Why Road Rage

Do you ever wonder why there seems to be so much road rage?
I do and came to this reason. People hold so much anger within, it allows them the chance to release it.
Perhaps if we were more physically active instead of couch potatoes, we wouldn't be so angry.
Any other ideas?

I was told there is far less road rage in Hawaii than in the continental US. Several of my relatives lived in both places.
Driving relies on some very basic childlike learning, perhaps that is partly why this is harder.
Hungary seems to me worse in this respect than either the parts of the US where I lived (e.g. Virginia, Maryland) or some neighboring countries in Europe - Romanians for example drive far more flexibly.
Austria is funny - they drive far more peacefully and with less confrontation in their home country, but when Austrian cars appear in Hungary, they suddenly forget they are a civilized nation.

Do you perceive road rage it has increased? Where do you live?

Skytiger wrote:

Do you ever wonder why there seems to be so much road rage?
I do and came to this reason. People hold so much anger within, it allows them the chance to release it.
Perhaps if we were more physically active instead of couch potatoes, we wouldn't be so angry.
Any other ideas?

IMO, there is no doubt that road rage and most other rages are caused by the triggering of anger that people have been holding under control. Any stressful activity can serve as the trigger, and driving is definitely one of them ... but it seems to be behind disputes between friends and family members, confrontations among strangers over politics or religion', conflict with authority figures of all kinds, and even being part of a large crowd at a parade, concert, sports event, etc.

And my guess is that active people and inactive people, on the average, bottle up equal amounts of anger and other negative emotions, but the former are more likely to have it triggered and dissipated before it becomes severe than the latter are. So I agree that if "couch potatoes" become more active, it may reduce the number of serious rages they exhibit, but only by increasing the number of lesser emotional flare-ups.

Realityrebel wrote:

Skytiger wrote:

Do you ever wonder why there seems to be so much road rage?
I do and came to this reason. People hold so much anger within, it allows them the chance to release it.
Perhaps if we were more physically active instead of couch potatoes, we wouldn't be so angry.
Any other ideas?

IMO, there is no doubt that road rage and most other rages are caused by the triggering of anger that people have been holding under control. Any stressful activity can serve as the trigger, and driving is definitely one of them ... but it seems to be behind disputes between friends and family members, confrontations among strangers over politics or religion', conflict with authority figures of all kinds, and even being part of a large crowd at a parade, concert, sports event, etc.

And my guess is that active people and inactive people, on the average, bottle up equal amounts of anger and other negative emotions, but the former are more likely to have it triggered and dissipated before it becomes severe than the latter are. So I agree that if "couch potatoes" become more active, it may reduce the number of serious rages they exhibit, but only by increasing the number of lesser emotional flare-ups.

Take a look at the age groups that get angry the most.  We have become a push-button society.  Maye we can do something about all ths and go back intime wehre toys were simpler and got the kids out of the house and allwed the to use their imagination.
Parents and this who world need to get off the electronic babysitter kick.
That is just my two cents worth.

LadyG, #4, re: "Take a look at the age groups that get angry the most.  We have become a push-button society.  Maye we can do something about all this and go back in time where toys were simpler and got the kids out of the house and allowed them to use their imagination. Parents in this world need to get off the electronic babysitter kick. That is just my two cents worth."

It's been proven scientifically that children need to get a certain amount of physical exercise every day to be physically and mentally healthy, and also a certain amount of interaction with other people, both children and adults, to learn the socialization skills that create a healthy family and community. IMO, all parents have an obligation to provide both of these opportunities for their children, regardless of their family lifestyle or economic circumstances.

However, as long as this is being done, I also believe that parents need to help their children make maximum use of all the learning and communications opportunies provided them by the Infromation Revolution. In other words, it's a mistake to encourage kids to read books and other literature on paper, and express themselves by writing on paper, as a lot of otherwise enlightened-seeming parents are now doing. Ironically, this is teaching them skills that will be of little use to them in the world they will live in as adults, where practically all information is now stored and communicated in digital form.

No, I see it differently RR.  They need physical books and if you think that there are more on-line then you haven't seen the many writers that I have encountered int he last 8 years that I have been writing.  Many, many books that are not sold or available to read in full on-line.  That will never stop!

Through writing papers from other books teaches them how to write, literally and from the mind thoughts.  I allows for their imagination to shape so that we have in their grasp their future.  It is a parent's responsibility to ready their children for their future and have the needed social skills to get there.

I love real books. In fact I have a personal library they takes up one wall in my living room.
Frankly I think the net should WORK for us, not control us. Doing away with books, making online books the only way to have a book, would IMO be horribly terribly awful thing to happen.

LadyG, #6, re: "No, I see it differently RR. They need physical books and if you think that there are more on-line then you haven't seen the many writers that I have encountered int the last 8 years that I have been writing. Many, many books that are not sold or available to read in full on-line. That will never stop!"

My poor eyesight makes it difficult for me to read more than a few pages of writing on paper at a time, so I rely almost entirely on information I can access using on-line search engines. So far, I've never felt frustrated doing this, because there is a qualitative difference between raw information and the writing style used to communicate it.

re: "Through writing papers from other books teaches them how to write, literally and from the mind thoughts. I allows for their imagination to shape so that we have in their grasp their future. It is a parent's responsibility to ready their children for their future and have the needed social skills to get there."

I agree that right now everyone needs be able to read and write on paper well enough to fill out forms, make grocery lists, and the like, but it looks to me like this is becoming obsolete and will soon be replaced by typing on keyboards, touching letters on a screen, and data entry and retrieval by voice alone.

Skytiger wrote:

I love real books. In fact I have a personal library they takes up one wall in my living room.
Frankly I think the net should WORK for us, not control us. Doing away with books, making online books the only way to have a book, would IMO be horribly terribly awful thing to happen.

IMO, it's important to realize that similar things were said about going to the movies instead of reading books, and later about watching TV.

Realityrebel wrote:

Skytiger wrote:

I love real books. In fact I have a personal library they takes up one wall in my living room.
Frankly I think the net should WORK for us, not control us. Doing away with books, making online books the only way to have a book, would IMO be horribly terribly awful thing to happen.

IMO, it's important to realize that similar things were said about going to the movies instead of reading books, and later about watching TV.

You do know they make books that are in large print now, don't you?

Go to a book store my friend and see just how many books are written on paper that are not wriiten on-line.  Go to a Librry and see just how many of those books are not written on-line or on a computer and are still read and used.  I think that you haven't been to a school lately either or heard the problems kids have with carrying so many books in a back pack.  There is no way all those writters out there, that do not get on the internet or have computers, are going to stop and post their stuff on-line.

It is a very good thing to just sit and read a book without using a computer to do so.  It is going to be a long, long, long, long time before the internet outgrows written books.

I love movies, preferring to watch them at home, and also have a large DVD collection which includes GAME OF THRONES, TRUE BLOOD, and OUTLANDER.
I'm reading OUTLANDER and the books are just as, if not better, than the STARZ version on TV.
Don't really like movie theaters when LOTS of people are there, especially when they won't shut up during the movie.
Books, movies, and HBO, STARZ and other TV series, I love.

Lady G, #10: "Go to a book store my friend and see just how many books are written on paper that are not wriiten on-line. Go to a Librry and see just how many of those books are not written on-line or on a computer and are still read and used. I think that you haven't been to a school lately either or heard the problems kids have with carrying so many books in a back pack. There is no way all those writters out there, that do not get on the internet or have computers, are going to stop and post their stuff on-line."

I don't know how it is where you live, but here in the San Francisco Bay Area over the last ten years, about 75% of the new book stores and 90% of the used book stores have closed due to lack of business. Public libraries are also closing branches and shortening the hours the remaining ones remain open, and they still not only don't look busy when I go into them, most of the people seem to be there to use computers, not to read books and other printed material. Plus, all the indexes are now computorized, and finding a book or article that contains the information you want involves using a search engine.

Schools are a different story, and most elementary and secondary schools around here ban or severely limit the use of all portable digital devices by students, as well as urging parents to impose similar restrictions on their children at home. However, it looks to me like this is because the teachers and school adminitrators know that brick and morter schools are obsolete, and they are trying to keep them going anyway, simply to preserve their own jobs.

re: "It is a very good thing to just sit and read a book without using a computer to do so. It is going to be a long, long, long, long time before the internet outgrows written books."

No, it's obvious that the Internet has already outgrown written books, and the majority of people are now doing more of their research of all kinds on line than in libraries. As for recreational reading, there are already digital books that function the same as paper ones ... except that each one contains a sizable library instead of a single volume, and this library can be changed just by inserting a different card. But more important, getting access to digital reading material is much less expensive, simple because the overhead expenses involved in cyber publishing are much lower than those involved in paper publishing. I'm sure that paper books will be around for a long time, but more as curiosities than as the principle method of written communication ... just as horseback riding, horse drawn carriages, row boats, and sail boats are still around for recreational use, but no longer used as serious transportation.

Give us time and if we don't outgrow our warring ways, we will blast ourselves back to the middle ages.
Horses will again become our transportation and books our only way to enjoy stories.

Skytiger wrote:

Give us time and if we don't outgrow our warring ways, we will blast ourselves back to the middle ages.
Horses will again become our transportation and books our only way to enjoy stories.

It has happened before and will again.  I agree with you.  RR needs to go out to the libraries and ask how many have internet or cell phones or anything electronic like that.  He doesn't realize that not everyone has any of those things.

Lady Guinevere wrote:

Skytiger wrote:

Give us time and if we don't outgrow our warring ways, we will blast ourselves back to the middle ages.
Horses will again become our transportation and books our only way to enjoy stories.

It has happened before and will again.  I agree with you.  RR needs to go out to the libraries and ask how many have internet or cell phones or anything electronic like that.  He doesn't realize that not everyone has any of those things.

The vast majority of people who don't have "internet or cell phone or anything like that" also have so little economic or political clout that none of the Powers That Be give a Tinker's Damn about them.

Look at this bicycle ride... amazing, isn't it?
Quite the opposite of the road rage experience.
http://player.hu/sport-3/eleg-durva-az-ev-leglazabb-bringas-trukkje/

I recall being really against computers in the mid-eighties because the first use that was widespread in the US I could meet head-on was merely a mechanized bureaucracy with washing away corporate responsibilities - e.g. my bank was giving me misleading information on my checking account yet continued to fine me merely because the HQ was in a different town.

Then in revelatory dreams I could see that my father-in-law who worked in a computer field in Hungary was teaching me about word processing and elementary PC handling. Which he really did and helped me start on the road. Yes, it did require something like giving up dogmatic beliefs.

I really think various technologies prove various things - sociologically, and reading books in electronic format is really big in the Eastern part of the world because they are fileshared. People commonly think over here that this is a form of geopolitical justice because making one-fourth to one-tenth of Western wages basically disallows much spending on books even to people like teachers or doctors.

Yet there is a prestige and an ease of handling of a paper volume so I like to buy my favorite books and look forward to curling up with a book as a different thing than reading on a screen. There seems to be less and less of a difference technologically - now Samsung produces flexible phones which are not far from tablets... I read an online news source on my smart phone though I prefer to have serious articles on a real computer.

The imagined heroes of science fiction e.g. Star Trek usually show a preference to real-time physical objects like books... And physical photos are just not like having an image file among countless files...

regmelocco wrote:

Look at this bicycle ride... amazing, isn't it?
Quite the opposite of the road rage experience.
http://player.hu/sport-3/eleg-durva-az-ev-leglazabb-bringas-trukkje/

I clicked on this link, but the video wouldn't open properly for me: I got a page filled with ads and couldn't access the actual article.

reg, #17, re: "I recall being really against computers in the mid-eighties because the first use that was widespread in the US I could meet head-on was merely a mechanized bureaucracy with washing away corporate responsibilities - e.g. my bank was giving me misleading information on my checking account yet continued to fine me merely because the HQ was in a different town. Then in revelatory dreams I could see that my father-in-law who worked in a computer field in Hungary was teaching me about word processing and elementary PC handling. Which he really did and helped me start on the road. Yes, it did require something like giving up dogmatic beliefs."

I started working in the telecommunications field in the mid-Sixties and started operating and programming computers during the Seventies, so I've always viewed the hardware and software that produced the Information Revolution as an insider. For example, during the Eighties all the later drafts of my "War in Heaven Book" were were written on home computers and stored on floppy disks.

re: "I really think various technologies prove various things - sociologically, and reading books in electronic format is really big in the Eastern part of the world because they are fileshared. People commonly think over here that this is a form of geopolitical justice because making one-fourth to one-tenth of Western wages basically disallows much spending on books even to people like teachers or doctors. Yet there is a prestige and an ease of handling of a paper volume so I like to buy my favorite books and look forward to curling up with a book as a different thing than reading on a screen. There seems to be less and less of a difference technologically - now Samsung produces flexible phones which are not far from tablets... I read an online news source on my smart phone though I prefer to have serious articles on a real computer."

I suspect that the comparative cost of paper books and other literature versus their electronic equivalents is a major factor. One of main reasons why I've done practically all of my reading on computer screens since I became disabled in 1993 is because I haven't been able to afford books and magazines, and using public libraries involves extra walking and standing that I'd rather avoid.

re: "The imagined heroes of science fiction e.g. Star Trek usually show a preference to real-time physical objects like books... And physical photos are just not like having an image file among countless files..."

This is true, but both written and dramatic sci-fi has always been slow to keep up with the rapid evolution of both technology and our culture's social contract.

Wow, RR, I didn't know you were so much in the front line of developing computers...
Or you wrote about this earlier but I neglected to grasp the significance...

regmelocco wrote:

Wow, RR, I didn't know you were so much in the front line of developing computers...
Or you wrote about this earlier but I neglected to grasp the significance...

I was on the front line, but was just one of the troops, not an officer.

Something to keep in mind and ponder to what extent will those in the power and elite positions resort to in population control, significant reduction and the ending of wars ?

I have read many different articles that state more than one country has the capability
of unleashing EMP type of weapons..were this to happen all digital electronic instruments
would be destroyed, since most means of controlling everything from power distribution to the transportation industry would bring delivery s immediately to a halt.people would starve in a short time, most would be without jobs, cash would be useless and societies would have the need to become tribal once again..any remaining books would be priceless and rated close to the top on a barter item..
just my opinion of course, but it is not a stretch of the imagination to for see this in the near future just short of all out nuclear wars and complete annihilation of the human race.

Go to world population clock. It says we will not have enough resources to feed ourselves by 2050, if we keep up our current population growth.
It would be so much nicer if we didn't use war as a population control.

I don't see an atomic war in our future, as I don't think the universe will allow us to destroy Earth.
Instead I see massive diseases, famine, and riots based on religions and race; destroying 75% or more of the human race.

Indeed South Korea has a nuke. However they might destroy what they don't intend to, causing a mass fubar they cannot fix.

Skytiger wrote:

Go to world population clock. It says we will not have enough resources to feed ourselves by 2050, if we keep up our current population growth.
It would be so much nicer if we didn't use war as a population control.

I don't see an atomic war in our future, as I don't think the universe will allow us to destroy Earth.
Instead I see massive diseases, famine, and riots based on religions and race; destroying 75% or more of the human race.

Indeed South Korea has a nuke. However they might destroy what they don't intend to, causing a mass fubar they cannot fix.

As you know, I was both surprised and appalled in the mid-Eighties when my Spirit Guides dictated the information that's now in the "War in Heaven" book predicting that most of the Earth's population will die off due to infectious disease in the early part of the 21st century. But I was answered with the information that the only alternative would be nuclear world war that could easily destroy all life on the planet.

And it's North Korea that has its own nuclear weapons. I'm pretty sure that there are also nukes in South Korea, but if so, they belong to the US military forces stationed there.

I don't think the earth will be destroyed. Humans, that's any ones guess. Frankly the way we have treated our planet and all that lives here, as well as each other, is horrible. IMO