this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
2 points (100.0% liked)

the_dunk_tank

15989 readers
1 users here now

It's the dunk tank.

This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.

Rule 1: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.

Rule 2: If your source is a reactionary website, please use archive.is instead of linking directly.

Rule 3: No sectarianism.

Rule 4: TERF/SWERFs Not Welcome

Rule 5: No ableism of any kind (that includes stuff like libt*rd)

Rule 6: Do not post fellow hexbears.

Rule 7: Do not individually target other instances' admins or moderators.

Rule 8: The subject of a post cannot be low hanging fruit, that is comments/posts made by a private person that have low amount of upvotes/likes/views. Comments/Posts made on other instances that are accessible from hexbear are an exception to this. Posts that do not meet this requirement can be posted to !shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml

Rule 9: if you post ironic rage bait im going to make a personal visit to your house to make sure you never make this mistake again

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

see all the brainworms here

all 43 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Tidal_Tempest@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Then build me a railroad track fucker.

Do libs really? Can't these libs just realize that we live in a car centric society AND that public transport is objectively better? shinji-mug

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

improve-society "Hey we should start sanitising our wounds and setting broken bones instead of just letting them poke through the skin and smell funny."

smuglord "Then build me a hospital fucker"

[–] kristina@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

in evil communist china, you can usually just walk to the subway because a stop is within a 10 minutes walk of basically any condo

its almost like they... planned things

[–] GorbinOutOverHere@hexbear.net 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Americans don't wanna walk ten minutes though lol

[–] iridaniotter@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Americans don't know what's good for them. You gotta force them to do good things and then they'll change their mind. Yeah, it's authoritarian. animengels

[–] GorbinOutOverHere@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Im not walking anywhere with how hot and humid it is outside

[–] SaniFlush@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] coderade@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago

Stupid sexy communists

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

stalin-shining Yes you are

[–] kristina@hexbear.net 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

even though its really fucking refreshing. sigh

[–] robot_dog_with_gun@hexbear.net 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

walking is boring af and takes far too long to get anywhere. fuck 15 minute cities give me a 1 minute city.

[–] coderade@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So just like a city in one building? I love mixed use zoning let’s do it

[–] robot_dog_with_gun@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

yaah i'd fuck with an arcology, sure.

[–] Owl@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (3 children)

How is it that train tracks are an ominous tax expense but roads are just a naturally occurring feature?????¿??

[–] Infamousblt@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think libs are under the (false) impression that roads are both completely mandatory in society AND somehow cheaper to build and maintain than public transit. Per person moved public transit is significantly more efficient per dollar but libs just don't want to know stats when they don't agree with their worldview

[–] GayActorMichaelDouglas@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think libs are under the (false) impression that roads are both completely mandatory in society

They kinda are in local transport to be fair. You can't transport truck loads of stuff by bike to grocery stores. This necessitates some level of automobile road to get there. What's unnecessary is regional/national roads for commerce. Most cities would still require road maintenance just for EMS and local commerce even if they had a robust public infrastructure. The good news is that buses can use these roads as well so a post-personal-car future is still viable. Roadless cities are not.

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It takes 160,000 bicycles to incur the road maintenance cost of a single personal car.

[–] GayActorMichaelDouglas@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yep, and that's why most people should ride bikes and then use public infrastructure as needed. But automobiles are still necessary, unless you mean to bike in all the equipment you'd find in an ambulance.

so a post-personal-car future is still viable

It takes 160,000 bicycles to incur the road maintenance cost of a single personal car.

Are we disagreeing here or are you just mentioning a statistic?

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I think ambulances and firetrucks should be basically the only automobiles. Even most delivery vehicles should be replaced by either cargo bikes or by spur lines off the railroad.

Also, it's important to this discussion to draw a clear distinction between streets, roads, and stroads. Streets are destinations and can be made primarily for bikes and pedestrians, roads are routes for cars to go fast from place to place. Stroads are the cursed middle ground common to USAmerican suburbia which combine the width and car friendliness of a road with the density of destinations of a street. I don't think it's possible, or even desirable, to get rid of streets, but I think we can and should get rid of most roads and absolutely all stroads. The remaining impermeable surfaces will be drastically cheaper to maintain.

[–] ikilledtheradiostar@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I would add special door to door transport automobiles for the special needs populations too but otherwise agree whole heartedly.

[–] GayActorMichaelDouglas@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Even most delivery vehicles should be replaced by either cargo bikes or by spur lines off the railroad.

I just don't think it'd be practical to fill entire grocery stores worth of stuff on bikes. You're not dealing with a few packages of office supplies. You're dealing with entire warehouse districts worth of stuff having to move across cities. Even with reduced consumption, the amount of people needed to transport that on bikes would probably be more than the local population.

[–] alcoholicorn@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] GayActorMichaelDouglas@hexbear.net 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Do you plan to run a train through every grocery store, stop to unload at each stop, and still expect to get everything there at the same time?

We don't live in a wildwest train town. Our cities are not built around trains and unless you plan to literally tear down the entirety of New York it will not work.

[–] alcoholicorn@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Our cities are not built around trains

They used to be, and you can still see it in the way a lot of cities roads and former industrial cores are laid out.

tear down the entirety of New York

That picture was from NYC during the 20s.

But surface level freight trains are not a great solution in cities, hence why they built the highline, which stayed in use until the 80s.

expect to get everything there at the same time?

Scheduled freight trains running on their own grade and just stopping to switch out some containers can potentially be more reliable than semis. I have to say potentially because holy shit american freight has been hollowed out by capitalism.

edit: I don't actually think it's feasible for every place that needs more freight than cargo bikes can handle would have a train depot, but every truck that swaps containers at depots inside the city reduces the number of miles they're driving in the city and the need for giant highways cutting the city in half.

[–] zephyreks@programming.dev 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

don't you know? roads build themselves with the labour of poor illegal immigrants

FWIW road has similar cost to standard rolling stock, which ends up being substantially cheaper than urban subway tracks... so... it's not entirely wrong? building a road in the city is cheaper than building a subway because of... tbh I'm not too sure, but it is in practice

[–] AcidSmiley@hexbear.net 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Well, it's a subway, you have to excavate an entire tunnel system for that. But in return you get an entire traffic infrastrucutre that takes up next to no space on the surface, which means a lot in densely built areas. I guess if you'd compare subways to underground roads like that stuff Musk had built in Las Vegas, or if you'd compare roads to cable car tracks, costs would be fairly similar again.

[–] zephyreks@programming.dev 1 points 2 years ago

I mean, a decent number of cities run on elevated track...

[–] NoGodsNoMasters@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Had to do this just earlier this week. Got back by train at like midnight and I had to bike back to my appartment. I was really tired especially in my legs, so you'd think that would maybe be a bit annoying, but it was actually really refreshing. It was nice and quiet, and the air was cool. Definitely wouldn't have taken a car even if I had the option.

[–] grey_wolf_whenever@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

Crying about higher taxes is almost always chud shit

[–] Surreal@programming.dev 1 points 2 years ago

Why do Americans hate paying tax for things that benefit the community so much?

[–] axont@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

A whole lot American view themselves as one brief windfall away from being a millionaire, and these are the ones who shape the dominant ideology. The core American ideology is shaped by white suburbs all gritting their teeth and fuming over their 6 figure incomes because all they want in life is to see their bank account reach that magical 7 digits, yet it never quite does. Every public good like transportation is interpreted as a barrier away from seeing that million dollars. Every business regulation is interpreted as a conspiracy to keep them down, every person walking by in the street is an interloper, every inch of public transportation is interpreted as an annoyance dedicated solely to interrupting their focus on their money.

Even the ones who reach the million don't become satisfied, because now they become aware of the strata even above them, the billionaires with 10+ digit bank statements. And then by the time they reach billionaire status, their brains have been hollowed out by their chase to power and influence they become desperately aware of their own mortality. They realize they aren't gods, but that doesn't stop them from trying.

If you live in America and you make less than $120,000 per year, in terms of the ideology you might as well be a wisp of smoke or a hypothetical thing to joke about.

[–] PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS@hexbear.net 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Actually we're normal Lemmy

[–] the_itsb@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Totally agree. Isn't this one of the oldest instances? It doesn't really matter when it federated - that just means it had more time to get distilled into its own special version. But this is an OG strain - whatever else this is, this is Lemmy.

Edit - and I say this as a pretty new user to the instance. I wasn't here from the beginning, this is my take as an instance-hopping reddit refugee.

[–] combat_brandonism@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago

the grad and flagship are older I think

[–] adultswim_antifa@hexbear.net 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Tens of millions of people live in cities with passable subway systems in the US and have for like a hundred years. And small towns were connected with rail all over. This fantastical scenario was completely normal.

[–] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Kind of crazy how these people just accepted public transport as a normal thing until like...3-4 years ago? Now suddenly trains and buses are driven by Lucifer himself apparently.

[–] Ambiwar@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

You just noticed it 3-4 years ago. It's been much longer.

[–] GivingEuropeASpook@hexbear.net 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] GivingEuropeASpook@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

Yeah but we're federated with them so you can interact from here and tip the scales