Unpopular Opinion
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1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.
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4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
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5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
6. Defend your opinion
This is a bit of a mix of rules 4 and 5 to help foster higher quality posts. You are expected to defend your unpopular opinion in the post body. We don't expect a whole manifesto (please, no manifestos), but you should at least provide some details as to why you hold the position you do.
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Exactly. Based on this, and based on OP's other responses, OP is basically saying "I want poor people to suffer so rich people can make more money" (off of new car sales with more efficient engines, or electric).
So my question for them is: is the income divide not great enough? If not, when will it be?
That's mainly a problem for car-brained people. There are other modes of transportation, you know.
Yeah, in a major metropolitan area.
Trains are cool! There's like two train tracks that go through town and they only carry freight. There are no passenger trains anywhere around here.
We also have buses. They don't come within 5 miles of me. Also a non-starter.
I guess it's cool to hate cars if you live with your parents, but for those of us with bills to pay, we gotta go get that bread. But uh, have fun with your online gaming or whatever. It's just not sustainable for most of us.
I graduated in '21, moved in with my gf at the same time, started working (to afford rent and surviving, you know) and bought a house last year. But go off I guess. I have bills to pay and hate cars as the sole method of transportation at the same time, it's amazing! Even have my driver's license since I was 18 (9 years already, how time flies). Crazy concept.
I'll go have fun with reading a good book now. Cheerio!
People in dense cities who only drive are car brained. People who live where there are zero other options are simply getting to the store or to work the only way they can.
People who live where there are [legitimately] zero other options -- i.e., actually rural -- are a negligible minority. 80% of the population has no excuse, and trying to "whatabout the other 20%" is a strawman argument.
80% sounds very high. Do you have any data to support that? I see rough estimates closer to 50/50. Mass transit isn't viable outside of Metro areas and a lot of people live far from big cities.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/urban-rural-populations.html
They've even tried to prop up the rural population counts by changing the definition, but it still only manages to be 20% anyway.
You can live in a densely populated city and still need to travel long distances regularly though.. Especially if you're poor.
But the key is that that isn't a legitimate need because driving is the only reasonable way to solve the problem; it's an illegitimate need caused by a failure of politicians to allow correct city planning and infrastructure.
I work in many different locations. Some of them remote. I often bring large equipment with me. More than that, my work days tend to be anywhere from 10 hours to 16 hours long, typically with a lot of manual labor included. Some of my commutes can be 2 hours one way. I've worked plenty of those 16 hour days with 4 hours of driving added on top. The thought of riding a bike or running the public transit gauntlet (which, will typically double or quadruple the commute times in my area) is repulsive.
I think you're massively over-simplifying this issue.
Guess what: you're that special snowflake who has a legitimate need to drive. The vast majority of people are not like you.
Just like pearl-clutching about rural people, bringing up arguments like yours to try to make excuses for why the majority "have to" drive is bad-faith whataboutism.
Providing counter-arguments you clearly haven't considered is not a bad-faith argument. Lobbing insults and strawman arguments (I never made the case that the majority of people have to drive) is arguing in bad faith.
This might be true in some European countries, but it's not in the US. You don't have to be rural to not have public transportation options.
But it does mean the lack of public transportation is illegitimate.
How so? It doesn't exist. I can't just will it into existence. It legitimately is not an option.
That's a consequence of your and your neighbors' failure to elect people who would govern properly, not a result of transit or density somehow being inherently non-viable.
The majority of the USA lives in what is considered rural suburbs. Aka the nearest place for work is more than 10 miles.
https://www.axios.com/2024/03/24/average-commute-distance-us-map
That's a lie. Why are you lying?
Suburbs count as urban, not rural. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/urban-rural-populations.html
I literally provided you data that shows that the majority of workers drive more than 10+ miles...most people are not in the middle of cities. Period. Stop trying to make it sound like the majority of the usa is in dense cities.
No, there aren't.
Plenty of places have no other option.
have no other option yet
Yea, because alternate options just pop up over night.
People like you remind me of evangelical Christians.
You are all perfectly content to have other people suffer in hopes that a wonderful future will emerge.
If you want to suffer, go right ahead. Don't expect other people to be miserable so you can feel superior.
yeah, let's keep things just the way they are and stop hoping that societal changes can be a motor for improvement
all I'm saying is there aren't alternatives YET, but situations like this could create a positive change in mindset and eventually infrastructure as well. fine by me if you want to be a glass-half-empty kind of person
So when people can't afford basic life necessities today so poor people starve and go homeless, but that pressure has some unrealized future benefit the current generation likely won't live to see, that's glass half-full for you?
I'm hopeful for better too, but I'm not going to be happy about human suffering.
"No, there aren't."
Yes, in a lot of the world there are. Your comment disagrees with itself. You can't say "no, completely wrong" and then say "only in some places."
You're just being pedantic.
Obviously, the first sentence was meant as a rhetorical refutation.
Mimicking poor reading skills to make a point smacks of desperation.
And you're being willfully ignorant when you ignore the main point, that for many drivers there are no good options.
Its true! I strongly believe in public transport. Particularly the transport that is also dependent on oil... Where I live though, if I wanted to get to work without my car it would change my trip time from 45m - 1.5h to about 2h-3h. Each way. I don't feel like spending 6h travelling so it's not really a choice for many of us.
At least you have an option. If I wanted to get to work without owning a car I'd have to call an Uber or a friend with a car.
Are car brained people going to be the only ones affected by rising food prices due to an increase in transportation costs? How about those that don't have any other means but to drive to work to make a living because public transportation isn't available and buying an EV isn't an option?
It's not just an issue for car brained people, it's also an issue for narrow minded people, such as yourself.
Oh no, rising food prices could be real. But that doesn’t mean other things should be expensive as well. There is always a chance to cut personal costs elsewhere - like transportation, for instance.
What I do believe is that it could be the thing that’s needed to push for better infrastructure and public transportation, but that won’t happen if you just look at it as if you’re only a victim and can’t do anything about it. If people can get vocal and push their (local) government to look at alternatives, you could achieve a lot. If you just want to sulk in a corner acting like “oh it’s bad and there’s nothing that can be done”, then you’re the narrow minded one. Look at the opportunity it brings and that could be solved in the medium/long term. Okay, you have a short term problem, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be solved. You said in another comment “because alternate options just pop up over night”. No, they don’t, but if you expect every problem to be fixed over night, you’re gonna have a very difficult life.
Oh no, rising food prices could be real. But that doesn’t mean other things should be expensive as well. There is always a chance to cut personal costs elsewhere - like transportation, for instance.
What I do believe is that it could be the thing that’s needed to push for better infrastructure and public transportation, but that won’t happen if you just look at it as if you’re only a victim and can’t do anything about it. If people can get vocal and push their (local) government to look at alternatives, you could achieve a lot. If you just want to sulk in a corner acting like “oh it’s bad and there’s nothing that can be done”, then you’re the narrow minded one. Look at the opportunity it brings and that could be solved in the medium/long term. Okay, you have a short term problem, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be solved. You said in another comment “because alternate options just pop up over night”. No, they don’t, but if you expect every problem to be fixed over night, you’re gonna have a very difficult life.
There are many regions where alternative forms of transport aren't very viable. Nearly non-existent public transit and bike infrastructure because everything was designed from the beginning with cars in mind. Zoning requirements that mean everything is spread out and impossible to walk between. Possibly even combined with terrible weather for much of the year.
Places where making changes to fix those issues, increase public options, etc. are met with stiff political backlash, not necessarily from the car people, but just simple conservatives or regressives that don't think any money should be spent on that infrastructure, often simply because it's not something they'd use.
but, and I realise this might be a bit utopian, the more people (have to) use alternative modes of transportation, the more the need for better infrastructure will grow. domino effect and all that
Oh definitely, but making those changes requires funding them. And that's virtually impossible to get voters to approve in some places currently.
Which is why the pain has to come first and therefore high oil prices are good.
sometimes I'm really glad that I'm European
Much of Europe has the advantage here with simply existing before cars. Places that can't fit car traffic, etc. so alternatives are either a requirement or already a higher priority than destroying existing infrastructure to make it fit.
plus, certain places - like the city where I live, for example - opt for infrastructure and traffic rules that favour cyclists and pedestrians. that also helps
First of all, American cities also existed before cars.
Second, many European cities were rebuilt from rubble after WWII to accommodate cars.
That factor is not nearly the excuse you think it is.
Building a city wrong doesn't mean "alternative forms of transport aren't very viable;" it means the city was built wrong and that must be corrected.
And make no mistake, that is very viable: the Netherlands already did it (it was not always like that: it was rebuilt for cars after WWII and then rebuilt again starting in the 1970s when they realized they'd fucked up). Paris is doing it right now. It is not actually hard, and it is not actually expensive -- at least not compared to the long-term societal costs of continuing car-dependency.
This is a straight-up lie, BTW. All the cities -- including "newer" sunbelt ones, like LA or Houston or Atlanta -- were in fact built for walking and streetcars first, and then demolished to accommodate cars.
My suburb was built in the 50s, and it's one of the oldest in my area. Almost half of the homes in the township are from the last 20 years. It was all 100% built for cars, there are zero other options. And moving isn't really an option at this point.
Gonna just go for a spin in my private jet.
Taylor???
Oil products are used in a lot more things than just cars. But, you're right. I'll just ride a bike next time I have to travel 70 miles for one of my regular gigs.
You don’t think poor people suffer from climate change? Or are you a science denier?