Originally Posted by
SmallFront
Never said anything of the sort. You're outright lying. I said I did not look with glee, hoping for armageddon, hoping that everyone would be forced to do without a car, being forced to go dumpster diving, and being forced to live on the coach of one another.
Maybe I misread your point. It sounded like you meant that people who are happy about these strategies for living well through economic recession are 'hoping for armageddon.' It sort of compresses different issues into something that makes economic innovation look like something evil. What happens is that people are shocked at the prospect of what economic recession can do and they begin to adapt. Then when they discover there are ways to overcome disenfranchisement, it makes them happy for obvious reasons. Does this mean they hope for even worse economic problems as a result? No, but when you see that many people don't even bother doing anything to reform economic practices to make the economy more sustainable, it's like they are intentionally soliciting 'armageddon' (as you describe it). These anti-reformists are often the same people to deride those who innovate economically so isn't it logical that some people might be waiting for the moment 'what goes around comes around' and those people get saddled with the burden of economic innovation for their own well-being? Isn't it logical that you would be curious how they would feel about being derided for their 'dumpster diving' the way they deride others?
Obviously this is a pure ego-issue and the reality is that the worse economic problems become, the more difficult it becomes to 'dumpster dive' and otherwise innovate within the existing economy. Still, on another level, turnabout is fair play and so how terrible can it be to wish on others something you've been through yourself and ended up better off for having done? Economic innovation may not be as glamorous as shopping and spending liberally but there are lessons in it that would benefit everyone to learn. Call it "hoping for armageddon" if you want but it's really just lamentation of the fact that so many people are able to shrug off the need for reform despite the widespread economic malaise that so many other people are coping with and trying to solve.
Nothing in that says anything about me "always being on the winning end of economic crash". Where do you get that from, if not from your wet dreams of armageddon, hoping for these things?
I just don't see why else anyone would consider the ability to salvage unspoiled food from dumpsters a bad thing, let alone car-free living, unless they had always had the privilege of affording the expenses that come with avoiding such things.
And there it is. That's the reason you outright lied in order to build your strawman.
Did you understand what I wrote? I said that it's easy to ignore the possibility of becoming disenfranchized when only a minority of local populations are subject to it. What lie? What strawman?
Sorry, I don't live in Idiotville. The only "rallying" I see is the holier-than-thou people who rally against society, hoping it will collapse in their lifetime, so their anti-car rallying cries, dumpster-diving, vegan-eating, and/or couch surfing "lifestyle" can be vindicated.
Is your attitude not 'holier-than-thou' when you assume that your way of living is simply 'society,' whose reform you view as nothing more than 'collapse?' What you call 'society' IS the gradual collapse of the republic. Calling it "the American Dream" is holier-than-thou.
No, it's arrogance to think that your choice is, and should be, the choice for everyone else.
I never said that everyone should choose to live car free. What I said is that unless there is growth of car-free living, motor-traffic growth will continue to cause economic problems for everyone. That doesn't mean everyone has to stop driving but if some people don't, more economic problems will disenfranchize more people from having the choice to drive.
Yes, having to drive, say, 50 miles for a job is by choice only. Why can't they just uproot the family, and both the parents can just move right next to their job. Let's hope that they both can get a job in the same area, that their children can come to a good school and whatnot.
It doesn't matter whether it's by choice or not. Either way it still leads to economic problems. Just because people can't manage to solve these problems doesn't mean they will get an exemption from the economic consequences they create. It's like getting ***** and then claiming that it wasn't your fault you caught HIV. It's a tragedy but the reality is that motor-traffic growth is unsustainable so if alternatives aren't growing, then economic problems will ensue. Is it holier-than-thou to say so?
Only those people who live in the small town I previously mentioned believes it can proceed endlessly, but it is not just a matter of giving up cars, and then everyone could live happily. You need infrastructure to make it happen, and getting rid of all cars will not happen in our lifetimes or that of our grandkids.
Who said anything about making 'all cars' go away? The problem is that because driving is viewed as more or less a necessity or entitlement for everyone, car-free living is not growing. As long as alternatives are not growing, then population growth is going to result in motor-traffic growth and THAT is what causes economic problems, not the fact that some people drive.
You, on the other hand, are railing against cars as if everything would be great if no cars existed. People would loose their jobs because their mobility decreased, some people can't bike for helath reasons, and for a whole lot of other people, there is simply not the infrastructure to make it happen for them personally.
Why do I get accused of this straw-man? I am not rallying against cars, per se', but against the belief that motor-traffic can continue to grow without consequences. The problems of living car-free need to be solved for at least some people so that population can grow and relieve pressure to expand motor-traffic and sprawl. Yet for some reason people like you make me out to be for total elimination of all motor-traffic, maybe because you're so afraid that growing car-free traffic would undermine the ability for some people to continue driving. It's like drivers have united into an all-for-one and one-for-all movement where 'no driver must be left behind.' Reality is that the more people live successfully without cars, the more people will be able to do so more easily, and that will mean better driving for those who do continue to drive because there will be less motor-traffic to deal with.
Originally Posted by
Roody
I don't worry much about backlash. By far the biggest trend in the Modern Era has been the movement of people from rural areas to cities. This trend is picking up pace even now that more than half of the people already live in cities. Cars led the way in this trend, but now they're holding it back. I think it's inevitable that by the end of this century, almost all people will live in large cities, and almost all of those city dwellers will be more or less carfree.
There is a danger there that rural areas will grow into huge sprawling suburban regions between cities. Also, people in smaller cities and towns argue that they don't have the population to justify density in order to maintain that car-free living doesn't need to grow there. Reality is that all development of rural areas for the sake of allowing motor-traffic to expand is accelerating the destruction of forests and other natural lands. Car-free living has to grow everywhere, for the most part, for economy and environment to be sustainable. Anything else may slow down the over-paving of the planet, but eventually natural lands will disappear if motor-traffic infrastructure continues to expand, however slow.
I don't see this as Armageddon. I see it as a marvelous opportunity for our species and our global habitat to thrive and prosper on a simpler and more spiritual scale.
I agree, which is why I'm questioning the backlash against road-narrowing and densification.
If anybody knows of any way that the world can sustain ten billion folks who all own cars, please let us know. If not, get ready to tell your cars good-bye. And that will be a good thing!
You're right that it's probably not a bad idea to plan to live car-free regardless, but as long as there is progress toward more car-free living and less motor-traffic, equilibrium will be reached eventually. Worst case scenario, however, is that we'll end up seeing a situation like before the US civil war where republicans were content to let slavery fade away gradually but when it started expanding into new territories instead, north and south polarized and war ensued.
Originally Posted by
Ekdog
It's really unfortunate that--lest we be accused of being hypocrites and "fundamentalists"--we can't speak out in favor of lifestyles that benefit society as a whole, that we must limit ourselves to mentioning only those measures that might bring about some personal gain. What about the concept of the commons, i.e., that there are resources held in common, not owned privately, over which people have rights?
This conflict between common-good and personal gain should be questioned. Erosion of the commons has effects at the individual level and vice versa. If natural resources and cities degenerate due to either private or public abuse (or both), it will negatively affect individuals' ability to prosper individually. Public regulations are for the benefit of private individuals by protecting all resources from degradation by private or public (ab)uses.