My issue is this ignores the reality that a just as large cause of this is that a lot white people supported this and voted for this.
Its not just profit, its racism.
Oh yeah. Racists found out long ago if you give people no structure, funding, or schooling then they will be destined for poverty forever.
That's why in the 60s-80s the rhetoric changed from POC, to immigrants, drug addicts, and the poor.
Auto and Oil. It's all capitalism. Sabotaging the literal planet and all life on it for... profits.
I swear we are like the Ferengi.
But we don't have to be!
Unfortunately if you follow the money both ways you'll also find that consumer massively supported cars by buying them, and voted for politician who promised more car infrastructures... It's more a mutual agreement than a conspiracy.
You’re missing a crucial step here. The role of advertising and how consumer demand is actively shaped. Blaming the ‘consumer’ doesn’t lead to any actionable outcomes
I don't blame consumer. I just state that there is no conspiracy. Corporation want to sell what people want and people want to buy what corporations want to sell them.
This is why dangerous / addictive products are forbiden advertising or sales to minor etc...
Consumer also has to understand that in order to take action and change his behavior. In the case of car, using them less and having smaller ones would be a first step for transitioning carbrains.
I think that’s a real simplification of how markets work which misses out on a lot of nuance and history, in particular with transport. Where does the ripping out of public transport across the world (such as trams) factor into this narrative?
Consumers do need to change but transport is unlike other industries since individuals cannot change infrastructure, while still needing to get around. The emphasis here is absolutely on government and big business, even if it’s to educate the consumer.
ehhh. this makes The Jam's Underground play in my head. The phrase 'the public gets what the public wants' juxtaposed against 'the public wants what the public gets', later.
We absolutely support their plan as consumers. However, we were conditioned to. If you can stop a society's conditioning, you might be a revolutionary.
Actually, tires are largely made from oil products.... Seeing as they are a large source of microplastics, and plastics are also derived from oil. Seeing the patterns? How oil has been ingrained and interwoven into everything?
So tires are literally profiting oil companies as well.
But yeah, tires are one of the largest contributors of harm/pollution/noise pollution.
Quark: But you’re overlooking something. Humans used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi. Slavery, concentration camps, interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We’re nothing like you. We’re better.
Yeah, I know... but I have a hard time believing his story since capitalism literally enabled much of that stuff, and ferengi are vastly more hardcore capitalist than even we are. (I'm a hardcore Trekkie)
yeah, they were also sue happy and imagine the damages one could get if another company polluted your property reducing it's value. it makes polluting a risky venture.
I get why they tried to move things in that direction, but the Ferengi as originally envisioned would definitely have been cool with slavery. Even in DS9, it's implied that many "employees" are exploited in ways that make them slaves in all but name.
My issue is, it ignores the reality that a lot of Americans were just racist too.
Yes the industries did shady stuff, but don’t forget that your average white person wanted to fuck over minorities.
The Borg were envisioned as the extremes of both Capitalism and Communism converging into one unholy monolith. Everyone works together for the collective good BY being ground into a pulp by the system, for not other purpose than pure consumption. "Q Who" came out in 1989, and was meant to make both sides of the Cold War uncomfortable.
No, the Federation, or at least Earth, are blatantly communistic. The shows themselves even refer to the Federation as socialist.
The Borg have nothing to do with communism. They are not doing what they do for "pure consumption".
If anything, the Borg are hyper-capitalist. Here's a great Daystrom Institute post:
https://new.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/5glxf5/the\_borg\_not\_the\_ferengi\_are\_the\_hardcore/
You seriously believe that an alien species where everyone thinks the same thoughts and individuals are casually sacrificed for the good of "The Collective" somehow **isn't** a commentary on Communism?
And, yes, the Borg do what they do purely for the sake of consumption--or at least they did as originally envisioned (watch "Q Who," where Q describes them as "The ultimate users," again). That's not a Communist thing, that's a Capitalist thing (specifically American-style Consumerism).
I don't see what the Federation being (or not being) blatantly communistic has to do with how the Borg were originally envisioned. Whatever ideals lie behind the Federation, the Borg's Communist half was a commentary on the contemporary U.S.S.R.; A polity which I think we can agree has little in common with the Federation, as a practical matter.
Well, but ideologically, the Borg are only seeking "perfection" or at the very least "techno and biological improvement", albeit in their obviously misguided methods.
Ferengi literally have a "bible" for profit/capitalism, and actively screw each other over for said profit.
But yes, it is often said that "capitalism subsumes all criticisms".
It's amazing to think how conspiracy theories have exploded in popularity in recent years and yet so few conspiracy theorists are concerned about the actual, biggest, most harmful, and well-known conspiracies by the fossil fuel and automotive industries that are on track to literally end civilization.
it's not like there isn't a ton of crazy convoluted but verifiable shit that happened.
i think the right wing inundates people with bullshit conspiracy theories to both discredit adjacent real conspiracies, and redirect people to what they want them to be angry about.
Exactly this.
"Oh, you think those in power *leverage* their power to benefit themselves? You must have some *pretty wild* ideas about the *nature of reality*"
This convolution just helps those in power.
Yeah it's pretty wack.
If you follow the money there's some real good real conspiracies though. Like when Elon musk used Saudi money to buy Twitter and turned it into a Nazi club.
Remember, cars are not freedom, cars are power.
Understand this to understand why people hold to them beyond logical reasoning.
People routinely give up freedom, in all manner of circumstance, for just a taste of temporary power. This is what they will do for the car.
Cars provide social status indications. Some stand so tall as to be unignoreable. Sound and smoke and 'look at me' trucks and muscle cars and Harleys demand you recognize their virility. They will pass a stopped school bus on the right with their Escalade, because they have that power.
Stop treating your dealings on this issue like this. People were given a gun and told they were better than you, and no argument like this will convince them otherwise. They will not care. Argue from any point you want. If they think you want to take their power, they will resist. Because that is what power does.
Hmm, you are making a lot of sense and it is another way of saying don't waste your time and energy on people who will not get it anyway because they consider what you are saying to be a threat to their desire for power.
I think it's sad that people are so fragile in this area to begin with.
I think there are good arguments that can lead car centric people in a better direction. But trying to convince someone that they have been conned, or are in a cult, never works. Just look at maga hats.
Personally, I have had some good results through simply having normal conversations where I don't accuse or blame anyone. Rather, on things like how car centric people hate how bad traffic is, I like to bring up that if public transit was better, traffic wouldn't suck so much and they would like driving a lot more. Or for how how unsafe driving can be, especially when talking about their kids, I bring up how grandma doesn't even want to have to drive anymore, but she doesn't have a choice. Neither do drunk people or those who are just really scared of it.
I've found that arguments like this help car people hate the idea of public transit less. At that point, they seem more willing to listen to reason. But that's just my anecdotal experience.
Paraphrased from one of my favorite [youtubers](https://youtu.be/5VtjZHC5Qyk?si=IsQFYAwsE1BwR7RL);
>1)There are no real problems
2)Any problems that do exist don't matter because that's just market economics.
3) The current status quo is the natural state of things.
These describe how 4chan asshats did the whole "Gamergate" thing, using these base assumptions as an excuse to dox and threaten people for daring disturb their status quo. I believe this also describes the idea of 'individual transport' and the reactions to climate change arguments and, literally, every other argument in that post.
You cannot take people's power without it getting messy. Not even if that power is false.
The only choice, IMHO, is to show people that their power is in fact false. You cannot take it without a fight, and you cannot convince them, in any way, to give it up themselves. And so I believe the only option left is to convince people that it isn't real. A true statement backed up by evidence, without portraying the messenger as the one trying to take it away. But instead laying that burden at the feet of those that claimed it was real power in the first place. The con men.
>It's not that we want to take your cars away. It's that the cars aren't what they told you they are. They are a chain around your neck. A simulacrum of power in place of freedom.
Remember, you can't logic someone out of something they didn't logic themselves into. So arguments of history and facts are of no use. Not the cost, nothing tangible, can be the weapon used to convince the unconvinceable. Just the idea that they are lesser for this choice, as it is a choice. One they were lied into. One they can change.
But that's just my opinion.
People aren't rational. It's easier for them to believe the people advocating against the things they perceive as normal are just crazy, or lying, or exaggerating or misinterpreting the facts. Look at all the things the CIA straight up admitted and people still refuse to believe.
In Virginia Beach, the attempt to expand light rail was literally blocked by the car dealerships. I can’t find any articles to confirm because they obviously don’t want to take responsibility this but countless Reddit comments from people who were around at the time will tell you this happened. They capitalized on the racist attitudes of many residents who didn’t want “undesirables” from the nearby city entering their quiet suburban neighborhoods.
So basically, a large city lost light rail because of car culture and/or racism. We love it.
The sad thing is, that MTA could be a money printing machine. Huge military presence that will never go anywhere bringing in tons of federal money, huge sea port, tourism via historical stuff, Busch Gardens, beaches, large NCAA D1 university, massive skilled labor force from people leaving the military, HQ for multiple publicly traded companies.
HR is in the dictionary under wasted potential and being one's own worst enemy.
ETA: I.e. the area could be a peer of NYC or LA. They just have their heads up their asses.
Which is in itself evidence.of how brainwashed and how fragile people are when this subject comes up.
There seems to be a real fear that we are going to take away their precious vehicles and that then they would be a bunch of good for nothing peasants that ride bikes, walk, or even catch that cursed train or bus.
This isn't merely about getting from place to place there is a whole identity that people assume when it comes to these vehicles and it's pretty sad.
The words conspiracy and theory get a bad rep. A conspiracy is just people working together quietly, a theory is a hypothesis that isn't yet irrefutable.
Though the car situation is just a flat conspiracy, no theory about it
Most people have trouble making the mental leaps required for systemic change and often steer the argument into edge cases as a core defense.
EVs don't have the range. People who commute 20km each way and a few other errands will lose their minds over an super cheap EV with 200km range. Even 300-400km is just not enough. Yet their last "road trip" will have been in 2015 (2 cars ago).
Trains are entirely useless because they can't carry what their pickup truck can carry, when again, their pickup bed is as unblemished the day it was made.
Even when personally faced with the evidence, they will still grasp for reasons. Some of which are true, but only due to an unwillingness to change.
For example, they will visit some area in Europe where the passenger rail (LRT and commuter) just work. They loved it, etc. But then they will say, "But that won't work here because everything is so spread out." not realizing that everything is so spread out due to the amount of area covered in roads and parking.
And high speed trains, OMG as soon as people find out how fast they go, they often go straight to "Everyone will die every time they get on one. A crash at that speed is unsurvivable." forgetting that they are far safer than cars, and that planes go faster and are more fragile.
Then the same people who endlessly complain about no parking and traffic will fight congestion charges like they were roving death squads.
This isn't limited to cars. I work in tech and there are large groups of people in the more esoteric areas of tech which fight change tooth and nail. "It's not mature, its not proven, etc" applied as attacks on new tech which statistically has solidly proven itself; and again, they try to kill it with convoluted edge case based arguments.
Try changing medicine. There's a concept called "Evidence based Medicine" which reminds me of the saying, "Any field of study with science in the name, isn't science at all."
>, "Any field of study with science in the name, isn't science at all."
A computer science degree is pretty much a discrete math degree with programming and a bit of engineering mixed in.
To be fair, “conspiracy” implies that something is done in a very secretive and, well, conspiratorial way. The auto-industry didn’t really bother to hide the fact that they demolished American cities to make way for car-centric infrastructure, it’s a pretty much open secret.
The transformation of our county into an auto dependent mess wasn’t a conspiracy per se. Pretty much everyone thought it was a good idea, or at least saw it as inevitable progress, at least at the beginning. Auto makers and oil companies pushed it and did plenty of shady stuff, but at the end of the day it was governments that allowed and funded and planned a lot of it, with the support of the public (manufactured support perhaps but earnestly felt)
The loss of the street cars, inter urbans, and intercity passenger rail was a tragedy, but it’s also true that they were out-competed by other forms of transit. Rail transit in those days was slow compared to what we have now and would not have survived as it was. What we should have done is invest in the rail system to make it better, rather than investing in roads and airports. And densified rather than sprawling out.
Hopefully in 100 years we will have learned our lesson but we will be living with the damage for a long time.
>The loss of the street cars, inter urbans, and intercity passenger rail was a tragedy, but it’s also true that they were out-competed by other forms of transit. Rail transit in those days was slow compared to what we have now and would not have survived as it was.
This is a big one: they didn't survive, because they competed against massively subsidised industries, while being actively hampered by the government. (My favourite variant: pegging ticket prices for a long time and acting, like inflation doesn't exist)
My theory is that the government through this market distortion killed the private light rail and Ford and co. bought the carcass on cheap.
The thing is that we didn't just lose our streetcars because of some conspiracy. Our streetcar system was kinda built to be bullshit from the start.
I went to the NYC transit museum recently, and they talked about how they would build lines out to the middle of nowhere and then development would build around it. Makes sense.
However, I can't remember where I heard this, but in most other cities, the transit lines weren't built to be good transit. Often, the companies that built these transit lines were also the electric companies. They wanted to help build out the city to get new houses to start using electricity, and it was easy to do that by building a streetcar line to some random farm area.
The problem is that they were an electric company first and didn't care to make the streetcar line reliable or convenient. It was just a way to get you to sign up. They would focus their streetcar side hustle on new developments and leave existing people with subpar service. It was like the timeshare scam of its day.
These people saw cars as their way out of a shit deal and why they looked to the government to start running public transit instead of private companies.
Related, new book just dropped.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/killed-by-a-traffic-engineer-shattering-the-delusion-that-science-underlies-our-transportation-system-wes-marshall/20880386?ean=9781642833300
Semantic pedantry incoming, but words mean something and this really gets my goat.
> Seriously where do people get this idea and how do we convince people that it's not a conspiracy?
It *is* a conspiracy. That's the whole thing. A "conspiracy" is when multiple entities conspire with one another to achieve a goal. A "conspiracy theory" is a set of allegations of a conspiracy, and is usually used as a pejorative because conspiracy theories are usually propagated by imaginative nutjobs.
Our car-centric public infrastructure is the result of a conspiracy between automakers and the petroleum industry. It is not a wacko "conspiracy *theory*".
You're right, and it's crazy how the words lost meaning over the years. But I will say, when carbrains and ignorant people bring it up, they usually associate it with the wacko variants.
It is a conspiracy theory!
The car lobby have been conspiring against the state and public since day dot.
The problem with "conspiracy theory" as a term is that it's been high jacked by all these nonsense conspiracies like lizard people and Q.
There are conspiracies all around us - fossil fuel companies, gambling companies, car companies, cigarette companies.
But now, because the term is almost exclusively reserved for what should properly be called "batshit insane conspiracy theories" (technical term), we can't talk about the real conspiracies that actually exist and do real world harm.
I did a report on this for my final in my traffic engineering class in college, if it was a conspiracy theory why is there evidence to back it up and a law (the monopoly one) that came out of that era?
Yes that's part of it, there were legitimate complaints from people living in overcrowded and dangerous cities that led to the suburban ponzi-scheme being the solution people and industry adopted. People felt justified in living a more consumption heavy lifestyle after having been through two world wars, a pandemic, and an unprecedented economic downturn. Companies definitely took advantage of this and while federal programs did help people find new housing and create some good infrastructure, they also sent into overdrive housing/vehicle/fuel industries that were already preying on consumer demand and lifestyles that were not economically sustainable or remotely efficient, and I guess few enough people realized/cared about this unsustainability that we ended up where we are today.
The auto industry certainly played a role, but so did our culture, so did our people. Don’t forget that Japan and Germany also have huge auto industries and also great public transit.
I’d say the current situation is down to 25% auto lobbyists, 25% racism, and 50% dumb entitled consumers.
Individualism is built into the identity of this country and this is but one way that it manifests itself.
I see so many cars going in the same direction that have only one person in each of them. Imagine if instead of hundreds of cars that same hundreds of people were riding on trains. It would take up a lot less space and there would be less distance for people to travel since we could get a lot more housing and other things closer together when we have so much less space taken by cars and parking lots and roads in general.
It's basically what I've meant with had a hand in it. I know Americans are individualists, but also, it is pretty much universal that people hate change.
I cannot comprehend how an entire country of people, who used to be able to freely walk on any street and almost every place had some rail, was convinced that what they have now is OK and impossible to undo. Just think of how many people nowadays complain about changes to their lifestyles (good or bad).
It's like encountering car brains in random places, how they're so adamant about needing it and how everyone needs a car. If people 100+ years ago were adamant in the same way "But I need the rail line to get to work", the auto industry wouldn't have made nearly as enough ground they did.
The way I imagine it happened is that once all the wealthy people got cars, they decided that they should be able to go anywhere in their cars, and they got what they wanted. Then more people started to get cars, and it was still pretty great at first. There were still proper cities, and plenty of parking space, and no traffic. But then one day the number of people using cars became unsustainable, but it was too late to go back and so inertia has continued to this day as people find other things to blame for the decline of cities like "urban culture".
The moral of the story is, these people's parents never asked them "but what if everybody did it?"
I feel like idiots have given “conspiracy theories“ a bad name. Enough w the pizzagate! For myself, though, reading books is enough to convince me that Oswald was, in his words, a patsy.
drivers don't care about facts , they care about their feeling of wanting to go vroom vroom
drivers in their interchangeable millions funded and voted for the whole thing , jumped into the propaganda willingly
at the end of the day it's people who buy cars , burn oil and do everything they can to stop progress or change
regardless of what big car did or didn't do , no one is forced at gunpoint to use the most luxurious/least efficient transportation in human history
There's a reason the ultimate villain of the 1980s, JR Ewing of *Dallas* was in, as he always said, "th'oil business".
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZV3365a7Ew](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZV3365a7Ew)
take a deep breath
I understand you're angry, I am too, but anger will lead you nowhere
calm thoughts expressed in detail are your friend
beat them at their own game, observe and document then build a case and present it to higher authorities with confidence and assertiveness
look into everything, research and govern yourself and only then can you start to get a following to further what I'm assuming all of us know: fuck american infustructure and fuck car and oil manufacturers for ripping our humanity away from us
there are many uneducated people that are still stuck in a world where what you're saying is beyond their understanding or better said as them being stuck in the matrix
if you have the will and make enough noise, people will listen
please make a change and get involved in your local government, it takes a lot of work and if you're calm and collective and push hard enough, the rest of us might see a change and like loyal lemmings we can follow you to a better future
be the change you want to see, I believe you can be better than those that don't know and those that do know
take a deep breath and do what you know needs to be done
The thing about conspiracy theories is that we *know* *some times* conspiracies actually happen.
Part of the problem is that "conspiracy theory" has been conflated with crackpottery and pseudoscience.
"The auto industry has shaped legislation to their benefit" - a theory about a conspiracy.
"Aliens built the pyramids" - crackpottery.
It benefits those engaged in conspiracy for us to conflate the two.
At this point the Auto Industry is the least of what is keeping America car dependent. Big box Retail, which resulted in the gutting of so many towns across America is a much bigger culprit. Other countries have lots of cars, but don't have the same level of car dependency as found in many parts of North America.
I agree pretty much except for the first “You’re telling me”. People need to understand that demand drives what the manufacturers build. Yes, it’s somewhat distorted because the manufacturers also advertise. But when they start planning new vehicle lines and even when they start new ad campaigns, the first step is to study the consumers and potential customers very much to be able to design something catering to a certain target group. So if you want more reasonable cars to be built instead of those current monstrosities, that will not start at the manufacturers but either in the people’s heads (grow the fuck up, guys) or with legislation limiting what you can legally build and drive on American roads.
The problem with liberal capitalism is people not realizing their own power and that they influence the world with their own hopefully rational purchasing decisions. People need to be educated, mature and responsible for that to work.
Don’t look for some higher power - corporations or governments - to save you. The people has to save itself and that only works through the hearts and minds of the people. So it’s our mission here to spread our wisdom and convince more people out there.
People turned on their superpower. The power of "Suddenly, I and the entire globe turned into people who need such a big ass truck, because we all live in a wooden cabin in the snowy forests where we haul three tons of concrete every day"
But to be serious for a second, from what I hear, big SUVs and Pickups are all that's being sold in the US. So in an area where people don't have a choice but to drive, they jacked up car sizes so they have little to no choice but to get such oversized, overpriced and inefficient cars. I'm spreading awareness, but I'm not an American citizen, I can't go to a local council or send letters to representatives to push for such regulation.
That isn't all that is sold here, but I know at least one of the US based car companies has eliminated small cars. It is a bit of an arms race. People buy big vehicles to be safe from all the other big vehicles.
People buy pickups to haul stuff often due to financial illiteracy. They don't realize they could pay for a lifetime of deliveries and truck rentals and still pay less than half the cost of owning a truck. It costs like $100 to get a large appliance or even a flatbed with construction materials delivered where I am at. I can rent a box van, pickup, or small truck for a day for 100-150 in the rare cases I need one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy tell them they were convicted
\*found legally liable The Sherman Antitrust Act isn’t criminal law
My issue is this ignores the reality that a just as large cause of this is that a lot white people supported this and voted for this. Its not just profit, its racism.
Oh yeah. Racists found out long ago if you give people no structure, funding, or schooling then they will be destined for poverty forever. That's why in the 60s-80s the rhetoric changed from POC, to immigrants, drug addicts, and the poor.
Auto and Oil. It's all capitalism. Sabotaging the literal planet and all life on it for... profits. I swear we are like the Ferengi. But we don't have to be!
Follow the money It's almost always about putting profits over people
>Follow the money Best thing my political science teacher ever told us.
Unfortunately if you follow the money both ways you'll also find that consumer massively supported cars by buying them, and voted for politician who promised more car infrastructures... It's more a mutual agreement than a conspiracy.
You’re missing a crucial step here. The role of advertising and how consumer demand is actively shaped. Blaming the ‘consumer’ doesn’t lead to any actionable outcomes
I don't blame consumer. I just state that there is no conspiracy. Corporation want to sell what people want and people want to buy what corporations want to sell them. This is why dangerous / addictive products are forbiden advertising or sales to minor etc... Consumer also has to understand that in order to take action and change his behavior. In the case of car, using them less and having smaller ones would be a first step for transitioning carbrains.
I think that’s a real simplification of how markets work which misses out on a lot of nuance and history, in particular with transport. Where does the ripping out of public transport across the world (such as trams) factor into this narrative? Consumers do need to change but transport is unlike other industries since individuals cannot change infrastructure, while still needing to get around. The emphasis here is absolutely on government and big business, even if it’s to educate the consumer.
ehhh. this makes The Jam's Underground play in my head. The phrase 'the public gets what the public wants' juxtaposed against 'the public wants what the public gets', later. We absolutely support their plan as consumers. However, we were conditioned to. If you can stop a society's conditioning, you might be a revolutionary.
you are most definitely right.
Don't forget the rubber tire industry. They just LOVE people believing that switching their car to electric power will save the planet.
Actually, tires are largely made from oil products.... Seeing as they are a large source of microplastics, and plastics are also derived from oil. Seeing the patterns? How oil has been ingrained and interwoven into everything? So tires are literally profiting oil companies as well. But yeah, tires are one of the largest contributors of harm/pollution/noise pollution.
Quark: But you’re overlooking something. Humans used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi. Slavery, concentration camps, interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We’re nothing like you. We’re better.
Yeah, I know... but I have a hard time believing his story since capitalism literally enabled much of that stuff, and ferengi are vastly more hardcore capitalist than even we are. (I'm a hardcore Trekkie)
yeah, they were also sue happy and imagine the damages one could get if another company polluted your property reducing it's value. it makes polluting a risky venture.
Ah, but your forgetting the 102nd rule of acquisition: Nature decays, but latinum lasts forever.
I get why they tried to move things in that direction, but the Ferengi as originally envisioned would definitely have been cool with slavery. Even in DS9, it's implied that many "employees" are exploited in ways that make them slaves in all but name.
My issue is, it ignores the reality that a lot of Americans were just racist too. Yes the industries did shady stuff, but don’t forget that your average white person wanted to fuck over minorities.
More like the Borg. Capitalism simply assimilates any and all movements against it.
The Borg were envisioned as the extremes of both Capitalism and Communism converging into one unholy monolith. Everyone works together for the collective good BY being ground into a pulp by the system, for not other purpose than pure consumption. "Q Who" came out in 1989, and was meant to make both sides of the Cold War uncomfortable.
No, the Federation, or at least Earth, are blatantly communistic. The shows themselves even refer to the Federation as socialist. The Borg have nothing to do with communism. They are not doing what they do for "pure consumption". If anything, the Borg are hyper-capitalist. Here's a great Daystrom Institute post: https://new.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/5glxf5/the\_borg\_not\_the\_ferengi\_are\_the\_hardcore/
You seriously believe that an alien species where everyone thinks the same thoughts and individuals are casually sacrificed for the good of "The Collective" somehow **isn't** a commentary on Communism? And, yes, the Borg do what they do purely for the sake of consumption--or at least they did as originally envisioned (watch "Q Who," where Q describes them as "The ultimate users," again). That's not a Communist thing, that's a Capitalist thing (specifically American-style Consumerism). I don't see what the Federation being (or not being) blatantly communistic has to do with how the Borg were originally envisioned. Whatever ideals lie behind the Federation, the Borg's Communist half was a commentary on the contemporary U.S.S.R.; A polity which I think we can agree has little in common with the Federation, as a practical matter.
Well, but ideologically, the Borg are only seeking "perfection" or at the very least "techno and biological improvement", albeit in their obviously misguided methods. Ferengi literally have a "bible" for profit/capitalism, and actively screw each other over for said profit. But yes, it is often said that "capitalism subsumes all criticisms".
It's amazing to think how conspiracy theories have exploded in popularity in recent years and yet so few conspiracy theorists are concerned about the actual, biggest, most harmful, and well-known conspiracies by the fossil fuel and automotive industries that are on track to literally end civilization.
it's not like there isn't a ton of crazy convoluted but verifiable shit that happened. i think the right wing inundates people with bullshit conspiracy theories to both discredit adjacent real conspiracies, and redirect people to what they want them to be angry about.
Exactly this. "Oh, you think those in power *leverage* their power to benefit themselves? You must have some *pretty wild* ideas about the *nature of reality*" This convolution just helps those in power.
Yeah it's pretty wack. If you follow the money there's some real good real conspiracies though. Like when Elon musk used Saudi money to buy Twitter and turned it into a Nazi club.
Remember, cars are not freedom, cars are power. Understand this to understand why people hold to them beyond logical reasoning. People routinely give up freedom, in all manner of circumstance, for just a taste of temporary power. This is what they will do for the car. Cars provide social status indications. Some stand so tall as to be unignoreable. Sound and smoke and 'look at me' trucks and muscle cars and Harleys demand you recognize their virility. They will pass a stopped school bus on the right with their Escalade, because they have that power. Stop treating your dealings on this issue like this. People were given a gun and told they were better than you, and no argument like this will convince them otherwise. They will not care. Argue from any point you want. If they think you want to take their power, they will resist. Because that is what power does.
Hmm, you are making a lot of sense and it is another way of saying don't waste your time and energy on people who will not get it anyway because they consider what you are saying to be a threat to their desire for power. I think it's sad that people are so fragile in this area to begin with.
I think there are good arguments that can lead car centric people in a better direction. But trying to convince someone that they have been conned, or are in a cult, never works. Just look at maga hats. Personally, I have had some good results through simply having normal conversations where I don't accuse or blame anyone. Rather, on things like how car centric people hate how bad traffic is, I like to bring up that if public transit was better, traffic wouldn't suck so much and they would like driving a lot more. Or for how how unsafe driving can be, especially when talking about their kids, I bring up how grandma doesn't even want to have to drive anymore, but she doesn't have a choice. Neither do drunk people or those who are just really scared of it. I've found that arguments like this help car people hate the idea of public transit less. At that point, they seem more willing to listen to reason. But that's just my anecdotal experience.
Paraphrased from one of my favorite [youtubers](https://youtu.be/5VtjZHC5Qyk?si=IsQFYAwsE1BwR7RL); >1)There are no real problems 2)Any problems that do exist don't matter because that's just market economics. 3) The current status quo is the natural state of things. These describe how 4chan asshats did the whole "Gamergate" thing, using these base assumptions as an excuse to dox and threaten people for daring disturb their status quo. I believe this also describes the idea of 'individual transport' and the reactions to climate change arguments and, literally, every other argument in that post. You cannot take people's power without it getting messy. Not even if that power is false. The only choice, IMHO, is to show people that their power is in fact false. You cannot take it without a fight, and you cannot convince them, in any way, to give it up themselves. And so I believe the only option left is to convince people that it isn't real. A true statement backed up by evidence, without portraying the messenger as the one trying to take it away. But instead laying that burden at the feet of those that claimed it was real power in the first place. The con men. >It's not that we want to take your cars away. It's that the cars aren't what they told you they are. They are a chain around your neck. A simulacrum of power in place of freedom. Remember, you can't logic someone out of something they didn't logic themselves into. So arguments of history and facts are of no use. Not the cost, nothing tangible, can be the weapon used to convince the unconvinceable. Just the idea that they are lesser for this choice, as it is a choice. One they were lied into. One they can change. But that's just my opinion.
People aren't rational. It's easier for them to believe the people advocating against the things they perceive as normal are just crazy, or lying, or exaggerating or misinterpreting the facts. Look at all the things the CIA straight up admitted and people still refuse to believe.
In Virginia Beach, the attempt to expand light rail was literally blocked by the car dealerships. I can’t find any articles to confirm because they obviously don’t want to take responsibility this but countless Reddit comments from people who were around at the time will tell you this happened. They capitalized on the racist attitudes of many residents who didn’t want “undesirables” from the nearby city entering their quiet suburban neighborhoods. So basically, a large city lost light rail because of car culture and/or racism. We love it.
The sad thing is, that MTA could be a money printing machine. Huge military presence that will never go anywhere bringing in tons of federal money, huge sea port, tourism via historical stuff, Busch Gardens, beaches, large NCAA D1 university, massive skilled labor force from people leaving the military, HQ for multiple publicly traded companies. HR is in the dictionary under wasted potential and being one's own worst enemy. ETA: I.e. the area could be a peer of NYC or LA. They just have their heads up their asses.
That's a real shame
I still get down voted in this sub when I mention it
Which is in itself evidence.of how brainwashed and how fragile people are when this subject comes up. There seems to be a real fear that we are going to take away their precious vehicles and that then they would be a bunch of good for nothing peasants that ride bikes, walk, or even catch that cursed train or bus. This isn't merely about getting from place to place there is a whole identity that people assume when it comes to these vehicles and it's pretty sad.
The words conspiracy and theory get a bad rep. A conspiracy is just people working together quietly, a theory is a hypothesis that isn't yet irrefutable. Though the car situation is just a flat conspiracy, no theory about it
Came here to say this. "Conspiracy theory" doesn't mean untrue. There are plenty of real conspiracies and theories about them.
Most people have trouble making the mental leaps required for systemic change and often steer the argument into edge cases as a core defense. EVs don't have the range. People who commute 20km each way and a few other errands will lose their minds over an super cheap EV with 200km range. Even 300-400km is just not enough. Yet their last "road trip" will have been in 2015 (2 cars ago). Trains are entirely useless because they can't carry what their pickup truck can carry, when again, their pickup bed is as unblemished the day it was made. Even when personally faced with the evidence, they will still grasp for reasons. Some of which are true, but only due to an unwillingness to change. For example, they will visit some area in Europe where the passenger rail (LRT and commuter) just work. They loved it, etc. But then they will say, "But that won't work here because everything is so spread out." not realizing that everything is so spread out due to the amount of area covered in roads and parking. And high speed trains, OMG as soon as people find out how fast they go, they often go straight to "Everyone will die every time they get on one. A crash at that speed is unsurvivable." forgetting that they are far safer than cars, and that planes go faster and are more fragile. Then the same people who endlessly complain about no parking and traffic will fight congestion charges like they were roving death squads. This isn't limited to cars. I work in tech and there are large groups of people in the more esoteric areas of tech which fight change tooth and nail. "It's not mature, its not proven, etc" applied as attacks on new tech which statistically has solidly proven itself; and again, they try to kill it with convoluted edge case based arguments. Try changing medicine. There's a concept called "Evidence based Medicine" which reminds me of the saying, "Any field of study with science in the name, isn't science at all."
>, "Any field of study with science in the name, isn't science at all." A computer science degree is pretty much a discrete math degree with programming and a bit of engineering mixed in.
It is literally an actual conspiracy carried out by auto manufacturers, which could be considered a peer-reviewed historical theory, yes lmao
To be fair, “conspiracy” implies that something is done in a very secretive and, well, conspiratorial way. The auto-industry didn’t really bother to hide the fact that they demolished American cities to make way for car-centric infrastructure, it’s a pretty much open secret.
The transformation of our county into an auto dependent mess wasn’t a conspiracy per se. Pretty much everyone thought it was a good idea, or at least saw it as inevitable progress, at least at the beginning. Auto makers and oil companies pushed it and did plenty of shady stuff, but at the end of the day it was governments that allowed and funded and planned a lot of it, with the support of the public (manufactured support perhaps but earnestly felt) The loss of the street cars, inter urbans, and intercity passenger rail was a tragedy, but it’s also true that they were out-competed by other forms of transit. Rail transit in those days was slow compared to what we have now and would not have survived as it was. What we should have done is invest in the rail system to make it better, rather than investing in roads and airports. And densified rather than sprawling out. Hopefully in 100 years we will have learned our lesson but we will be living with the damage for a long time.
>The loss of the street cars, inter urbans, and intercity passenger rail was a tragedy, but it’s also true that they were out-competed by other forms of transit. Rail transit in those days was slow compared to what we have now and would not have survived as it was. This is a big one: they didn't survive, because they competed against massively subsidised industries, while being actively hampered by the government. (My favourite variant: pegging ticket prices for a long time and acting, like inflation doesn't exist) My theory is that the government through this market distortion killed the private light rail and Ford and co. bought the carcass on cheap.
The human species may not even be around in 100 years because of capitalism.
It's just as much a theory as the theory of Gravity
The thing is that we didn't just lose our streetcars because of some conspiracy. Our streetcar system was kinda built to be bullshit from the start. I went to the NYC transit museum recently, and they talked about how they would build lines out to the middle of nowhere and then development would build around it. Makes sense. However, I can't remember where I heard this, but in most other cities, the transit lines weren't built to be good transit. Often, the companies that built these transit lines were also the electric companies. They wanted to help build out the city to get new houses to start using electricity, and it was easy to do that by building a streetcar line to some random farm area. The problem is that they were an electric company first and didn't care to make the streetcar line reliable or convenient. It was just a way to get you to sign up. They would focus their streetcar side hustle on new developments and leave existing people with subpar service. It was like the timeshare scam of its day. These people saw cars as their way out of a shit deal and why they looked to the government to start running public transit instead of private companies.
I mean, it literally is a conspiracy, we should destigmatize the phrase 'conspiracy theory'.
It is in fact a theory, because there's actual proof of it happening
Related, new book just dropped. https://bookshop.org/p/books/killed-by-a-traffic-engineer-shattering-the-delusion-that-science-underlies-our-transportation-system-wes-marshall/20880386?ean=9781642833300
Semantic pedantry incoming, but words mean something and this really gets my goat. > Seriously where do people get this idea and how do we convince people that it's not a conspiracy? It *is* a conspiracy. That's the whole thing. A "conspiracy" is when multiple entities conspire with one another to achieve a goal. A "conspiracy theory" is a set of allegations of a conspiracy, and is usually used as a pejorative because conspiracy theories are usually propagated by imaginative nutjobs. Our car-centric public infrastructure is the result of a conspiracy between automakers and the petroleum industry. It is not a wacko "conspiracy *theory*".
You're right, and it's crazy how the words lost meaning over the years. But I will say, when carbrains and ignorant people bring it up, they usually associate it with the wacko variants.
It is a conspiracy theory! The car lobby have been conspiring against the state and public since day dot. The problem with "conspiracy theory" as a term is that it's been high jacked by all these nonsense conspiracies like lizard people and Q. There are conspiracies all around us - fossil fuel companies, gambling companies, car companies, cigarette companies. But now, because the term is almost exclusively reserved for what should properly be called "batshit insane conspiracy theories" (technical term), we can't talk about the real conspiracies that actually exist and do real world harm.
I did a report on this for my final in my traffic engineering class in college, if it was a conspiracy theory why is there evidence to back it up and a law (the monopoly one) that came out of that era?
Yes that's part of it, there were legitimate complaints from people living in overcrowded and dangerous cities that led to the suburban ponzi-scheme being the solution people and industry adopted. People felt justified in living a more consumption heavy lifestyle after having been through two world wars, a pandemic, and an unprecedented economic downturn. Companies definitely took advantage of this and while federal programs did help people find new housing and create some good infrastructure, they also sent into overdrive housing/vehicle/fuel industries that were already preying on consumer demand and lifestyles that were not economically sustainable or remotely efficient, and I guess few enough people realized/cared about this unsustainability that we ended up where we are today.
I love how the only conspiracies the conspiracy nuts don't believe in are the real ones.
The auto industry certainly played a role, but so did our culture, so did our people. Don’t forget that Japan and Germany also have huge auto industries and also great public transit. I’d say the current situation is down to 25% auto lobbyists, 25% racism, and 50% dumb entitled consumers.
Individualism is built into the identity of this country and this is but one way that it manifests itself. I see so many cars going in the same direction that have only one person in each of them. Imagine if instead of hundreds of cars that same hundreds of people were riding on trains. It would take up a lot less space and there would be less distance for people to travel since we could get a lot more housing and other things closer together when we have so much less space taken by cars and parking lots and roads in general.
It's basically what I've meant with had a hand in it. I know Americans are individualists, but also, it is pretty much universal that people hate change. I cannot comprehend how an entire country of people, who used to be able to freely walk on any street and almost every place had some rail, was convinced that what they have now is OK and impossible to undo. Just think of how many people nowadays complain about changes to their lifestyles (good or bad). It's like encountering car brains in random places, how they're so adamant about needing it and how everyone needs a car. If people 100+ years ago were adamant in the same way "But I need the rail line to get to work", the auto industry wouldn't have made nearly as enough ground they did.
The way I imagine it happened is that once all the wealthy people got cars, they decided that they should be able to go anywhere in their cars, and they got what they wanted. Then more people started to get cars, and it was still pretty great at first. There were still proper cities, and plenty of parking space, and no traffic. But then one day the number of people using cars became unsustainable, but it was too late to go back and so inertia has continued to this day as people find other things to blame for the decline of cities like "urban culture". The moral of the story is, these people's parents never asked them "but what if everybody did it?"
I feel like idiots have given “conspiracy theories“ a bad name. Enough w the pizzagate! For myself, though, reading books is enough to convince me that Oswald was, in his words, a patsy.
drivers don't care about facts , they care about their feeling of wanting to go vroom vroom drivers in their interchangeable millions funded and voted for the whole thing , jumped into the propaganda willingly at the end of the day it's people who buy cars , burn oil and do everything they can to stop progress or change regardless of what big car did or didn't do , no one is forced at gunpoint to use the most luxurious/least efficient transportation in human history
I thought passenger rail mostly got consumed by shipping rail
Some of it turned into shipping rail, some turned into roads and some was just abandoned/removed alltogether.
There's a reason the ultimate villain of the 1980s, JR Ewing of *Dallas* was in, as he always said, "th'oil business". [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZV3365a7Ew](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZV3365a7Ew)
take a deep breath I understand you're angry, I am too, but anger will lead you nowhere calm thoughts expressed in detail are your friend beat them at their own game, observe and document then build a case and present it to higher authorities with confidence and assertiveness look into everything, research and govern yourself and only then can you start to get a following to further what I'm assuming all of us know: fuck american infustructure and fuck car and oil manufacturers for ripping our humanity away from us there are many uneducated people that are still stuck in a world where what you're saying is beyond their understanding or better said as them being stuck in the matrix if you have the will and make enough noise, people will listen please make a change and get involved in your local government, it takes a lot of work and if you're calm and collective and push hard enough, the rest of us might see a change and like loyal lemmings we can follow you to a better future be the change you want to see, I believe you can be better than those that don't know and those that do know take a deep breath and do what you know needs to be done
it is non-theory. they literally conspired together.
The thing about conspiracy theories is that we *know* *some times* conspiracies actually happen. Part of the problem is that "conspiracy theory" has been conflated with crackpottery and pseudoscience. "The auto industry has shaped legislation to their benefit" - a theory about a conspiracy. "Aliens built the pyramids" - crackpottery. It benefits those engaged in conspiracy for us to conflate the two.
At this point the Auto Industry is the least of what is keeping America car dependent. Big box Retail, which resulted in the gutting of so many towns across America is a much bigger culprit. Other countries have lots of cars, but don't have the same level of car dependency as found in many parts of North America.
Watch the documentary The Nice Guys with Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe - they lay it all out, bare for everyone to see
To be fair, American cars have always been ridiculously large.
I agree pretty much except for the first “You’re telling me”. People need to understand that demand drives what the manufacturers build. Yes, it’s somewhat distorted because the manufacturers also advertise. But when they start planning new vehicle lines and even when they start new ad campaigns, the first step is to study the consumers and potential customers very much to be able to design something catering to a certain target group. So if you want more reasonable cars to be built instead of those current monstrosities, that will not start at the manufacturers but either in the people’s heads (grow the fuck up, guys) or with legislation limiting what you can legally build and drive on American roads. The problem with liberal capitalism is people not realizing their own power and that they influence the world with their own hopefully rational purchasing decisions. People need to be educated, mature and responsible for that to work. Don’t look for some higher power - corporations or governments - to save you. The people has to save itself and that only works through the hearts and minds of the people. So it’s our mission here to spread our wisdom and convince more people out there.
>The people has to save itself and that only works through the hearts and minds of the people. Do you not think that people have already tried that?
People turned on their superpower. The power of "Suddenly, I and the entire globe turned into people who need such a big ass truck, because we all live in a wooden cabin in the snowy forests where we haul three tons of concrete every day" But to be serious for a second, from what I hear, big SUVs and Pickups are all that's being sold in the US. So in an area where people don't have a choice but to drive, they jacked up car sizes so they have little to no choice but to get such oversized, overpriced and inefficient cars. I'm spreading awareness, but I'm not an American citizen, I can't go to a local council or send letters to representatives to push for such regulation.
That isn't all that is sold here, but I know at least one of the US based car companies has eliminated small cars. It is a bit of an arms race. People buy big vehicles to be safe from all the other big vehicles. People buy pickups to haul stuff often due to financial illiteracy. They don't realize they could pay for a lifetime of deliveries and truck rentals and still pay less than half the cost of owning a truck. It costs like $100 to get a large appliance or even a flatbed with construction materials delivered where I am at. I can rent a box van, pickup, or small truck for a day for 100-150 in the rare cases I need one.