#i don't live in valencia but i come from an area close to it so the rains have been pretty extreme there

[apricior]

actually, i'm tired of being nice about this.

for the past week, a terrible cold front has been affecting different parts of spain, especially valencia, where +200 people have died and +2000 are still missing.

for the past week, people have been trying to find ways to help those affected, either by going to the affected areas to help or by donating food, clothes and other resources, even though it keeps raining.

for the past couple of days, i've received daily emergency alarms on my phone telling me to stay at home because of the risk of flood, and today schools and universities have closed to avoid unnecessary risks

people are losing power, their cars, their homes, their loved ones, streets are flooded and filled with mud. this morning the storm was so strong here that the power went out in my entire building and in a lot of areas of the city. trains aren't working, some subway stations are flooded, i have been hearing sirens all day and thinking that i'm lucky for getting to stay in the safety of my home

and then i go online, especially on tumblr, and… nothing. nobody is talking about it, nobody is sharing fundraisers. i only see spaniards talking about it, and even then, most posts don't reach 400 notes.

this is one of the clearest signs of climate change we've seen recently, why is nobody talking about it? it seems like tragedies are only tragedies when they happen in a small handful of countries, and we are, unfortunately, not one of them. but we're more than a vacation destination, we're more than a place with good weather and cheap alcohol. we people deserve protection and safety. we deserve more than global silence

news articles you can read about this:

bbc, 3cat 1 and 2 (if you catalan or want to see pictures/videos of the effects), rtve (if you speak spanish or want to see more pictures/videos of the effects)

[waru-chan8]

hi, I send you an ask about this because there is more space than the text chat. I find interesting what you said about Alonso and people from Madrid being posh, and I want to ask you what you think in general about spanish riders and their origin. I explain myself: italian riders, of every class and championship, don't usually come from wealthy families. For example Vale, Dovi, Sic, Corsi, Paso, Petrucci, Iannone, Pirro, Morbidelli, but also the younger like Bassani, Nelli, Mig, Fenati, Enea, they come from 'normal' middle class or working class families, and they usually got into this sport because they come from Emilia Romagna (where it's basically the traditional sport, more popular than football), or because they have relatives that were racing riders or mechanics or had some contact with the racing world (for example Petrucci's father was a truck driver who drove trucks for some motogp teams). We don't have many who clearly come from wealthy families (of course when I talk about wealthy families I don't mean anything remotely close to f1 drivers families), but the problem now (well, in the last 10 years or more) is that it's so difficult for young riders to find a sponsor to support their careers (wssp and civ riders often point that out, and even in wsbk there are riders who hardly find some help despite their talent, like Bassani, who's son of a construction worker). Then the fact that a rider is more or less arrogant or one to brag is not particularly related to their origin, but it's probably more related to how they were educated by their families (for example, despite not being particularly rich, Iannone has always been a spoiled child, according to Pernat). I don't want to go into the political topic (if they are conservative or not etc) because usually they are private about their personal opinions, but also I suspect some of them just live in their own world (in general, especially in the past, motorcycle riders are known to be just crazyheads and out of the ordinary). So I wanted to ask you about Spanish riders, and if it's a similar situation or not. I always had the impression it's a similar situation, considering that we are the closest countries when it comes to motorcycling.

When I meant Alonso being posh, I meant in the way he dresses himself, and he talks in Spanish. Also, it's about Madrid in general being a much more expensive area/city than other part of Spain.

So if we talk about traditional areas of the sport, then it's the Mediterranean area (Catalonia, Valencia, and Balearic Islands and more recently Murcia too). Catalonia is/was because of the motorcycling industry was set in Barcelona (Derbi and Bultaco for example) and at the beginning riders either come from Barcelona or moved there. (An example Ángel Nieto, who was living in Madrid when he discovered motorcycling, moved to Barcelona because he knew it was his only way to race).

I'm not sure about how Valencia and Balearic Islands come to play, but I imagine Valencia is due to Ricardo Tormo (2 times 50cc world champion) and because small villages allowed kids to race in between villages on their fest (according to Aspar). Apart from that, Cuna de Campeones, which is a no profit and public riding school, is doing wonders (started in 1999 and it's still going). It's a public riding school where they allow kids from anywhere in the world and different backgrounds, to learn how to ride a bike. They train the kid to be the best on the track, but also outside of racing just in case hey don't make it. Some of the riders from the school: Joan Mir, Jorge Martín, Raúl Fernández and Franco Morbidelli. Same with the Balearic Islands, not sure, how it started, but having Jorge Lorenzo, Augusto Fernández and Izan Guevara is doing wonders for them.

And now how did they get into racing? Some of them because they parents were into bikes. Dani's dad had a motocross bike and Dani's first bike was a motocross one, but he did not start competing until later on a mini/pocket bike. Pol, Aleix, and Jorge Lorenzo's first bike were done by their parents, and apparently Jorge's mom was a rider too (not sure). I think Joan's dad own a rental shop in Palma de Mallorca where he had surf related stuff and bikes, but he also had a cousin who was into bikes. Pablo and Gelete were born into a family of racing. So for most of them, racing started because they had someone close to them who was into racing. Maybe some of them got into it due to the Lorenzo-Pedrosa fight or Marc's tittle because it made TV focus on motorcycling.

Backgrow. Most of them come from working class too, and basically being in the right place in the right moment. For example, Dani was out of racing even before he started because his parents could not afford to get a 125cc bike, and he owns his career to Puig. Chicho did not have the funding so he contacted with everyone he could and send tons of letters and video until Jorge got admitted to Montlau. Montlau is another racing school, but they also train mechanics (Rins also started there). Joan for example, he said he could not choose his path, he went from promotion cup to promotion cup because they did not have the money and if did not win, it could have been the end of his career. Jorge Martín had said his dad had to ask money from members of his family because they were living out of 600 euros, I'm guessing it was out of the state support money, and that he is so greatful for Aleix aids. Augusto did not follow the normal path due to the lack of money, he comes from European Stock 600. So yep middle or middle-lower class.

The one I know who did not have that problem was Tito. His family is the owner of a jewellery chain store where they sell expensive brands and custom-made jewellery. In fact, their parents did put money into the Avintia team with the sponsorship deal so Tito could race.

I was not into Alonso López until this year, but 'La Caja de DAZN' was pretty revealing. Apparently he is from the upper-middle class, as his parents had 2 residencies, both in Madrid. He was born in the Madrid city, but the rider in him was born in 'Los Molinos' where his parents had a second residency. He got into expensive sports as a hobby, golfing and ski/snowboarding and according to him, he was good, so he spends a lot of time and money. In 2021, his dad had to sponsor him for the last couple (not sure if only the last 2 or some more) races of the European Moto2 championship, but he also was sent to live in Valencia due to his erratic behaviour. Alonso did not have to worry about the money, nor is he worrying now as he could choose to say 'no' to do a second year in the European Moto2 and wait for Fenati's results. So let's say he is not wealthy, but he is in a comfortable position.

I agree that getting sponsors, is a struggling thing here too because let's remember that Tito's parents had to put money for him to stay in the championship, despite him being a Moto2 World Champion or that Alonso was kicked out of Moto3 due to the lack of funding, and he could not go into endurance for the same thing.

[morlock-holmes]

The thing that does kind of bug me is, I've lived in places that were actively hostile to pedestrians.

I lived in Santa Clarita, CA, (Specifically Valencia) without a car and it was a nightmare. There's basically two kinds of roads: Giant, six-lane throughways where the speed limit is 45 miles per hour, and a mess of residential streets that are laid out like spaghetti thrown at a wall and none of which are actually through streets anyway.

So if you're a pedestrian, you're walking down a large, noisy street with absolutely no shelter from the elements. If the sun is out you bake, if it's raining you get drenched. Sidewalks are intermittent and laid out in such a way that you have to cross in front of freeway onramps, blind turns, and parking lot entrances, and people very nearly hit me coming into or out of them all the time, because of course there's no pedestrians.

You could make Valencia way, way more walkable without even changing the density or the traffic, you'd just have to think the tiniest bit about it.

Last time I complained about that on Tumblr I got a lot of people condescendingly telling me "Well, you know, you were very privileged to be able to not own a car, not everybody can afford to live in the big city where you can get around without owning a car."

The median household income in Santa Clarita CA is $100,000.

And the reason I didn't have a car was because I wasn't earning any fucking $100K a year.

Now, don't get me wrong, I was privileged in other ways, but for fuck's sake, one of the default "This is not a rural area but you need a car to get around anyway" communities in the US is "rich people suburb"

So what about the person who overheats easily and lives in the suburban desert and can't afford a car? The person with the bad knee who lives in the rural county and can't afford a car?

Well, we don't even fucking ask, do we? I mean, that's not a real type of person, right? Poor people own cars and going carless is for rich layabouts.

Now, according to the US Department of Transportation, and I quote,

"For example [In this 2011 data] households with an annual income of less than $25,000 are almost nine times as likely to be a zero-vehicle household than households with incomes greater than $25,000."

Car ownership is very closely correlated with income, and as a low income person, it drives me up the fucking wall to hear all this concern about how people would cope without cars, when the question of how people in these places DO cope without cars isn't even on the table. Nobody is asking and nobody cares.

Like, I'm trying to be compassionate in the spirit of this thread but this kind of selective compassion breeds a certain kind of anger in the people who aren't being talked about because it makes you feel fucking invisible.

You can live on about $20,000 a year in a suburb where the median income is $100,000 and people will explain that you need to be way more sensitive because not everybody there has the privilege to be able to "afford" to live in that suburb without a car.

There's people there who already don't have cars! There's people in every one of those situations you named who already don't have cars!

And I have never heard a single fucking person in my entire life ask how to get them cars. Not one time ever.

It makes a person angry, you know? So maybe you start to pop off a little bit.

Changing people's minds on major things is actually a very long and difficult process for both parties. I didn't actually believe that pedestrian-centric city design would be better for people that drive cars until I spent almost a year living without a car and watched hours of youtube videos explaining the issue to me. Turns out that traffic actually does go down and driving does become more pleasant if you make it harder to drive a car and easier to walk. I just straight-up refused to believe that for years. Because people just talked about it like it was obvious. But it wasn't. Because I had spent my whole life in a car-centric city going around in a car and also I was an English major in college who did not study urban planning. You can't expect me to change my entire mindset around transportation all at once. I did reach a eureka moment like two weeks ago but that was after like three years of getting exposed to these ideas periodically and living without a car for 11 months.

And yeah this post is about my big dumb animal brain accepting the science behind narrow roads and the evils of certain types of zoning laws, but it's also about stuff in general. If you don't know why someone isn't changing their mind on something, it's probably because the information they're getting hasn't reached a critical mass in their monkey brain yet. Whenever you hear stories about people changing their minds on things or leaving a certain ideology the story never goes "A person on the internet did a slam dunk on me and then I changed my mind."

It's usually a long process that happens over the course of months or years. Seeds planted here and there that coalesce eventually into a new thought or ideology over the course of years or snap together or send someone down a new path after a certain event. Same with me about pedestrian-centric cities. For me the tipping point was finding this video, which isn't necessarily super special or the best and the guy who runs the channel, in my opinion, isn't the most qualified or the most sympathetic towards every city in every situation, but it was the feather that tipped the scales in my brain to "Oh, wait. Maybe everything I thought I knew about how cities work is wrong actually." But that video alone didn't change my mind. With the amount of stuff and people that have gradually and gently been giving me information over the past couple years, something else was bound to eventually change my mind.

People on Tumblr yelling about abolishing the car, if anything, slowed down me changing my mind. Every time I saw a person saying that driving cars is stupid and that cars are bad I took a step back into my old way of thinking in defense. Because I grew up only ever using a car to get around. Rhetoric like that felt like a direct attack on my family, who I know to be loving people who care about other human beings and who drive cars literally everywhere.

And you might say, posts and videos like that aren't actually an attack on people that drive or have to drive. Okay then. Why are they phrased like that? Because that makes you feel good? Because you're angry? Alright, your anger at how it's currently impossible to get around if you don't own a car and how people who don't actually want to drive are being forced to drive is reasonable. And now I understand why it exists. I'm kind of angry too now that I get how this stuff works. However, is calling the people you're trying to convince stupid to their face and immediately bombarding them with your most radical ideas that might be completely detached from their reality and how they understand the world really the most productive way to channel your anger?

What about a guy with a knee problem that lives in rural Appalachia? Do you think he is gonna be convinced by your angry rants about bike lanes? No. He lives on a mountain that he can't climb or bike up because he's disabled and has only ever known getting around in a car. What about a person who overheats easily living in a suburb in the middle of the desert? Do you think she is inspired by your green lush pictures of trolleys running through parks in The Netherlands? No. If she leaves her house for too long without ice water she could literally die and you're going on about getting rid of, in her mind, the only thing that lets her go to the grocery store and not faint.

And again, this post is about my inability to comprehend walkable cities, but it's also about everything else you might ever want to convince someone of. The way you talk about things with your in-group that knows exactly what you're talking about should not be the same way you talk about that thing with people that you're genuinely trying to convince of something.