🚀 go-pugleaf

ok.

first of all, pretty much everybody can be considered an asshole at one
point or another by someone who is not in their situation, suv's are just a
little more imposing (and thus more threatening)

i know people who talk the same shit, but pull the same dorky stuff
themselves...

in addition, i have this crazy notion about traffic karma... no it goes
beyond that...
i think its clear that the standard reaction usually only escalates matters
and tempers....
try something, try actually paying attention to what is going on around you,
what people are trying to do and maybe even altering your path to make life
a little easier for them.  see if you can do it... see how you feel when you
do...
my theory is that people you will be more likely to encounter assholes when
you have been dissed in traffic yourself, more often than not because you
get more aggressive.. dont know, call it revenge... anyway, i think it
spreads like poison, pretty soon everybody on the freeway is on their
guard... and imagine what the offices are like where they work...
if you do good by accomodating someone else, it may, ala the butterfly
affect, even make your own day a better one....

enough of the nicety crap.
its a fact that people dont give a rats ass about other people in the very
short term.  so much so that when theyre driving they dont even stop to
consider during a movement to another space that there might actually be
someone else there already.  people often see it as an attack but more often
then not its just that they dont care enough to think about it... this
happens in everyday life, not just traffic, but thats for another newsgroup.

so here is the important thing, you as a driver probably wouldnt call
someone an asshole to his/her face if they bumped into you at a
party...(haha, well some of you might, i know there was probably a time in
my testosterone laden youth...)  the sociological anonymity argument works
in both directions... before you react and consider someone is intentionally
out to cause you harm or is for sure just the biggest suv asshole you've
ever seen, stop and try and imagine what was going on in their minds.  try
and imagine their situation and see if maybe, just maybe they made a mistake
(of course no one HERE ever does), or maybe they didnt see you.. or even
possibly really were out to try to kill you...

humans have an instinct for compassion (or something related) and they have
one for reactive "attack" for lack of a better word.  when someone bumps
into you at a pary, you usally turn with fire in your eyes until you
recognize it is another human being, i think this is compassion overrriding
our reactive attack instinct.  you dont have that compassion when you cant
see the person, so you have to make your mind help out a bit.

just try it a bit, if you dont like it you can always go back to ulcers and
demolition derby on the freeways...

ciao,

..m

p.s. dont get me wrong, at times i am also the asshole and the asshole
caller

Frederick Scott <fred_s@netcom.com> wrote in message
news:852qcm$3k$1@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net...
>
>
> phil+s3@bolthole.no-bots.com writes:
>
> >On Thu, 06 Jan 2000 00:15:07 -0800, jhurwit@netcom.com wrote:
> >>....
> >>    When I was studying sociology and psychology in school 20 years ago,
> >>    there was already a solid body of evidence from experimental
> >>    research that people are more willing to harm others if they're
> >>    anonymous, ie. unknown to those they injure.
> >
> >And being physically higher seems to have some effect also.
> >Which I might add is incredibly annoying to regular people who can no
> >longer look over the hood of these monsters, when they are sitting all
the
> >way at the front waiting for a left turn, and you just need to make a
right
> >turn.
>
> Yup!  There's an irritation I've had many a time.  Worse, when you're
> sitting abreast with the SUV to your left and want to see back up the
> cross street to see what's coming.  So you move up to see around them.
> Then *they* move up, almost as if to deliberately cut off your view.
> I suppose it might just be a pschological thing where some people notice
> that the guy next to them is moving up, therefore it's OK for them to
> move up, too - without ever bothering to consider that the poor guy
> JUST...WANTS...TO *SEE*!  Grrrrrrrrrrr....!
>
> Fred
>