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"Normal people" are often short-sighted. They only know what they know. They're heavily advertised to, and they lack imagination. In the US people are dropping

"Normal people" are often short-sighted. They only know what they know. They're heavily advertised to, and they lack imagination. In the US people are dropping like flies from obesity and disease. But even their day-to-day quality of life is awful, because naturally they don't feel good. A portion of this is directly because of a pro-car culture. When you can't walk anywhere ever that has an effect. People in the US are still very pro-car. They can't, or maybe don't want to, connect the dots on the consequences of that. American individualism is so extreme that people are happy to kill themselves, so long as they're the one who pulls the trigger. Their words may not be reliable. This is why we need data. How much money are average people spending? How healthy are average people? Etc etc. That should influence our decisions around public policy.

account42 2y ago
"Normal people" have been on overcrowded trains with spotty service. They know what putting someone else in charge of how, when and where they can travel inevitably turns out.
- consteval 2y ago
  "Normal people" also know multiple people who have died in car accidents. They also struggle to walk up a flight of stairs and hate their lives. Once again, you cannot trust what so-called "normal people" say. Particularly when there's political pressure at play. I'll say it again, but plenty of people would happily shoot themselves if they got to pull the trigger. Hyper-individualism of the US, and the rest of the West to a lesser extent, is a cancer. We work hard every single day to ignore it's plagues. The extreme cognitive dissonance our citizens are forced to produce means they're not reliable narrators.
  - caseyy 2y ago
    Perhaps normal people also have a more substantiated view of facts :)
    - consteval 2y ago
      What does this mean? The reality of the human condition is that humans will always GREATLY favor the status-quo, no matter what. Because they're already living it and, if they're not dying, they have a strong survival incentive to maintain it. Change is risk, and risk is bad. When I get in my car to drive, I don't think "oh God this has the greatest chance of killing me out anything I can do". Even though it's true. Do you know why I don't think that? Because that sucks ass. If I had to live like that, I'd probably kill myself. I'm here, with the status-quo. So, I must make the best of it. I'm not unique. Every single person, you included, lives like this. You have no choice but to ignore as much of the bad shit as you can, because you can't fix it in your lifetime. It's much easier, and better for your own health, to believe people are getting stabbed like kabobs in the subway and you're oh so safe and comfy in your nice suburban home. That's a much better thought process than the reality, which is that you're much more likely to die and it's not even close. So that's what you choose to believe and that's the belief you nourish. It's comfirmation bias, but it's the life blood of the human condition. The alternative is worse.
  - account42 2y ago
    > Once again, you cannot trust what so-called "normal people" say. Yes you can. That's what a democracy means.
    - consteval 2y ago
      And there are real, genuine problems with direct democracies. Because people will always greatly favor the status-quo because it's less risky.
deleted 2y ago
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account42 2y ago

"Normal people" have been on overcrowded trains with spotty service. They know what putting someone else in charge of how, when and where they can travel inevitably turns out.

consteval 2y ago
"Normal people" also know multiple people who have died in car accidents. They also struggle to walk up a flight of stairs and hate their lives. Once again, you cannot trust what so-called "normal people" say. Particularly when there's political pressure at play. I'll say it again, but plenty of people would happily shoot themselves if they got to pull the trigger. Hyper-individualism of the US, and the rest of the West to a lesser extent, is a cancer. We work hard every single day to ignore it's plagues. The extreme cognitive dissonance our citizens are forced to produce means they're not reliable narrators.
- caseyy 2y ago
  Perhaps normal people also have a more substantiated view of facts :)
  - consteval 2y ago
    What does this mean? The reality of the human condition is that humans will always GREATLY favor the status-quo, no matter what. Because they're already living it and, if they're not dying, they have a strong survival incentive to maintain it. Change is risk, and risk is bad. When I get in my car to drive, I don't think "oh God this has the greatest chance of killing me out anything I can do". Even though it's true. Do you know why I don't think that? Because that sucks ass. If I had to live like that, I'd probably kill myself. I'm here, with the status-quo. So, I must make the best of it. I'm not unique. Every single person, you included, lives like this. You have no choice but to ignore as much of the bad shit as you can, because you can't fix it in your lifetime. It's much easier, and better for your own health, to believe people are getting stabbed like kabobs in the subway and you're oh so safe and comfy in your nice suburban home. That's a much better thought process than the reality, which is that you're much more likely to die and it's not even close. So that's what you choose to believe and that's the belief you nourish. It's comfirmation bias, but it's the life blood of the human condition. The alternative is worse.
- account42 2y ago
  > Once again, you cannot trust what so-called "normal people" say. Yes you can. That's what a democracy means.
  - consteval 2y ago
    And there are real, genuine problems with direct democracies. Because people will always greatly favor the status-quo because it's less risky.

deleted 2y ago

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