I’m getting a lot of ‘but my car is more convenient’ arguments lately, and I’m struggling to convey why that doesn’t make sense.

Specifically how to explain to people that: Sure, if you are able to drive, and can afford it, and your city is designed to, and subsidizes making it easy to drive and park, then it’s convenient. But if everyone does it then it quickly becomes a tragedy of the commons situation.

I thought of one analogy that is: It would be ‘more convenient’ if I just threw my trash out the window, but if we all started doing that then we’d quickly end up in a mess.

But I feel like that doesn’t quite get at the essence of it. Any other ideas?

  • @[email protected]English
    3•9 months ago

    My point is that the US doesn’t make cars the “most convenient” option, they make it the “least inconvenient”

    That’s just semantic. The least convenient is the most convenient by definition. The question is what you want to be the most convenient. We agree that it shouldn’t be cars—you’re arguing for the sake of argument, not because we have an actual disagreement.

    • @[email protected]English
      2•9 months ago

      My point is that the US does not really make cars more convenient than other countries make cars. So cars in the US are as convenient as cars anywhere, while alternatives are missing in the US.

      So it’s

      cars in the US = cars in eg. NL < public transport in eg. NL

      not

      cars in the US > cars in eg. NL < public transport in eg. NL

      • @[email protected]English
        3•9 months ago

        Depends on where you are.

        At least in the touristy parts of Las Vegas, super walkable. Between places you want to go, bus stops, trams, monorail you won’t be walking more than half a mile, and any time spent waiting for public transit is like maybe 4 minutes. There are roads, but pedestrians can go all over the place without touching them. Several of the big cities are at least in the ball park, though some screw it up royally.

        However, keep in mind in the US, there are 41 states each geographically larger than NL… But only 4 of those states have more people. Average US population density is 37 people per square kilometer, versus 522 per square kilometer average in NL. It’s really hard to make viable mass transit with that sort of density. A lot of internet participants are going to be in areas where there just isn’t even a possible plan that would work for them.

        Now if you do live in a population hotspot in the US, you are likely to have every reason to say “fuck cars”, depending on the city. However, just be aware that with an average population density so much lower, for the average US person mass transit isn’t as feasible.