Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

Should we take bets on if Gonch uses smoke detectors in his house?

Since we're off the beaten path on this topic...

My 9-year-old son told me he wants to dress up as the Coronavirus for Halloween. You know, a DIY-type costume that I've done in the past.

How does the Coasterbuzz Community feel about this?

OhioStater said:

now he's been told 5) that the real problem is that he doesn't really love himself.

I didn't say that. I said that *I* didn't, and I was careful to put it that way. I can't tell Gonch what he thinks.

Lord Gonchar said:

In the Jeep, I literally had to do some bizarre dance like hold the brake, buckle the seat belt in, count to ten, remove it, pump the brake, put the seat belt in again, count to ten, hold the brake again, put the seat belt in count to ten... I don't remember exactly, but it was a hilarious procedure.

And how did your wife feel about THAT?

I don't think any of those things about Gonch. I'm sure he's a compassionate, loving person who cares deeply about his family. I understand that his justification is that the risk is not high enough to care one way or the other. What I'm getting hung up on is that, at least to me, wearing or not wearing a seat belt makes no difference to my driving experience, nor to anything else about my state of mind, the way I view myself, etc. I just don't get it, but maybe there's nothing to get. It's really my problem, I guess.

OhioStater said:

All I know is that in one page, Gonch said he and his wife don't wear seatbelts and has subsequently been told (by people who don't even really "know" him) that 1) he doesn't really know how to love or care about his wife or children, 2) probably doesn't experience authentic empathy, 3) is most likely psychologically underdeveloped, 4) doesn't care about his impact on society...and now he's been told 5) that the real problem is that he doesn't really love himself. By association, his wife is being told the same things.

Lord Gonchar said way before this all blew up in his face:

I dunno. I chose the word "sanctimonious" deliberately in that last post, because after six months an 113 pages, I finally figured out that's the recurring tone in the thread that I find particularly offputting.

So yeah. That happened.

I legitimately had no idea this was such a thing to people. I'm amazed (although not displeased 😈) at how it blew up.

It should be no surprise that, in general, I subscribe to an "I'll do me, you do you" mindset. I'd certainly err on the side of personal freedom over societal good if given the choice. If that makes me someone putting ideology over common sense then so be it. To me, it's common sense that people should be able to do whatever they want in most cases.

Fun said:

Ergo, Gonch dying by not wearing his seatbelt will cost each of us 4 tenths of a cent.

Gonch said in reply to something else earlier:

My not wearing a seatbelt doesn't affect you in any way - without having to connect more dots than I find reasonable.

To me, this falls under my previous logic. I'm sure we can draw cause-and-effect lines between a lot of innocuous things we do every day and how they affect others.

eightdotthree said:

Should we take bets on if Gonch uses smoke detectors in his house?

We do. They're hardwired and were here when we bought the place. If they were the battery kind, I'd likely pop the battery or whatever when it started beeping and forget about it.

Although, there IS one in the basement that the contractors overlooked with the tornado rebuild/repair that is still just a bare connection after 9 months.

Bakeman31092 said:

But the whole notion of only caring about things that directly affect you? I don't know where that line gets drawn.

I don't either. But some of us want to move the...(ahem)...slider...(smile)...much further than I would and we could debate personal responsibility, personal freedom, and societal responsibility all day.

At any rate, sorry I sidetracked the pandemic discussion with the shocking revelation that I'm not a seat belt guy. (I really need to start a YouTube channel where I just be myself and inadvertently rile people up - that'd be engagment gold)

Can we start arguing about the coronavirus costume now?

My 9-year-old son told me he wants to dress up as the Coronavirus for Halloween. You know, a DIY-type costume that I've done in the past.

Will the virus be wearing an orange wig?

I have always found this fascinating.

It is apparently wrong to feel the following about a person that is not known...

1) he doesn't really know how to love or care about his wife or children, 2) probably doesn't experience authentic empathy, 3) is most likely psychologically underdeveloped, 4) doesn't care about his impact on society...and now he's been told 5) that the real problem is that he doesn't really love himself.

but it is OK to feel this way about a person that is not known...

I'm sure he's a compassionate, loving person who cares deeply about his family.

An unknown person cannot be bad, but they can be good. Why is that?

I'm not even sure now how the seatbelt thing came up, but if one argues that the decision about wearing one has no effect on others (which is not true, if only for negatively impacting the insurance pools we all have to pay into), then I make the assumption that this is to agree that not wearing a mask in public does potentially affect others.

What has happened to Coasterbuzz?

I'm assuming this is the joke? https://coasterbuzz.com/Forums/Topic/what-has-happened-to-coasterbuzz

Whether it is seat belts or masks, most of this conversation is relevant to our hobby. The world of amusement parks has never been contextualized on the collectivism vs individualism continuum. It's important now as we have parks that are not opening because of collectivist politics, and other parks that are open because of individualistic politics. The debate about these politics (and their antecedents such as wearing a seatbelt) is very much in keeping with the spirit of Coasterbuzz.

I meant it as a joke, of which your link was the origin.

Insert the obligatory, “It’s not funny if you have to explain it,” comment here.

If a joke needed to be explained, someone would've explained it already.

Or Maverick.

TheMillenniumRider said:

So has anyone ever messed around in a Subaru? It stops it self both forward and backward from obstacles. It stays in the lanes decently well it had adaptive cruise and a million other safety related gadgetry. How many people are riding around in these and are paying that much less attention because the car will catch their screw ups?

Technology and advancements make people less aware and also dumbs down the population to an extent.

TheMillenniumRider said:
I feel like somehow this discussion got caught up in our personal opinions on seatbelt trying to be imposed onto others. I couldn’t care less if you wear it or you don’t. Nor should you care if I do. My problem with seatbelts isn’t anything to do with our personal choices. It’s that they aren’t our choices to make. I should be able to decide to wear it or not. I should not have that decision made by a government. Especially one which allows much more harmful items to remain legal.

Don’t get me wrong, leave the other stuff legal and allow the choice to be made by the citizen. It just shows that the government is not driven by what’s good for the majority. It is driven by dollars and cents.

You make some really great points and I'm with you most of the way and then you draw some conclusions that come out of left field and totally lose me.

Lord Gonchar said:

And I'm not dead. Looks like I'm doing a pretty good job.

That's what everyone who died said, right before they died. ;) I actually don't care at all about anyone's seat belt use, but I do find it fascinating to try to understand people who are very different from me.

Since we're sort of sidebarring and taking a break from the pandemic stuff, let me ask another question. I'm asking because it's also car/safety related and something I not only never thought about, but always wondered who did...so now I'm curious as to if it's a thing.

Does everyone pay attention to car safety ratings and does it/has it affected your decision of which vehicle to buy?

I didn't pay much attention when we bought our car last year. So much of the safety technology--side airbags, crumple zones, blind spot detection & warning, collision detection & warning--has become industry standard that the only way a safety rating would stand out is if it was exceptionally poor.

Say I was a precautious person and my house got taken out by a tornado anyway, I may find a few less F-ks to give…

For Halloween in 2001, one of friends decided to take to the streets of Coconut Grove (those Days at the U!) as “Anthrax”. A lot of baby powder caked all over (which shed) and a bunch of envelopes taped to him: NY Post, NBC News, various senators. You can imagine how that went down. Though we were 19, not 9.

Safety ratings on cars: A weighted factor down the list but not the factor for me. Style, maintenance and performance coming in higher. Control being way more important safety factor then crash rating on my list.