Quote:
Originally Posted by Titan2
While I am at it, I totally disagree with Slivers' latest rants. They come off very self centered and completely disregarding other people. Bear bangers have a reason. Do you pull the fire alarm because you like the sound and get to see cool truck with lights? What about spraying the fire extinguisher all over cause it 'looks cool'? Lots of stuff that has a specific purpose is 'fun' but you are not supposed to use it that way. Period. Bear bangers are to be used when you see a bear and want to drive it from you. In that case, the use is justified. Setting it off at random, possibly scaring a bear in hearing range, your stated purpose for doing it, is reckless and could cause the bear to confront other hikers out there. That is a serious dick move. The guy coming off the path should have punched you in the mouth tbh. We live in a society and have to play nice with each other or it all goes to hell. Finally, you owe WhiteTiger an apology. Your comments about him, making fun of the essential work that he does to make a pissy selfish point was totally offside. I love you as a poster and get a lot of kicks out of your antics and appreciate you share them but sometimes I disagree with your take. There it is.
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To be clear, I was - in no way whatsoever - making fun of his work. My brain...for all its flaws...doesn't operate like that. There's dignity and necessity in virtually every job out there and I have particular gratitude and respect for jobs people have that help us all.
WhiteTiger, if you interpreted my remarks as disparaging your job and the work you do I most definitely and wholeheartedly apologize. That was not my intent, I'm sorry, buddy.
What did I mean then? WT often posts things viewed through a lens that - imo - is a pro-authoritarian one. I've seen him carte blanche defend police helicopters buzzing over our heads and cite statistics that the helos are responsible for x amount of arrests. Fair, but I don't like that because I don't think the trade off of having the state police us from the air and look at me in my backyard is worth it to catch a kid breaking the window of a bus shelter. Quantity of arrests is a bad metric for justifying the disruptive use of helicopters by police in our city.
He said I'm misusing emergency resources. That's ridiculous. These are not emergency resources (to me that implies public resources since I'm allowed to use my legal and personal resources however I please...what I do is legal). It's a fricken bear banger. I guarantee you 9/10 people present when I blast them off love it. It's like whenever I shoot off fireworks...there's always that 1/10 who will get scared 'the cops will come' - I even have a friend who walked 100 meters away last February when I and 15 of my friends were shooting them off over the lake in Invermere because she thought we'd get in trouble.
I don't believe there is trouble from authorities peaking around all the bushes ready to bust me. I think calling a bear banger a 'misuse of emergency resources' is a gross exaggeration and mischaracterisation of what I do and what bear bangers - bought at Canadian Tire - are.
So if there is a pattern of wt posting pro-authority at the expense of fun, then I'm going to roll my eyes. I believe there is that pattern. Is he a bad guy? No way...I just think he's very biased toward not bending any rules (this one isn't even a rule, btw, you're literally permitted to do this) and he's not afraid to vocally call out behavior with an authoritative tone channeling authority I don't believe he has.
I also don't think there are any news outlets waiting to break a story about a 911 call centre agent ignoring a post about bear bangers in the mountains. He didn't need to come in and lecture me on emergency resources. It was Sliver's resource. It was used as intended...to scare away bears on a hike.
And the guy should have punched me in the mouth? Lol, what? Newsflash, there are bears in the mountains. Probably one on every face of every mountain in Canmore. I did a two hour ride yesterday over two mountain faces and it didn't even cross my mind once that there weren't bears around me...because there are. If dude surmised there was a bear on the mountain because of the banger, well, I'm glad I could make him aware if he's uncomfortable hiking around bears. Just a reality of the mountains unless he wants to support my dream of a cull.
A fricken helicopter (back to helicopters, apparently) are way louder and are more disruptive to nature than one bear banger. And they fly around Canmore all the time. They must do site seeing tours or something because they fly low, too.
So anyway, was I coming at wt? Yes. Was it in response to his lecture? Yes. Was I making fun of his job? Not at all (intentionally, that is...I remain sincere in my apology for both how it came out and how it was interpreted - I accept full responsibility). Do I think he's a company man who - at least publicly on the forum - posts and discusses things through a pro-authority lens...yeah, I mean I do because he seems to even admit he does. I'm basically saying, you know how you post from that one perspective? I don't like it.
So feel free to defend him (very fair) and vehemently disagree with my post, opinion, delivery, actions, etc.; however, please just realize I wasn't degrading his work.