“Get off your phones and meet people your age in real life!” “Wait not like that!”
Feels like kids can’t win these days.
Can’t wait for the e-bike gang wars of '26.
Waaaaaarriors! Come out to playay!
Should maybe be the Toecutter in Oz.
Teens especially, since that law was catered more towards children. These days, teens are being disregarded and grouped in with children, even if they are vastly different.
You let them leave the house and meet up with friends, next thing you know they are riding around on bikes! Where will it end?
How do you think they arranged the meet ?
Just gotta keep making the world as hostile as possible to teenagers.
Because the school to prison pipeline can only do so much
This is such a gross oversimplification, it’s insane. They could also join the military.
We’re trying very hard to make the world a hostile place, but climate change won’t really kick in until the next generation.
I hope Australian kids annoy adults enough that this moral panic about social media dies from adults just giving up because kids resort to even more annoying behavior, that would be poetic justice.
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Why are you here then?
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In my opinion, algorithms and dark patterns in social media need to be destroyed. Any of us who remember early social media will remember it not being anywhere near as bad as the monstrosity it has evolved into today.
Instagram was quite fun when it had a reputation for being a “hipster” platform and before Facebook bought it and absolutely butchered it, for example. Now it’s genuinely horrible.
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I think most people agree but when we slip into trashing social media as a concept and lose the nuance I get concerned.
Fuck man, I’m old enough to remember Facebook was exclusively posts by my friends. Shit has come a long way.
Yup. I’d log in, scroll for maybe 10-15 posts before I saw the first one from yesterday, play some Wild Ones, and that was that.
Ok so sounds like the problem isn’t actually social media then?
Rather it is a question of the choices we make about the architecture and design of social media.
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No, when you just say social media = bad you feed into the moral panic with your intellectual laziness.
Try harder with formulating your arguments please.
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you seem like a very fun person to be around.
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Every teenager, edgelord and redditor (but I repeat myself) thinks this way. That being some kind of contrarian/devil’s advocate dipshit is some proof or evidence of their mighty intellect.
“Oh, but have you thought about this!!! It seems only I am so smart as to have such enlightened thoughts…”
Every teenager is the Gotcha-Man and they think they’re unique and novel.
:)
This is a forum.
Forums and blogs could be classed as social media, but they predate widespread use of the term, and are fundamentally different from the corporate social platforms.
It’s the combination of an individualized engagement algorithm and user-generated content that defines modern social media.
It’s the combination of an individualized engagement algorithm and user-generated content that defines modern social media.
This is precisely what is supercharging this moral panic, people don’t automatically think critically about this and will bandwagon on social media = bad because it feels righteous and is easy unless WE force a more nuanced conversation.
Social media is a terrible for us. Me included. It’s addictive - that’s why I’m here. It’s even worse for kids as it fucks up their social skills development. And we have the power to help them avoid it, just like we were lucky enough to grow up before it. Once they’re old enough they can then choose to fuck them selves up, like they can with alcohol, weed, porn, etc.
Social media is a terrible for us. Me included. It’s addictive - that’s why I’m here.
If that is how you feel I encourage you to start from a position of curiosity about what draws you here beyond a simple thought terminating comparison to an addictive physical substance or our sex drive.
Yes, I can be introspective, thanks. Not talking about my personal weaknesses here doesn’t negate the point.
Let me rephrase: Australians concerned about children on vehicles that can go 25mph with no requirement for a license or training.
25 kph, not mph. Which isn’t very fast.
That’s pretty close to my average speed and I’m just a commuter on a 30lb hardtail MTB with shitty infrastructure. I’d wager anyone who can ride a bike can easily go faster than that on a flat, even if they weren’t a regular rider.
I googled top e-bike speeds.
You can go 25mph and faster on a bicycle no problem, I reject the argument that e-bikes (not e-moto) are a significant danger. That’s mostly cabrain propaganda that people who chose to stop thinking accept.
Not unless you are are really gunning it and on a fitted road bike.
There is a pretty big psychological aspect to it in that without putting in the work, you can become disconnected in how fast you are accelerating/moving. With bicycles you tend to work up the speed as you start to understand and get comfortable with what you are riding; a process that isn’t really present with e-bikes.
It’s 25 KILOMETERS an hour. I often end up cycling faster than my ebike motor can keep up with.
Fitted road bike? I do it regularly on a 3x7 hardtail MTB loaded down with pannier bags and a frame bag. That’s not downhill, that’s on a flat. I am just an ordinary bike commuter too, not an athlete and I have a low end steel Trek meant for single track MTB riding. It weighs at least 30 lbs with all my stuff on it.
I think you are overestimating how hard it is to go fast with little to no training and the right gear, even someone who doesn’t ride regularly could probably hit 20 on a flat if they tried. Downhill you can hit 35mph+ even if you aren’t in shape and barely know how to ride.
The article doesn’t mention any “miles per hour”. Do people in Australia use mph?
In December, the NSW premier, Chris Minns, announced a plan to halve ebikes’ power – and therefore reduce their top speeds – to 250 watts…
No. It’s kph. Ebikes are restricted to 25 kph.
These are not ebikes.
They are 1000w twist throttle bikes they buy on eBay and AliExpress.
A dude got up to 90mph on a bike just off his own steam before
I remember all the adverts when I was a kid telling me that if I got hit by a car at 30mph there was a 90% chance I’d live (this was the happy path of the advert). This is also cars ostensibly driven by licensed people.
E-bikes with a 25mph limiter are not a risk if we allow cars in the same space as pedestrians
Yeah sure, but we’re not going to create laws just for Lance fucking Armstrong.
90 on a bike? That’s nuts, do you have a link to that? I’d like to see what kind of a machine that is
Honestly I remember someone telling me and I’ve never seen it myself so I went looking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cycling_records
Turns out there’s even faster now
25 kmph, that’s about 15 mph.
Maybe ban Australia from having people. Problem solved
Yeah, I was going to say that the problem actually appears to be children.
No, the problem is that parenting became a bad word or something, so you have feral critters loud mouthing and sometimes assaulting their own parents, who in turn complain the government should fix it.
But it’s never the parents’ fault…
I dunno, can’t parents just keep their kids in a box till they’re 18 and can become productive, compliant wage slaves, like everyone else.
/s
Just wait until all those teen grow up and figure out that old farts on social media are responsible.
Yeah, they can wipe thier own ass when they are in a care home!
Unfortunately the old farts on social media were once the teens being treated like criminals for existing. It’s a cycle. Yesterday’s rebels become tomorrow’s pearl clutchers.
Define old fart? To me a old fart is in their late 60 early 70’s. This is the boomers. They were the first true generation of plenty. They were promised a good life and they had one unless they were foolish with the opportunity. Let me assure you they have been against any ones freedom except their own from the start.
I know plenty of older Gen X who’ve turned into pearl clutching, curmudgeonly hypocrites and even a few younger folks who’ve developed early onset “get off my lawn” syndrome. While I’ll certainly grant that it seems to be far more common among older folks it’s a mindset we all can fall into if we’re not self aware enough.
Hell I know more than a few joyless Gen Z’s who already have fallen into the habit of being utterly scandalized whenever they see someone enjoying life a bit too much. Not all by a longshot yet, but a concerning amount for ones so young.
Well, as a Gen Xer, WHY THE FUCK ARE THOSE FUCKING KIDS ON MY FUCKING LAWN? THERE IS NO REASON FOR THEM TO BE ON MY LAWN! WHY WHY WHY!!!
Boomers are defined by those traits whereas GenX is largely less likely to judge. We don’t make a lot of noise for those very reasons.
I met one of these teens on a train he showed me a few news clips he was in with like 100 other teens on ebikes and scooters lol
Your throwing stick trick has boomeranged on us!
I mean banning teens seems a pretty good policy.
How do you know their age?
You cut them in half and count the rings.
It mentions it in the article.
Weird self report but okay
Wonder what you think about often.
I can’t work out any other interpretation. What does Donebrach think it said?
I think what they were asking, is how the government is going to verify their age.
Beware! The anti fun police are in effect!
Australia, a prison state created for inmates, and perpetuated as such by their descendants. As a foreigner looking in, I think that Aussies would be best served by ditching the colonial prison mindset. You and the kids are allowed to have fun, if you ignore the specter of the Crown that created your nation.
…TLDR;
I recently left an Aussie company whose shot caller was someone who was massively in favour of the social media ban and kept close tabs on her teenage kids’ phones. Ran the company like that, and it’s going under.
Does “people who live in glass houses shouldnt throw stones” translate into American? Half of the rest of the world wakes up every day wondering if your leader has started WW3 over a twitter beef.
But no, you have fun.
Just because America is in a crappy state, is no excuse for Australians or anyone else on a given patch of dirt to allow their nation be enshittified. You should consider America as a warning, of what can happen if your politics become rotten.
The sheer ego in that statement.
Even Americans who are wholeheartedly opposed to whats happening cant stop condescending to everyone else like “If it could happen to the greatest nation on earth it could happen to you”
We know, we have always known. We’re no better than the Germans, the Italians or any other nation that slid into authoritarianism or facism. America believed it couldnt happen to them because they are just so exceptional, which is why it worked so god damn well.
In my community a couple of years ago some middle aged guy assaulted a teen who was riding his Surron (non peddle ebike/motorcycle) in the park. Was he speeding? Probably, but that doesn’t excuse what that twat did. For the most part kids on these types of bikes aren’t the problem.
Our real problem has been pre teens on 110cc dirt bikes. They ride in groups and have been literally terrorizing people. I talked to one lady who had to put her horse down when they scared it and caused it to break a leg. Then they laughed at her and rode off. The police can’t catch them, though they’ve tried, but not that hard since they could actually do some simple detective work if they wanted to
We had the same. But the child on the bike died from there injuries. The bike went missing. so we don’t know the condition of the bike. No one talked to the “filth” cus snitches get stitches and all that. You would think the community would learn and ban it internally however there is still mini dirt bikes on the green where it happend and it’s As if it never happend.
all yall folk running hamburger software: 25kph is around 15mph and change. 4 minute miles. Really fast sprints.
and 25km/h isn’t super fast on a bike either, at least not for someone in reasonably ok shape and a bike that’s somewhat configured for cycling on roads.
Nothing to do with social media, all to do with at what point and electric bicycle becomes an electric motorcycle and the lack of laws and regulations keeping up with it. It used to be easy if the thing was making a noise, due to petrol engine, it’s a motorbike. It’s happening in every country and it feels like Chinese manufacturers are making all the money whilst the rest of the world catches up.
I know of a guy who had his driver’s license permanently revoked because he racked up so many DUI’s. He lived in rural Indiana, and bought a moped because they didn’t require a license to drive. Obviously he did not stop driving drunk.
But also, the moped did in fact make noise.
Nah it’s about being mad at teenagers or just mad at not driving a car. The US under Biden passed ebike regulations that are already a lot more strict than just a limit where it becomes a motorcycle, but a bunch of (mostly Democrat) states are either banning all ebikes period or banning most of the federal regulation classes because if Gavin Newsom sees a black kid have fun he instantly becomes Ronald Reagan.
