this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
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Fuck Cars

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/27638728

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[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 7 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

I've had my disagreements with this community*, but I absolutely agree that cars do not scale in urban areas. We need good enough public transit to make cars unnecessary, and then replace the previous car infrastructure with something better like cycling or housing or parks or small business.

Ideally, I think we should have

  • interstates that go through or around cities

  • Extensive parking garages on the outskirts of cities

  • Fast, reliable, safe public transit within cities

There will always be a need for vehicles in rural areas, and those vehicles will need to come to the city sometimes, and we need ways to get those people to where they need to go. But people should not need to drive in the city itself.

*Most of my disagreements are with the focus on cycling. Cycling should be a secondary, maybe tertiary goal. Public transit is orders of magnitude more important.

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 53 points 1 day ago

All the proof you need that you can be a car guy and still accept that car dependancy is awful.

[–] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 41 points 1 day ago

He always felt like the reasonable one

[–] flippinfreebird@lemmy.today 3 points 18 hours ago

Is there a video to the full video?

[–] drkt_@lemmy.dbzer0.com 95 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This is nice to hear after finding out what an absolute boomer Jeremy is.

[–] justOnePersistentKbinPlease@fedia.io 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Clarkson has admitted that he knows his faults. He likes the sound and feeling of a car with a powerful engine. He doesn't like the over-computerized and "soulless" modern car.

[–] drkt_@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What kind of car you like is one thing but does he understand that when he sits at a café next to a busy, congested road and blame the cyclists for the congestion that he's actually just factually wrong? Because I don't think he knows that. Jeremy Clarkson is fiercely anti-bicycle and until he says, in front of an audience, that he's wrong about this and will stop spewing vitriol at bicyclists, I frankly don't care about him.

[–] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago

I think a large number of people watch Clarkson's Farm to see Clarkson's egomaniacal ideas fail epically. Or how often Clarkson gets injured with dat farm life

[–] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 51 points 1 day ago (1 children)

He is learning a lot of hard lessons by attempting to run his farm, tho

[–] DakRalter@thelemmy.club 55 points 1 day ago (1 children)

inheritance tax avoidance scheme*

[–] Sunny@slrpnk.net 14 points 1 day ago

While this is most certainly true. I think the show has really help showing the struggles farmers are going through on a daily basis, it's very easy to forget all the work that they put into growing our food etc.. Really opened my eyes at least.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 44 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've always felt he's one of us deep inside.

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 32 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

He's really the opposite of Jeremy Clarkson (although now that he started farming, he also suddenly cares about climate change).

[–] sushibowl@feddit.nl 10 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I did not come away from this article with a very positive opinion on Clarkson. He strikes me as the type of guy who is incapable of recognising a problem that he himself is not personally facing. Climate change wasn't real until he tried his hand at farming. Driving electric vehicles won't solve the climate problem, science will (did science not develop the battery technology needed to move away from gasoline cars?). Farmers are struggling and will be forced to sell to millionaires and capitalists (is he himself not the capitalist that bought a hobby farm from a struggling farmer?).

I don't think he's seeing his own hypocrisy here. Farmers have been facing these problems for years and no one paid attention. He calls up his buddy in Westminster, immediately gets a full cabinet meeting, and as if by magic the government starts moving in his favour (taking away power from local government, I might add).

This isn't a black and white issue and there is merit to Clarkson's point that local government can get captured and corrupted by personal conflicts and interests. But I don't agree with the image he appears to project as a defender of the common man and poor farmer. He's a millionaire who has never given a single shit about farmers until he personally owned a farm.

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 4 points 17 hours ago

Oh yeah, I definitely didn't mean to imply he's somehow not an utter cunt. He is all those things you mention.

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Even Clarkson would occasionally show up to work on a bicycle. It really is as simple as build the lanes and people will use them, regardless of status and opinions. If cycling is faster, easier, safer or more enjoyable, people will do it.

[–] frank@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] jonne@infosec.pub 2 points 1 day ago

Just shows that you can make a lot of money by saying the things the wealthy want you to say. It's a grift.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 60 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Captain Slow was always my favorite Top Gear presenter.

[–] owenfromcanada@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Same. If you haven't already, be sure to watch both his travel and cooking shows. Both great.

[–] late_night@sopuli.xyz 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Also his show Toy stories was really cool.

He would pick a classic toy and take it to an extreme. Like building a people-sized house out of Lego, entering modeling clay flowers into a gardening contest or making a motorcycle out of Meccano.

He would bring a bunch of people together to make it happen, it was wholesome in a not-lame way. Plus the usual James May antics.

[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 2 points 18 hours ago

There's also a two parter I've seen posted to YouTube called Big Trouble in Model Britain where he basically interviewed a bunch of people and conpanies surrounding Hornby (a notable British model train manufacturer)

[–] Akasazh@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

His YouTube is a bit mid, I find. Him shilling his gin, lurpak and even doting on the cybertruck.

I mean all power to him, but I find the content very lackluster compared to the tv he made.

[–] Pofski@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Loved them. Only thing he did that I did not like that much was his cyberpunk review.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 42 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As usual, he’s rigbt. Cars hate being in cities. City driving is the worst for them. They’re too big and they’re barely faster than walking.

Cars don’t belong in cities just like I don’t belong in cities.

[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Cities can be wonderful. And the fewer cars there, the better.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world -4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Cities are not really designed for people more than two standard deviations from the mean in height

[–] tamman2000@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Nothing in the built environment is, city or country... That's the nature is being an outlier

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah but in the countryside there’s far fewer things that are designed for humans at all, which makes me fit better there.

And scale is just one reason I’m not a city guy.

[–] Beastimus@slrpnk.net 3 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Ok, then you're not a city guy. I don't get why self-proclaimed non-city people come on topics that mostly matter for people in cities.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 4 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (2 children)

Because if we make cities better less countryside will be plowed under for something we both hate: Suburbs.

Just like how despite liking cars I want more mass transit because that means fewer people on the roads, making driving better for me.

[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

I wish more rural people could see this. Better transit in cities makes life better for you too! If you have to drive, having fewer cars on the road makes your drive better!

[–] Beastimus@slrpnk.net 4 points 20 hours ago

Ah, sorry, I think I clocked you as one of those anti-urbanism shitheads that comes in here sometimes and says stupid shit. Never mind, we're in agreement here, carry on.👍