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I might be more inclined to have this attitude if gas were $10+/gal and roads were always paid for at time of use. But this particular life choice has massive,

I might be more inclined to have this attitude if gas were $10+/gal and roads were always paid for at time of use. But this particular life choice has massive, civilization-changing externalities that aren't priced in, and is then additionally subsidized on top of that. Over a 200 year window starting in 1900 or so, the personal vehicle is probably one of the two or three most destructive developments. NB: Not being critical of anyone's personal choice, but of the market/system that enables those choices by failing to properly price carbon and road infra. In particular, I've been known to drive my SUV to work.

chrisco255 6y ago
That's an insane analysis. Without the vehicle, the population would be a fraction of what it is and you probably would have never been born.
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  > Without the vehicle, the population would be a fraction of what it is and you probably would have never been born. Personal automobile ownership is more than double what it was in 1960 (410.37/1K in 1960 vs. 831.9/1K in 2018). Needless to say, our birth rates are just a tad lower today than they were at the height of the baby boom... And that's just in the USA. Look up rates of automobile ownership throughout the world. There are massive variations between countries with similar economies and similar brithrates. And to head off the obvious explanation for the explosion of car ownership in the US being negatively correlated with population growth, notice that other developed economies also experienced a gender revolution and that this lack of strong correlation exists even if you measure car ownership at the level of households instead of at the level of individuals. The hypothesis that cars => population growth just doesn't bear out in the data, even after correcting for a lot of possible confounds. The two are, at best, uncorrelated. (Again, my post mentioned "the personal vehicle", not the ICE or carbonization of the economy more generally, which indeed enabled unparalleled growth) > That's an insane analysis. After looking at the data, I think you're completely wrong. But of course your hypothesis was not even close to "insane".
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    Clearly you couldn't even feed the planet without the transportation network necessary to distribute the food. Nor could you even grow it. Modern agriculture depends on fertilizer, which is made from mined materials. Farms are run with fossil fuel powered equipment. The quality of life and the length of life extended dramatically with the advent of the automobile and electricity (also fossil fuel powered). We wouldn't even be having this discussion right now. Not even to mention the serendipitous effects of expanding human horizons beyond what could be traveled by horse, which alone is a substantial achievement and led to more discoveries and human connection than I can even fathom. Without transport and communication there would be no modern era, no internet, no tech sector. Just an extension of the 19th century.
    - throwawaygh 6y ago
      >> Again, my post mentioned "the personal vehicle", not the ICE or carbonization of the economy more generally, which indeed enabled unparalleled growth As for the rest? The west was settled by track layers.
centimeter 6y ago
Road damage disproportionately comes from freight vehicles, not consumer vehicles. If anyone is benefiting from uninternalized road damage subsidies, it’s people in cities who need to truck in all their food and stuff. As far as pollution externalities go, you may be right, but actual level-headed analysis of the dollar cost of global warming are tough to describe as “civilization-changing”. Certainly I think the externalities of my own vehicle usage are worth it, and I would be happy to pay those costs if they were internalized correctly (but good luck not turning that into a pork-barrel monstrosity).
- morsch 6y ago
  > If anyone is benefiting from uninternalized road damage subsidies, it’s people in cities who need to truck in all their food and stuff. As opposed to all the rural subsistance farmers who build all their own stuff? I'm sure there's a handful such people out there, but everybody else has their food and stuff trucked in just as much, with a 30 minute car ride added on top to haul things back to the ranch.
- CarelessExpert 6y ago
  > Road damage disproportionately comes from freight vehicles, not consumer vehicles. If anyone is benefiting from uninternalized road damage subsidies, it’s people in cities who need to truck in all their food and stuff. This is just whataboutism. Externalities from all vehicular use should be internalized. I don't see anyone suggesting otherwise.
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  > Road damage disproportionately comes from freight vehicles, not consumer vehicles. Yes, but we need substantially wider roads and more roads when cars are a primary commuting method. It's often the case that trucking is simultaneously the largest source of wear and not the largest contributor to road budgets. > it’s people in cities who need to truck in all their food and stuff. How are rural areas any different? Those peaches from the Walmart in northern WI were probably grown in the exact same Georgian fields as the peaches from the corner store in Chicago. For manufactured goods made in $asian_country, trucking stuff out to Montana from the coast is going to cause a lot more road damage than hauling it from a barge to some store in the bay area. The amount of road wear&tear probably correlates more with your distance from the major ports than urban/rural. That can go either way. Unless you live in Iowa and your diet consists mainly of corn and ethanol and you furnish your home with Amish furniture^1, you're benefiting from trucking routes at least as much as anyone in "the city". There are very few "self-sufficient" communities in the USA. The closest you get . [^1]: This is a joke :)
Spooky23 6y ago
Moral indignation aside, the actual generator functionality will have a meaningful improvement in air quality and pollution. The use case for something like this are scenarios where workmen need to use tools on a jobsite. Running a generator workload on a truck engine with emissions controls is a huge improvement over what people do today -- run standalone generators that pollute far more in terms of particulates, noise and other factors.
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  Agreed. The conversation became unhinged from the topic of the article, which I guess is why OP is now [flagged].

chrisco255 6y ago

That's an insane analysis. Without the vehicle, the population would be a fraction of what it is and you probably would have never been born.

throwawaygh 6y ago
> Without the vehicle, the population would be a fraction of what it is and you probably would have never been born. Personal automobile ownership is more than double what it was in 1960 (410.37/1K in 1960 vs. 831.9/1K in 2018). Needless to say, our birth rates are just a tad lower today than they were at the height of the baby boom... And that's just in the USA. Look up rates of automobile ownership throughout the world. There are massive variations between countries with similar economies and similar brithrates. And to head off the obvious explanation for the explosion of car ownership in the US being negatively correlated with population growth, notice that other developed economies also experienced a gender revolution and that this lack of strong correlation exists even if you measure car ownership at the level of households instead of at the level of individuals. The hypothesis that cars => population growth just doesn't bear out in the data, even after correcting for a lot of possible confounds. The two are, at best, uncorrelated. (Again, my post mentioned "the personal vehicle", not the ICE or carbonization of the economy more generally, which indeed enabled unparalleled growth) > That's an insane analysis. After looking at the data, I think you're completely wrong. But of course your hypothesis was not even close to "insane".
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Clearly you couldn't even feed the planet without the transportation network necessary to distribute the food. Nor could you even grow it. Modern agriculture depends on fertilizer, which is made from mined materials. Farms are run with fossil fuel powered equipment. The quality of life and the length of life extended dramatically with the advent of the automobile and electricity (also fossil fuel powered). We wouldn't even be having this discussion right now. Not even to mention the serendipitous effects of expanding human horizons beyond what could be traveled by horse, which alone is a substantial achievement and led to more discoveries and human connection than I can even fathom. Without transport and communication there would be no modern era, no internet, no tech sector. Just an extension of the 19th century.
  - throwawaygh 6y ago
    >> Again, my post mentioned "the personal vehicle", not the ICE or carbonization of the economy more generally, which indeed enabled unparalleled growth As for the rest? The west was settled by track layers.

centimeter 6y ago

Road damage disproportionately comes from freight vehicles, not consumer vehicles. If anyone is benefiting from uninternalized road damage subsidies, it’s people in cities who need to truck in all their food and stuff. As far as pollution externalities go, you may be right, but actual level-headed analysis of the dollar cost of global warming are tough to describe as “civilization-changing”. Certainly I think the externalities of my own vehicle usage are worth it, and I would be happy to pay those costs if they were internalized correctly (but good luck not turning that into a pork-barrel monstrosity).

morsch 6y ago
> If anyone is benefiting from uninternalized road damage subsidies, it’s people in cities who need to truck in all their food and stuff. As opposed to all the rural subsistance farmers who build all their own stuff? I'm sure there's a handful such people out there, but everybody else has their food and stuff trucked in just as much, with a 30 minute car ride added on top to haul things back to the ranch.
CarelessExpert 6y ago
> Road damage disproportionately comes from freight vehicles, not consumer vehicles. If anyone is benefiting from uninternalized road damage subsidies, it’s people in cities who need to truck in all their food and stuff. This is just whataboutism. Externalities from all vehicular use should be internalized. I don't see anyone suggesting otherwise.
throwawaygh 6y ago
> Road damage disproportionately comes from freight vehicles, not consumer vehicles. Yes, but we need substantially wider roads and more roads when cars are a primary commuting method. It's often the case that trucking is simultaneously the largest source of wear and not the largest contributor to road budgets. > it’s people in cities who need to truck in all their food and stuff. How are rural areas any different? Those peaches from the Walmart in northern WI were probably grown in the exact same Georgian fields as the peaches from the corner store in Chicago. For manufactured goods made in $asian_country, trucking stuff out to Montana from the coast is going to cause a lot more road damage than hauling it from a barge to some store in the bay area. The amount of road wear&tear probably correlates more with your distance from the major ports than urban/rural. That can go either way. Unless you live in Iowa and your diet consists mainly of corn and ethanol and you furnish your home with Amish furniture^1, you're benefiting from trucking routes at least as much as anyone in "the city". There are very few "self-sufficient" communities in the USA. The closest you get . [^1]: This is a joke :)

Spooky23 6y ago

Moral indignation aside, the actual generator functionality will have a meaningful improvement in air quality and pollution. The use case for something like this are scenarios where workmen need to use tools on a jobsite. Running a generator workload on a truck engine with emissions controls is a huge improvement over what people do today -- run standalone generators that pollute far more in terms of particulates, noise and other factors.

throwawaygh 6y ago
Agreed. The conversation became unhinged from the topic of the article, which I guess is why OP is now [flagged].