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With my car, I don't have to wait at all and I can go straight home. I don't believe all these posts against cars are from humans, especially on this website.

With my car, I don't have to wait at all and I can go straight home. I don't believe all these posts against cars are from humans, especially on this website. Surely, technologically savvy folks like us would have learned to appreciate why decentralized systems (like cars) are better than centralized systems (like mass transit) for their flexibility.

woodruffw 3y ago
> With my car, I don't have to wait at all and I can go straight home. Manhattan, famous for its congestion-free streets :-) Calling cars "decentralized" is funny, and more than a little ridiculous: American car culture is a result of centralized planning, both of highways and cities. It'd be more accurate to call them "individualized," with the misaligned incentives and commons failures that that implies.
- mwbajor 3y ago
  Its not funny. Its accurate. Roads are more decentralized than trains. Your argument is anti-scientific in a way. We see in nature that decentralized systems are more robust yet you are arguing the opposite.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    My point was that they're "decentralized" in the least interesting way: they exist as a "decentralized" structure only by overwhelming centralized effort. Calling them decentralized is like calling suburbia decentralized: it's not even wrong. Decentralization is not a virtue (or end) in itself when it comes to public infrastructure. Robustness is also not intrinsically tied to it, and there are a variety of senses in which the American road network is not particularly robust: congestion and unsustainable funding schemes are just the first two that come to mind.
    - mwbajor 3y ago
      " in the least interesting way" Who cares about being interesting, I can go around outages in the network with a car where trains can't. You should be arguing for smaller cars not less of them.
      - woodruffw 3y ago
        > Who cares about being interesting, I can go around outages in the network with a car where trains can't. You, ostensibly[1]! > You should be arguing for smaller cars not less of them. I'd be more than happy to take both :-) [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
userbinator 3y ago
I don't believe all these posts against cars are from humans, especially on this website. I certainly believe they are from humans. Surely, technologically savvy folks like us would have learned to appreciate why decentralized systems (like cars) are better than centralized systems (like mass transit) for their flexibility. But many humans are easily persuaded by FUD ("climate crisis" and all that other hogwash.)
- amrocha 3y ago
  So everyone who disagrees with you has been brainwashed?
  - mwbajor 3y ago
    Yea. Especially folks that lived in cities their whole life and Europeans that are surprised it takes more than 4 hours to drive from NYC to Florida.
    - amrocha 3y ago
      Maybe you're just part of a minority and struggle to come to terms with that

woodruffw 3y ago

> With my car, I don't have to wait at all and I can go straight home. Manhattan, famous for its congestion-free streets :-) Calling cars "decentralized" is funny, and more than a little ridiculous: American car culture is a result of centralized planning, both of highways and cities. It'd be more accurate to call them "individualized," with the misaligned incentives and commons failures that that implies.

mwbajor 3y ago
Its not funny. Its accurate. Roads are more decentralized than trains. Your argument is anti-scientific in a way. We see in nature that decentralized systems are more robust yet you are arguing the opposite.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  My point was that they're "decentralized" in the least interesting way: they exist as a "decentralized" structure only by overwhelming centralized effort. Calling them decentralized is like calling suburbia decentralized: it's not even wrong. Decentralization is not a virtue (or end) in itself when it comes to public infrastructure. Robustness is also not intrinsically tied to it, and there are a variety of senses in which the American road network is not particularly robust: congestion and unsustainable funding schemes are just the first two that come to mind.
  - mwbajor 3y ago
    " in the least interesting way" Who cares about being interesting, I can go around outages in the network with a car where trains can't. You should be arguing for smaller cars not less of them.
    - woodruffw 3y ago
      > Who cares about being interesting, I can go around outages in the network with a car where trains can't. You, ostensibly[1]! > You should be arguing for smaller cars not less of them. I'd be more than happy to take both :-) [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

userbinator 3y ago

I don't believe all these posts against cars are from humans, especially on this website. I certainly believe they are from humans. Surely, technologically savvy folks like us would have learned to appreciate why decentralized systems (like cars) are better than centralized systems (like mass transit) for their flexibility. But many humans are easily persuaded by FUD ("climate crisis" and all that other hogwash.)

amrocha 3y ago
So everyone who disagrees with you has been brainwashed?
- mwbajor 3y ago
  Yea. Especially folks that lived in cities their whole life and Europeans that are surprised it takes more than 4 hours to drive from NYC to Florida.
  - amrocha 3y ago
    Maybe you're just part of a minority and struggle to come to terms with that