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America's love with cars is founded on fear and selfishness (poptalk.scrubbles.tech)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

62 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Probably not too unpopular here.

Standing waiting for the bus in my city with decent transit and I have 2 trucks rev their engines loudly past me, another one letting just clouds of pollution, watching people driving who aren't paying attention and several people blowing cutting last second through a light. All in just 3 minutes by a small corner with light traffic.

Made me think how cars are inherently selfish. People don't want to be around others (the fear aspect), so they drive their own bubble around. In addition to that, some go out of their way to make their cars even worse to people outside of them.

No wonder we can't move away from them. They are a definition of our own culture

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And it's our selfish culture that allows that to continue to be the standard. For example in my home state Amtrak is trying to to provide inter city service, and the governor said that "they don't want it". The sad part is most of the citizens agree. That is the culture of selfishness.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I don't think it can be completely blamed on culture or simply "selfishness". There is a group of powerful lobbyists that are influencing policy:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_lobby

There are absolutely people who love their cars, and/or are assholes, but that isn't the only reason it isn't a priority. There is a big cost associated with any infrastructure project and the US is a relatively large country to cover. Also people from rural areas have no idea what "good" looks like in terms of mass transit.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago

I can agree with that. Although I do think those lobbyists are mostly successful because people are perfectly content to continue driving. I'm happy that big transit projects are being funded now. They're always expensive, they always go over cost and over time, but when they're finished people never think about that. Look at the chunnel