this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2026
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Unpopular Opinion

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We have /c/fuckcars but no /c/fuckplanes. Yet a lot of the same arguments apply. They cause air pollution (roughly double the amount per km traveled), noise pollution and they (airports) take up a lot of space near dense living areas. Sure, some places can practically only be visited by plane, just like some places can practically only be visited by car. But people don't consider not having your holiday that far away or giving pushback on a busines trip that should have been an online meeting. Besides work-from-home being encouraged, work-from-home-country should be too.

Cars need to be discouraged in favor of busses, trams and trains. Planes nees to be discouraged in favor of high-speed trains, staycations and hopefully new alternatives like modern sailboats or electric planes.

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[–] Hello_there@fedia.io 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Living without high speed rail is hard. Having family spread among several states or 8 hr drives away is hard - especially with young kids. As a result we take 1 hr flights.
I think in this instance promoting high speed rail is preferable to shaming plane travel

[–] ViatorOmnium@piefed.social 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

At a continental scale even conventional (non-maglev) high speed train is slow and limited. Right now going to my home town by a combination of plane and train takes me around 9 hours. Even when all planned high speed rail lines in Europe are finished, and even assuming Deutsche Bahn stops being a joke, it would take me around two days to do an equivalent trip by train alone if the schedules align and there are no significant delays (which based on my DB ICE experience is fairy tale territory).

[–] Robin@lemmy.world -1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

9 hours of travel is also hell. Add some stops along the route, do some sightseeing, visit some cities by rail. It'll be slower but much more rewarding

[–] ViatorOmnium@piefed.social 2 points 2 days ago

That would require taking 1 week of vacations to see my family and friends for a couple of hours.