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"Hey, Mom, are we going to visit grandma and grandpa for Christmas this year?" "Sorry, sweetie, gas is too expensive. We can't go this year." "Honey, are we

"Hey, Mom, are we going to visit grandma and grandpa for Christmas this year?" "Sorry, sweetie, gas is too expensive. We can't go this year." "Honey, are we going to finally take a vacation this year?" "Sorry, sweetheart, I just don't think we can afford it. It would cost too much to make the trip." "Hey, Mom, can I sign up for the traveling baseball team this summer?" "I'm sorry, dear, we can't afford all that extra driving every week." "Dad, can I apply for that job on the other side of town?" "Sorry, son, I can't afford to drive you back and forth to work every day on top of all the other driving I have to do." "Son, can you drive me to my chemo treatments in Big City this month?" "I'm sorry, Dad, but I can't afford to drive that extra 500 miles a week." Those are just the kinds of issues that come up as a direct result. The increased cost of everything in the economy means that everything from eating out, to going to the movies, to getting the braces that your 14-year-old needs becomes more difficult for the average American. The question is, what kind of person wants other people to remain in poverty, and why?

thrownaway2424 11y ago
This is a distinctly ignorant American perspective on things. In civilized countries the conversation goes like this: "Hey Mom, are we going to visit grandma for Christmas this year?" "Yes dear, I booked the train tickets last month."
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  Thank God this "uncivilized" and "ignorant" country bailed you all out from the Nazis and Soviets and put an end to hundreds of years of Europeans slaughtering each other. Trying to cast a whole nation as ignorant and uncivilized, because of cars vs trains of all things, I think reveals a lot more about you than about America. Our cars have served us pretty well, seeing that the poorest US state is wealthier per capita than almost all Western European countries, including Britain, France, and Germany. Of course, cars are not the main reason for America's success, but they don't seem to have held us back much.
  - dang 11y ago
    Please don't respond to an inflammatory comment with off-topic rants. That makes the thread worse. Instead, simply flag it. You can flag a comment by clicking on its timestamp to go to its page, then clicking 'flag'. There's a small karma threshold (31) before such links appear.
    - alphapapa 11y ago
      Why do some accounts with >31 karma not see flag links?
      - dang 11y ago
        They should. What made you think they don't?
        alphapapa 11y ago
        ...Well...they were not visible for me earlier today...when I clicked on comment timestamps, there was no flag link. But now the link is there...so, I uh...don't know what to say, LOL.
        dang 11y ago
        There are a few possible explanations for what you saw. You can't flag direct replies to you, just like you can't downvote them. And flag links disappear after two weeks (I think), which is also the point at which voting is turned off. But in general, if you have 31 or greater karma, you see the same flag links that everyone else does.
- douche 11y ago
  Sure. That kind of infrastructure makes sense when you jam so many people into such tiny countries. Great Britain is just a tad bigger than New England, and it's got five times as many people in it.
  - thrownaway2424 11y ago
    If you're going to be hyperbolic, pick better examples. Great Britain is smaller than Nevada, but it has TWENTY TIMES as many people in it! Which is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to transportation policy!
    - marcoperaza 11y ago
      If you've spent any amount of time in the US, outside of the handful of dense urban areas with subways, you'd know that public transportation cannot serve our needs. We are too spread out. We made our choices on this long ago and there's really no going back. Interestingly, automated cars will solve most, if not all, problems with car transportation.
    - dang 11y ago
      Also, please don't use uppercase for emphasis. It's basically yelling at people. That's in the HN guidelines too. You might reread them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 11y ago
  Inflammatory and bigoted comments break the HN guidelines. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do this. Perhaps you didn't mean it in a bigoted way, but conforming that closely to the genre is definitely not ok here.
yongjik 11y ago
"Hey, Mom, are we going to visit grandma and grandpa for Christmas this year?" "Oh honey don't you remember? They passed away last year. Lung cancer." According to a study, automobile emission causes 53,000 premature deaths every year in the US. The question is, what kind of person wants other people to die early, and why? Source: http://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-early-deaths-each-year-in-the-us-0829 http://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-e... > Emissions from road transportation are the most significant contributor, causing 53,000 premature deaths, followed closely by power generation, with 52,000.
- alphapapa 11y ago
  I'm sorry, but it's not possible to know how many fewer people would die each year in the entire country if we did not drive gas-powered cars. It's not possible to tie a case of lung cancer to the fact that cars exist. "If only we drove electric cars charged by solar plants, grandpa would have lived 7 more years!" No, it doesn't work that way. Even if you strapped masks to everyone's face that measured the fumes they breathed from birth to death, you couldn't make a statement like, "If we didn't use fossil fuels, Bob Smith would have lived 5 years longer." By the way, how about the greatly increased life expectancy brought on by the amenities of modern life made possible by the use of fossil fuels? You know, abundant varieties of food in-and-out-of season, medicines, transportation, HVAC, communciations... the list goes on and on. If you want to go back to the frontier lifestyle, be my guest. People didn't live very long back then, and life was very hard.

thrownaway2424 11y ago

This is a distinctly ignorant American perspective on things. In civilized countries the conversation goes like this: "Hey Mom, are we going to visit grandma for Christmas this year?" "Yes dear, I booked the train tickets last month."

marcoperaza 11y ago
Thank God this "uncivilized" and "ignorant" country bailed you all out from the Nazis and Soviets and put an end to hundreds of years of Europeans slaughtering each other. Trying to cast a whole nation as ignorant and uncivilized, because of cars vs trains of all things, I think reveals a lot more about you than about America. Our cars have served us pretty well, seeing that the poorest US state is wealthier per capita than almost all Western European countries, including Britain, France, and Germany. Of course, cars are not the main reason for America's success, but they don't seem to have held us back much.
- dang 11y ago
  Please don't respond to an inflammatory comment with off-topic rants. That makes the thread worse. Instead, simply flag it. You can flag a comment by clicking on its timestamp to go to its page, then clicking 'flag'. There's a small karma threshold (31) before such links appear.
  - alphapapa 11y ago
    Why do some accounts with >31 karma not see flag links?
    - dang 11y ago
      They should. What made you think they don't?
      - alphapapa 11y ago
        ...Well...they were not visible for me earlier today...when I clicked on comment timestamps, there was no flag link. But now the link is there...so, I uh...don't know what to say, LOL.
        dang 11y ago
        There are a few possible explanations for what you saw. You can't flag direct replies to you, just like you can't downvote them. And flag links disappear after two weeks (I think), which is also the point at which voting is turned off. But in general, if you have 31 or greater karma, you see the same flag links that everyone else does.
douche 11y ago
Sure. That kind of infrastructure makes sense when you jam so many people into such tiny countries. Great Britain is just a tad bigger than New England, and it's got five times as many people in it.
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
  If you're going to be hyperbolic, pick better examples. Great Britain is smaller than Nevada, but it has TWENTY TIMES as many people in it! Which is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to transportation policy!
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    If you've spent any amount of time in the US, outside of the handful of dense urban areas with subways, you'd know that public transportation cannot serve our needs. We are too spread out. We made our choices on this long ago and there's really no going back. Interestingly, automated cars will solve most, if not all, problems with car transportation.
  - dang 11y ago
    Also, please don't use uppercase for emphasis. It's basically yelling at people. That's in the HN guidelines too. You might reread them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dang 11y ago
Inflammatory and bigoted comments break the HN guidelines. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do this. Perhaps you didn't mean it in a bigoted way, but conforming that closely to the genre is definitely not ok here.

yongjik 11y ago

"Hey, Mom, are we going to visit grandma and grandpa for Christmas this year?" "Oh honey don't you remember? They passed away last year. Lung cancer." According to a study, automobile emission causes 53,000 premature deaths every year in the US. The question is, what kind of person wants other people to die early, and why? Source: http://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-early-deaths-each-year-in-the-us-0829 http://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-e... > Emissions from road transportation are the most significant contributor, causing 53,000 premature deaths, followed closely by power generation, with 52,000.

alphapapa 11y ago
I'm sorry, but it's not possible to know how many fewer people would die each year in the entire country if we did not drive gas-powered cars. It's not possible to tie a case of lung cancer to the fact that cars exist. "If only we drove electric cars charged by solar plants, grandpa would have lived 7 more years!" No, it doesn't work that way. Even if you strapped masks to everyone's face that measured the fumes they breathed from birth to death, you couldn't make a statement like, "If we didn't use fossil fuels, Bob Smith would have lived 5 years longer." By the way, how about the greatly increased life expectancy brought on by the amenities of modern life made possible by the use of fossil fuels? You know, abundant varieties of food in-and-out-of season, medicines, transportation, HVAC, communciations... the list goes on and on. If you want to go back to the frontier lifestyle, be my guest. People didn't live very long back then, and life was very hard.