6 ms·

The only thing you can do to hurt the powers that be is not buying.

pepperoni_pizza 4mo ago
Depends on which powers for each specific choice. Electric cars don't run on Saudi-Trump-Putin juice, so they're pretty good step in screwing those, for example.
- Gibbon1 4mo ago
  The difference between solar+batteries and oil and gas is the former is a durable good and latter are consumables.
numpad0 4mo ago
I think producing and consuming like crazy could also work, considering how quickly Twitter turned Elon Musk from most important to least interesting figure on Earth. Wealth and sensory capacity don't appear to be positively correlated at all.
seba_dos1 4mo ago
Can be done too. I live in a rather big city, so I don't own a car, as I can perfectly go by using public transport.
- retired 4mo ago
  Only if you limit your work and social life to that particular city. Not something most people want to do.
  - IneffablePigeon 4mo ago
    There are many places in the world this is not true. I would say about half the people I know who live in London don’t own a car. They travel plenty - probably more than the people I know who don’t live in London. If they really need a car once they get to their destination they will rent one, or use taxis.
    - retired 4mo ago
      For The Netherlands you are really constricted to the city you live in if you don’t own a car. You can forget about going to a concert, a birthday party or catching an early flight without one. Or if you want to do anything fun on a Sunday in the east. Most people I know have a social life or do sports that require a car. If your children play football you really need a car. Last time I used a taxi in The Netherlands it was €210 for a 40 minute ride, that is reserved for the very wealthy. London is a well connected metropole with 15 million people, not really comparable to most cities. Edit, reply to Alex as I am rate limited with my comments: Please tell me how I can cycle the 60 kilometers from the airport to my home at 23:00 with a rolling carry-on suitcase. Renting a car is around €50 for a night out. And you need to reserve way in advance which is not great for spontaneous trips. Car ownership becomes cheaper and more convenient very quickly. I did car renting and after a couple of €1000/month bills I went back to car ownership. Renting a bus for the sports team is a lot more expensive than using the parents cars which are at no cost to the club. Reply to consp: You need the cars for football matches as public transport doesn’t get you there. The fields are outside of cities and matches are in the weekend when public transport is very limited.
      - consp 4mo ago
        You don't need a car for football matches. You need a car for convenience because [fill lazy reason]. And if one person rents a van you can take half the team...
      - alextingle 4mo ago
        > in The Netherlands it was €210 for a 40 minute ride That's much more than taxis cost in the UK, and pretty expensive even for the Netherlands. You have great cycling infrastructure, and public transport though. Renting a car is an affordable alternative to ownership, if you need to go to occasional concerts or birthday parties, and public transport happens to be inconvenient for your specific destination. I did that for years - the rental company would deliver and collect from my workplace, so it's super-easy. > If your children play football you really need a car. A friend of mine used to ferry his son 1000s of km per year to ice-hockey matches around the country, so I know what you mean. I don't understand it though - if the whole team is travelling, why don't they just rent a bus? Personally, I don't think it's healthy for a child's hobby to consume so much of the parents' time - of course, your choice.
  - svrtknst 4mo ago
    You can use public transportation, bikes, car pooling, taxis and rentals for your rare-use needs, and its usually cheaper than owning and operating a vehicle.
  - alextingle 4mo ago
    I'd say that the vast majority of people who live in a city both work, and socialise almost exclusively there.
    - retired 4mo ago
      Unfortunately not. Average distance to work is 19,9 kilometers. That is well outside the city they live in. Most people can’t afford to live in the city they work in. In Amsterdam my entire team lived outside the city.
      - seba_dos1 4mo ago
        Unless they lived in another big city, this is completely off-topic. Suburbs tend to have hit-or-miss public transit access, and the vast majority of people who live in a big city work in that big city (20 kilometers away would usually be just another district within the same city).
  - ben_w 4mo ago
    Depends on the public transport network where you live. I used to work with someone who commuted from London to Cambridge (yes, that way around). And in Berlin, someone else who commuted from half way to Poland. Won't work everywhere, e.g. from what I saw when visiting I don't foresee US cities rapidly integrating enough good public transport to properly replace cars within themselves, and from what I've heard about how municipal organisation works in the US even less so for a convenient and well integrated intercity network, but it can be done.
    - inigyou 4mo ago
      halfway from Berlin to Poland is like a 30 minute ride on regional train. It's quite close to the border.
      - deleted 4mo ago
        [deleted]
      - ben_w 4mo ago
        It's also 100 km to the border. The point is, we actually have trains (and busses) that can do this here. It's actually possible. I visited Davis CA few times around a decade ago for comparison; Go to google maps, choose public transit, and use Davis as an origin or destination while dragging the other end around and see how many routes it can even find. The rate of successes I get in the Sacramento conurbation are about the same as the rate of success I get for rural Brandenburg, but for most of the rest central Valley (with a handful of exceptions), Google mostly couldn't find a route at all. By this measure, California's central valley is worse-connected for long-distance public transport even than rural Wales (measured by "can I route-find to Aberystwyth?").
  - seba_dos1 4mo ago
    I don't. Long distance trains exist too, and I can watch a movie or eat at a restaurant car there rather than focus on the road.
    - pepperoni_pizza 4mo ago
      My favorite is having beer with friends in a restaurant car. It's like going to a pub but with awesome view!
inigyou 4mo ago
There are things that could hurt them a lot more than ignoring them.
- JKCalhoun 4mo ago
  You're being coy. Perhaps someone should clarify though that most of us are looking for legal means to rattle the shackles of our (Tr/B)illionaire overlords.
  - badpun 4mo ago
    Legally, you can do a lot more than ignoring. If you have any talent for it, becoming an activist (say a youtuber) rallying people against whatever you believe is bad, can be pretty powerful. A single person (again, with some talent for public speaking etc.) has a real chance of making meaningful change this way.
    - inigyou 4mo ago
      Rallying people to do what? Boycotts? They have some effect, but never enough. The most influential YouTuber I can think of is Louis Rossmann, and you know, he's not a YouTuber, he's a MacBook repair guy who took up YouTube.
      - badpun 4mo ago
        No, not boycotts. The influencial youtubers I think of actually can shape political debate and thus policy - what they say, if it gains enough popularity, sometimes seeps into the political agenda of the ruling party (which is always looking to "score points" with the voters and has its ears to the ground listening which issues and points people are currently responding to). It's basically like being a columnist of an influential newspaper, except you don't need to have the right connections to become one.
        inigyou 4mo ago
        The political establishment is savvy enough to score points on things they don't care about and ignore voters on things they do care about. That's why one party supports LGBTQ pride and the other opposes it, but they both support the genocide. LGBTQ pride doesn't really affect politicians' power, genocide does.

Depends on which powers for each specific choice. Electric cars don't run on Saudi-Trump-Putin juice, so they're pretty good step in screwing those, for example.

Gibbon1 4mo ago
The difference between solar+batteries and oil and gas is the former is a durable good and latter are consumables.

numpad0 4mo ago

I think producing and consuming like crazy could also work, considering how quickly Twitter turned Elon Musk from most important to least interesting figure on Earth. Wealth and sensory capacity don't appear to be positively correlated at all.

seba_dos1 4mo ago

Can be done too. I live in a rather big city, so I don't own a car, as I can perfectly go by using public transport.

retired 4mo ago
Only if you limit your work and social life to that particular city. Not something most people want to do.
- IneffablePigeon 4mo ago
  There are many places in the world this is not true. I would say about half the people I know who live in London don’t own a car. They travel plenty - probably more than the people I know who don’t live in London. If they really need a car once they get to their destination they will rent one, or use taxis.
  - retired 4mo ago
    For The Netherlands you are really constricted to the city you live in if you don’t own a car. You can forget about going to a concert, a birthday party or catching an early flight without one. Or if you want to do anything fun on a Sunday in the east. Most people I know have a social life or do sports that require a car. If your children play football you really need a car. Last time I used a taxi in The Netherlands it was €210 for a 40 minute ride, that is reserved for the very wealthy. London is a well connected metropole with 15 million people, not really comparable to most cities. Edit, reply to Alex as I am rate limited with my comments: Please tell me how I can cycle the 60 kilometers from the airport to my home at 23:00 with a rolling carry-on suitcase. Renting a car is around €50 for a night out. And you need to reserve way in advance which is not great for spontaneous trips. Car ownership becomes cheaper and more convenient very quickly. I did car renting and after a couple of €1000/month bills I went back to car ownership. Renting a bus for the sports team is a lot more expensive than using the parents cars which are at no cost to the club. Reply to consp: You need the cars for football matches as public transport doesn’t get you there. The fields are outside of cities and matches are in the weekend when public transport is very limited.
    - consp 4mo ago
      You don't need a car for football matches. You need a car for convenience because [fill lazy reason]. And if one person rents a van you can take half the team...
    - alextingle 4mo ago
      > in The Netherlands it was €210 for a 40 minute ride That's much more than taxis cost in the UK, and pretty expensive even for the Netherlands. You have great cycling infrastructure, and public transport though. Renting a car is an affordable alternative to ownership, if you need to go to occasional concerts or birthday parties, and public transport happens to be inconvenient for your specific destination. I did that for years - the rental company would deliver and collect from my workplace, so it's super-easy. > If your children play football you really need a car. A friend of mine used to ferry his son 1000s of km per year to ice-hockey matches around the country, so I know what you mean. I don't understand it though - if the whole team is travelling, why don't they just rent a bus? Personally, I don't think it's healthy for a child's hobby to consume so much of the parents' time - of course, your choice.
- svrtknst 4mo ago
  You can use public transportation, bikes, car pooling, taxis and rentals for your rare-use needs, and its usually cheaper than owning and operating a vehicle.
- alextingle 4mo ago
  I'd say that the vast majority of people who live in a city both work, and socialise almost exclusively there.
  - retired 4mo ago
    Unfortunately not. Average distance to work is 19,9 kilometers. That is well outside the city they live in. Most people can’t afford to live in the city they work in. In Amsterdam my entire team lived outside the city.
    - seba_dos1 4mo ago
      Unless they lived in another big city, this is completely off-topic. Suburbs tend to have hit-or-miss public transit access, and the vast majority of people who live in a big city work in that big city (20 kilometers away would usually be just another district within the same city).
- ben_w 4mo ago
  Depends on the public transport network where you live. I used to work with someone who commuted from London to Cambridge (yes, that way around). And in Berlin, someone else who commuted from half way to Poland. Won't work everywhere, e.g. from what I saw when visiting I don't foresee US cities rapidly integrating enough good public transport to properly replace cars within themselves, and from what I've heard about how municipal organisation works in the US even less so for a convenient and well integrated intercity network, but it can be done.
  - inigyou 4mo ago
    halfway from Berlin to Poland is like a 30 minute ride on regional train. It's quite close to the border.
    - deleted 4mo ago
      [deleted]
    - ben_w 4mo ago
      It's also 100 km to the border. The point is, we actually have trains (and busses) that can do this here. It's actually possible. I visited Davis CA few times around a decade ago for comparison; Go to google maps, choose public transit, and use Davis as an origin or destination while dragging the other end around and see how many routes it can even find. The rate of successes I get in the Sacramento conurbation are about the same as the rate of success I get for rural Brandenburg, but for most of the rest central Valley (with a handful of exceptions), Google mostly couldn't find a route at all. By this measure, California's central valley is worse-connected for long-distance public transport even than rural Wales (measured by "can I route-find to Aberystwyth?").
- seba_dos1 4mo ago
  I don't. Long distance trains exist too, and I can watch a movie or eat at a restaurant car there rather than focus on the road.
  - pepperoni_pizza 4mo ago
    My favorite is having beer with friends in a restaurant car. It's like going to a pub but with awesome view!

inigyou 4mo ago

There are things that could hurt them a lot more than ignoring them.

JKCalhoun 4mo ago
You're being coy. Perhaps someone should clarify though that most of us are looking for legal means to rattle the shackles of our (Tr/B)illionaire overlords.
- badpun 4mo ago
  Legally, you can do a lot more than ignoring. If you have any talent for it, becoming an activist (say a youtuber) rallying people against whatever you believe is bad, can be pretty powerful. A single person (again, with some talent for public speaking etc.) has a real chance of making meaningful change this way.
  - inigyou 4mo ago
    Rallying people to do what? Boycotts? They have some effect, but never enough. The most influential YouTuber I can think of is Louis Rossmann, and you know, he's not a YouTuber, he's a MacBook repair guy who took up YouTube.
    - badpun 4mo ago
      No, not boycotts. The influencial youtubers I think of actually can shape political debate and thus policy - what they say, if it gains enough popularity, sometimes seeps into the political agenda of the ruling party (which is always looking to "score points" with the voters and has its ears to the ground listening which issues and points people are currently responding to). It's basically like being a columnist of an influential newspaper, except you don't need to have the right connections to become one.
      - inigyou 4mo ago
        The political establishment is savvy enough to score points on things they don't care about and ignore voters on things they do care about. That's why one party supports LGBTQ pride and the other opposes it, but they both support the genocide. LGBTQ pride doesn't really affect politicians' power, genocide does.