally any time a car is mentioned does absolutely nothing to further the conversation, and is likely turning people against your position. Don't be like an annoying vegan.
I'd argue that twenty years ago, weed legalization was still a pipe dream. It was only consistent advocacy and activism that has slowly bent legalization policies to where we are today. There's a non-zero chance that we can change the way we do things, because car dependency has only been the policy for seventy years or so, and we only arrived here by changing what was. We can do it again. To the point about trillions of dollars: it costs about that much to replace our roads every twenty years or so (that's about the lifespan for a residential road), and it's getting more expensive because of shit like Amazon using the fuck out of our interstates and shortening up their lifespans (heavier vehicles increase road damage quadratically). All these infrastructure bills are so insanely expensive with seemingly so little to show for it because we haven't been doing the required maintenance on our roads, and we're still not seeing the full bill. So, to be completely straight with you about it, it costs as much as you're describing just to keep what we have, because car infrastructure doesn't last very long/hold up very well compared to other transport modes.
As for your annoying vegan point: maybe, maybe not, I guess we'll see if it does turn people off. I do think it furthers the conversation, though, because this is more or less the arc of how marijuana advocacy progressed. This is a little like saying that protestors should only protest if it will inconvenience nobody at all; if you protest and nobody notices, it's not really a protest, it's digging a hole and screaming into it.
Anyway, you seem to be upset, so maybe it's best to just let this conversation die off. Have a good day, stranger.
You should drive at a speed appropriate for the conditions. If you can't see fsr enough ahead, or can't stop fast enough to avoid a pedestrian, you are driving too fast. I shouldn't have to wear day glow neon and flashing lights everywhere I go, because you can't slow down a bit.
Nice strawman, buddy. No one said anything about neon or flashing lights.
If you're walking in the road at night wearing dark clothes, you're an idiot and a road hazard.
If you're driving too fast, you're the hazard, not me.
You clearly don't understand what road hazard is.
A road hazard is a hazard encountered while driving a vehicle. A person being in the road when they shouldn't be is a road hazard.
Why am I not allowed to cross the road?
No one, at any point in this discussion, said anything about crossing the road.
Oh right, you're on about the swathes of people who just walk down the middle of road as a matter of course. I can't be arsed with this discussion any more. Let's just assume that I acknowledge your 'right' to indiscriminately mow pedestrians down for the crime of 'being in the road'
You're either an absolute moron, or you're being intentionally obtuse.
At no point did anyone support mowing down pedestrians. Stop creating strawmen.
The entire point of this discussion was that wearing dark clothes and walking in the street at night is stupid and dangerous.
I'm not sure why this is such a hard concept for you to grasp.
Because I have a right to walk where I want, wearing what I want. To suggest that I must select my clothing to conform some stranger's desire to speed around in a car, paying the bare minimum of attention to the road or conditions, on penalty of death or serious injury, is ridiculous.
Driving so fast that you can't see or react to pedestrians is stupid and dangerous. Why us it such a hard concept for you to understand?
You do realize that not every road is perfectly flat, straight, or well lit, right?
And no, you don't have a right to walk where you want. Jaywalking laws exist for a reason, and it's because idiots like you think their principals trump the laws of physics.
You also keep talking about speeding. At no point was speeding part of this conversation until you brought it up. Another strawman because you know damn well your argument doesn't make any sense. The speed doesn't matter unless you're expecting everyone to drive 10mph everywhere.
People hit deer all the time for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with excess speed. If any object is in the road, or enters the road, the human reaction time and the vehicle stopping distance might not be enough.
It's your responsibility to stay off of the road if the conditions aren't sufficient for a vehicle going the speed limit to stop in time. Those conditions include your visibility, and your clothing choices affect it.
But, if you are stupid enough to go walking in the road, at night, in dark clothes, please at least register as an organ donor.
You do realise that sensible thing to do on such roads is slow down and drive a speed appropriate to the conditions don't you?
I actually do, because I live in a civilised country, but that's besides the point. People don't generally walk done the center of the road, as I already pointed out. The only reason people, generally are in the road, is if they are crossing it. I shouldn't have to base my clothing choice around the likelihood of me needing to cross a road, because you don't understand point 1,above.
I am talking about speeding as a synonym for zooming, racing etc. Not exceeding the legal speed limit.
So maybe they shouldn't e driving so fast, and they would be able to react in time to not hit the deer 🤔🤔. Or are you suggesting that deer should wear brighter clothing at night as well?
So we're back to me not being able to cross a road, incase some entitled driver can't be arsed slowing down a bit. Again the rule is, drive a speed appropriate to the conditions. If it's too dark to see, you should slow the fuck down.
I don't know where you love that has such an pandemic of people walking in the middle of the road at night, but as I said, mostly I just want to cross the road. I shouldn't have to wear day glow neon and flash like a Christmas tree to do it.
Well, since you can't stop throwing up strawmen, I'm done talking to you.
Please register as an organ donor since you think walking in the street at night in dark clothes is perfectly safe.
Did you just learn the word strawman or something?. You don't have to (incorrectly) throw it into every comment you write...
A strawman is making an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument.
You know you can't defeat the argument that walking in the street at night with dark clothes on is stupid and dangerous, so you keep pulling things out of your ass that have literally nothing to do with the discussion to shift the blame to motor vehicle operators.
You also keep blatantly ignoring the points that refute your strawmen, because you know you can't defend your position.
No one said anything about speeding, crossing the road, or anything of that nature.
The entire discussion is about how walking in the road and not being easily visible is dangerous and stupid. That's it. Full stop.
But I know all of this is pointless because you're either a troll arguing in bad faith, or have an IQ lower than the posted speed limit of a residential street.
And you are deliberately ignoring everything I've said, such as my explanation of what I meant when I said 'speeding'. I've made myself clear that I am talking about people crossing the road, as there very fewother reasons for people to be in the road, and I don't believe that there are swarms of people just walking in the middle of the road for no reason.
There is no strawman, because the basis of your argument is that people need to make themselves more visible to avoid being hit by cars. The vast majority of accidents, however, occur due to: distracted or inebriated drivers; or drivers driving too fast for the road conditions. Pedestrians will never be visible enough to prevent these accidents, yet you seem to think that the solution to reducing pedestrian accidents is 'more visibility'.
You're arguing points that were never part of the discussion and are not related to the discussion at all, trying to refute my argument.
That's a strawman, because no shit it's on speeders and impaired drivers if they hit something. And you keep doing it. Again, at no point were crosswalks, speeding, or impaired driving being discussed. You brought that up unprompted.
Maybe it's not an issue where you live, but where I live people walk down streets (not across them) at night in dark clothes, which is stupid and dangerous.
You also seem to have this belief that the driver has to be doing something wrong to hit a road hazard. You're very wrong.
Again, unless you expect everyone to drive 10mph everywhere, the human reaction speed has its limit. You can be doing everything exactly right and still hit an object in the road that's not supposed to be in the road,especially if it takes a few fractions of a second to be able to see them. People count as an object that doesn't belong in the road.
In the UK most roads were made well before cars existed you moron
And? They're currently made for cars.
Moron
I know you are, but what am I?
You see, that's how you sound. Only children resort to insults when they have no legitimate argument back.
Ok, how many deaths per year are caused by people driving cars hitting people, and how many deaths per year are caused by people walking hitting people. This figure should help you figure out who the real problem is.
I think you might misunderstand the topic of discussion.
I think you misunderstand
No, I definitely understand the discussion at hand. I don't know where you got the bit about pedestrians slamming into other pedestrians from.
Although I might have misinterpreted what you meant due to various spelling and grammar mistakes.
How many people get hit because drivers cannot see them?
We're taught to drive to the conditions. If you're going too fast to stop in an area with pedestrians, you're driving dangerously
I mean that makes sense, but what happens if you are doing the speed limit and you still hit someone in dark clothing? While again, you have a point, but going the speed limit isn't gonna make the problem of people just walking out in the middle of the street any better.
Pedestrian running k to a pedestrian isn't what's leading to deaths. If you can't drive safe then don't drive. Of course there should probably be some compromise here.
I don't understand what point you're trying to make. I think a few words there got messed up.
It'd be victim blaming if people were intentionally running over people in dark clothing. When talking about victim blaming you're generally talking about the intent of the perpetrator, not the general circumstances. "She was dressed all sexy like and made him rape her" and such. It's an excuse for agency, rather than lack of agency.
Wearing dark clothes in poorly lit high traffic areas makes you harder to see, and harder to avoid. Drivers can not act on information they do not have, so they have less agency to avoid those pedestrians.
Lol, apart from the fact that the original comment literally is victim blaming? The rise in pedestrian deaths Is NOT because people are wearing darker clothes. If you think this is true you are a complete moron