Comment on Welcome to New York City
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 18 hours agoi mean, i smoke a lot of weed so that might be part of it. it takes a bit of a philosophy and perspective change from [I’m stuck in traffic] to [I’m traffic]. I view it as somewhat of a daoist or buddhist perspective (because the lightswitch flipped while i was reading an Alan Watts book, Tao, the Watercourse Way. or The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. i read them one after the other. Excellent reads. I’m not an expert on taoism or buddhism or eastern religions or philosophy so don’t take my word for it) Also i have kickass music all the time i drive and an extra song to listen to is never unappreciated.
i’m weird though, i get it. i know i’m an outlier.
Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
You know what yeah, that’s fair. There are people that enjoy cars for their own sake. Frankly though, those are the kinds of people I would hope sympathize with the Fuck Cars philosophy the most, as the goal behind the sentiment is (usually) not that cars should no longer exist outright, but that instead infrastructure changes should be made so that not literally everyone needs to drive to live. Changes like replacing on street parking with protected bike lanes, investing in robust public transit networks, and replacing massive parking lots with actually functional construction. You know, changes that get people out of their cars while still reaching the places they need to go, which in turn reduces traffic for emergency services and the people that decide they want to drive anyway.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
I mean, you’re talking to one right now. I sympathize, i see the need, but the fuckcars philosophy pushes a little extreme because they often forget the folk who rely on cars, not because of the infrastructure deficiencies but because their bodies broke. like, if you’ve tried to use public transit or accommodations with a wheelchair, you find out pretty quickly why you almost never see anyone in a wheelchair on the light rail. The accommodations for them were built with people who can easily and quickly transfer in mind, and if you can’t transfer then fuck you basically. it’s an extreme reactionary position where what would benefit us all is somewhere in the middle (though, let’s be honest, way closer to the fuckcars side than what we’ve currently got)
Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
First, I absolutely see people in wheelchairs on the light rail where I live, that’s mostly a problem for cities where the rail system predates the ADA. Second, I’m very much not forgetting those people, partly because less traffic helps them as much as any driver, and even more because it’s simply naive to imagine that the majority of people with disabilities are able to drive but not able to take a bus or train.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
like, we’ve had these conversations on here before and you and the majority of the other fuckcars folk on here i am convinced get it. but if i pop onto reddit (yeah i know, bad idea) or wherever else i’ve seen fuckcars stuff (i don’t really want to remember that hard) it tends just to be the loudest “get rid of cars, put in transit as it currently exists everywhere and call it a day” idiots. it requires a total rethinking.