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Clearly? How do you "balance individual choices" by making ONE collective choice? How do you balance individual choices by banning cars? Balancing individual ch

Clearly? How do you "balance individual choices" by making ONE collective choice? How do you balance individual choices by banning cars? Balancing individual choices would be the permitting and taxation system I described initially, to price in the costs one individual's choices have on the others. I don't see how it's odd. It's the biggest problem with solving climate change - how much do you restrict everyone, and how do you properly balance the conflicting individual choices with people's ability to live their lives? Collective choices aren't really a thing. We approximate it with democracy, but obviously not everyone gets what they want (see Trump being in office).

fauigerzigerk 8y ago
What I find odd is that individual choice is frequently invoked when arguing in favor of unrestricted car use, whereas the restrictions imposed on everyone else in order to facilitate car use (or by car use itself) are rarely seen as restrictions on individual choice. But that's in fact what they are.
- kareemsabri 8y ago
  I certainly wouldn't argue for unrestricted car use. Also, almost 90% of Americans own cars, so I'm not sure who "everyone else" is, but what restrictions do you mean?
  - fauigerzigerk 8y ago
    Here in London 54% of households own cars and the number is constantly declining. But "everyone else" doesn't necessarily exclude car owners. Car owners are also residents who need to breathe, sleep, play and walk. Owning a car isn't the same as using it all the time. And using a car occasionally doesn't mean you have to own it. The restrictions are pretty obvious if you open your eyes, ears and nose. Large parts of our cities have become effectively and legally unusable for anything other than driving. And that's not just because of polution levels that kill tens of thousands in the UK alone, it's also because of government enforced bans on using that space between buildings called roads for anything else. If my choice were to do so much as walk on a road or use a bicycle on a motorway, I would be penalised and forcibly removed. Large swaths of the city are dedicated exclusively to road traffic in spite of a desperate lack of land for home building. These government enforced rules and restrictions are what I call collective choice.

fauigerzigerk 8y ago

What I find odd is that individual choice is frequently invoked when arguing in favor of unrestricted car use, whereas the restrictions imposed on everyone else in order to facilitate car use (or by car use itself) are rarely seen as restrictions on individual choice. But that's in fact what they are.

kareemsabri 8y ago
I certainly wouldn't argue for unrestricted car use. Also, almost 90% of Americans own cars, so I'm not sure who "everyone else" is, but what restrictions do you mean?
- fauigerzigerk 8y ago
  Here in London 54% of households own cars and the number is constantly declining. But "everyone else" doesn't necessarily exclude car owners. Car owners are also residents who need to breathe, sleep, play and walk. Owning a car isn't the same as using it all the time. And using a car occasionally doesn't mean you have to own it. The restrictions are pretty obvious if you open your eyes, ears and nose. Large parts of our cities have become effectively and legally unusable for anything other than driving. And that's not just because of polution levels that kill tens of thousands in the UK alone, it's also because of government enforced bans on using that space between buildings called roads for anything else. If my choice were to do so much as walk on a road or use a bicycle on a motorway, I would be penalised and forcibly removed. Large swaths of the city are dedicated exclusively to road traffic in spite of a desperate lack of land for home building. These government enforced rules and restrictions are what I call collective choice.