Originally Posted by
gdhillard
Count me in. I try to live in the past as much as possible.
Living today is like living in the past. It's like we're stuck in a 20th century that refuses to give birth to broader transportation diversity. What I'm saying is wouldn't it be nice to have 1950 with 17 million cars for 50 million people evolve into 17 million cars for 300 million people where the rest cycle and use transit to get around. We can't live in a past of 50 million with 300 million but we can think about what it would be like to have peaked at 17 million cars. Not too many, not too few, just right.
Originally Posted by
I-Like-To-Bike
I thought the heavenly glory days were 1900 according to some of our LCF comrades; good old 6-7 day work weeks, child labor, rampant tuberculosis, polio, only the wealthy with modern utilities like electricity, indoor plumbing, telephones, etc. Heating if any by coal or firewood. Personal travel dependent on shoe leather, snow shoes, horses/mules, and robber baron controlled railroads. But if we are dreaming we can make pretend we are the Vanderbilt, Carnegie or Rockefellers and the other wealthy gentry and beam on the smiling faces promenading on Fifth Avenue. But no cars to speak of - heavenly eh?
Or fast forward to the glory of the 21st century where you can telecommute into cyberspace to subject yourself to the stabbing discussion forum posts of I-Like-To-Bike.
On a more constructive note, do you realize how dumb it is to refute claims that the past held positive aspects by pointing out negative aspects from the same period? It's like someone saying that dinner was good last night so you respond by saying, "yes, but I stubbed my toe." Not everything is a consequence of everything else that occurs in the same time period.