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Yeah trains are so superior. I mean all it takes is for one guy to decide to off himself or one failure and an entire city is unable to get anywhere for hours!!

Yeah trains are so superior. I mean all it takes is for one guy to decide to off himself or one failure and an entire city is unable to get anywhere for hours!!! Personally I can't wait to move back home where I could own a car, and live in a nice house in the beautiful suburbs where everything I need is 5-15 minutes away and I can go shopping at any time of day without worrying about being robbed. I live a block from the train station. The store is less than a block from the next station. It still takes FOREVER to go there and back. I don't know how people who live farther out do it. Not to mention you have no privacy. Cars let you have a lot more privacy than trains. Most people on hacker news care about online privacy,why they are so biased towards something in meatspace that preserves a little of the privacy we have left is beyond me. I've read all the arguments and I just don't think it's superior in terms of privacy period, for convenience; public transit is only better in the most dense cities, even then it's convenience varies greatly by person depending on where you live and where you need to go.

flukus 10y ago
What are you doing that you need privacy while driving?
- curioussavage 10y ago
  There are a lot of great rebuttals out there to this attitude. I think Snowden voiced a great one about privacy - "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say,". I hope you can figure out how that can be applied to this too... But to point out the obvious it's not just about what you do/say while you are driving but also where you go, when, and with who to name a few things.
  - flukus 10y ago
    But you're in public, why would you have any expectation of privacy?
    - curioussavage 10y ago
      Oh wow, you have me there.... Except we somehow still allow legal action on people for stalking others, even if they are just following them around in public spaces. I can imagine you as the defense lawyer saying "but she was in public your honor...". To be clear I'm only addressing the moral aspect of your point. I don't care about the legality. For example, It's very different to argue that since I am in public I don't have the right to not be photographed compared to arguing that I don't have the right to not be tracked. These public transit systems have tracking built in from the start. At least stuff like traffic cams that are just bolted on to infrastructure can be fought
exergy 10y ago
I really have a hard time understanding this kind of attitude. No one is advocating that you _don't_ own a car. Cars were a great invention, they've reduced the size of our world, and genuinely made life better, no doubt. But an entire world undertaking clown-like 40 mile commutes each way, or getting into their tin boxes just to drive down to a store 3 miles away to buy some dishwashing soap because they're too lazy for bikes is no panacea either. Because what you're saying that your store is literally less than two train stations away, and you can only make that journey in a car. And that hyperbole about the "little of privacy we have left" is exactly that. Hyperbolic. What exactly are you doing in a car during your morning commute that requires levels of privacy that trains simply cannot offer? Listening to music? Reading a book? Working on your laptop? News flash. You can do all of that on a train, and no one cares. What I will concede is that the US is particularly idiotic in not offering even a semblance of reliability in their public transport. I stayed in DC, and the metro their is prone to failure, with the buses being even less frequent and late. However, a well functioning public transit system is a blessing and every city/suburb lacking it is the worse for it.
- curioussavage 10y ago
  Yes, I have read plenty of comments arguing that when we are all 'enlightened' nobody will own cars. I addressed the privacy point below, but to repeat myself, what you do during the commute is not my main worry, its where you go, when and with whom. I would think thats obvious. "And that hyperbole about the "little of privacy we have left" is exactly that" As to whether that is hyperbole, after the things that have come out in the last few years I think many people would agree with me not you. The hyperbole here is your '40 mile commute'. Very few people have commutes that far. Its funny I would argue that those two situation are particularly convenient to do in a car. If you are one of those suckers with a super long commute you probably want the freedom to run errands on the way or have the freedom to stick around at one place until late ( after the stupid trains stop running for example) Quick store runs a mile or two away are actually quick when you don't have a 5-10 min walk to the train/bus stop and 5 - ? minute wait with the slow commute in between. I just love this silly attempt all over hacker news and reddit to shame people into riding bikes. Why don't you stop lazily using that phone to communicate with people and go find them and tell them in person, or how about you throw out your oven and start roasting your meals over a fire. What is considered lazy is very subjective. Using technology that makes things easier/quicker is not something I consider lazy.
205guy 10y ago
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not (Poe's law), but here are two rebuttals anyway: 1. 5 minutes to drive anywhere in the suburbs---bwahahaha, you must be joking. When everyone lives in the suburbs, it's all sprawl, and some left turn lights take 5 minutes. You know, if I had to sum up one reason why I left the suburbs, it's the left turn lights in Silicon Valley: the roads are so large, they don't trust people to yield on left turns, so they make you wait for a left turn arrow whether there is traffic or not. 2. License plate recognition is much simpler and more reliable than face recognition. And it's already deployed. Just sayin'.
- curioussavage 10y ago
  1 just like you example I was only referring to the suburbs where i used to live. I think anywhere in Silicon Valley is a crappy place to use as an example for suburbs. I also said everywhere I "need" to go not everywhere I want to go. (I'm of course not including going to work) grocery store, gas, heck even city hall, all the regular places. I was of course exaggerating the time. But it's still a maximum of 20 minutes for the few that aren't 2 license plate readers traffic cams etc, are all things that are bolted on top of the road/car system. People can and are fighting them. But trains are the perfect transportation system for surveillance. All the data is there built in. While getting rid of surveillance on the road will be hard, pigs will fly before they remove cameras and anonymize payments on trains.

flukus 10y ago

What are you doing that you need privacy while driving?

curioussavage 10y ago
There are a lot of great rebuttals out there to this attitude. I think Snowden voiced a great one about privacy - "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say,". I hope you can figure out how that can be applied to this too... But to point out the obvious it's not just about what you do/say while you are driving but also where you go, when, and with who to name a few things.
- flukus 10y ago
  But you're in public, why would you have any expectation of privacy?
  - curioussavage 10y ago
    Oh wow, you have me there.... Except we somehow still allow legal action on people for stalking others, even if they are just following them around in public spaces. I can imagine you as the defense lawyer saying "but she was in public your honor...". To be clear I'm only addressing the moral aspect of your point. I don't care about the legality. For example, It's very different to argue that since I am in public I don't have the right to not be photographed compared to arguing that I don't have the right to not be tracked. These public transit systems have tracking built in from the start. At least stuff like traffic cams that are just bolted on to infrastructure can be fought

exergy 10y ago

I really have a hard time understanding this kind of attitude. No one is advocating that you _don't_ own a car. Cars were a great invention, they've reduced the size of our world, and genuinely made life better, no doubt. But an entire world undertaking clown-like 40 mile commutes each way, or getting into their tin boxes just to drive down to a store 3 miles away to buy some dishwashing soap because they're too lazy for bikes is no panacea either. Because what you're saying that your store is literally less than two train stations away, and you can only make that journey in a car. And that hyperbole about the "little of privacy we have left" is exactly that. Hyperbolic. What exactly are you doing in a car during your morning commute that requires levels of privacy that trains simply cannot offer? Listening to music? Reading a book? Working on your laptop? News flash. You can do all of that on a train, and no one cares. What I will concede is that the US is particularly idiotic in not offering even a semblance of reliability in their public transport. I stayed in DC, and the metro their is prone to failure, with the buses being even less frequent and late. However, a well functioning public transit system is a blessing and every city/suburb lacking it is the worse for it.

curioussavage 10y ago
Yes, I have read plenty of comments arguing that when we are all 'enlightened' nobody will own cars. I addressed the privacy point below, but to repeat myself, what you do during the commute is not my main worry, its where you go, when and with whom. I would think thats obvious. "And that hyperbole about the "little of privacy we have left" is exactly that" As to whether that is hyperbole, after the things that have come out in the last few years I think many people would agree with me not you. The hyperbole here is your '40 mile commute'. Very few people have commutes that far. Its funny I would argue that those two situation are particularly convenient to do in a car. If you are one of those suckers with a super long commute you probably want the freedom to run errands on the way or have the freedom to stick around at one place until late ( after the stupid trains stop running for example) Quick store runs a mile or two away are actually quick when you don't have a 5-10 min walk to the train/bus stop and 5 - ? minute wait with the slow commute in between. I just love this silly attempt all over hacker news and reddit to shame people into riding bikes. Why don't you stop lazily using that phone to communicate with people and go find them and tell them in person, or how about you throw out your oven and start roasting your meals over a fire. What is considered lazy is very subjective. Using technology that makes things easier/quicker is not something I consider lazy.

205guy 10y ago

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not (Poe's law), but here are two rebuttals anyway: 1. 5 minutes to drive anywhere in the suburbs---bwahahaha, you must be joking. When everyone lives in the suburbs, it's all sprawl, and some left turn lights take 5 minutes. You know, if I had to sum up one reason why I left the suburbs, it's the left turn lights in Silicon Valley: the roads are so large, they don't trust people to yield on left turns, so they make you wait for a left turn arrow whether there is traffic or not. 2. License plate recognition is much simpler and more reliable than face recognition. And it's already deployed. Just sayin'.

curioussavage 10y ago
1 just like you example I was only referring to the suburbs where i used to live. I think anywhere in Silicon Valley is a crappy place to use as an example for suburbs. I also said everywhere I "need" to go not everywhere I want to go. (I'm of course not including going to work) grocery store, gas, heck even city hall, all the regular places. I was of course exaggerating the time. But it's still a maximum of 20 minutes for the few that aren't 2 license plate readers traffic cams etc, are all things that are bolted on top of the road/car system. People can and are fighting them. But trains are the perfect transportation system for surveillance. All the data is there built in. While getting rid of surveillance on the road will be hard, pigs will fly before they remove cameras and anonymize payments on trains.