5 ms·

Oh, you misunderstand. Involving a car would most definitely not make it a better solution. I have no interest whatsoever to involve cars in my life. Having

by rekado 5y ago

Oh, you misunderstand. Involving a car would most definitely not make it a better solution. I have no interest whatsoever to involve cars in my life. Having to share the roads with them is bad enough. (The arrogance of space is ridiculous.) Deliveries: these cost little because people aren't paid properly. If I wanted to pay them properly, I wouldn't be able to use their services much. So instead of normalizing exploitation in the name of convenience, I prefer not to use delivery services when it can be avoided. And with different supermarkets in almost every direction, within 10mins on foot they most definitely can be avoided. I don't mean to moralize, and I'll step right off this soap box, but keeping bad jobs alive is a disservice to my community. More energy / more free time: neither the time nor the energy are wasted. If you want, you can see the time spent as an investment into health and focus, a tool for stress-reduction, an active period of mental rest, but really: this is not a zero sum game. I don't think any of this will convince you, and I'm not trying to. But perhaps you can see that your view on the "best solution" is hardly universal and well-established alternatives exist that work for a surprisingly large number of people.

jseban 5y ago
Yeah so you do it because of political reasons and virtue signalling, this is a core leftist value that efficiency and productivity should suffer in the name of "equality".
- rekado 5y ago
  "virtue signalling"? Nobody even sees me doing this. Signalling to the squirrels? Political reasons? You bet! Everything we do is political. We are /zoon politicon/. I do things the way I do them because I like it this way, and if by doing them this way I contribute to the mainstream leaning one lifestyle closer towards what I consider comfortable then: yes, this is all terribly political.
- Maarten88 5y ago
  That reasoning illustrates the problem exactly. You should have read the article until the last line, I'll quote it here for you: > That is our failure, and it's a failure brought about to a large extent by bad policy that tells us we can't have nice things, because nice things are for the rich
ivanhoe 5y ago
> and with different supermarkets in almost every direction, within 10mins on foot they most definitely can be avoided. You do realize that this is just your privilege? Most of people don't have everything in the walking reach, some would have to bike up a hill for a few kilometers to get to a shop, etc? Don't get me wrong, it's great that you can, but it's just a lucky consequence of where you live, not something that's universally applicable to everyone.
- Maarten88 5y ago
  > You do realize that this is just your privilege? This is exactly what TFA is about. It should not be a privilege, but it is, because we made it scarce. Not because it is more expensive to create, it is not.
- sime2009 5y ago
  I live in the Netherlands. Being able to walk to the supermarket in 10mins is very common. What you call privilege, we just call urban planning.
  - ivanhoe 5y ago
    Good for you, I don't, and that's my whole point. What works for you wouldn't necessarily work for me, and not because we are savages incapable of urban planning, but because there are real challenges totally different than in Holland (geographical, economical, historical, cultural, etc.). Simply, what you call "urban planning" is way easier to do in a flat land and specific types of architecture, where cities where already built with planned street layouts, wide boulevards, etc. I happen to live in an old city with lots of narrow, one way streets, steep hill slopes, etc. and urban planning can get you only as far, without resorting to destroying historical neighborhoods just to make space for bike lanes. And btw my city is perfectly walkable, to make it clear, it's just not particularly bike friendly... Anyway, my point being that IMHO it's not always a good idea to just try to copy/paste architectural and urbanistic solutions between regions with very different geography, culture and population density, no matter how trendy the idea is.
- rekado 5y ago

by rekado 5y ago

jseban 5y ago

Yeah so you do it because of political reasons and virtue signalling, this is a core leftist value that efficiency and productivity should suffer in the name of "equality".

rekado 5y ago
"virtue signalling"? Nobody even sees me doing this. Signalling to the squirrels? Political reasons? You bet! Everything we do is political. We are /zoon politicon/. I do things the way I do them because I like it this way, and if by doing them this way I contribute to the mainstream leaning one lifestyle closer towards what I consider comfortable then: yes, this is all terribly political.
Maarten88 5y ago
That reasoning illustrates the problem exactly. You should have read the article until the last line, I'll quote it here for you: > That is our failure, and it's a failure brought about to a large extent by bad policy that tells us we can't have nice things, because nice things are for the rich

ivanhoe 5y ago

> and with different supermarkets in almost every direction, within 10mins on foot they most definitely can be avoided. You do realize that this is just your privilege? Most of people don't have everything in the walking reach, some would have to bike up a hill for a few kilometers to get to a shop, etc? Don't get me wrong, it's great that you can, but it's just a lucky consequence of where you live, not something that's universally applicable to everyone.

Maarten88 5y ago
> You do realize that this is just your privilege? This is exactly what TFA is about. It should not be a privilege, but it is, because we made it scarce. Not because it is more expensive to create, it is not.
sime2009 5y ago
I live in the Netherlands. Being able to walk to the supermarket in 10mins is very common. What you call privilege, we just call urban planning.
- ivanhoe 5y ago
  Good for you, I don't, and that's my whole point. What works for you wouldn't necessarily work for me, and not because we are savages incapable of urban planning, but because there are real challenges totally different than in Holland (geographical, economical, historical, cultural, etc.). Simply, what you call "urban planning" is way easier to do in a flat land and specific types of architecture, where cities where already built with planned street layouts, wide boulevards, etc. I happen to live in an old city with lots of narrow, one way streets, steep hill slopes, etc. and urban planning can get you only as far, without resorting to destroying historical neighborhoods just to make space for bike lanes. And btw my city is perfectly walkable, to make it clear, it's just not particularly bike friendly... Anyway, my point being that IMHO it's not always a good idea to just try to copy/paste architectural and urbanistic solutions between regions with very different geography, culture and population density, no matter how trendy the idea is.
rekado 5y ago