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The "sigh" was because it seems my point was missed. The particulars of what I happen to enjoy as a living arrangement are borderline irrelevant. The point I wa

The "sigh" was because it seems my point was missed. The particulars of what I happen to enjoy as a living arrangement are borderline irrelevant. The point I was making is that a bunch of people are pushing their way of life on to others (through sin taxes and policy changes and the like) based on the premise that their way of life is obviously superior. I'm saying the dual of "my way of life is better." Someone else brought up that there are subsidies supporting my way of life though. I'm fine with removing those. But I personally haven't seen that position advocated in this thread. So I didn't account for it. > radical tree-huggers Radical tree huggers? Come now. No need for the flamebait. I love nature. I frequent it whenever I get the chance. But I don't feel entitled to it wherever I happen to be. > whilst ignoring the fact that the kind of suburban sprawl happening today has a ton of other downsides, and fails to even meet your own standards for a nice neighborhood. I didn't ignore anything. I never said suburbs were always the best. I didn't even say that I prefer every suburb to any city. I didn't speak with exact precision because the details of "my way of life" weren't crucial to my point. I didn't say any of this because I never argued that suburbs were, in any way, shape or form better than cities. I merely stated that I prefer them. And that's enough.

wtallis 13y ago
You're making a false dichotomy, between the urban no-car life you don't want, and the suburbs that make it impossible to get anywhere without a car. A happy middle ground is possible and exists in many places, and can be done without much extra effort, but it requires some. Zoning regulations and the like have proven to be insufficient for preventing developers from throwing down several square miles of cookie-cutter homes at a time embedded in a fractal maze of cul-de-sacs with no room for commercial development, meaning those neighborhoods end up car-mandatory and impossible to service with mass transit even when they're very dense. There are plenty of sound public policy reasons for wanting alternative forms of transportation to be viable, so even if it feels like someone shoving their way of life down your throat, it'll still probably save you tax money in the long run even if it has to be achieved through blunt means like "sin taxes". Edit: Many of the subsidies the car-only lifestyle gets are really negative externalities the burden of which is shared by everyone: the public health nightmare of obesity, pollution in the form of smog and runoff, political downsides of dependence on oil. How could those be dealt with in a way that doesn't feel to you like an unjust sin tax or someone forcing their way of life on you?
- burntsushi 13y ago
  I'm sorry I gave you the impression that I think there are only two options. I don't think that. I don't think my way of life is better. I don't think yours is. I just want people to stop saying their way of life is obviously better (even if it is some sort of middle ground), and that because of that, we should just start taxing people for doing things they don't happen to like. If you feel the desire to press me more for my view on taxes (because you perceive some inconsistency), and in general, government, then I implore you not to. It's a waste of time, and in all probability, we will vehemently disagree.
  - wtallis 13y ago
    When I've been saying "better" here, I'm using it in the sense of Pareto efficiency - more preferred even by people with different preferences. I'm not imposing a single linear scale along which to rank things. If you don't think taxation or other government intervention are justified in order to achieve a Pareto improvement that the free market demonstrably cannot achieve on its own, then yeah, talking government with you is a waste of time.
    - burntsushi 13y ago
      > that the free market demonstrably cannot achieve on its own Are you referring to the free market that caused suburbs to become a thing only "due to the subsidization of the automobile infrastructure"?[1] So somehow, people are blaming sprawl on the subsidization of automobiles---which, let's not kid ourselves, is done only by government and corporations in bed with government---but you, you, are saying that this is really a demonstrable failure of a free market? (Which, of course, you proclaim because it doesn't meet some arbitrary standard that seems impossible to measure. Which apparently---and conveniently---seems to line up with what you happen to like as a way of life.) Have I got that right? Or are you referencing some other failure? [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7208650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7208650
      - wtallis 13y ago

wtallis 13y ago

You're making a false dichotomy, between the urban no-car life you don't want, and the suburbs that make it impossible to get anywhere without a car. A happy middle ground is possible and exists in many places, and can be done without much extra effort, but it requires some. Zoning regulations and the like have proven to be insufficient for preventing developers from throwing down several square miles of cookie-cutter homes at a time embedded in a fractal maze of cul-de-sacs with no room for commercial development, meaning those neighborhoods end up car-mandatory and impossible to service with mass transit even when they're very dense. There are plenty of sound public policy reasons for wanting alternative forms of transportation to be viable, so even if it feels like someone shoving their way of life down your throat, it'll still probably save you tax money in the long run even if it has to be achieved through blunt means like "sin taxes". Edit: Many of the subsidies the car-only lifestyle gets are really negative externalities the burden of which is shared by everyone: the public health nightmare of obesity, pollution in the form of smog and runoff, political downsides of dependence on oil. How could those be dealt with in a way that doesn't feel to you like an unjust sin tax or someone forcing their way of life on you?

burntsushi 13y ago
I'm sorry I gave you the impression that I think there are only two options. I don't think that. I don't think my way of life is better. I don't think yours is. I just want people to stop saying their way of life is obviously better (even if it is some sort of middle ground), and that because of that, we should just start taxing people for doing things they don't happen to like. If you feel the desire to press me more for my view on taxes (because you perceive some inconsistency), and in general, government, then I implore you not to. It's a waste of time, and in all probability, we will vehemently disagree.
- wtallis 13y ago
  When I've been saying "better" here, I'm using it in the sense of Pareto efficiency - more preferred even by people with different preferences. I'm not imposing a single linear scale along which to rank things. If you don't think taxation or other government intervention are justified in order to achieve a Pareto improvement that the free market demonstrably cannot achieve on its own, then yeah, talking government with you is a waste of time.
  - burntsushi 13y ago
    > that the free market demonstrably cannot achieve on its own Are you referring to the free market that caused suburbs to become a thing only "due to the subsidization of the automobile infrastructure"?[1] So somehow, people are blaming sprawl on the subsidization of automobiles---which, let's not kid ourselves, is done only by government and corporations in bed with government---but you, you, are saying that this is really a demonstrable failure of a free market? (Which, of course, you proclaim because it doesn't meet some arbitrary standard that seems impossible to measure. Which apparently---and conveniently---seems to line up with what you happen to like as a way of life.) Have I got that right? Or are you referencing some other failure? [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7208650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7208650
    - wtallis 13y ago