this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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I was talking to a coworker about how I thought public transit was superior to individual cars, and so we should put a lot more investment into it, and his response was, "You'll have to pry my car keys out of my cold dead hands."
Like, dude, I wasn't even talking about that.
Anyways, my point is that a big thing missing from this is how people often build their identities around their stupid fucking cars.
For so many, everything is black and white. They don’t understand that when we want better public transport we aren’t saying to get rid of the roads. We’re just saying that if people have more options maybe those roads won’t constantly be under construction, traffic won’t be as bad, and maybe the roads won’t have to be as big so we can build more cool stuff instead.
That's kinda what makes them carbrains. If they had an ideology around it that would imply some amount of thinking.
Even if I was pro-car for myself, I would love to see more public transit funding. It would take cars off the road and make my time driving nicer.
Motorcycling would be so much more fun with less traffic so I fully support more public transportation options. For now I mostly stick to off-road motorcycling because the chances of getting turned into road pizza by a texting driver are so much lower.
I miss bombing around on my little Indian motor scooter. I had a Bajaj Legend. It was such a rubbish scooter, but I loved it. If cars were more scarce I'd be rocking something like that. Totally car free though, these last 5 years and no regrets
I saw a study once that you only need to take 20% of the cars off the road to cut congestion by half. So every person who takes public transit equates to more than one person off the road, for those still driving. Which is just to say these people should be extra grateful instead of constantly defunding it.
Well I mean they're dumb, so
You, a minute later:
I would like to clarify that I did not actually murder him in response to that comment.
coward
Try beating the traffic now you fucking stupid bastard
People build their identities around their cars because society is making sure that you feel confined without a car.
When my grandmother got too old to drive, she became confined because of cars. There was no public transit in walking distance. There was nothing in walking distance except houses.
She just sat at home by herself and waited for the end. Hoping someone would come to visit her. It was insulting and inhumane.
Yeah! That and the fact that our society has erased several or most of our ways to communally build identity and shifted us to build identity based on consumption items
There’s such a stupid mentality around “Everyone must ”.
Lacrosse exists. I don’t care for it. I’m not going to dictate no one else play it. I imagine if the government mandated everyone play Lacrosse it would become hard to find the equipment for it because it would be in such high demand.
And yet, whether it’s meat, cars, guns, as soon as we suggest “I know this stuff has a place but we should use it a little less” they process it as an effort to completely ban the item in question.
i think the key is when the thing in question is normalized and something most people do, then saying "we should do this less" means de-normalizing it and not having most people do it, which means they'll personally experience change in some way.
like if driving isn't the way to get around you'd eventually get rid of the oversized everpresent highways, which makes their personal travels require more thought and attention, and that's unacceptable and thus they just completely fucking make shit up to defend their lifestyle.
Except even this isn’t true.
One of the least pleasant parts of driving is traffic, potholes, and constant construction. We get fewer potholes when fewer cars are weighing down the roads. We need less construction when we’re not building so many lanes.
On meat, if you ever saw that KOTH episode where he eats from that coop: That store makes amazing meat but could never sustain a huge customer base without selling out and driving their quality down. When everyone demands huge meat portions for every meal, what you get is terrible quality.
You are better off with your habits NOT being grossly overpopular.
I'd like to use public transit but due to my work it's just not an option
My best commute was once when I lived within walking distance of my work. The only downside was that they one time figured I could make it into the office when nobody else could due to snow.
My second best commute was via a bus.
By far my worst commute was one time when I moved in with a friend who liked cars and lived far away. With zero traffic, the commute was 45 minutes, but there was always traffic.
Being walking distance from work is fantastic!