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“We” is not nearly as many as you may believe. I would say most people don’t want to give up their car. That’s why people spend so much time maintaining their c

“We” is not nearly as many as you may believe. I would say most people don’t want to give up their car. That’s why people spend so much time maintaining their cars, polishing them, buying nicer ones, etc. Some people want to give up their cars, but you need everyone to want this, and they don’t. A technical solution is more likely to work than a mass social upheaval.

seadan83 3y ago
The "we" clearly refers to society at large. (I suspect you read what you wanted to read) > Some people want to give up their cars, but you need everyone to want this, and they don’t This is moving the goal posts, nobody said everyone would want to make s transition and a requirement for this is a novel requirement only now introduced by your response. The example is akin to: 30 people are currently driving to s grocery store 0.5 miles away. If the sidewalk to that store didn't end after 250 feet but actually went all the way, then 5 people would walk. If there were a bike lane, then 3 people would bike, if there were a decent bus, mird would ride, and finally if it were closer.. The line of logic given is basically, "because 100% of trips are done by car, nobody wants any alternative infrastructure, and suggesting that some people would use any alternative infrastructure is a war on cars."
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  If we means society at large that requires a large portion of society if not more than a simple majority. That doesn’t exist for ending the use of automobiles. If the goal is the reduce the impact of automobiles, assumed from the thread being discussed, it’s not sufficient to help those who want to walk to walk to the grocery store. That’s a wonderful thing to do. But to reduce the impact of tire microplastics, the most likely route to actually achieve a reduction isn’t to get people to walk to the store. It’s to address the microplastic debris of tires. Better formulations, better runoff management, mass reduction of cars. Maybe we can change society fundamentally. Maybe. I posit probably not. But we can definitely mitigate the impact of our cars on the environment and must. The rest is “nice to have.” I don’t think I ever say anything about 100% of trips done by car implies a lack of desire to less car reliance. Truly, this is reading what you wanted to read, and a clear ascribing of a bone headed intention on my part. But reducing reliance isn’t enough to change the problems meaningfully. As has been noted elsewhere the 5 minute drive to the store doesn’t compare to the 2 hour drive of the 18 wheeler trucks distributing and redistributing the products from farm to store. Nor does it compare to the work commute, nor does it compare to the weekend outing to the mountains, with four or five hours of driving total, 50x or more the trip to the store. I lived many years in NYC, and I walked to buy groceries. It was good (although as my family grew the logistics of carting that much food in a push cart got tedious to be frank). But even in nyc I found myself increasingly buying things via delivery, especially non perishable items. Public transit takes so long to get from one part of the city to another, often two hours round trip, that I found myself buying anything I needed on Amazon. Which then brought delivery trucks into the picture. Uber and Lyft and taxis were a constant part of life, even with a pretty complete transit system, simply because to get to a specific place not on a major line you had to do multiple transfers and the total commute time ballooned. Then you have to add in how incredibly unpleasant public transit can be - hot trains, insane people attacking people randomly, being pressed back to back for an hour with a huge crowd of strangers, break downs of signaling. Now I have a car and I live in a place that is walkable, but is adapted to cars better than NYC. I enjoy walking and biking, but I will never live in a car hostile environment again.
  - bedobi 3y ago
    > car hostile environment wow, talk about orwellian language conditioning. other people take issue with me making needless trips in urban spaces with my multiton, polluting, dangerous, microplastics emitting private automobile... poor me i live in such a car-hostile environment... give me a break
    - fnordpiglet 3y ago
      I’m not sure where the condescension comes from, but I didn’t ask for pity. I moved, as do many people in nyc for this very reason.
  - seadan83 3y ago
    You make some interesting points. I'm just trying to say this conversation thread is starting to talk past one another. The 'we' was referring to the full population of people and basically stated a significant subset of that 'we' are willing to entertain (what are currently non-viable) solutions. In other words, a problem exists for 100 people, and about 15 of them are willing to change their behavior that would help resolve the problem confronting the whole population (of 100 people). Thus, the tit-for-tat, the OP is not suggesting a simple majority or any kind of majority is required to change their behavior, but is lamenting that a significant minority would change their behavior if they could, if they were enabled. It's another way of saying, "those of us who would bike, or walk, or would bus - would do so if there were the slightest investment in those modes of transport to make them more viable".
    - fnordpiglet 3y ago
      Yeah and it’s absurd we don’t make things more accommodating. However case in point I live almost exactly 0.5 miles from a Safeway. There are bike lanes throughout my part of the city and nice sidewalks with accessible ramps. I’ve literally never seen anyone ride their bike to the store. Probably there are also hills and folks don’t want to ride uphill with groceries but it’s also just not registering as an option in most people’s mind. Nothing stops them at all. It’s just not their habit or preference. But I am glad the infra exists, just I see people use it more for pleasure than necessity.
bedobi 3y ago
yeah wow when the only option people have for getting around is to drive, most people will not want to give up their car our argument isn't that everyone should just stop driving, leaving everything else as is. that would, as you point out, obviously not work our argument is that there needs to be feasible alternatives to driving, which in many parts of the world is already the case and it works great (in fact, it works better than north american car dependency) i do want to call out one more thing though even if it was true that most people like their cars and driving (which isn't true at all) given that the degree to which people drive is literally becoming an existential threat not only to future generations but already to us now should the rest of us really just go ah we'll just let it slide then? like yes they're destroying our planet but, they really like their cars and driving i don't share that logic
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  The debate is whether we wait for society to change or we change the technology. If cars didn’t pollute the existential threat from cars is removed. That problem is pure engineering and tractable, while social change is unsure and difficult thing to accomplish. This isn’t the end of car related issues. But we can and should address the engineering and technology addressable things, and concurrently with the social change. As you say it’s existential. There are a lot of other issues about car culture - the extensive use of land for car infrastructure for instance, that are important, but not existential. I even think making biking safer is important, but it’s absolutely not existential. A less car dependent culture is neither necessary nor sufficient to address the issues of tire microplastic, co2 release, etc, as we still have the use of cars as they exist pervasively for other reasons than going to the store. My point though is that people like driving so they will drive even if it kills everyone. That’s abundantly clear. People move out of urban cores into suburbs partly because of the car culture is more to their preference. That’s not a new phenomenon and it’s not restricted to the US. Many friends in UK, Holland, Germany, etc, moved out of the cities for a more suburban car centric life. So, if you can’t easily change the behavior or preference (which I never see happening in a democracy), then why not address the ways in which cars destroy the earth? The logic doesn’t make sense to you because you posed a false dichotomy. The options aren’t “destroy the earth with cars or save the earth without cars,” because cars don’t necessarily have to destroy the earth. As an exercise of the imagination, imagine hydroelectric charged hovering quadracopter electric vehicles. They no longer produce microplastics or co2. Their batteries are 100% recyclable. What specifically would the issue be then? Is it absurd to imagine such a thing? Given current technology, it’s absolutely NOT absurd. Given future technology it’s fully achievable. Instead of flying vehicles, maybe just not touching the ground is enough? Etc. This may not be how we solve the issues, but it’s a lot more plausible in my mind than convincing everyone to pack into an urban core and stop driving to Costco.

seadan83 3y ago

The "we" clearly refers to society at large. (I suspect you read what you wanted to read) > Some people want to give up their cars, but you need everyone to want this, and they don’t This is moving the goal posts, nobody said everyone would want to make s transition and a requirement for this is a novel requirement only now introduced by your response. The example is akin to: 30 people are currently driving to s grocery store 0.5 miles away. If the sidewalk to that store didn't end after 250 feet but actually went all the way, then 5 people would walk. If there were a bike lane, then 3 people would bike, if there were a decent bus, mird would ride, and finally if it were closer.. The line of logic given is basically, "because 100% of trips are done by car, nobody wants any alternative infrastructure, and suggesting that some people would use any alternative infrastructure is a war on cars."

fnordpiglet 3y ago
If we means society at large that requires a large portion of society if not more than a simple majority. That doesn’t exist for ending the use of automobiles. If the goal is the reduce the impact of automobiles, assumed from the thread being discussed, it’s not sufficient to help those who want to walk to walk to the grocery store. That’s a wonderful thing to do. But to reduce the impact of tire microplastics, the most likely route to actually achieve a reduction isn’t to get people to walk to the store. It’s to address the microplastic debris of tires. Better formulations, better runoff management, mass reduction of cars. Maybe we can change society fundamentally. Maybe. I posit probably not. But we can definitely mitigate the impact of our cars on the environment and must. The rest is “nice to have.” I don’t think I ever say anything about 100% of trips done by car implies a lack of desire to less car reliance. Truly, this is reading what you wanted to read, and a clear ascribing of a bone headed intention on my part. But reducing reliance isn’t enough to change the problems meaningfully. As has been noted elsewhere the 5 minute drive to the store doesn’t compare to the 2 hour drive of the 18 wheeler trucks distributing and redistributing the products from farm to store. Nor does it compare to the work commute, nor does it compare to the weekend outing to the mountains, with four or five hours of driving total, 50x or more the trip to the store. I lived many years in NYC, and I walked to buy groceries. It was good (although as my family grew the logistics of carting that much food in a push cart got tedious to be frank). But even in nyc I found myself increasingly buying things via delivery, especially non perishable items. Public transit takes so long to get from one part of the city to another, often two hours round trip, that I found myself buying anything I needed on Amazon. Which then brought delivery trucks into the picture. Uber and Lyft and taxis were a constant part of life, even with a pretty complete transit system, simply because to get to a specific place not on a major line you had to do multiple transfers and the total commute time ballooned. Then you have to add in how incredibly unpleasant public transit can be - hot trains, insane people attacking people randomly, being pressed back to back for an hour with a huge crowd of strangers, break downs of signaling. Now I have a car and I live in a place that is walkable, but is adapted to cars better than NYC. I enjoy walking and biking, but I will never live in a car hostile environment again.
- bedobi 3y ago
  > car hostile environment wow, talk about orwellian language conditioning. other people take issue with me making needless trips in urban spaces with my multiton, polluting, dangerous, microplastics emitting private automobile... poor me i live in such a car-hostile environment... give me a break
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    I’m not sure where the condescension comes from, but I didn’t ask for pity. I moved, as do many people in nyc for this very reason.
- seadan83 3y ago
  You make some interesting points. I'm just trying to say this conversation thread is starting to talk past one another. The 'we' was referring to the full population of people and basically stated a significant subset of that 'we' are willing to entertain (what are currently non-viable) solutions. In other words, a problem exists for 100 people, and about 15 of them are willing to change their behavior that would help resolve the problem confronting the whole population (of 100 people). Thus, the tit-for-tat, the OP is not suggesting a simple majority or any kind of majority is required to change their behavior, but is lamenting that a significant minority would change their behavior if they could, if they were enabled. It's another way of saying, "those of us who would bike, or walk, or would bus - would do so if there were the slightest investment in those modes of transport to make them more viable".
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    Yeah and it’s absurd we don’t make things more accommodating. However case in point I live almost exactly 0.5 miles from a Safeway. There are bike lanes throughout my part of the city and nice sidewalks with accessible ramps. I’ve literally never seen anyone ride their bike to the store. Probably there are also hills and folks don’t want to ride uphill with groceries but it’s also just not registering as an option in most people’s mind. Nothing stops them at all. It’s just not their habit or preference. But I am glad the infra exists, just I see people use it more for pleasure than necessity.

bedobi 3y ago

yeah wow when the only option people have for getting around is to drive, most people will not want to give up their car our argument isn't that everyone should just stop driving, leaving everything else as is. that would, as you point out, obviously not work our argument is that there needs to be feasible alternatives to driving, which in many parts of the world is already the case and it works great (in fact, it works better than north american car dependency) i do want to call out one more thing though even if it was true that most people like their cars and driving (which isn't true at all) given that the degree to which people drive is literally becoming an existential threat not only to future generations but already to us now should the rest of us really just go ah we'll just let it slide then? like yes they're destroying our planet but, they really like their cars and driving i don't share that logic

fnordpiglet 3y ago
The debate is whether we wait for society to change or we change the technology. If cars didn’t pollute the existential threat from cars is removed. That problem is pure engineering and tractable, while social change is unsure and difficult thing to accomplish. This isn’t the end of car related issues. But we can and should address the engineering and technology addressable things, and concurrently with the social change. As you say it’s existential. There are a lot of other issues about car culture - the extensive use of land for car infrastructure for instance, that are important, but not existential. I even think making biking safer is important, but it’s absolutely not existential. A less car dependent culture is neither necessary nor sufficient to address the issues of tire microplastic, co2 release, etc, as we still have the use of cars as they exist pervasively for other reasons than going to the store. My point though is that people like driving so they will drive even if it kills everyone. That’s abundantly clear. People move out of urban cores into suburbs partly because of the car culture is more to their preference. That’s not a new phenomenon and it’s not restricted to the US. Many friends in UK, Holland, Germany, etc, moved out of the cities for a more suburban car centric life. So, if you can’t easily change the behavior or preference (which I never see happening in a democracy), then why not address the ways in which cars destroy the earth? The logic doesn’t make sense to you because you posed a false dichotomy. The options aren’t “destroy the earth with cars or save the earth without cars,” because cars don’t necessarily have to destroy the earth. As an exercise of the imagination, imagine hydroelectric charged hovering quadracopter electric vehicles. They no longer produce microplastics or co2. Their batteries are 100% recyclable. What specifically would the issue be then? Is it absurd to imagine such a thing? Given current technology, it’s absolutely NOT absurd. Given future technology it’s fully achievable. Instead of flying vehicles, maybe just not touching the ground is enough? Etc. This may not be how we solve the issues, but it’s a lot more plausible in my mind than convincing everyone to pack into an urban core and stop driving to Costco.