5 ms·

Another case of an optional thing that enhanced experiences and made you more free becoming something you must have to do anything, so, removing some freedom af

Another case of an optional thing that enhanced experiences and made you more free becoming something you must have to do anything, so, removing some freedom after all. See also: the automobile, at least as experienced in the US and similar countries. [EDIT] and in both cases, the problem is the effect the new thing had on the environment around it. When tech- and progress-focused people can't figure out why some cultures/countries have "anti-progress" laws (France's protection of book stores, for instance), well, this is often part of why they do that.

shard 4y ago
Along the lines of an optional thing removing freedom, I have had tremendous trouble waving down a cab sometimes because all the cabs that were coming to the area have been hailed through apps.
bananapear 4y ago
When it comes to automobiles and the US... are there any similar countries?
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  Most of Europe outside of large metros is the same as well.
  - bonzini 4y ago
    It depends. For example there are many places that are too small to live without a car, but where you can do basic grocery shopping or kids can still go to school on foot or by bike. The spread is rarely comparable to the US.
  - skrtskrt 4y ago
    There’s a difference between “it’s rural so things are spread out” and what we have in places like LA and Houston where major metro centers that could have been dense with good transit were purposely designed to be spread out and only able to be gotten around in in an automobile
    - Lammy 4y ago
      There are plenty of non-US places which used to have transit and now do not. Britain's 1960s "Beeching Axe" comes to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts
  - barrkel 4y ago
    Europe is not like the west coast of the US. Even urban areas are practically unnavigable by foot; everything is too spread out and only accessible by walking along heavily trafficked roads. You'll want at least a bicycle in rural Europe, but you don't normally need a whole lot more.
- yaomtc 4y ago
  Canada
  - doubled112 4y ago
    Definitely the suburbs around the major cities. 40 minute walk to the nearest store does seem unreasonable. 2 hours to bus to work or 15 minutes to drive.
  - na85 4y ago
    Depends on where. I'm in Victoria and don't need a car (have one, though).
    - vinay427 4y ago
      That may be the point of the comparison, as I understood it, with urban areas that don't require cars more of an exception than a norm. This is certainly the case in the US as well (NYC metro, DC metro, SF metro, university towns, etc.).
      - na85 4y ago
        Perhaps, but I'd say urban areas are the norm here. 80% of Canada lives along the Windsor-Quebec City corridor.
        vinay427 4y ago
        I'm aware. As for the urbanization, that's about on par with the US (82% for Canada, 83% for the US according to this metric [1]). More to the point, most of those areas outside of Toronto and Montreal have middling-to-no usable public transport. For example, I was recently passing by Kingston, ON, which has buses in some parts of the city but they reach a fraction of the population in the Kingston metro area. The same goes for much of the Windsor-London corridor. The qualification I stated was "urban areas that don't require cars," not any urban area. [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?locations=OE https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?locat...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
pinko 4y ago
> When tech- and progress-focused people can't figure out why some cultures/countries have "anti-progress" laws (France's protection of book stores, for instance), well, this is often part of why they do that. This is an enormously under-appreciated perspective here, thanks for pointing it out. What appears to be a foolish luddite is often someone with a thoughtful, long-term perspective based on hard-won experience.
andyjohnson0 4y ago
> When tech- and progress-focused people can't figure out why some cultures/countries have "anti-progress" laws (France's protection of book stores, for instance), well, this is often part of why they do that. Chesterton's Fence, yet again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...
- corrral 4y ago
  Kind of, but a bit different. Both are cases of unintended consequences, but one involves something that was deliberately made or set up a certain way, and the other involves a state of affairs that existed essentially by accident. This is how people get away with arguing that changes to the status quo, under shifting technology or the demands of business, are "natural", so efforts to preserve the status quo are "unnatural"—because the prior state wasn't made that way deliberately, and absent coordinated action it may be demolished by changes, even if most people would prefer to retain some or all of the prior state, at some shared cost.
  - totetsu 4y ago
    I heard someone make that defence of a river rerouting that let a bunch of sea water in to a lake and killed all the fish and shell fish.
kisero 4y ago
I was literally listening to a podcast about this trade-off today by Andy Crouch, he’s the author of The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World
- mwest217 4y ago
  What was the podcast?
RobRivera 4y ago
i lived without a cell phone due to poverty sometime in the not too distant past and it made me develop certain new perspectives on tech and society
mitchdoogle 4y ago
Story seems to be more about people being jerks and not letting someone use a phone to make a quick call. Obviously there were tons of phones around but no one would let him use one. It's rare but I have had someone ask to use my phone and I let them without any question
CryptoPunk 4y ago

shard 4y ago

Along the lines of an optional thing removing freedom, I have had tremendous trouble waving down a cab sometimes because all the cabs that were coming to the area have been hailed through apps.

bananapear 4y ago

When it comes to automobiles and the US... are there any similar countries?

xyzzyz 4y ago
Most of Europe outside of large metros is the same as well.
- bonzini 4y ago
  It depends. For example there are many places that are too small to live without a car, but where you can do basic grocery shopping or kids can still go to school on foot or by bike. The spread is rarely comparable to the US.
- skrtskrt 4y ago
  There’s a difference between “it’s rural so things are spread out” and what we have in places like LA and Houston where major metro centers that could have been dense with good transit were purposely designed to be spread out and only able to be gotten around in in an automobile
  - Lammy 4y ago
    There are plenty of non-US places which used to have transit and now do not. Britain's 1960s "Beeching Axe" comes to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts
- barrkel 4y ago
  Europe is not like the west coast of the US. Even urban areas are practically unnavigable by foot; everything is too spread out and only accessible by walking along heavily trafficked roads. You'll want at least a bicycle in rural Europe, but you don't normally need a whole lot more.
yaomtc 4y ago
Canada
- doubled112 4y ago
  Definitely the suburbs around the major cities. 40 minute walk to the nearest store does seem unreasonable. 2 hours to bus to work or 15 minutes to drive.
- na85 4y ago
  Depends on where. I'm in Victoria and don't need a car (have one, though).
  - vinay427 4y ago
    That may be the point of the comparison, as I understood it, with urban areas that don't require cars more of an exception than a norm. This is certainly the case in the US as well (NYC metro, DC metro, SF metro, university towns, etc.).
    - na85 4y ago
      Perhaps, but I'd say urban areas are the norm here. 80% of Canada lives along the Windsor-Quebec City corridor.
      - vinay427 4y ago
        I'm aware. As for the urbanization, that's about on par with the US (82% for Canada, 83% for the US according to this metric [1]). More to the point, most of those areas outside of Toronto and Montreal have middling-to-no usable public transport. For example, I was recently passing by Kingston, ON, which has buses in some parts of the city but they reach a fraction of the population in the Kingston metro area. The same goes for much of the Windsor-London corridor. The qualification I stated was "urban areas that don't require cars," not any urban area. [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?locations=OE https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?locat...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

pinko 4y ago

> When tech- and progress-focused people can't figure out why some cultures/countries have "anti-progress" laws (France's protection of book stores, for instance), well, this is often part of why they do that. This is an enormously under-appreciated perspective here, thanks for pointing it out. What appears to be a foolish luddite is often someone with a thoughtful, long-term perspective based on hard-won experience.

andyjohnson0 4y ago

> When tech- and progress-focused people can't figure out why some cultures/countries have "anti-progress" laws (France's protection of book stores, for instance), well, this is often part of why they do that. Chesterton's Fence, yet again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...

corrral 4y ago
Kind of, but a bit different. Both are cases of unintended consequences, but one involves something that was deliberately made or set up a certain way, and the other involves a state of affairs that existed essentially by accident. This is how people get away with arguing that changes to the status quo, under shifting technology or the demands of business, are "natural", so efforts to preserve the status quo are "unnatural"—because the prior state wasn't made that way deliberately, and absent coordinated action it may be demolished by changes, even if most people would prefer to retain some or all of the prior state, at some shared cost.
- totetsu 4y ago
  I heard someone make that defence of a river rerouting that let a bunch of sea water in to a lake and killed all the fish and shell fish.

kisero 4y ago

I was literally listening to a podcast about this trade-off today by Andy Crouch, he’s the author of The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World

mwest217 4y ago
What was the podcast?

RobRivera 4y ago

i lived without a cell phone due to poverty sometime in the not too distant past and it made me develop certain new perspectives on tech and society

mitchdoogle 4y ago

Story seems to be more about people being jerks and not letting someone use a phone to make a quick call. Obviously there were tons of phones around but no one would let him use one. It's rare but I have had someone ask to use my phone and I let them without any question

CryptoPunk 4y ago