3 ms·

If it's that easy to end personal automobiles and increase funding for public transit by 10000%, why don't you just wave your magic wand and do it? Getting a j

If it's that easy to end personal automobiles and increase funding for public transit by 10000%, why don't you just wave your magic wand and do it? Getting a job at Tesla to accelerate electrification of cars is a lot more within someone's personal control than somehow enacting the political will to change legislation and funding away from personal vehicles and towards public transit. But I guess just making HN comments about it is a more feel-good easy solution.

ericmay 4y ago
Presumably because it's not possible to wave a magic wand and do it. I know I would if I could. It would be great to be wealthier as a country (US-centric here), have far fewer c02 emissions for mostly no good reason, have fewer people dead or harmed because of car accidents, and have healthier people because they get out move around more. I'd also suggest examining your perspective. Highways and roads are also public transit. It's a non-sequitur to suggest that highways aren't public transit yet something like bikes or bike lanes are. Unfortunately we've been convinced by big government that we need highways, highway builders, giant departments of transportation, car insurance, tires, gasoline and gas stations, the actual cars themselves, oil changes, AAA, and all of these other industries at the scale that we have them now. It's just a giant jobs program. If we built medium-density, mixed use neighborhoods you wouldn't need a gasoline or electric car to walk a few blocks to a local grocery store. It's manufactured spending. That's why there are so many advertisements and BIG GOVERNMENT programs. If we cared about being efficient or cost-effective we'd just build things differently. But we don't care about that. While electric cars are "better" for c02 emissions than gasoline powered cars (and more fun to drive IMO), it's like doubling down on a solution for a problem that we can just not have by not driving so much and having cars. It's really frustrating when I read comments where people act incredulous at the idea of not spending billions and billions of dollars every year on cars and associated government programs when you could just walk down the street instead. Can you still have a car to drive to the countryside? Yea definitely. Do we literally need to design society around a gigantic SUV so you can drive to Costco and pretend you are saving money buying in bulk? No.

ericmay 4y ago

Presumably because it's not possible to wave a magic wand and do it. I know I would if I could. It would be great to be wealthier as a country (US-centric here), have far fewer c02 emissions for mostly no good reason, have fewer people dead or harmed because of car accidents, and have healthier people because they get out move around more. I'd also suggest examining your perspective. Highways and roads are also public transit. It's a non-sequitur to suggest that highways aren't public transit yet something like bikes or bike lanes are. Unfortunately we've been convinced by big government that we need highways, highway builders, giant departments of transportation, car insurance, tires, gasoline and gas stations, the actual cars themselves, oil changes, AAA, and all of these other industries at the scale that we have them now. It's just a giant jobs program. If we built medium-density, mixed use neighborhoods you wouldn't need a gasoline or electric car to walk a few blocks to a local grocery store. It's manufactured spending. That's why there are so many advertisements and BIG GOVERNMENT programs. If we cared about being efficient or cost-effective we'd just build things differently. But we don't care about that. While electric cars are "better" for c02 emissions than gasoline powered cars (and more fun to drive IMO), it's like doubling down on a solution for a problem that we can just not have by not driving so much and having cars. It's really frustrating when I read comments where people act incredulous at the idea of not spending billions and billions of dollars every year on cars and associated government programs when you could just walk down the street instead. Can you still have a car to drive to the countryside? Yea definitely. Do we literally need to design society around a gigantic SUV so you can drive to Costco and pretend you are saving money buying in bulk? No.