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If you play good cop, then you're easy to dismiss. If you play bad cop, then you're 'guaranteed to create another pointless culture war'. You can't win. But ju

If you play good cop, then you're easy to dismiss. If you play bad cop, then you're 'guaranteed to create another pointless culture war'. You can't win. But jumping the shark with the personal automobile is certainly wrong and harmful. From a social standpoint it manufactures inequality. Access to effective transportation is the single greatest factor in determining an individual's opportunity for upward economic mobility. And if you live in a world built for cars and can't drive, well, fuck you. It's environmentally destructive. This one's easy, but it's important to note that it isn't just the emissions from the tailpipe, it's all the sprawl and infrastructure built to accomodate the car. Mankind has chalked up a lot of black marks in it's short history, but rendering the biosphere uninhabitable? That takes the cake. In the grand scheme of things, what the hell are we doing if we aren't at least making a nominal effort to leave the place in better condition than it was when we arrived? Economically it's bad for us too. James Kunstler called the suburbs 'the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of western civilization'. When I first read that it struck me as a sensational and hyperbolic statement, but after having it knock around in my head for a few years, I don't think it is an outrageous claim to make. One of the inherent contradictions of human nature is that we're surprisingly adaptable, yet stubbornly resistant to change. Nobody likes to be told they're doing it wrong, but what else is there to say? You're doing it wrong.

watwut 9y ago
I don't play cop at all. I like biking and use public transport fairly often. I do separate garbage etc. I don't think that driving is inherently immoral. I think that when you are framing it that way, you are overstating individual contribution to bad environment. Otherwise said, you are manipulating and exaggerating and using fear to get your wish. And better public infrastructure for biking here did came after a lobbying and money collection and what not from activists. They did not used the "you are all bad people unless we get what we want" nor "we are hollier then you" strategy. And yep, such strategy breeds more stubborn resistance - because while many people are with accepting bike trail and what not (it does not costs all that much in the grand scheme of things), once you insult them you pretty much lost before you even started.

watwut 9y ago

I don't play cop at all. I like biking and use public transport fairly often. I do separate garbage etc. I don't think that driving is inherently immoral. I think that when you are framing it that way, you are overstating individual contribution to bad environment. Otherwise said, you are manipulating and exaggerating and using fear to get your wish. And better public infrastructure for biking here did came after a lobbying and money collection and what not from activists. They did not used the "you are all bad people unless we get what we want" nor "we are hollier then you" strategy. And yep, such strategy breeds more stubborn resistance - because while many people are with accepting bike trail and what not (it does not costs all that much in the grand scheme of things), once you insult them you pretty much lost before you even started.