this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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Not entirely correct.
It's obsessive hatred of car dependency. It's not that surprisingly many of us hate cars, it's that surprisingly many of us hate that you necessarily need a car to do anything outside of the house.
Nooo, I ended up having to filter the fuckcars community because they were angry at ANYBODY that uses a car for any reason - like top voted comments and posts. I saw somebody get jumped by multiple responders for bringing up how there are small towns and people that live hours away from large cities that would still need cars for transportation
Like, I'm as much for improving public transit and reducing the amount of cars on the road in every instance where it's viable. I specifically moved within 10 miles of my job so I could start riding my bike to work instead of driving my hybrid car. It's not that I'm pro car, I'm just anti-extremist
I've gotten into it with a couple of guys for needing a truck. I'm a construction electrician. That means that in addition to lugging my tools around, I have to transport rather large and heavy pieces of equipment/gear on occasion. I'd happily rock a van, but it's hell trying to find a 4x4 van (snow) at a reasonable price due to the van life crowd. I've had guys say use public transport or car share, like dude, I work 6 days a week, that isn't viable. It's a completely one sided conversation with them.
My favorite response was somebody saying small towns in America should still have infrastructure and trains to connect them (which I agree with in theory) because every small town in the UK has them without even realizing there are small towns in the US that could fit the entirety of the UK between them and the nearest other town or city.
Lol nevermind that many of those towns/villages in the UK are centuries old, while many of the smaller towns (especially out west) sprang up specifically because of the national highway system, and also many have died with the introduction of the interstate highway system. I'm all for improving our national rail lines, but it would need to be implemented carefully to ensure that no more smaller towns die out due to lack of service. And to your last point, this is where specifically a high speed rail system would excel, if only just to efficiently cover the vast distances between US towns.
Nah man, there's some crazy fucking Fuck Cars peoples who don't even think parents of severely mentally disabled children should have a car.
There's always absolute extremists, and they are never fucking silent.
See the issue here is that a lot of these Reddit activists, they start out with a good cause that a lot of people could be sympathetic towards but they end up taking it too far because they're all terminally online extremists.
Here's a few examples:
Veganism: A lot of people are on board with treating animals better and eating more plants, but Redditors take it too far by advocating for the complete ban of meat and the prosecution of places like homeless shelters for providing turkeys on thanksgiving because that's genocide to them.
Cars: A lot people would agree that we should decrease dependency on cars because they're loud, they pollute, and they're dangerous, but Redditors take it too far by wanting to ban all cars with no exceptions even if the exception is for parents with disabled kids.
Atheism: A lot of people would consider the possibility of there being no God and that religions deserve criticism, but Redditors take it too far by wanting to force all religious people to convert to atheism... or else.
Work reform: A lot of people support the idea of having stronger work protections and better wages, but Redditors take it too far by either by being full blown tankies or by rejecting the idea of work all together, regardless of how delusional and impractical that is.
Feminism: Most people believe that women should have equal rights and treatment in society, but Redditors take it too far by being full blown misandrists who want to oppress all men and "liberate" women from them.
Not to mention how with every one of these types of communities you always have the classic "you're either with us or against us" mentality. Every disagreement makes a you a nazi/altright/bigot, their cause is totally comparable to the struggle against nazi Germany and the holocaust, and they are totally the good guys who have the total support of the general public (especially the young people) and that they're just a minor enemy (read: cartoon villain) away from achieving utopia.
The communities on here are just an extension of those, and they bring with them the same type of toxic idiots to this platform.
They use carbrains as an insult. They expect people to add an hour to any commute.
For one, if something is described as "carbrained," the subject is discounting, ignoring or outright rejecting alternatives to driving. A carbrained take would not necessarily be one that prefers cars. A carbrained take would include things like:
For two, the car lobby is already great at needlessly extending commutes. When the Katy Freeway near Houston was expanded to its current width of 26 lanes, the widest in the world, travel times changed from end to end from just around three quarters of an hour, to more than a whole hour. An increase of about a third. I could go on and on about this, but let's just say that it takes a lot more to make trains work worse, and generally, if you try to ameliorate transit service by expanding it, that makes transit better for everyone, including car drivers, unlike if you expand highways.
The thing of the anti car dependency movement is that they demand more developments to not to have to drive. They demand more space be dedicated to more sustainable developments, with less parking, uses closer together, more room for people out on foot or bikes to get where they want to go, all that jazz.
Ultimately, the anti car dependency movement wants freedom. The freedom not to have to drive if you don't want to, don't need to, or for any reason cannot. And that is what carbrained people are not getting.