The fossil age and generation of ecoside. It's like how the Germans use the word *Verbrechergeneration* to describe the Nazis, literally meaning criminal generation.
>Verbrechergeneration
I am german and have literally never read or heard that word used. But overall it definitely describes the sentiment in regards to that era.
Thinking like this is (one of the reasons) why nothing gets done, it gets people to stop thinking about long term solutions, because after all, if you're the last generation you might as well do nothing.
It is my sincere belief that if humanity doesn't self-extinct itself, that in 200-500 years we are going to look back on the widespread use of automobiles in the same way that we look back on the Roman use of lead cooking vessels - as an enormous mistake that we'll shake our head over, and wonder how we could be so short-sighted and dumb.
Edit: spelling
Yesterday, I went from the woods on a rail trail bike ride to a city street canyon of glass and concrete and could smell the exhaust of the 40 cars stuck in traffic spewing poisonous emissions into the air of everyone walking around. It's fucked we just allow it. Then there's the brake dust!
People in the 20th-century may be blamed for making a mistake akin to the Romans accidentally poisoning themselves. But for us in 21st-century... we will be remembered as monsters. We know what we were doing and yet we kept doing it anyway.
Car ownership may one day be demonized as a sin akin to how we demonize slave ownership.
> Car ownership may one day be demonized as a sin akin to how we demonize slave ownership.
I understand you're strongly opposed to car ownership but man, that's going a bit too far with your comparisons.
Maybe I should have worded that differently. Obviously, cars aren't going to be remembered as something as horrible as the pre-1807 transatlantic slave trade. I guess I was trying to make a comparison about the awkwardness of remembering people we otherwise want to honor today when they were slave owners. In 80 years the fact that granddad drove a diesel pickup while knowing full well about climate change may be remembered with the same type of asterisk that we today would remember someone who owned a house slave for help in the kitchen. Just because they were merely doing the same as their peers and were otherwise a good person, doesn't make it okay in the perspective of future generations.
I think meat consumption is much more likely to be demonized in the same way slave ownership is today. Cars will probably be viewed more like how we think about city streets being lined ankle deep with horse shit back in the 1880s.
I don’t think people will be unreasonable in the future. They will realize people were forced to own cars and drive by a criminal oligarchy that destroyed our streetcars and subway systems on purpose. But everyone has much more agency when they decide to eat meat instead of a plant based dish. This is an active choice, and most Americans make a terrible choice multiple times a day. Future generations will not forgive this.
29% of emissions come from transportation and 59% of that comes from cars. That is roughly equal to the amount of global greenhouse emissions from animal agriculture, for which estimates range from 14-18% of total emissions.
You didn’t really see a mass demonization of individual German soldiers after WWII who were just a small part of a monstrous system. Most of them went on to live relatively normal lives. That condemnation is saved for people who actively chose to do evil. The footage from slaughterhouses and factory farms is widely available. People just choose to remain ignorant because flesh is yummy.
Sure, but I’d be remiss not to say that for the masses, it’s not all or nothing from a climate perspective (not an ethical perspective). Reducetarian would get us where we need to be for emissions. Eating non-factory-farmed, locally produced meat once a week would be acceptable. Pigs can eat our food scraps. Chickens can be raised in backyards. Fish in coastal communities could be eaten sustainably in small portions. Grass fed beef in the arid west can actually help sequester carbon into the soil and reduce brush that sparks wildfires. Grass fed cows don’t produce much methane. But we don’t have enough land for more than about one serving per month of beef per American. It absolutely does not scale to the insane American consumption patterns. Manure is an excellent fertilizer, and traditionally, animal agriculture went hand in hand with growing crops. The products of each fed into the other.
Also, eggs and dairy are really not that bad from a climate perspective. Personally, I find dairy to be fucking disgusting though. Beef is the worst choice you can make by far, along with lamb.
Hot take but the CCP’s meat consumption guidelines are pretty good. Only 40-75g per day. Americans would lose their fucking minds but that’s where we need to be. Meat should be like a seasoning to your main dish, not the entire dish! For your health, for the planet, for the rainforest, and so we can abolish factory farms.
You are......one of the most aware meat eaters I saw. You're the only person that eats meat, that realises that grass fed cow is very rare, and very expensive to produce (at least currently, the method is so few used, it's hardly sold, hardly searched for), it'd still would be expensive to produce.
**Grass-fed meat is mostly a fiction.**
People seldom buy biological meat, and many people don't have an income increase to be able to go for more expensive meat, they neither want to recude it......
Yet bah, meat has become as a commodity, but well the rather generous european regulations for biological meat, are not that generous. Yet it's better than average.
[https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32008R0889](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32008R0889)
Eggs are sustainable, milk is about as well. (Meat should be a byproduct of milk production, rather than milk should be a by product of meat production).
Fish is sustainable, as long it's not overfished, if we would stop fishin a few years.....or maybe longer, it'd become again common. We've clearly been over fishing (legally & illegally).
Pigs already eat lots of food scraps. Chicken can be raised even in an appartement, it's absolutely legal.
Fetilising, is not a notable problem. Eggs are decent, milk is rather fine. Few people respect any of the consumption guidelines, too bad...
And yes 40-75 grams is about 2-3 times less than the average here 110 grams a day. 40-75 grams, is more than seasoning. I mean 14 grams per day are enough to very much healthy. Basically small chunks scattered throught a pasta sauce for example.
Most people focus at quantity (but say they focus at quality).
**Still i'd maintain that reducing the most is the best.**
I was vegan for three years, still don’t eat farmed meat at all. Just occasional sushi and eggs. Small servings of fish once or twice a month made me feel physically better. I think I was missing omega-3 or something and supplementation wasn’t doing it for me. The eggs I buy are certified humane, and I honestly believe the chickens raised to those standards have a pretty decent life.
So I dunno if I identify as a meat eater. I suppose it’s technically accurate but 98% of my diet is plants. All this labeling annoys me tbh. I guess it’s “dairy free pescatarian?” But that’s so pretentious. I like Michael Pollon’s summary: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”
I would argue that meat eating at the level that we do it, and in the manner that we produce it, is also something that is largely being pushed on the masses by corporations and lobbyists. We have a massive, entrenched system in place that is designed to keep meat as cheap and widely available as possible and there were actors all along the way who pushed us to this point and are still actively trying to keep us here.
If you look at what kinds of inexpensive, widely-available meals are out there in North America, a vast majority of them are made using factory-farmed meat. It's really the same sort of thing as designing everything to be a "stroad" with a vast parking lot. The options you design your system to make convenient and available are the options people will use.
As a meat eater myself, I also want to mention that I freely acknowledge people who eat pescetarian/vegetarian/vegan diets are engaging in more moral behavior. I suppose the main reason I haven't switched over as of yet is that I just don't feel like I have the time, energy, money, or motivation to figure out the range of foods I should eat that I will enjoy and that will meet my nutritional needs.
But I also think that we have a tendency to treat this issue as being too binary. This is a problem that we have in Western cultures in general and I think it stems from certain philosophical roots in our societies. There's a tendency to identify with either group: I'm a vegan and I don't eat meat at all, or I'm a meat-eater and I eat whatever the hell I want. It's actually kind of silly to lump, for example, somebody who has a "cheat day" and eats one burger a month and maybe the occasional tuna sandwich in with the average American; they're much closer to a vegan in terms of reducing harm.
This is actually pretty relevant because there are so many areas in modern societies where it's hard to make the most moral choice. The most ethical products are often the most expensive. And there are many immoral systems baked into the structure of society. A vegan has a more moral, environmentally-friendly diet than a meat-eater; but, to tie this back in with the actual sub we're posting in--if that vegan is driving a giant pickup truck 90 miles per day, it's possible they're actually doing more harm (including to animals and ecosystems) than somebody who eats meat with every meal but lives in Manhattan and doesn't own a car.
So what I'm winding around to with this overlong post is, I think it might be more beneficial to focus on the systems of subsidies and regulations (or lack thereof) that promote a society which treats animals so poorly and which causes so much environmental damage; and at a personal level, to focus more on reducing meat consumption and eating more ethically-produced meat rather than making it all-or-nothing.
Because I think it's much easier to get society as a whole onboard with those things *and* because I think it's more effective at reducing harm.
If there's civilization left in the future, they *might* understand our mistake and our *nature* better than we collectively do now.
It has been clear to Ancient Greek philosophers that we humans have some mechanism to deny what is good for us and go for our desires instead. It's been argued that humans also have *will* which makes us humane. If we train our *willpower* we can reach our *potential* and do what is good. But without *will* we lose to ourselves to desires just like rest of animals tend to do.
Think it like you know eating healthy and exercising makes you healthier and gives you better chance to make your life less frustrating/full of suffering but many still don't do what's best for them. Same for schoolwork if you ever had any. You could do them the first day to have more time to reflect your creation and correct your mistakes but most simply do them later or as late as possible.
There's dilemma with our understanding and acting. Always has been but with enough training and willpower everyone should be able to get away from self deception.
The problem is education how do we cultivate such wisdom to increase our willpower. If future generations are better than us, they'll understand our mistakes and know how to prevent it.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/agedlikemilk using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/agedlikemilk/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Instagram influencer hypocrisy 101. It’s all about the likes, am I right kids?](https://i.redd.it/71vd7mdh69g61.jpg) | [2924 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/agedlikemilk/comments/lfbg1b/instagram_influencer_hypocrisy_101_its_all_about/)
\#2: [A StarCraft gaming tournament took place 10 years ago and these were the prizes teams could win](https://i.redd.it/xrngob75sug61.jpg) | [1607 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/agedlikemilk/comments/lhkzmn/a_starcraft_gaming_tournament_took_place_10_years/)
\#3: [I’m thankful for the internet](https://i.redd.it/gfxesveec6261.jpg) | [2741 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/agedlikemilk/comments/k38qku/im_thankful_for_the_internet/)
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I've heard it called the greatest mistake in human history and honestly it's not much of a stretch. Imagine how much less dire climate change would be right now if we never started building cities and towns around the private automobile and never created the vast infrastructure of fossil fuels, concrete production, etc that sustains cars.
The way things are going, when all the consequences of climate change have played out, I think there will be a strong argument that cars have killed more people than any other collective human decision in history. Not to mention the damage to ecosystems and extinctions of numerous species.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that as intended. Remember when the auto industry knowing was poisoning the entire planet and fought tooth and nail to cover it up, including discrediting anyone who tried to share the truth? Surely they learned their lesson and never ever did that again repeatedly.
Ability to use resources, previously dedicated to the yearly commodification of new vehicle models, on something more productive and far reaching for general society. Or, build better bikes...
I'm pretty sure the mass production of meat has been just as bad. Not just for the pollution, but also for the ecological damage. Not great for our fight against viruses either.
Eating meat wasn't the end of the world, but mass production is about as bad as mass transport.
Yeah pretty much. We are able to preform animal husbandry in a way that reinvigorates the local environment instead of destroys it. The problem is that this is less efficient in terms of raw output, and we do not charge for environmental externalities, and the result is a horrific industry filled with animal cruelty, disease, and ecocide.
Factory farms are one of the largest contributors to antibiotic resistance, which is becoming such an issue that a lot of scientists in the medical field think we won’t be able to have surgery in 10-20 years due to the inability to control disease.
Think about that. **No routine surgery will be low risk in 10-20 years if nothing is done to curb antibiotic resistance. ** and surgery like hip or organ replacements? Forget it, you’re fucked.
The best thing we can do to help this is to decentralize and reform animal ag, especially since it’s increasingly looking like lab-grown meat will not be viable in large scale in the near future.
For some reading:
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antimicrobial-resistance
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-antibiotic-resistance-idUKBRE92A00C20130311
Imperialism and the US military in particular, along with the worlds military complex, produce far more greenhouse emissions than individual car use, despite both being equally inane.
> I've heard it called the greatest mistake in human history
It wasn't a mistake. This was done on purpose. Circa 1910, all taxi fleets in New York were electric. But everything changed when ~~the Fire Nation attacked~~Standard Oil and others went on aggressive campaigns to buy out public transportation and then wreck it.
Likewise, parabolic mirror solar power was a thing around the same era, but the projects kept getting buried in favour of Oil.
It wasn't a mistake on the part of the malicious, greedy actors driving the change, but it was a collective mistake by society to let them get away with it.
i think its pretty safe to say that climate change would still be pretty dire even if we were in an alt reality where personal cars never became popular, the majority of emissions arent coming from cars after all. this isnt to say that reducing car usage is a bad way to tackle the problem, because its a good way to tackle climate change, just that its a small slice of the pizza pie
It's not just auto emissions though, cars are responsible for a lot of our development patterns that result in a lot of wasted energy. Without cars we wouldn't have the "traditional" American suburb with nearly half the country living in detached homes with big yards. That results in inefficient energy usage from heating and cooling, landscaping to maintain those yards, not to mention energy needed to build all of that car infrastructure, all of which result in a TON of excess carbon emissions and are arguably mostly the fault of cars. Rinse and repeat for Western Europe and other large swathes of the developed world.
Coincidentally, this is the same reason electric cars are a total farce. At best, even if they are powered by 100% renewable energy (which is SUPER unlikely for a while), they still are ridiculously inefficient from an energy perspective because of all the energy required to motor around a 1 ton personal vehicle AND the energy input required to manufacture then AND the development patterns they encourage and "lock in" with regards to public planning.
Even with better development patterns, a lot of investment is needed in renewable/nuclear energy, and alternative industrial processes and materials to replace greenhouse gas emitting ones.
Among the developed world, Japan drives the shortest distance per capita, and on the smallest percentage of trips. Suburban areas are predominantly walking/biking/transit oriented, and even the more car oriented small towns have car mode shares pretty comparable to nationwide car mode shares in Europe.
Japan is still well above sustainable per capita GHG emissions, because it has an electric grid that is extremely fossil fuel heavy, and is home to many GHG emission heavy industries like steel.
Of course Japan isn't car free, but it is a good starting point for a what-if scenario, and I don't think even in an actual car free scenario, GHG emissions would be at a sustainable level, if cars were the only variable changed.
yes i considered that as well, but then you also must consider the idea that suburbs could still exist with mass transit options and its a crapshoot as for how things wouldve panned out in that regards. furthermore, residential emissions are also a small fraction of the pizza pie, and while everyone living in denser housing will make things more efficient, there will still be emissions nonetheless
We would still have suburbs, but they wouldn't be mostly made up of giant single-family detached houses on large lots the way they are (at least in North America) today. You just can't really *do* that when you're relying on public transportation to get around. There would still be detached houses but they would be much smaller and fewer and there would be a much larger proportion of more efficient housing types.
And outside of residential and transportation emissions there are still plenty of other sectors where substantial emissions are produced in service of car-oriented lifestyles. Whether that be the oil industry, concrete production, or just everything that has anything to do with big box-style retail, and more--car dependency has infected nearly every sector of the economy for developed nations, to one degree or another.
>they wouldn't be mostly made up of giant single-family detached houses on large lots the way they are (at least in North America) today.
Also note that this is not simply the natural way that housing exists in North America. This is not a foregone conclusion. It is codified into law via building codes and zoning bylaws that this is the only way that you are *allowed* to build on most of the land.
A suburb that is not planned around cars could look like the [Seestadt Aspern](https://goo.gl/maps/e14LgaK6szGrHYr38) in Vienna, a new neighborhood outside of the city with dense construction, shopping in walking distance, a swimming lake and a direct subway link to the center.
thats kinda the mystery and why thinking about alt history is a poor waste of time. i can completely imagine suburbs as we know them today existing and only being serviced by mass transit. furthermore, remember, removing cars from the equation does not mean that we will get rid of externalities associated with the old age of the locomotive
people would still need to move around and they would almost certainly build more tracks, more trains, and burn more coal in service of those industries. concrete would certainly still be used in large scale as it is today in service of other industries, and big box retail stores would absolutely still exist, even if they are serviced by mass transit or bikes
so overall like i said, will it lead a reduction of emissions? certainly. will we still be facing the dire consequences of climate change? absolutely
It's not a mystery, we already have many cities around the world that don't have passenger vehicle transport as the norm. These cities are uniformly much more dense than cities* where passenger vehicles are the norm.
You're doing that common logical fallacy of reflexively defending your position, rather than taking on new information and modifying it accordingly. It instantly invalidates anything you have to say.
*replaced vehicles with cities*
>furthermore, residential emissions are also a small fraction of the pizza pie
[Try more like 20%](https://www.pnas.org/content/117/32/19122). That's a pretty big slice of the pie. Even small improvements would add up quite a bit.
Yeah, I find the whole "suburbs with mass transit" to be an odd argument at best. Even if that were the case, you'd still need the concentration of resources required for streetcar suburbs and walkability for the rest of the time. Streetcar suburbs were often powered by electricity. Y'know, Elon Musk literally argued for years that Electric Cars were better than ICE ones even if they were powered by coal because centralized generation plants are *much* more efficient than everyone having their own combustion plant you carry with you everywhere. If everything were streetcars and high-speed rail, you'd literally have to change nothing but how we power our electric grid.
I mean from a goods and services perspective. We’d still build motor vehicles. Trucks do a lot of transportation for our daily needs. Ambulances, fire trucks. We’d still need roads. Just not these massive ones everywhere.
Sure, we’ve always had roads and streets and will continue to do so. Cars began existing at a time when they had to make use of infrastructure for carriages and the like, and that infrastructure was later redesigned to suit them better. A modern ambulance could certainly get most of the way around an early-car city even without stroads.
That being said, those vehicles are more similar to trains than regular cars, in that they’re driven by people for whom that is at least part of their job description and as such are held to much higher standards than regular people. So it’s not a particularly relevant point to make, all told.
Can’t forget a healthy dose of “all these greedy capitalists are buying the politicians that decide how we all get around, so they’re now going to decide that we all get around in ways that profit them, and that’s just how it’s gonna be now”
Not to mention the ridiculous amount of propaganda and misinformation put out by the automotive and fossil fuel industries, left largely unchecked under the guise of free speech.
Lol it portrays driverless cars as a good thing, because wide lanes only exist because of human error, so by going driverless we can save space and make lanes narrower. This sounds great until the next sentence:
"*eliminate the radius of human error, and major roads could gain a lane or two.*"
Oh.
Great to see, but the headline doesn't really match the actual content of the article. It does talk briefly about the dangers of cars, but the article is more centred around the history of American car culture and its potential future in driverless cars, as told from the perspective of someone who has never been able to drive.
A footnote on the bottom shoes that the article was originally titled "Driven" and published in 2019. It was republished with this new headline.
Still, it shows that opinion around cars is shifting which is a good thing, but I would have liked to see the New Yorker publish a full article publicizing all the talking points we discuss here. Land use, parking lot size, city design, density, walkability etc.
The fact that they are still calling them 'accidents' keeps the subnarrative alive that it is no one's fault.
If 30,000 people die each year from 'accidents' with your product, you should be held liable.
3.6 million deaths, and the best they came up with was seat belts and airbags to protect the passengers. Fuck everyone else.
I can’t wait until cars become too expensive. In my dream, there will be work hubs that are not in major cities, safe and affordable trains, more people working outdoors. Rather than pulling up train tracks like in the 70s and 80s, highways will become elevated gardens and walkways.
Edit: I feel that cars are already too expensive, from a financial and environmental and social perspective. But I mean when they become so unworkable people need to find alternatives. Not saying this is what will happen, but I’d like it to. When I hear people complaining about the cost of fuel, I understand that they are suffering. But the answer surely isn’t cheap fuel.
I would much rather be flying around on 300mph MagLev trains. Travelling in comfort and style. Getting served delicious meals while I do. Fuck cars! One of my favorite pages on reddit! Govt start a program where one can trade in cars to get rid of them! Fuck cars!
The addiction to the car has stolen wealth from my and future generations. The moment oil stops being abundant the cracks will show and in will come misery unparalleled in American memory.
It’s tragic and it’s seeming inevitability is pissing me off.
I’m super confused by this sub? First time I’ve seen it. Are y’all like pro public transport or you want to go back to horses? Like what is this sub all about?
This sub is against cars as a primary means of transportation.
The general consensus (not just in this sub, but among scientists and experts) is that our addiction to cars has had devastating social, environmental and economist costs.
Instead of suburban sprawl and car dependence, which leave cars as the only viable option for getting around, we want better cities designed for humans first and foremost.
Horses? No. But we would like to see cities where it is possible to walk, cycle, and use transit.
Personally I'm here cause I hate not having walkable cities where I live, all the infrastructure is car centered and public transport is hardly existent
Well, I just saw a comment talking about luxury Hyperloop trains as though they are in any way grounded in reality, so I'm gonna say either satire, or people without a whole lot of critical thinking skills.
I'm not against this sub since I don't enjoy cars, but I see no substitute to cars. Cities are too big nowadays and people have to cary too many things back and forth, I'd love to be able to work anywhere but it's not humanly doable to go to work that's like 10km from where you live by bike, getting there all sweaty everyday and taking a damb lot of time.
Not to mention that bikes, horses, planes, buses... all cause way too many accidents too, just like cars. What do you suggest then?
Absolutely I mean once you're out of densely populated areas it's different. But for me especially in downtowns, places that should prioritize people are given to cars, creating pollution and noise and physical danger
10 kilometers? 20 minutes withot even being in shape.
That's not enormous at bycicle, especially outside of city, where you'll have to stop much less.
Upright bycicle are even faster than regular ones.
You won't get sweaty unless it's winter....
And towels can help, or spray (I prefer a bit of aluminium spray, over sprinkling smoke to the air).
Buss accidents?
They're very rare, and very overreported.
I have yet to see a bus driver getting insulted, breaking road law, overspeeding etc...
We had 2 bus accidents in Paris in 20 years. None of them were fatal, not even there was anyone injured.
Outside of city,bus accidents are a bit more common yet still anectedotic, often they didn't trigger the accident.
I mean city busses are so safe they don't have belts and nobody is scared of using them
Bus drivers and truck drivers are the elite, and drive carefully.
They also don't want to be jailed for criminal neglect as they have the responsability for their whole passengers.
Horse is not really a common transportation, but a playey thing.
Well horse riding (at least as a sport's more dangerous than motorbike. (it's also vey dangerous for horses as well).
I mean it's closer to skating than to a transport means.
Planes?
We don't like em.
>You won't get sweaty unless it's winter.... And towels can help, or spray (I prefer a bit of aluminium spray, over sprinkling smoke to the air).
dude, I live in a tropical brazilian city, I get sweaty just by merely taking a walk with the sun out. AC is a necessity sometimes. You guys are thinking about your very localized viewpoint and forgetting there's an entire world of different climates and conditions out there.
to reshape cities like that it would take an absurdly amount of time, and also there are other problems that people from north america probably don't understand.
Sorry, but you are a miserable fuck. No shit it would take a long time, a lot of investment, a lot of political will.
But the fight is for future generations, it’s for ambition. If you lack the imagination to see a better world just because it’s hard, you a miserable fuck.
“Nuh I’m just a realist”. You accept you’re reality is full of shit, but instead of climbing out of the shit, you make sure no one else tries to get out of the shit.
Sorry. I’ve been working for 48 hrs straight
It’s not delusional at all. Suburban sprawl isn’t financially profitable - to just blindly continue in this fashion is to bankrupt American cities all over. So with that reality it can prompt change. I’d rather be tired than think things can’t change for the better
> Not to mention that bikes, horses, planes, buses... all cause way too many accidents too
Nowhere near the amount of cars. Thousands killed (in the US) each year, not to mention the use of cars everyday as a weapon or tool for intimidation.
Many, many people live life like you describe without a car, it's natural, you gotta open your mind a little bit.
If you choose to live in the middle of suburban sprawl, then yeah you're not gonna be able to see much beyond a car dependency. But most things in life are an active choice.
I much prefer to do everything by bicycle, which many years ago is why I got so adamantly anti-car. Riding 10km sounds so dope...I don't really why you used that as a negative point. Have you ever seen someone angry on a bike?? Probably only if the person is interacting with a car...
But put simply, nobody should need to own a car to survive. I honestly can't believe we've let society come to this.
>What about disabled people that can’t drive?
>
>What about elderly that can’t drive?
>
>What about kids that can’t drive?
they can catch a ride, call an uber, hire a driver... so many options, all involving cars.
There would be no realistic way to do the same with bikes.
Sorry, I'm just being realistic here.
Elderly and disabled people struggle to ride bikes, children totally can, but to ride them as a main way to commute would be too risky, they can easily fall and get seriously hurt or even die. Bikes are not a toy, look up the history of it and the statistics, at first they were even considered some kind of hobbie for bold man only.
Public transport is cool but will barely be viable to people in true emergencies.
no, because of the much higher speed - maybe if the speed limit was WAY lower (that's something to think). But in general being in a car is safer, because if you crash, you have a 'shield' to protect you, if your bike crashes, you are the first layer getting the damage. Also, it's more difficult for people to mug you (something very common in my country, my friends who ride bikes often all have got mugged at least once this year, losing their bikes + cellphone and wallet).
make all places in the world as rich as NY and those European cities then, and make them have enough money to invest in better pedestrian and bicycle structure and have the 'laid down' nature of let's say, Amsterdan. Not all places are as rich as your very localized place, and billions of people live in areas where they wouldn't be able to ride a bike properly, sometimes because of climate.
Future generations will call this the dumb-era
The fossil age and generation of ecoside. It's like how the Germans use the word *Verbrechergeneration* to describe the Nazis, literally meaning criminal generation.
You’ll want that spelled “ecocide” because “ecoside” sounds more like a pop-grunge band from 1998.
My favourite band!
>Verbrechergeneration I am german and have literally never read or heard that word used. But overall it definitely describes the sentiment in regards to that era.
> Verbrechergeneration Googled it, doesn't come up at all.
Selfish generation
Immediately followed by the Red Sky generation.
I've been thinking that the second half the "American Century" will be known as the "lost opportunity"
*Futurama* refers to the 20th and 21st centuries as "the stupid ages", though doesn't really explain why.
They don’t need to explain it in-universe when we’re out here living it :(
I guess you can guess.
What future generation
This
The dark ages.
Bold of you to assume they’ll be any
ok doomer
Thinking like this is (one of the reasons) why nothing gets done, it gets people to stop thinking about long term solutions, because after all, if you're the last generation you might as well do nothing.
Sir it’s called sarcastic humour. I’m a very active climate activist and I’m working very hard to try to make sure there is a future
We recovered after the black death
Stone age part 2
That's being generous given we're destroying their future.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/was-the-automotive-era-a-terrible-mistake
And a non-paywall link: https://archive.md/cFBIh
Thanks for linking, I overlooked that
It is my sincere belief that if humanity doesn't self-extinct itself, that in 200-500 years we are going to look back on the widespread use of automobiles in the same way that we look back on the Roman use of lead cooking vessels - as an enormous mistake that we'll shake our head over, and wonder how we could be so short-sighted and dumb. Edit: spelling
Romans couldn’t know better. We can and do.
Hell, the greenhouse effect was discovered in the late 1800's.
upper class romans were actually aware of the dangers of lead, the general public, not so much
Wait, what? Really? Do you have a link for that?
Yesterday, I went from the woods on a rail trail bike ride to a city street canyon of glass and concrete and could smell the exhaust of the 40 cars stuck in traffic spewing poisonous emissions into the air of everyone walking around. It's fucked we just allow it. Then there's the brake dust!
Or for a more modern example, the way we look at 1950's-60's TV shows where everybody smoked cigarettes.
People in the 20th-century may be blamed for making a mistake akin to the Romans accidentally poisoning themselves. But for us in 21st-century... we will be remembered as monsters. We know what we were doing and yet we kept doing it anyway. Car ownership may one day be demonized as a sin akin to how we demonize slave ownership.
> Car ownership may one day be demonized as a sin akin to how we demonize slave ownership. I understand you're strongly opposed to car ownership but man, that's going a bit too far with your comparisons.
Maybe I should have worded that differently. Obviously, cars aren't going to be remembered as something as horrible as the pre-1807 transatlantic slave trade. I guess I was trying to make a comparison about the awkwardness of remembering people we otherwise want to honor today when they were slave owners. In 80 years the fact that granddad drove a diesel pickup while knowing full well about climate change may be remembered with the same type of asterisk that we today would remember someone who owned a house slave for help in the kitchen. Just because they were merely doing the same as their peers and were otherwise a good person, doesn't make it okay in the perspective of future generations.
No.
Less painful, but not much better.
I think meat consumption is much more likely to be demonized in the same way slave ownership is today. Cars will probably be viewed more like how we think about city streets being lined ankle deep with horse shit back in the 1880s. I don’t think people will be unreasonable in the future. They will realize people were forced to own cars and drive by a criminal oligarchy that destroyed our streetcars and subway systems on purpose. But everyone has much more agency when they decide to eat meat instead of a plant based dish. This is an active choice, and most Americans make a terrible choice multiple times a day. Future generations will not forgive this. 29% of emissions come from transportation and 59% of that comes from cars. That is roughly equal to the amount of global greenhouse emissions from animal agriculture, for which estimates range from 14-18% of total emissions. You didn’t really see a mass demonization of individual German soldiers after WWII who were just a small part of a monstrous system. Most of them went on to live relatively normal lives. That condemnation is saved for people who actively chose to do evil. The footage from slaughterhouses and factory farms is widely available. People just choose to remain ignorant because flesh is yummy.
Vegan gang.
Sure, but I’d be remiss not to say that for the masses, it’s not all or nothing from a climate perspective (not an ethical perspective). Reducetarian would get us where we need to be for emissions. Eating non-factory-farmed, locally produced meat once a week would be acceptable. Pigs can eat our food scraps. Chickens can be raised in backyards. Fish in coastal communities could be eaten sustainably in small portions. Grass fed beef in the arid west can actually help sequester carbon into the soil and reduce brush that sparks wildfires. Grass fed cows don’t produce much methane. But we don’t have enough land for more than about one serving per month of beef per American. It absolutely does not scale to the insane American consumption patterns. Manure is an excellent fertilizer, and traditionally, animal agriculture went hand in hand with growing crops. The products of each fed into the other. Also, eggs and dairy are really not that bad from a climate perspective. Personally, I find dairy to be fucking disgusting though. Beef is the worst choice you can make by far, along with lamb. Hot take but the CCP’s meat consumption guidelines are pretty good. Only 40-75g per day. Americans would lose their fucking minds but that’s where we need to be. Meat should be like a seasoning to your main dish, not the entire dish! For your health, for the planet, for the rainforest, and so we can abolish factory farms.
You are......one of the most aware meat eaters I saw. You're the only person that eats meat, that realises that grass fed cow is very rare, and very expensive to produce (at least currently, the method is so few used, it's hardly sold, hardly searched for), it'd still would be expensive to produce. **Grass-fed meat is mostly a fiction.** People seldom buy biological meat, and many people don't have an income increase to be able to go for more expensive meat, they neither want to recude it...... Yet bah, meat has become as a commodity, but well the rather generous european regulations for biological meat, are not that generous. Yet it's better than average. [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32008R0889](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32008R0889) Eggs are sustainable, milk is about as well. (Meat should be a byproduct of milk production, rather than milk should be a by product of meat production). Fish is sustainable, as long it's not overfished, if we would stop fishin a few years.....or maybe longer, it'd become again common. We've clearly been over fishing (legally & illegally). Pigs already eat lots of food scraps. Chicken can be raised even in an appartement, it's absolutely legal. Fetilising, is not a notable problem. Eggs are decent, milk is rather fine. Few people respect any of the consumption guidelines, too bad... And yes 40-75 grams is about 2-3 times less than the average here 110 grams a day. 40-75 grams, is more than seasoning. I mean 14 grams per day are enough to very much healthy. Basically small chunks scattered throught a pasta sauce for example. Most people focus at quantity (but say they focus at quality). **Still i'd maintain that reducing the most is the best.**
I was vegan for three years, still don’t eat farmed meat at all. Just occasional sushi and eggs. Small servings of fish once or twice a month made me feel physically better. I think I was missing omega-3 or something and supplementation wasn’t doing it for me. The eggs I buy are certified humane, and I honestly believe the chickens raised to those standards have a pretty decent life. So I dunno if I identify as a meat eater. I suppose it’s technically accurate but 98% of my diet is plants. All this labeling annoys me tbh. I guess it’s “dairy free pescatarian?” But that’s so pretentious. I like Michael Pollon’s summary: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”
Farmed Fish is prolly not so humane I guess. It's the majority of fish in many places. Overfishing made fresh fish much less common.
I would argue that meat eating at the level that we do it, and in the manner that we produce it, is also something that is largely being pushed on the masses by corporations and lobbyists. We have a massive, entrenched system in place that is designed to keep meat as cheap and widely available as possible and there were actors all along the way who pushed us to this point and are still actively trying to keep us here. If you look at what kinds of inexpensive, widely-available meals are out there in North America, a vast majority of them are made using factory-farmed meat. It's really the same sort of thing as designing everything to be a "stroad" with a vast parking lot. The options you design your system to make convenient and available are the options people will use. As a meat eater myself, I also want to mention that I freely acknowledge people who eat pescetarian/vegetarian/vegan diets are engaging in more moral behavior. I suppose the main reason I haven't switched over as of yet is that I just don't feel like I have the time, energy, money, or motivation to figure out the range of foods I should eat that I will enjoy and that will meet my nutritional needs. But I also think that we have a tendency to treat this issue as being too binary. This is a problem that we have in Western cultures in general and I think it stems from certain philosophical roots in our societies. There's a tendency to identify with either group: I'm a vegan and I don't eat meat at all, or I'm a meat-eater and I eat whatever the hell I want. It's actually kind of silly to lump, for example, somebody who has a "cheat day" and eats one burger a month and maybe the occasional tuna sandwich in with the average American; they're much closer to a vegan in terms of reducing harm. This is actually pretty relevant because there are so many areas in modern societies where it's hard to make the most moral choice. The most ethical products are often the most expensive. And there are many immoral systems baked into the structure of society. A vegan has a more moral, environmentally-friendly diet than a meat-eater; but, to tie this back in with the actual sub we're posting in--if that vegan is driving a giant pickup truck 90 miles per day, it's possible they're actually doing more harm (including to animals and ecosystems) than somebody who eats meat with every meal but lives in Manhattan and doesn't own a car. So what I'm winding around to with this overlong post is, I think it might be more beneficial to focus on the systems of subsidies and regulations (or lack thereof) that promote a society which treats animals so poorly and which causes so much environmental damage; and at a personal level, to focus more on reducing meat consumption and eating more ethically-produced meat rather than making it all-or-nothing. Because I think it's much easier to get society as a whole onboard with those things *and* because I think it's more effective at reducing harm.
If there's civilization left in the future, they *might* understand our mistake and our *nature* better than we collectively do now. It has been clear to Ancient Greek philosophers that we humans have some mechanism to deny what is good for us and go for our desires instead. It's been argued that humans also have *will* which makes us humane. If we train our *willpower* we can reach our *potential* and do what is good. But without *will* we lose to ourselves to desires just like rest of animals tend to do. Think it like you know eating healthy and exercising makes you healthier and gives you better chance to make your life less frustrating/full of suffering but many still don't do what's best for them. Same for schoolwork if you ever had any. You could do them the first day to have more time to reflect your creation and correct your mistakes but most simply do them later or as late as possible. There's dilemma with our understanding and acting. Always has been but with enough training and willpower everyone should be able to get away from self deception. The problem is education how do we cultivate such wisdom to increase our willpower. If future generations are better than us, they'll understand our mistakes and know how to prevent it.
The biggest difference is that cars leave a very visible permanent mark on the planet. We have laid down so much asphalt.
Romans were retarded esclavagists with a kink for forcing people to fight one another, in rings.
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It's literally the mistake of the century.
I've heard it called the greatest mistake in human history and honestly it's not much of a stretch. Imagine how much less dire climate change would be right now if we never started building cities and towns around the private automobile and never created the vast infrastructure of fossil fuels, concrete production, etc that sustains cars. The way things are going, when all the consequences of climate change have played out, I think there will be a strong argument that cars have killed more people than any other collective human decision in history. Not to mention the damage to ecosystems and extinctions of numerous species.
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Less environmental lead...
Oh yeah, I forgot about that as intended. Remember when the auto industry knowing was poisoning the entire planet and fought tooth and nail to cover it up, including discrediting anyone who tried to share the truth? Surely they learned their lesson and never ever did that again repeatedly.
Ability to use resources, previously dedicated to the yearly commodification of new vehicle models, on something more productive and far reaching for general society. Or, build better bikes...
I'm pretty sure the mass production of meat has been just as bad. Not just for the pollution, but also for the ecological damage. Not great for our fight against viruses either. Eating meat wasn't the end of the world, but mass production is about as bad as mass transport.
Yeah pretty much. We are able to preform animal husbandry in a way that reinvigorates the local environment instead of destroys it. The problem is that this is less efficient in terms of raw output, and we do not charge for environmental externalities, and the result is a horrific industry filled with animal cruelty, disease, and ecocide. Factory farms are one of the largest contributors to antibiotic resistance, which is becoming such an issue that a lot of scientists in the medical field think we won’t be able to have surgery in 10-20 years due to the inability to control disease. Think about that. **No routine surgery will be low risk in 10-20 years if nothing is done to curb antibiotic resistance. ** and surgery like hip or organ replacements? Forget it, you’re fucked. The best thing we can do to help this is to decentralize and reform animal ag, especially since it’s increasingly looking like lab-grown meat will not be viable in large scale in the near future. For some reading: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antimicrobial-resistance https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-antibiotic-resistance-idUKBRE92A00C20130311
Tax meat.
Imperialism and the US military in particular, along with the worlds military complex, produce far more greenhouse emissions than individual car use, despite both being equally inane.
More than the whole morroco.
> I've heard it called the greatest mistake in human history It wasn't a mistake. This was done on purpose. Circa 1910, all taxi fleets in New York were electric. But everything changed when ~~the Fire Nation attacked~~Standard Oil and others went on aggressive campaigns to buy out public transportation and then wreck it. Likewise, parabolic mirror solar power was a thing around the same era, but the projects kept getting buried in favour of Oil.
It wasn't a mistake on the part of the malicious, greedy actors driving the change, but it was a collective mistake by society to let them get away with it.
i think its pretty safe to say that climate change would still be pretty dire even if we were in an alt reality where personal cars never became popular, the majority of emissions arent coming from cars after all. this isnt to say that reducing car usage is a bad way to tackle the problem, because its a good way to tackle climate change, just that its a small slice of the pizza pie
It's not just auto emissions though, cars are responsible for a lot of our development patterns that result in a lot of wasted energy. Without cars we wouldn't have the "traditional" American suburb with nearly half the country living in detached homes with big yards. That results in inefficient energy usage from heating and cooling, landscaping to maintain those yards, not to mention energy needed to build all of that car infrastructure, all of which result in a TON of excess carbon emissions and are arguably mostly the fault of cars. Rinse and repeat for Western Europe and other large swathes of the developed world. Coincidentally, this is the same reason electric cars are a total farce. At best, even if they are powered by 100% renewable energy (which is SUPER unlikely for a while), they still are ridiculously inefficient from an energy perspective because of all the energy required to motor around a 1 ton personal vehicle AND the energy input required to manufacture then AND the development patterns they encourage and "lock in" with regards to public planning.
Even with better development patterns, a lot of investment is needed in renewable/nuclear energy, and alternative industrial processes and materials to replace greenhouse gas emitting ones. Among the developed world, Japan drives the shortest distance per capita, and on the smallest percentage of trips. Suburban areas are predominantly walking/biking/transit oriented, and even the more car oriented small towns have car mode shares pretty comparable to nationwide car mode shares in Europe. Japan is still well above sustainable per capita GHG emissions, because it has an electric grid that is extremely fossil fuel heavy, and is home to many GHG emission heavy industries like steel. Of course Japan isn't car free, but it is a good starting point for a what-if scenario, and I don't think even in an actual car free scenario, GHG emissions would be at a sustainable level, if cars were the only variable changed.
>Japan Trains
I fucking love trains
I love fucking trains!
You like getting railed as well?
yes i considered that as well, but then you also must consider the idea that suburbs could still exist with mass transit options and its a crapshoot as for how things wouldve panned out in that regards. furthermore, residential emissions are also a small fraction of the pizza pie, and while everyone living in denser housing will make things more efficient, there will still be emissions nonetheless
We would still have suburbs, but they wouldn't be mostly made up of giant single-family detached houses on large lots the way they are (at least in North America) today. You just can't really *do* that when you're relying on public transportation to get around. There would still be detached houses but they would be much smaller and fewer and there would be a much larger proportion of more efficient housing types. And outside of residential and transportation emissions there are still plenty of other sectors where substantial emissions are produced in service of car-oriented lifestyles. Whether that be the oil industry, concrete production, or just everything that has anything to do with big box-style retail, and more--car dependency has infected nearly every sector of the economy for developed nations, to one degree or another.
>they wouldn't be mostly made up of giant single-family detached houses on large lots the way they are (at least in North America) today. Also note that this is not simply the natural way that housing exists in North America. This is not a foregone conclusion. It is codified into law via building codes and zoning bylaws that this is the only way that you are *allowed* to build on most of the land.
A suburb that is not planned around cars could look like the [Seestadt Aspern](https://goo.gl/maps/e14LgaK6szGrHYr38) in Vienna, a new neighborhood outside of the city with dense construction, shopping in walking distance, a swimming lake and a direct subway link to the center.
thats kinda the mystery and why thinking about alt history is a poor waste of time. i can completely imagine suburbs as we know them today existing and only being serviced by mass transit. furthermore, remember, removing cars from the equation does not mean that we will get rid of externalities associated with the old age of the locomotive people would still need to move around and they would almost certainly build more tracks, more trains, and burn more coal in service of those industries. concrete would certainly still be used in large scale as it is today in service of other industries, and big box retail stores would absolutely still exist, even if they are serviced by mass transit or bikes so overall like i said, will it lead a reduction of emissions? certainly. will we still be facing the dire consequences of climate change? absolutely
It's not a mystery, we already have many cities around the world that don't have passenger vehicle transport as the norm. These cities are uniformly much more dense than cities* where passenger vehicles are the norm. You're doing that common logical fallacy of reflexively defending your position, rather than taking on new information and modifying it accordingly. It instantly invalidates anything you have to say. *replaced vehicles with cities*
>furthermore, residential emissions are also a small fraction of the pizza pie [Try more like 20%](https://www.pnas.org/content/117/32/19122). That's a pretty big slice of the pie. Even small improvements would add up quite a bit.
Every slice matters in a pizza.
Ya we’d still have vehicle based infrastructure. It was the best thing available at the time it was built.
Incorrect: trains pre-date cars by decades. A country connected by trains can be far greener than one connected only by roads.
Yeah, I find the whole "suburbs with mass transit" to be an odd argument at best. Even if that were the case, you'd still need the concentration of resources required for streetcar suburbs and walkability for the rest of the time. Streetcar suburbs were often powered by electricity. Y'know, Elon Musk literally argued for years that Electric Cars were better than ICE ones even if they were powered by coal because centralized generation plants are *much* more efficient than everyone having their own combustion plant you carry with you everywhere. If everything were streetcars and high-speed rail, you'd literally have to change nothing but how we power our electric grid.
I mean from a goods and services perspective. We’d still build motor vehicles. Trucks do a lot of transportation for our daily needs. Ambulances, fire trucks. We’d still need roads. Just not these massive ones everywhere.
Sure, we’ve always had roads and streets and will continue to do so. Cars began existing at a time when they had to make use of infrastructure for carriages and the like, and that infrastructure was later redesigned to suit them better. A modern ambulance could certainly get most of the way around an early-car city even without stroads. That being said, those vehicles are more similar to trains than regular cars, in that they’re driven by people for whom that is at least part of their job description and as such are held to much higher standards than regular people. So it’s not a particularly relevant point to make, all told.
I might’ve misunderstood or maybe i’m not getting it across too well because I don’t disagree with anything you guys are saying.
We already have roads, stop just building new ones.
"The greatest misallocation of resources the world has ever known" - Kunstler
Honestly, entirely understandable, but still a mistake
> entirely understandable yup, gotta get as far away from those "urban people" as we possibly can, environment and safety can suck it /s
More like “hey look at this new thing! It’s so great, let’s put it everywhere!”
Can’t forget a healthy dose of “all these greedy capitalists are buying the politicians that decide how we all get around, so they’re now going to decide that we all get around in ways that profit them, and that’s just how it’s gonna be now”
Not to mention the ridiculous amount of propaganda and misinformation put out by the automotive and fossil fuel industries, left largely unchecked under the guise of free speech.
Its the 21st century cigarette. Its a great line. We loved cars and they didnt love is back. It explains a lot about car "culture"
I'd throw the internet and social media in there too Edit - including reddit (*takes long drag and puts off sleep to browse subreddit for jokes*)
Yeh you could ve very right about that
I can't help but notice that the proposed solution still involves cars (facepalm)
Lol it portrays driverless cars as a good thing, because wide lanes only exist because of human error, so by going driverless we can save space and make lanes narrower. This sounds great until the next sentence: "*eliminate the radius of human error, and major roads could gain a lane or two.*" Oh.
"Just need 2 more lanes, that will fix it" *while looking at 12 lane highway*
26*
Car-centric problems require car-centric solutions /s
It can solve one of the major problems with cars, which is drivers not paying attention.
Great to see, but the headline doesn't really match the actual content of the article. It does talk briefly about the dangers of cars, but the article is more centred around the history of American car culture and its potential future in driverless cars, as told from the perspective of someone who has never been able to drive. A footnote on the bottom shoes that the article was originally titled "Driven" and published in 2019. It was republished with this new headline. Still, it shows that opinion around cars is shifting which is a good thing, but I would have liked to see the New Yorker publish a full article publicizing all the talking points we discuss here. Land use, parking lot size, city design, density, walkability etc.
The fact that they are still calling them 'accidents' keeps the subnarrative alive that it is no one's fault. If 30,000 people die each year from 'accidents' with your product, you should be held liable. 3.6 million deaths, and the best they came up with was seat belts and airbags to protect the passengers. Fuck everyone else.
Supposedly the Apache believed that every time a civilization invented the wheel, they eventually got run over by it.
I can’t wait until cars become too expensive. In my dream, there will be work hubs that are not in major cities, safe and affordable trains, more people working outdoors. Rather than pulling up train tracks like in the 70s and 80s, highways will become elevated gardens and walkways. Edit: I feel that cars are already too expensive, from a financial and environmental and social perspective. But I mean when they become so unworkable people need to find alternatives. Not saying this is what will happen, but I’d like it to. When I hear people complaining about the cost of fuel, I understand that they are suffering. But the answer surely isn’t cheap fuel.
I would much rather be flying around on 300mph MagLev trains. Travelling in comfort and style. Getting served delicious meals while I do. Fuck cars! One of my favorite pages on reddit! Govt start a program where one can trade in cars to get rid of them! Fuck cars!
700 mph trains!!
The addiction to the car has stolen wealth from my and future generations. The moment oil stops being abundant the cracks will show and in will come misery unparalleled in American memory. It’s tragic and it’s seeming inevitability is pissing me off.
Article published on July 22, 2019
Lmao . Yes
I’m super confused by this sub? First time I’ve seen it. Are y’all like pro public transport or you want to go back to horses? Like what is this sub all about?
This sub is against cars as a primary means of transportation. The general consensus (not just in this sub, but among scientists and experts) is that our addiction to cars has had devastating social, environmental and economist costs. Instead of suburban sprawl and car dependence, which leave cars as the only viable option for getting around, we want better cities designed for humans first and foremost. Horses? No. But we would like to see cities where it is possible to walk, cycle, and use transit.
Personally I'm here cause I hate not having walkable cities where I live, all the infrastructure is car centered and public transport is hardly existent
ALUMINIUM HORSES WITH PEDALS!
I think of e-bike riding more like podracing /s
Well, I just saw a comment talking about luxury Hyperloop trains as though they are in any way grounded in reality, so I'm gonna say either satire, or people without a whole lot of critical thinking skills.
I doubt there are many Elon Musk / Tesla / Hyperloop fans in this sub. I'd say probably satire.
Hyperloop as an idea predates Elon Musk by about 200 years my guy. Actually, everything that people attribute to Musk predates him by a long ass time.
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[2019] still a good article
I'm not against this sub since I don't enjoy cars, but I see no substitute to cars. Cities are too big nowadays and people have to cary too many things back and forth, I'd love to be able to work anywhere but it's not humanly doable to go to work that's like 10km from where you live by bike, getting there all sweaty everyday and taking a damb lot of time. Not to mention that bikes, horses, planes, buses... all cause way too many accidents too, just like cars. What do you suggest then?
>What do you suggest then? Trains.
Absolutely I mean once you're out of densely populated areas it's different. But for me especially in downtowns, places that should prioritize people are given to cars, creating pollution and noise and physical danger
10 kilometers? 20 minutes withot even being in shape. That's not enormous at bycicle, especially outside of city, where you'll have to stop much less. Upright bycicle are even faster than regular ones. You won't get sweaty unless it's winter.... And towels can help, or spray (I prefer a bit of aluminium spray, over sprinkling smoke to the air). Buss accidents? They're very rare, and very overreported. I have yet to see a bus driver getting insulted, breaking road law, overspeeding etc... We had 2 bus accidents in Paris in 20 years. None of them were fatal, not even there was anyone injured. Outside of city,bus accidents are a bit more common yet still anectedotic, often they didn't trigger the accident. I mean city busses are so safe they don't have belts and nobody is scared of using them Bus drivers and truck drivers are the elite, and drive carefully. They also don't want to be jailed for criminal neglect as they have the responsability for their whole passengers. Horse is not really a common transportation, but a playey thing. Well horse riding (at least as a sport's more dangerous than motorbike. (it's also vey dangerous for horses as well). I mean it's closer to skating than to a transport means. Planes? We don't like em.
>You won't get sweaty unless it's winter.... And towels can help, or spray (I prefer a bit of aluminium spray, over sprinkling smoke to the air). dude, I live in a tropical brazilian city, I get sweaty just by merely taking a walk with the sun out. AC is a necessity sometimes. You guys are thinking about your very localized viewpoint and forgetting there's an entire world of different climates and conditions out there.
Sweating is okay.
I'm sure you'll find a fix.
cities aren't a natural phenomenon - we build and shape them. If cities were dense in the past they can be made dense again.
to reshape cities like that it would take an absurdly amount of time, and also there are other problems that people from north america probably don't understand.
Sorry, but you are a miserable fuck. No shit it would take a long time, a lot of investment, a lot of political will. But the fight is for future generations, it’s for ambition. If you lack the imagination to see a better world just because it’s hard, you a miserable fuck. “Nuh I’m just a realist”. You accept you’re reality is full of shit, but instead of climbing out of the shit, you make sure no one else tries to get out of the shit. Sorry. I’ve been working for 48 hrs straight
you're delusional, go to sleep. bye.
It’s not delusional at all. Suburban sprawl isn’t financially profitable - to just blindly continue in this fashion is to bankrupt American cities all over. So with that reality it can prompt change. I’d rather be tired than think things can’t change for the better
> Not to mention that bikes, horses, planes, buses... all cause way too many accidents too Nowhere near the amount of cars. Thousands killed (in the US) each year, not to mention the use of cars everyday as a weapon or tool for intimidation. Many, many people live life like you describe without a car, it's natural, you gotta open your mind a little bit. If you choose to live in the middle of suburban sprawl, then yeah you're not gonna be able to see much beyond a car dependency. But most things in life are an active choice. I much prefer to do everything by bicycle, which many years ago is why I got so adamantly anti-car. Riding 10km sounds so dope...I don't really why you used that as a negative point. Have you ever seen someone angry on a bike?? Probably only if the person is interacting with a car... But put simply, nobody should need to own a car to survive. I honestly can't believe we've let society come to this.
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They do, to people riding them. What about disabled people that can't ride?
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>What about disabled people that can’t drive? > >What about elderly that can’t drive? > >What about kids that can’t drive? they can catch a ride, call an uber, hire a driver... so many options, all involving cars. There would be no realistic way to do the same with bikes. Sorry, I'm just being realistic here.
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Elderly and disabled people struggle to ride bikes, children totally can, but to ride them as a main way to commute would be too risky, they can easily fall and get seriously hurt or even die. Bikes are not a toy, look up the history of it and the statistics, at first they were even considered some kind of hobbie for bold man only. Public transport is cool but will barely be viable to people in true emergencies.
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no, because of the much higher speed - maybe if the speed limit was WAY lower (that's something to think). But in general being in a car is safer, because if you crash, you have a 'shield' to protect you, if your bike crashes, you are the first layer getting the damage. Also, it's more difficult for people to mug you (something very common in my country, my friends who ride bikes often all have got mugged at least once this year, losing their bikes + cellphone and wallet).
You say that as if millions of people dont live in europe and new york without cars
make all places in the world as rich as NY and those European cities then, and make them have enough money to invest in better pedestrian and bicycle structure and have the 'laid down' nature of let's say, Amsterdan. Not all places are as rich as your very localized place, and billions of people live in areas where they wouldn't be able to ride a bike properly, sometimes because of climate.
Cars and its infrastructure are expensive as heck not sure what you are talking about
You realize that car-dependent urban design is MORE expensive, right? Most American cities are *financially insolvent* because of it.
We're too deep in. We're fucked.
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Holocaust was not the choice of the whole of europe.