10 ms·

To me, what would be interesting about a world without cars (or even with cars, but vastly more attractive public transport) is that it would partly reverse a s

by sgentle 15y ago

To me, what would be interesting about a world without cars (or even with cars, but vastly more attractive public transport) is that it would partly reverse a sad isolationist trend that's come along with the power and control given to us by modern technology. I used to catch a bus every day through the city, and there were a lot of strange people on those trips. Gangs of 9 year old gangster kids drunk up the back. Little old ladies muttering racist slurs at asian students. A guy who hadn't showered in so long his clothes had gone partially transparent from the grease. I don't think I was ever in any danger, but it sure was uncomfortable sometimes. I work pretty close to home now (in fact, mostly at home), so it's not really an issue anymore. But strangely, I find myself missing that chance to interact with people who I didn't choose to interact with. It seems like every time we get more power (like by inventing an engine that can move us around) we use it to get more control (now I can encase myself in a metal shield that prevents any accidental congress with the outside world). A bunch of technology has gone the same way. Efficient worldwide shipping and postage means you don't need to go outside to shop. Communication moving online means you can block people you don't like rather than have to deal with them. OKCupid means you can pre-screen your dates to avoid accidentally meeting someone unpalatable. You can GPS track your kids so they won't ever end up lost or at the wrong sort of party. And those are all good things that give you more control over your environment. But they also isolate you. Unknown experiences are fundamentally scary; so scary that we feel more afraid of walking in a dark alley than we do of heart disease. Like every generation before us, we strike out against danger with the power of our tools. But our dangers are, at this point, largely invented. We're getting to a point where instead of being safe, we'll just be cocooned in a real-world filter bubble, where we never have to fear the unknown, uncontrollable, unsanitised real world that gets forced on us when we get on a bus or walk around a city. I suspect, for all our newfound safety, we'll just feel a bit unsatisfied. I guess I've just argued myself out of believing that the future without cars is ever really going to happen. Maybe there'll be a virtual bus MMO.

enjo 15y ago
You pretty much summed up why modern suburbs are the way they are.
sliverstorm 15y ago
Unknown experiences are fundamentally scary; so scary that we feel more afraid of walking in a dark alley than we do of heart disease. Bah, that isn't the fear of the unknown vs. the fear of the known. It is immediate, physical fear (in thirty seconds those gang members are going to mug me) vs. eventual, abstract fear (in twenty years, something might go wrong inside me).
- gonzo 15y ago
  when something does, eventually, "go wrong", it makes all the fear of gang attack seem trivial. (I survived an ascending aortic dissection in Aug 09.)
  - sliverstorm 15y ago
    Naturally, but that doesn't change the fact that distant threats are less fearsome than immediate ones, and that abstract threats are also less fearsome. To be clear, when I say "abstract threats" I mean things we cannot properly think about. We know what it feels like to get punched, and we have some idea what it feels like to be stabbed, but we have no idea how to assign fear to something like chemotherapy until it happens to us. We know it is Bad(tm), but not the same way we know getting cut with a knife is bad.
swah 15y ago
If you're truly introspective you can live in a building and never say hello to your neighbors. Everyone is in the same place but minding their business, listening their favorite music, etc.
donw 15y ago
You've done a great job of summing up one of the reasons that public transit in the US is as bad as it is. My goal is to safely get from Point A to Point B, and I don't want to spend a lot of time waiting around at Point A, or sitting and waiting on the way to Point B. We have three goals here, in order of importance. Let's call them safety, convenience, and speed. Taking a bus with a bunch of drunken hooligans doesn't help much with that first, and most important, goal. I want my transportation to be safe, and the high crime rates on public transportation in the US speak for themselves. Interesting experiences are great. Getting mugged isn't, and while I'm not a prime target (muggers don't usually pick on two-hundred-pound guys that spend a lot of time in the gym), five loud, drunk people in a gang is not the sort of situation I want to be around regularly. Especially if I'm carrying a $1500 laptop and a $600 smartphone. Convenience, at least here in SF, is also pretty miserable. I have not once had a bus arrive on-time. The trains are usually on-schedule, but conveniently frequent only during peak hours, and they only cover a small portion of the greater Bay Area. Don't even get me started on CalTrain. If I want to meet somebody and I need to take a bus, I need to add an extra half-hour window around my journey. If you assume a normal tech-person salary, that lost half-hour makes it cheaper to take a taxi for most journeys. Speed is good for trains; busses, on the other hand, live at the whim of traffic. Japan gets all of these right in its major cities. I have never once felt threatened on a train, and delays are few and far between. The tradeoff they make is in manpower -- station employees are everywhere. We tend to not like hiring lots of people in the US, and so public transit stations might have one or two visible employees, and certainly not visible, uniformed personnel at every platform. This is why cars are as popular as they are. In SF, if I want to go from Pacific Heights to the Inner Sunset, a journey by bus-and-train pushes about an hour. By car, it's about fifteen minutes. In my car, I have a stereo, air conditioning, and a clean, comfortable seat. Public transit, on the other hand, is pretty filthy here in SF, and for some odd reason they jack the heat up enough so that I need to do a little striptease whenever I get on a train. All minor inconveniences, sure, but it adds up quickly, and what do I get in return? I'm late, have lost money in the long run, and arrive more often than not in a worse mood than when I started. I really want working public transit here in the US, but the way things are going, I don't see that happening for at least another decade.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
wissler 15y ago
"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men." --Ayn Rand
goggles99 15y ago
Man has traditionally (going back 10 thousands of years) not had the type of interaction that you mention. Civilization brought man close together in this modern era. Tract housing, public transportation, ETC. History shows us that is more in mans nature to be largely isolated except for a small group of people. Even when living amongst other people - traditionally people were much more spread out than now and did not interact with those outside of their small group very often It is clear that man prefers to travel with privacy or cars would never have succeeded where alternatives exist. The convenience factor is huge too. I prefer the freedom to go wherever, whenever and without some crazy person screaming at me on some bus or subway somewhere.

by sgentle 15y ago

enjo 15y ago

You pretty much summed up why modern suburbs are the way they are.

sliverstorm 15y ago

Unknown experiences are fundamentally scary; so scary that we feel more afraid of walking in a dark alley than we do of heart disease. Bah, that isn't the fear of the unknown vs. the fear of the known. It is immediate, physical fear (in thirty seconds those gang members are going to mug me) vs. eventual, abstract fear (in twenty years, something might go wrong inside me).

gonzo 15y ago
when something does, eventually, "go wrong", it makes all the fear of gang attack seem trivial. (I survived an ascending aortic dissection in Aug 09.)
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  Naturally, but that doesn't change the fact that distant threats are less fearsome than immediate ones, and that abstract threats are also less fearsome. To be clear, when I say "abstract threats" I mean things we cannot properly think about. We know what it feels like to get punched, and we have some idea what it feels like to be stabbed, but we have no idea how to assign fear to something like chemotherapy until it happens to us. We know it is Bad(tm), but not the same way we know getting cut with a knife is bad.

swah 15y ago

If you're truly introspective you can live in a building and never say hello to your neighbors. Everyone is in the same place but minding their business, listening their favorite music, etc.

donw 15y ago

You've done a great job of summing up one of the reasons that public transit in the US is as bad as it is. My goal is to safely get from Point A to Point B, and I don't want to spend a lot of time waiting around at Point A, or sitting and waiting on the way to Point B. We have three goals here, in order of importance. Let's call them safety, convenience, and speed. Taking a bus with a bunch of drunken hooligans doesn't help much with that first, and most important, goal. I want my transportation to be safe, and the high crime rates on public transportation in the US speak for themselves. Interesting experiences are great. Getting mugged isn't, and while I'm not a prime target (muggers don't usually pick on two-hundred-pound guys that spend a lot of time in the gym), five loud, drunk people in a gang is not the sort of situation I want to be around regularly. Especially if I'm carrying a $1500 laptop and a $600 smartphone. Convenience, at least here in SF, is also pretty miserable. I have not once had a bus arrive on-time. The trains are usually on-schedule, but conveniently frequent only during peak hours, and they only cover a small portion of the greater Bay Area. Don't even get me started on CalTrain. If I want to meet somebody and I need to take a bus, I need to add an extra half-hour window around my journey. If you assume a normal tech-person salary, that lost half-hour makes it cheaper to take a taxi for most journeys. Speed is good for trains; busses, on the other hand, live at the whim of traffic. Japan gets all of these right in its major cities. I have never once felt threatened on a train, and delays are few and far between. The tradeoff they make is in manpower -- station employees are everywhere. We tend to not like hiring lots of people in the US, and so public transit stations might have one or two visible employees, and certainly not visible, uniformed personnel at every platform. This is why cars are as popular as they are. In SF, if I want to go from Pacific Heights to the Inner Sunset, a journey by bus-and-train pushes about an hour. By car, it's about fifteen minutes. In my car, I have a stereo, air conditioning, and a clean, comfortable seat. Public transit, on the other hand, is pretty filthy here in SF, and for some odd reason they jack the heat up enough so that I need to do a little striptease whenever I get on a train. All minor inconveniences, sure, but it adds up quickly, and what do I get in return? I'm late, have lost money in the long run, and arrive more often than not in a worse mood than when I started. I really want working public transit here in the US, but the way things are going, I don't see that happening for at least another decade.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

wissler 15y ago

"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men." --Ayn Rand

goggles99 15y ago

Man has traditionally (going back 10 thousands of years) not had the type of interaction that you mention. Civilization brought man close together in this modern era. Tract housing, public transportation, ETC. History shows us that is more in mans nature to be largely isolated except for a small group of people. Even when living amongst other people - traditionally people were much more spread out than now and did not interact with those outside of their small group very often It is clear that man prefers to travel with privacy or cars would never have succeeded where alternatives exist. The convenience factor is huge too. I prefer the freedom to go wherever, whenever and without some crazy person screaming at me on some bus or subway somewhere.