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valid points.
another thing I was thinking of is that all of these are issues because of the sheer mass of humans on this planet. it's all small potatoes if we had about a quarter of the population, but then again, we rely on this fragile infrastructure we've built for ourselves in order to promote progress on a massive scale.
if progress were the only goal we could do it all with way less people. but it's not.
I digress.
2023-12-27 · 5 months ago
@gritty I disagree with the idea that overpopulation is causing these issues. When a small portion over the global population is responsible for the majority of these issues, painting everyone as responsible is pretty shitty. This is a management issue.
@corscada hmm that's also fair. my apologies. what I was getting at was that with the scale of how many of us there are, small issues are actually large if accounting for lots of people. I wasn't trying to say everyone is responsible for the issues with electric cars.
for example, cars in themselves can be fine, it's just the sheer number of them across the globe, and the fact they are replaced fairly often in certain parts of the world. I agree, though, that if resources were responsibly consumed by all that this would be much less of an issue.
"Replaced fairly often" is a fallacy. Most cars are driven until they fell apart. It's only that this is done by the 2nd, 3rd or 10th owner in a poorer part of the world.
I would like to add that while we argument about how to avoid cars those who profit from the environment depletion laugh at us. Me and you have no choice about owning a car. The alternative is to not have a job or not being able to drive your kids around and probably die statistically earlier alone or homeless. The only sensible action is to help change society to a more "rural", less mobile form, all on a political level; all this while you keep drinving a reasonably good and safe car.
👻 shikitohno · Dec 27 at 15:55:
I don't think a car-centric rural model of society is really the way of the future. Better zoning laws and urban development to make living in cities more affordable and more attractive is going to be a key, but also reconceiving the concept of public transportation as a public good rather than a service to be run at a profit will help out significantly outside of urban and suburban areas.
Public transportation, like high speed internet, is only unviable in rural areas because current models are so fixated on them being run as profitable businesses rather than focusing on the good they do for communities. Not every private car can be taken off the road, but many are unnecessary.
👻 shikitohno · Dec 27 at 15:58:
If people knew they could walk 10 minutes and catch a bus into town once every 30 minutes or so for a reasonable fee and get where they needed to go, how many would really need to maintain a car, with all its associated costs?
Those who ride 1:15 to work with the bus coming every 30 minutes, while the car drive is about 40 minutes and starts anytime. Both ways. It adds up to 6 hours per week, almost a full working day or the amount of time a healthy person invests in sports every week.
This is a trivial use case. The call for personal sacrifice goes nowhere as it lacks realism. And it's not the we really are that busy: society asks for long working hours; quick intelligent results are not often honoured. What gives? Mobility, family, hobbies.
Better go for a systematic change of opportunities: what if work, the market and the school are all within 20 minutes by foot? That is a change!
I like this discussion.
I'd like to add that around where I live public transit is seen as unsafe by a lot of people, especially in off hours. Not sure how to change that perception and/or reality.
🚀 stack [OP] · Dec 27 at 21:20:
I failed to mention that insurance rates appear to be much (even several times?) higher for electric cars, according to some reports...
🚀 stack [OP] · Dec 27 at 21:24:
@karel: true, driving is usually faster in many (most?) places. But I've lived in NYC most of my life, where driving is just not an option and public transit is decent, mostly. Millions of New Yorkers just take the subway to/from work. We've learned to spend the time wisely - reading, resting, watching movies on our phones, chatting with strangers (NYC is amazing for casual conversations), or just thinking or daydreaming. Not so bad.
👻 shikitohno · Dec 31 at 18:16:
Sure, commuting takes up some time compared to the instant gratificaiton of hopping in your car and driving. As @stack says, you can reclaim some of that time. I think that many people would be quite content to give up the costs associated with car ownership if they had a feasible alternative. To operate a car where I live would cost me a whole month's of my part of the rent, between the car payment, insurance, etc, each month.
Of course, choosing to live in a rurally as you advocate for is also a personal choice. If you don't need to be out in the sticks, you can get more frequent public transportation options in higher density areas, and still have reasonable access to rural areas.
interesting, relevant read to the discussion here
— Your eco friendly lifestyle is a myth
Electric cars: reprise — [gemini link] Thank you for this and other responses. No cars is better than any cars of any kind -- that is true; public transit, density and sensible city planning are much better. In the meantime, electric cars do offer a reasonable-seeming solution for short suburban commutes with lots of time to recharge, in places where infrastructure is available. But I still think we are fooling ourselves about pollution (unless we are in Norway or some place that does not use...