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>because the reason you can't get anywhere without a car these days is marketing campaigns by the automobile and oil industry We aren't all brainless automaton

>because the reason you can't get anywhere without a car these days is marketing campaigns by the automobile and oil industry We aren't all brainless automatons. Not everything is a giant conspiracy. Have you considered that there are people that actually like cars and find them convenient and useful? Cars and the highway system completely changed the course of commerce in this country. Sure, that has lead to some problems we're going to have to correct, but this idea that a bunch of moustache-twirling executives sat in a board room figuring out how to force cars on people is a bit much.

adonovan 5y ago
I was about to reply that this is exactly what happened in L.A. in the 1940s and suggest that you look up the "Great American Streetcar Conspiracy", my favorite example of monopolistic conspiracy. But apparently much has changed since I last did that myself, and now the conspiracy seems to be little more than... fake news. Unless of course we're in the midst of a "Great American Streetcar Conspiracy"-Conspiracy Conspiracy. ;-)
- shkkmo 5y ago
  That is a bit of a misleading way of putting it. There was indeed a "street car conspiracy" and it even led to criminal convictions. The interpretation that this conspiracy was intended to kill off street cars is harder to justify since street cars were already struggling in the aftermath the great depression andany were bankrupt. I do think that the actions of GM et all did accelerate the decline of the street car but the urban myth about is "Great American Streetcar Company" is generally overblown.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Streetcars and public transport in general should never be run on a for profit basis.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > public transport in general should never be run on a for profit basis Japan seems to do fine [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Japan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Japan
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Japan is a special case in many ways.
      - ATsch 5y ago
        "can be run on a profit" and "should only be run if it is profitable" are very, very different things. Infrastructure like trains or roads are a huge net benefit to society already, if they can make a profit too that's neat but it shouldn't be the goal.
shkkmo 5y ago
> Have you considered that there are people that actually like cars and find them convenient and useful? Cars and the highway system completely changed the course of commerce in this country. Cars would have been wildly successful without marketing, but the deliberate marketing efforts of car companies significantly amped up that demand and pushed us into being a society that is unheathily dependant on these amazing machines. > this idea that a bunch of moustache-twirling executives sat in a board room figuring out how to force cars on people is a bit much. This "idea" is strongly backed up by the historic record, so if this seems like "too much" you really need to recalibrate your intuitions with reality.
carapace 5y ago
In this case it was a giant open conspiracy. It wasn't secret. > a bunch of moustache-twirling executives sat in a board room figuring out how to force cars on people is a bit much. That's pretty much exactly what happened. I don't know that they twirled their mustaches though, I'm sure they all thought they were doing the right thing. "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime" (Adam Ruins Everything) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxopfjXkArM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxopfjXkArM It was a classic case of "seemed like a good idea at the time". > Sure, that has lead to some problems we're going to have to correct, That's pretty facile. For one thing more people (in the USA) have died directly from cars crashes than from all the wars we've fought. For another there's the pollution: exhaust is deadly poisonous, tires wear down and shed millions of tons of tiny particles of vulcanized rubber into the environment, the fuel we burn contributes to the Greenhouse Effect, the asphalt of the roads is toxic, and there are so many roads and so much pavement that it affects planetary albedo. Then there are the unquantifiable changes to the social order: streets used to be public ways for everyone, now they are the domain of the automobile and people are confined to the sidewalks for fear of mayhem and death. I could go on and on. I think if an alien landed here and looked around one of it's first reactions would be, "WTF is up with all these cars!?"
ATsch 5y ago
I'm not sure what part of my message lead you to believe I didn't think people enjoyed cars? The problem is that it wasn't enough for cars to be a useful tool for those that needed it, but that they needed to be a source of endless growth, and marketing played a crucial role in that. There's no need for mustache twirling here. Car companies rationally maximized their profit by selling to everyone they could, rationally removed barriers to car adoption by removing everyone else from the road and rationally created new markets for their product by encouraging sprawling cities and enormous highways, which also acted as a competitive moat. They then disregarded the consequences, not because they were evil, but because their job was to maximize car sales, not the car's benefit to humanity. All of this is just things working as intended.

adonovan 5y ago

I was about to reply that this is exactly what happened in L.A. in the 1940s and suggest that you look up the "Great American Streetcar Conspiracy", my favorite example of monopolistic conspiracy. But apparently much has changed since I last did that myself, and now the conspiracy seems to be little more than... fake news. Unless of course we're in the midst of a "Great American Streetcar Conspiracy"-Conspiracy Conspiracy. ;-)

shkkmo 5y ago
That is a bit of a misleading way of putting it. There was indeed a "street car conspiracy" and it even led to criminal convictions. The interpretation that this conspiracy was intended to kill off street cars is harder to justify since street cars were already struggling in the aftermath the great depression andany were bankrupt. I do think that the actions of GM et all did accelerate the decline of the street car but the urban myth about is "Great American Streetcar Company" is generally overblown.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Streetcars and public transport in general should never be run on a for profit basis.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > public transport in general should never be run on a for profit basis Japan seems to do fine [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Japan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Japan
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Japan is a special case in many ways.
    - ATsch 5y ago
      "can be run on a profit" and "should only be run if it is profitable" are very, very different things. Infrastructure like trains or roads are a huge net benefit to society already, if they can make a profit too that's neat but it shouldn't be the goal.

shkkmo 5y ago

> Have you considered that there are people that actually like cars and find them convenient and useful? Cars and the highway system completely changed the course of commerce in this country. Cars would have been wildly successful without marketing, but the deliberate marketing efforts of car companies significantly amped up that demand and pushed us into being a society that is unheathily dependant on these amazing machines. > this idea that a bunch of moustache-twirling executives sat in a board room figuring out how to force cars on people is a bit much. This "idea" is strongly backed up by the historic record, so if this seems like "too much" you really need to recalibrate your intuitions with reality.

carapace 5y ago

In this case it was a giant open conspiracy. It wasn't secret. > a bunch of moustache-twirling executives sat in a board room figuring out how to force cars on people is a bit much. That's pretty much exactly what happened. I don't know that they twirled their mustaches though, I'm sure they all thought they were doing the right thing. "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime" (Adam Ruins Everything) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxopfjXkArM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxopfjXkArM It was a classic case of "seemed like a good idea at the time". > Sure, that has lead to some problems we're going to have to correct, That's pretty facile. For one thing more people (in the USA) have died directly from cars crashes than from all the wars we've fought. For another there's the pollution: exhaust is deadly poisonous, tires wear down and shed millions of tons of tiny particles of vulcanized rubber into the environment, the fuel we burn contributes to the Greenhouse Effect, the asphalt of the roads is toxic, and there are so many roads and so much pavement that it affects planetary albedo. Then there are the unquantifiable changes to the social order: streets used to be public ways for everyone, now they are the domain of the automobile and people are confined to the sidewalks for fear of mayhem and death. I could go on and on. I think if an alien landed here and looked around one of it's first reactions would be, "WTF is up with all these cars!?"

ATsch 5y ago

I'm not sure what part of my message lead you to believe I didn't think people enjoyed cars? The problem is that it wasn't enough for cars to be a useful tool for those that needed it, but that they needed to be a source of endless growth, and marketing played a crucial role in that. There's no need for mustache twirling here. Car companies rationally maximized their profit by selling to everyone they could, rationally removed barriers to car adoption by removing everyone else from the road and rationally created new markets for their product by encouraging sprawling cities and enormous highways, which also acted as a competitive moat. They then disregarded the consequences, not because they were evil, but because their job was to maximize car sales, not the car's benefit to humanity. All of this is just things working as intended.