tandempower

This is a total twisting of my post, which was about the artificiality of living life always within a short walk from your car.

Modern life is straight out of a science fiction movie to the extent we're talking about real life itself. People's perceptions of life, on the other hand, are more like a hallucination because people believe their own fictions about normalcy equating with reasonability, rationality, soundness, sanity, etc.

In reality, unreasonability, irrationality, and insanity have become the norm and, what's worse, these norms get pushed aggressively by an advanced culture of conformity that takes no pause to evaluate the value of the norms it pushes outside of their facilitation of the conformist culture within which they evolved.

Dave Cutter

I can assure you I am anything other than passive ANYTHING... let alone passive in my aggression. I am a veteran and a CYCLIST for God's sake.

As far as condescending.... I don't know. Some things I have read quite a bit about for many decades. Not just some on-line 300 word post found by a google search... then when I search the authors credits [and] find someone with no creditable experience. So maybe... when I read where someone puts stock in some such non-credible "story".... maybe I do reply with a tiny bit of patronization. But I really try not to.

Dave Cutter

So true! I first fully experienced "the outdoors" as a boy scout... and later in the Army. Then for a short period (a couple years) I chose to walk. Today... I bicycle a lot (although I still walk) and would be considered car-lite. But nothing puts a person in touch with themselves and their environment more than traveling outside.

Machka 

Absolutely!! Everything in this sub-forum is entertaining. Pure entertainment here.

I-Like-To-Bike

How could it not be entertaining with first class jokesters and stories of the alternate universe in which they (prefer to) reside.

tandempower

You don't need to evaluate a writer to evaluate what they say. If an idiot says that 2+2=4, they're still right and if a nobel prize winning mathematician publishes a proof showing that 2+2=5, they're still wrong. If you don't want to call it passive aggression, fine, or maybe the denial of passivity is yet another layer of passivity to the passive aggression. Whatever the case, you made a subtle comment about my post referencing a science fiction movie as if I was citing some kind of factual source to make a factual claim.

All I was saying is that living life in a series of 'space walks' from a motorized mobility pod felt like what was depicted in the Matrix, i.e. a society of people kept immobilized inside pods that drain their energy and simulate active mobility. I could also mention the movie Wall-E where humans live in space and have gotten weak and fat by sitting in motorized chairs and consuming media all the time. Then you would make a comment about me using animated children's science fiction movies as a reference for saying something.

It's a form of ad hominem attack. I don't know if you are aware that you do that or if it comes so naturally to you that you are unaware. Either way, it's a pattern that's apparent in your comment amount seeking author's credentials and your comment about using a science-fiction movie as a reference. Both comments divert from the actual content of a post to focus on aspects of the writer or source. It's a rude way of blowing off what someone says by shifting the focus away from their content to themselves or their sources. Why can't/won't you just stick to discussing what is said instead of who says it or their sources of information?

Roody

What's wrong...you couldn't find a really large picture?

Dave Cutter

There you go! Your reference to the movie "The Matrix" was just wrong. I don't know whether you've never actually seen the movie... or not aware of it's symbolism.... or what. It is a deep movie as far as that goes. Certainly.... you can NOT expect us as readers of this forum to visualize YOUR misunderstanding of a very popular movie.

However... you do seem to have a complete understanding of the movie "Wall-e"! Your reference would seem to apply... in that movie. Although... I do feel compelled to point out that "Wall-e" is not a "children's science fiction" as you suggested... but rather a "comedy adventure" [movie] that takes place in an imaginary future.

Roody

Somebody stick a fork in this thread. It might be done.

Here is Post #1 , in case anybody wants to get back on topic:

The OP never posted again, probably a troll.

Walter S

My main reason is that after following doctor's orders and not driving a car for six months, I decided to make it lifetime instead because I enjoy it and it's personally rewarding to me.

Best medical advice I ever received. Thanks doc.

Artkansas 

By the time that I moved out from living with my father, I had neglected to buy a car, preferring to borrow his. So, I got started living on my own with only a bicycle for transportation. And what do you know, it was doable.

I-Like-To-Bike

Don't have pictures of the appropriate LCF posters, perhaps you do.

tandempower

I can't believe you are arguing about 'the correct meaning' of the Matrix. All I said was that in that movie, people were kept in little embryonic pods that drain their energy and have them experiencing life via a simulated reality. This is like the automotive lifestyle because it drains your energy to sit still in a car while simulating physiological mobility to your mind by the fact that you're moving at fast speeds and covering significant distances. It's an aspect of the driving lifestyle that people don't think about in this way because part of the simulation is that you are actually moving around in the physical world (i.e. not a simulation of it), but it's still a virtual-ized reality because you feel strong and fast while you're really just sitting and operating the controls of a machine, sort of like the wizard of Oz.

Care to nitpick? The science fiction aspect of the movie has to do with the build up of trash, the evolution of sedentary lifestyles, etc. It's environmental-science fiction.

Dave Cutter

The "pods" were symbolic of birth... or re-birth. The Matrix is full of religious symbolism. You missed the entire movie! The movie is about God... and God's relationship to man.

LOL... Only in your mind... the creators of the movie Wall-e thought it was something completely different. Everyone is entitled to an opinion... but no one is entitled to make-up other people's thoughts. You have a wildly creative imagination (that's a good thing).... but you don't own the facts. I would guess... the reality you see... and the one I see are completely different.

I have no desire to try to convince you that my world view is correct. But many facts... do stand on their own.

loky1179

I, for one, like my threads well done! All the usual suspects, trying to derail the conversation with all the usual attacks. Without the opportunity to rehash these attacks, I suspect many of these members would have a post count closer to my own.

wolfchild

I think some of the posts/replys scared OP away from this thread, that's why OP never came back to post anything else.

Machka 

Well, it was kind of a strange comment/question in the first place.

"I met someone today that does not have a car by choice" ... like that's somehow unusual. I've met a lot of people who do not have a car by choice.

tandempower

It doesn't matter. My post wasn't about the Matrix. It was about the feeling of living life on a short leash from a personal motor vehicle. There were just a couple aspects of the Matrix that helped me describe my feeling. I wasn't making any claims about the meaning of the movie as a whole.

Really? Was it 'only in my mind' that Wall-E was a trash robot whose job is was to clean up Earth after humans had polluted the planet so badly that they had to leave? Was it only in my mind that the humans had gotten fat and weak from lack of exercise?
Did I create these aspects of the movie with my imagination?

You condescend and strawman in order to bicker. Stop trolling.

Machka 

Let it go!! Do have any recollection at all of the original post? How about you analyse that.

Dave Cutter

I remember! And I am old enough to know plenty of people who are both old... and have given up cars (even though they can afford them).

Often the illness associated with age or the medications taken for various illnesses make people feel less competent to drive. Or an accident will cause loved ones to urge the older driver to give-up driving. My many... this is a heartbreaking transition.

Of course some people never appreciate or enjoy POV's and gladly forgo the hassle of automobile ownership.

Interesting. I am (originally) from a small town. Everyone knows everything about everyone else's business. And I know people often don't openly share their... problems... openly. Without a suggestion from family, a doctor, the court system, financial difficulties, or their own fears of hurting someone.... I can't say I actually know anyone who has given up cars for any sustainable period.

I myself chose to be car free for about two years once.

ro-monster

I chose not to own a car 14 years ago. I haven't driven one in 5 years. There was no "suggestion" from anyone, and I didn't give up anything. I just realized that I drove the car I had so rarely that each trip was costing me about $115. The longer I remain car-free, the more reluctant I become to ever own one again. I would say that not having a car is a net gain.

bicyclez

To not need to own a car is a luxury in my opinion. One I can't afford at this stage of the game.

heywood

I think you just described a 'Dalek'...which would be a good analogy..

I don't own a car for many of the reasons here (could afford one), but it makes no sense for me to own a $30,000 object, that for 80% of its lifespan sits parked..I made a conscious decision to live where i live so that i didn't have to impoverish myself both in housing or transportation..in many cases it's about 'choices'...people should try to make better choices.

tandempower

What's not to afford? Riding a bike costs less than driving. How can biking be a luxury you can't afford if you can afford to drive, which costs more?

That implies it would make sense to own a car if it cost less or if you drove it more. Both are bad prospects, though. If it costs less, more temptation to drive and thus to sit sedentary in the 100hp wheelchair more. If you drive more, it seems like a better bargain because you're getting more use out of it, but who wants to get more use out of wheelchair unless you're confined to it for health reasons?

With cars, like crutches, less is more. That's why public transit and biking are both advances over driving. With public transit, the driving is consolidated so those of us who continue to drive spend less time on the road per passenger-mile. With biking, you get the autonomous mobility of driving without the sedentary time-waste.

The big problem with both public transit and biking is rain. The Earth is getting swallowed up by asphalt because no one has yet figured out a better way to deal with rain while en route than to build wide, heavy enclosed cages that require massive power and roads to move them around. Biking with an umbrella or a poncho works fine but apparently it's still not good enough for many people.

Machka 

Evidently you've never been to the Canadian prairies in January.