Yeah, that’s what I like about the joke - you don’t even realize what his hand was doing under the table, until the last panel

Oh look, it’s the guy from this comic:

I’m only in that category because I don’t drink coffee every day.

When I used to drink it daily, it did nothing for me except remove my irritability and prevent a headache.

Now, I take at least two non-coffee days between coffees. I don’t depend on coffee on any given day; I can wake up with energy and go about my life without it.

But when I do have coffee, it has a huge effect on me. I get super caffeinated. And it tastes delicious.

It’s Saturday morning and I still feel energized from the coffee I had at noon yesterday. I could hardly sleep. It’s kind of a problem.

Good points, and I think we generally agree. I definitely didn’t mean to exclude anyone in those real or hypothetical situations you mentioned. To me, those examples are more about showing how gender is, or can be, biologically fluid. There are many “odd” situations that aren’t binary. So amongst the many unusual ways that sex can occur biologically, “male brain in a female body” or “I reject the concept of gender entirely” are valid and believable.

I agree with your last point as well, but in the context of this post, would you tell Rachel Dolezal that she says she’s Black, so she’s Black? I guess I was trying to find some sort of difference between gender and race identity, the way the question was posed.

I’m definitely not claiming to have an unassailable argument, so thanks for responding with good points.

I’m no expert on either topic. But I believe humans basically start off as female in the womb, and either become male or don’t. And there are many intersex conditions. The body responds to hormones typically associated with either sex. So gender is fluid in a biological sense. If someone transitions to male, female or nonbinary, they already kind of contained that potential.

However, race is a social construct, usually based on heritage as well as biological appearance. So it’s hard to say how much biology is really involved. Does the human body contain the ability to be any race? Or to cultivate an appearance that prompts other humans to socially categorize you as one race or the other?

Maybe for people who are mixed race, there is a sort of spectrum available to them. They likely know how to present themselves in a way that gets them categorized as one race or the other.

But otherwise, not really. If you’re White, and you say, “I identify as Black,” the question might be: do you have Black heritage? If you don’t, you can’t really create it out of thin air. There wasn’t a situation while you were in the womb where various hormones could have influenced you to appear more Black than you do. If your parents are both White, they were going to have a White baby, no matter what. Race is a social construct, but it’s based on appearance and heritage. It’s about belonging to a group, not about being an individual, the way gender is.

If you’re assigned female at birth, and you say, “I identify as male,” then cool! Your body already has the capability to become hormonally male. You can socially identify as male. Any human, of any race, has this potential. Any two parents could have a baby that is any sex or gender, depending on various factors.

Thanks for answering.

“I don’t have any evidence, I just think so, and I’m old” is enough for me to understand your mentality.

I don’t see it as a cage at all.

I know my comment was long, but you haven’t answered:

• Why you think that the same people who advocate for services within 15 minutes also advocate for confining people within a certain zone as part of that goal - have they ever said so? Why would they want to do so anyway? What do they get out of it?
• Why you think that traffic calming is a slippery slope to confining vehicles, or all modes of transport, within a certain zone, instead of just trying to balance the ease of access between vehicles and bikes, scooters, skateboards, buses, pedestrians, etc.

If you want to believe in a conspiracy, why not look at the ways in which the auto industry has suppressed other modes of transport, from inventing the term “jaywalking” to suppressing electric trams to building giant highways through poor neighbourhoods?

“oh, Trump wouldn’t do that, it’s illegal”

Phew, what a relief!

Also, when Trump does illegal stuff, people tend to allow it and obey him. If they try to shut him down using the legal system, he goes ahead and does it anyway.

I kind of just roll my eyes when someone says, “Aha, it’s illegal! He can’t do that!” We don’t really live in that world anymore.

I looked this up and found this information about it:

In its Local Plan 2040, Oxford City Council proposed installing elements from the 15-minute city urban concept in neighborhoods throughout the city over the next 20 years. These plans included proposals to improve accessibility to local shops and other amenities for residents so they didn’t have to always drive. Separately, Oxfordshire County Council announced traffic-reducing measures throughout the city, with infrastructure to encourage car travel around the city by using the ring road rather than already congested roads. Initial opposition to the plans led to proposals to introduce permit schemes to facilitate car travel at certain times, allowing car access to areas that the council planned to restrict to motorists.

First, the article says it was separate. Nobody said, “We are blocking everybody’s access to this road because the goal of 15-Minute City is to restrict people and forbid them from leaving their zone.”

Second, it was just traffic-calming. They put up some planters blocking roads to vehicles to encourage access by bike, pedestrians, etc. That’s not restricting access, that is INCREASING access. By bikes.

They decided that a different, busier road was more appropriate for cars. How on earth does that equate to restricting access? So your car had to drive further, using a big busy road instead of a local quiet street - boo-hoo! This, to you, was a sign that the government wants to confine you to a 15 minute area and never let you leave?

Are the following measures, to you, a sign of nefarious “restricting access”?

• An ambulance can drive the wrong way down the street, but you cannot
• A bus can travel in a bus lane, but you cannot
• A commercial vehicle can park in a loading zone, but you cannot
• A vehicle with several people can travel in a special HOV lane, but you cannot if you are driving alone
• A toll bridge reads your license plate to check if you paid a fee to access that route, and charges you a fine if you did not
• The city takes out a vehicle lane to build a dedicated bike lane and plant some nice shrubs
• The city closes a street temporarily for a neighbourhood block party
• The city installs speed bumps on a quiet street
• The city builds a traffic circle at a quiet intersection
• The city puts up a sign limiting the speed you can travel
• A highway cuts through an existing quiet suburb, meaning your car cannot cross it on a quiet street; you have to use an onramp and get on the busy highway

All of those technically “restrict access” by your seeming definition. Well, at least by vehicle. Is it your assertion that private vehicles reign supreme, and if the government does anything to slow down, discourage, or increase the cost of vehicle travel, it means their future goal is to create walled mini-cities that folks can’t leave?

Edit: also, you say that people threatened to hang the city council to get them to renege - are you proud of this? Your “side” is threatening to murder people if they don’t govern the way they want, and that’s just “being vigilant”? To prevent planters from being placed on a street? What the hell?

Has anyone ever actually said, “I think we should have all services within a zone of 15-minute travel, and we should restrict people from leaving their zone, and this is called 15 Minute Cities and I support that idea”?

“Having services readily available” is the entire idea. “You’re not allowed to go to another area” is nonsense that someone else tacked on to the concept to make people hate it.