this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2026
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traingang
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Post as many train pictures as possible.
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LANDLORDS COWER IN FEAR OF MAOTRAIN
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"A car represents freedom," they told me.
I'm beholden to the petroleum industry for the stuff that powers my car. I'm beholden to the company that insures my car. I'm beholden to the bank that gave me a loan for my car. I'm beholden to people in the trades that can repair my car. My car chains me to so many people who genuinely do not give a rat's ass about freedom.
I was lucky enough to have been born with two feet and a heartbeat. Those come with almost zero operations and maintenance cost. Far less expensive than a car. And there are places I can go on foot that I could never go with a car. They represent freedom only on the surface.
I'm really glad that I didn't start driving until my mid-20s. Before I found Debord and knew the word for it, walking everywhere was a constant dérive for me. I'm only an urbanist because walking and public transit turned cities into slow-motion exploration of whatever stood out to me until I saw the relationships behind it. The psychogeography stood out so much more than I could safely observe while driving. I love micromobility because it takes that same feeling, makes it much more accessible with better infrastructure, and increases the speed/carrying capacity just enough to make it on par with urban driving. Now every grocery run is a chance to explore something new in parks and wilderness areas, with a much broader spectrum of my neighbours safely maintaining their independence with whatever kind of vehicle works best for their body.
A friend (who told me about Fifthworldproblems, IIRC) and I used to do dérives all the time. We called it Shambling. It wasn't until much later that I learned about the dérive and psychogeography and how it intertwines with ideas about magick.
I miss it.
This year I want to start organising formal ones between municipal greenspace workers having a union drive, the local DSA's environmental justice committee, and regulars in the parks who have a daily personal connection to those landscapes. It seems like a really powerful tool for achieving something like Pedagogy of the Oppressed's model and normalising holistic radical conversations.