I think it’s a big case of, so what?

Um, I live in Wisconsin. And not in Milwaukee.

Because we have policies that basically encourage sprawl. It’s extremely difficult to build affordable housing in cities because in areas that are already built up, NIMBYs refuse to allow new development because it might “destroy the character of our neighborhood” while for developers, it’s a case of, why build…

So funny enough, my girlfriend lives in one of the smaller towns to the north of Dayton. From her house it’s a mile walk downtown, it’s a mile in the other direction to a gigantic monster Kroger and her kids can walk to and from school. She has a remote job so there’s no commuting needed, and honestly as mud huts go,…

Ummm, no they aren’t. They might have an old city core that wasn’t destroyed in ww1 or 2, but even then Paris is a city of 2 million. close to 9 million in London. Even smaller cities are still modern cities. And they also have vast suburbs. It’s just that in most cases they’ve got some kind of public transit.

Something that used to happen twice a year in Madison, WI was an event called “Ride the drive” where they shut down some of the major roads downtown along lake monona and let bicycles just have full access, from about 9 in the morning until about 4 in the afternoon. I got to participate a couple times and the biggest…

So, now that the hornet’s nest is good and stirred up, He’s not wrong. There are places where cars and trucks should not be, in general.

OK 1, that’s super cool and thanks for sharing... 2, most of shimano’s stuff pre-11 speed is super cross compatible so you might be able to use an older shimano 105 long cage derailleur, which is already swoopy and silver and looks a LOT like that old xt- fair to say you could paint the front of the parallelogram…

It’s not about the outliers like yours. It’s about the daily drivers that most car buyers still buy. 

Had the government not forced domestic auto makers to build more efficient, safer cars in the 70s, would we even be where we are today? Safety and efficiency were not really driven by consumers. Consumers were mostly fine with the big ol’ leaded fuel barges they’d been buying for years. Consumers were mostly fine with…

And this is 100% of why so much of golden age Sci Fi has not aged well. 

Hey, good for you- so can you tell all the other folks who are really having a hard time?

Aaaaand tell parents of kids under 5 that, pffft, no biggie, your kid will probably be fine. It’s not that easy.

OK, that’s great and all but it’s really easy to forget that there’s still a buttload of parents with kids under 5 who are completely losing their shit because they can’t get their kids vaccinated, their daycares close for 10 days at a time due to a COVID positive and they have to stay home from work with their…

Lighten up, Francis. That thing is awesome. 

I like your explanation better than any of the invisible hand of capitalism bullshit that gets tossed around. 

There was a time when I would agree with you but... We have a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong history of, well, strip mining countries and giving the folks who live there some shiny beads in return. Hell, we did that here. I can’t see that really changing so colonialism is colonialism no matter what you call it.

Yeah, those damned commies in Bolivia should totally let us strip-mine their natural resources. It rude they won’t just let us do whatever we want. Ungrateful savages. 

So basically we’re going to go into the loop where suddenly everyone complains that there’s not enough public transit options and damnit why don’t we have an infrastructure that will allow us to get around without cars and maybe we should really do something about it and there will be much argle bargle on the angry…

Don’t worry, people will stop buying gas because it’s too expensive and that will cause prices to normalize because that’s how free markets work. Or, someone will come in and start selling oil for less and that will cause prices to normalize because that’s how free markets work. Or a magic fairy will land on the gas…