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As a _ who never owned I would love to see __ completely banned. I guess I sometimes feel this way about some things, but then pretty quickly get over

by zaroth 9y ago

As a ___ who never owned ____ I would love to see ____ completely banned. I guess I sometimes feel this way about some things, but then pretty quickly get over it and realize that other people have different utility functions than me, and that I kinda like this whole life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness thing. I much rather take the approach that externalities be accounted for properly than to ban anything that produces an externality. So it’s rather much more like; how many trees do you want me to plant to keep my car? Or more probably, enjoy the $2.50/gal I just paid your town in taxes to fill up my gas tank. Instead of, fuck off with your dirty car you’re not welcome here.

theothertom 9y ago
$2.50/gal would be a massive price cut in most of Europe. A quick glance suggests that petrol is around 1.359 €/L in Germany at the moment.
- Tuxer 9y ago
  He/she meant in pure taxes
tobltobs 9y ago
You seriously believe those $2.50/gal peanuts do account for the whole cost and damage you create with your lazy lifestyle?
- zaroth 9y ago
  What a bizarre rebuttal to see on HN. But I’ll respond despite the poor tone. I took a guess of $2.50 per gallon in total net externality. Turns out after a bit of Googling a study out of Harvard University [1] put the number at $2.10. So, yeah I do believe it, seriously! By the way, those $2.50 peanuts would add up to $360 billion per year in the US. I don’t have a problem with a gas tax that tries to fully cover the externalities of driving, as long as the money is earmarked to actually try to offset the cost. [1] - https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/m-rcbg/heep/ee-workshop_131024-25/supp/2.a%20Anderson/ParryWallsHarrington2007.pdf https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/m-rcbg/heep/ee-workshop_131024...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
Noos 9y ago
If anything, this site has a nasty "sacrifice life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for some future concept of good" thing going on at times. I sense we'd all be packed in cities, forced to ride bicycles, eat only vegetables, be unable to reproduce without a permit, and live in massive apartment towers with 200 sq of space to save the world.
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  This site also has a nasty, "I should be able to do anything I want, and damn any externalities" thing, too.
bwindels 9y ago
The thing is, I don't see how you can put a price on these externalities. 13.000 people die early in Germany alone because of this. What would you have them do with this money? Planting trees wont do them much good. Liberty is not an absolute thing. My freedom to drive my car ends where it encroaches on other peoples freedom to have a passable living environment. We've banned smoking in public spaces for exactly the same reasons. The current system is really the tyranny of the majority. Let's just be honest about that and not use euphemisms like "accounting for externalities".
- zaroth 9y ago
  Personally I was thinking purely in terms of the various forms of pollution, although the Harvard study does try to account for injury and loss of life. Externality is an economic theory, far from a euphemism. It’s easy to gauge how many lives are lost due to the automobile. But how many lives are saved? How many lives are enriched? How many lives are even made possible because of the automobile? You can look at only the costs of a thing, but I find the appeal to emotion, similar to gun control arguments, to be entirely unconvincing. Furthermore, technology has steadily improved the safety of these machines, and I’m convinced we’re less than a decade away from a quantum leap in safety by automating more and more of the driving process. As automobiles get quieter, safer, less polluting, available on demand, and less expensive, I’m afraid you’re going to see quite a bit more of them, not less. It’s nothing less than economic warfare to ban diesel cars outright from entering a city. Ban the sale of new diesels if you want. Tax the hell out of diesel fuel if you want. Add a toll booth and set a lower speed limit. But your well meaning compatriots spent their hard earned money to buy their vehicles and if you’d just assume fuck them over for it, I’m sure they will find a way to repay the favor. Probably by not coming to your city (and spending their money there) in the first place. To which you might say, “Good riddance!” And we have an expression for that too. Oftentimes there is an entirely valid reason to get in a car and drive somewhere. I know, this may be shocking to you. Shocking to the people talking about bicycling a couch uphill downthread too. There are 45 million passenger cars in Germany (for 82 million people) so it seems you’re in the minority on this. Before you call for just outright banning cars, maybe consider how you could make public policy which would decrease the number of cars by 10% without increasing the cost of cars.

As a ___ who never owned ____ I would love to see ____ completely banned. I guess I sometimes feel this way about some things, but then pretty quickly get over

by zaroth 9y ago

theothertom 9y ago

$2.50/gal would be a massive price cut in most of Europe. A quick glance suggests that petrol is around 1.359 €/L in Germany at the moment.

Tuxer 9y ago
He/she meant in pure taxes

tobltobs 9y ago

You seriously believe those $2.50/gal peanuts do account for the whole cost and damage you create with your lazy lifestyle?

zaroth 9y ago
What a bizarre rebuttal to see on HN. But I’ll respond despite the poor tone. I took a guess of $2.50 per gallon in total net externality. Turns out after a bit of Googling a study out of Harvard University [1] put the number at $2.10. So, yeah I do believe it, seriously! By the way, those $2.50 peanuts would add up to $360 billion per year in the US. I don’t have a problem with a gas tax that tries to fully cover the externalities of driving, as long as the money is earmarked to actually try to offset the cost. [1] - https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/m-rcbg/heep/ee-workshop_131024-25/supp/2.a%20Anderson/ParryWallsHarrington2007.pdf https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/m-rcbg/heep/ee-workshop_131024...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

Noos 9y ago

If anything, this site has a nasty "sacrifice life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for some future concept of good" thing going on at times. I sense we'd all be packed in cities, forced to ride bicycles, eat only vegetables, be unable to reproduce without a permit, and live in massive apartment towers with 200 sq of space to save the world.

s73v3r_ 9y ago
This site also has a nasty, "I should be able to do anything I want, and damn any externalities" thing, too.

bwindels 9y ago

The thing is, I don't see how you can put a price on these externalities. 13.000 people die early in Germany alone because of this. What would you have them do with this money? Planting trees wont do them much good. Liberty is not an absolute thing. My freedom to drive my car ends where it encroaches on other peoples freedom to have a passable living environment. We've banned smoking in public spaces for exactly the same reasons. The current system is really the tyranny of the majority. Let's just be honest about that and not use euphemisms like "accounting for externalities".

zaroth 9y ago
Personally I was thinking purely in terms of the various forms of pollution, although the Harvard study does try to account for injury and loss of life. Externality is an economic theory, far from a euphemism. It’s easy to gauge how many lives are lost due to the automobile. But how many lives are saved? How many lives are enriched? How many lives are even made possible because of the automobile? You can look at only the costs of a thing, but I find the appeal to emotion, similar to gun control arguments, to be entirely unconvincing. Furthermore, technology has steadily improved the safety of these machines, and I’m convinced we’re less than a decade away from a quantum leap in safety by automating more and more of the driving process. As automobiles get quieter, safer, less polluting, available on demand, and less expensive, I’m afraid you’re going to see quite a bit more of them, not less. It’s nothing less than economic warfare to ban diesel cars outright from entering a city. Ban the sale of new diesels if you want. Tax the hell out of diesel fuel if you want. Add a toll booth and set a lower speed limit. But your well meaning compatriots spent their hard earned money to buy their vehicles and if you’d just assume fuck them over for it, I’m sure they will find a way to repay the favor. Probably by not coming to your city (and spending their money there) in the first place. To which you might say, “Good riddance!” And we have an expression for that too. Oftentimes there is an entirely valid reason to get in a car and drive somewhere. I know, this may be shocking to you. Shocking to the people talking about bicycling a couch uphill downthread too. There are 45 million passenger cars in Germany (for 82 million people) so it seems you’re in the minority on this. Before you call for just outright banning cars, maybe consider how you could make public policy which would decrease the number of cars by 10% without increasing the cost of cars.