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There is no realistic apportioning of resources, or set of plausible new technologies, that will give safe and effective cars the >7 billion people on this plan

There is no realistic apportioning of resources, or set of plausible new technologies, that will give safe and effective cars the >7 billion people on this planet in the next century. At least not without drastic downsides. Cars work great for the wealthy, and are tolerated by the less-wealthy for lack of better options, but are not in any circumstances an egalitarian option. (And, btw, that's likely why you feel like the arguments against cars have an "ascetic moralizing tone"- use of single-person cars is a taken-for-granted habit into which is built deep inequality.)

quotemstr 9y ago
I don't think you're right about car technology scaling, but let's suppose you're right. Why it would follow from cars being infeasible for seven billion people that the citizens of a rich first-world country should have their car use discouraged? Radical egalitarianism is an intensely political position, and city planners shouldn't be pushing it on the population at large by artificially discouraging certain modes of transportation. They should focus on the preferences of the populations they actually serve, not on some Utopian ideal.
- jcranmer 9y ago
  I personally have no problems with people taking their SOVs into the cities, but you do have to acknowledge that taking up excessive space obligates you to have to pay extra costs for taking up that space. In practice, many people who want to commute via SOV often take great umbrage anytime a city takes steps to make them pay the true cost of that decision.
- maxander 9y ago
  There's nothing particularly "radical" about it; if you weight everyone's utility equally when you design, e.g. a city, then the result is one that is definitionally egalitarian. And that is precisely what it means for governments to, as you say, "focus on the preferences of the populations they actually serve." Egalitarianism is only "radical" in the sense that, in most real contexts, some the desires of some subset of people are considered more important- for instance, the people who can pay more, or are a more effective voter bloc. Not that I think the above is the decisive factor against wider adoption of public transportation. The bigger issue is an activation energy problem- public transit is only bearable and useful when a substantial portion of public funds are allocated to them, but the bulk of the public isn't currently inclined to have that happen since they don't presently use the (unbearable and useless) public transit option. Cars are a fairly vicious local maxima.
jessriedel 9y ago
> There is no realistic apportioning of resources, or set of plausible new technologies, that will give safe and effective cars the >7 billion people on this planet in the next century. At least not without drastic downsides. What are you basing this on, and why would you say it as if it is obvious? This is exactly the sort of weird fatalism the GP is talking about. There are already a billion cars on the planet, which is enough for 7 billion people with autonomous self-driving. 90% of US households own a car and the rest of the world will catch up with US wealth within a century. Even current-day-tech electric cars and nuclear power could be used to power them without carbon (at large expense but one that could be afforded after a century of economic growth).

quotemstr 9y ago

I don't think you're right about car technology scaling, but let's suppose you're right. Why it would follow from cars being infeasible for seven billion people that the citizens of a rich first-world country should have their car use discouraged? Radical egalitarianism is an intensely political position, and city planners shouldn't be pushing it on the population at large by artificially discouraging certain modes of transportation. They should focus on the preferences of the populations they actually serve, not on some Utopian ideal.

jcranmer 9y ago
I personally have no problems with people taking their SOVs into the cities, but you do have to acknowledge that taking up excessive space obligates you to have to pay extra costs for taking up that space. In practice, many people who want to commute via SOV often take great umbrage anytime a city takes steps to make them pay the true cost of that decision.
maxander 9y ago
There's nothing particularly "radical" about it; if you weight everyone's utility equally when you design, e.g. a city, then the result is one that is definitionally egalitarian. And that is precisely what it means for governments to, as you say, "focus on the preferences of the populations they actually serve." Egalitarianism is only "radical" in the sense that, in most real contexts, some the desires of some subset of people are considered more important- for instance, the people who can pay more, or are a more effective voter bloc. Not that I think the above is the decisive factor against wider adoption of public transportation. The bigger issue is an activation energy problem- public transit is only bearable and useful when a substantial portion of public funds are allocated to them, but the bulk of the public isn't currently inclined to have that happen since they don't presently use the (unbearable and useless) public transit option. Cars are a fairly vicious local maxima.

jessriedel 9y ago

> There is no realistic apportioning of resources, or set of plausible new technologies, that will give safe and effective cars the >7 billion people on this planet in the next century. At least not without drastic downsides. What are you basing this on, and why would you say it as if it is obvious? This is exactly the sort of weird fatalism the GP is talking about. There are already a billion cars on the planet, which is enough for 7 billion people with autonomous self-driving. 90% of US households own a car and the rest of the world will catch up with US wealth within a century. Even current-day-tech electric cars and nuclear power could be used to power them without carbon (at large expense but one that could be afforded after a century of economic growth).