this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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Fuck Cars
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Judging from the top rated comments, this post is surprisingly controversial for fuckcars.
I would literally kill myself if I ever had to live in apartments again. I have severe social anxiety and agoraphobia and general anxiety. I started hallucinating when I lived in apartments (but never before or since). I became paranoid of people. There was never any solitude. Plus right now there's no way to get around apartments without landlords (though I understand ideally there might be ways around this, it's not likely to happen any time soon). When I lived in an apartment I considered just being homeless and hiding in the woods (and stupidly, isn't legal).
We sure could stand to make more stores and businesses into high rises though. I live near Detroit (but not IN Detroit) and going down our streets it's just a ridiculous waste of space. How many tire shops do we even need? Why does every business need its own lot with so much space around it? Everything being more "mall" style would waste less space.
There's a great point in here about 'business density'. Shops and restaurants would benefit from higher density in world less populated by cars.
Another important idea here is that higher population density requirements should build in protections for residents' mental well-being: Sound proofing, minimum square footage per person requirements, ceiling heights, green spaces, and convenient access to goods and services. People aren't meant to live in cages.
The vast majority of people do not have any sort of medical need for a house. This does not contribute to the conversation.
That's not really true though, most people are much happier in a house and have far fewer sources of stress in their life. Also high density housing is an awfull place to bring up kids, that's the exact reason London is knocking down all the old tower blocks like elephant and castle, all the studies showed it was a horrible place to live for everyone there.
I know you want this solution to work because no one likes American suburbia but it doesn't have to be a choice between two types of hell, there are actually good options like European suburbs with local shops, bus and cycle routes to pedestrianised shopping areas and lots of green spaces.
Studies actually show that medium density low rises allow for more housing and are more ecologically efficient than supposedly high-density high rises. I was surprised, but the models are irrefutable. It's mainly due to the structural footprint of large buildings.
So that's my ideal. Paris, not Manhattan. Side benefit is it just looks nicer and feels better.
You mean the rich areas of Paris? Not banlieue 93
I'm sure New York has areas similar to Montmartre where only rich people can afford to live, and areas like Seine Saint Denis where they cram all the poor people in awful environments which result in criminality and cyclical poverty
Um...yes? Idk much about Paris geography but who gives a fuck, you understand what I'm saying.
You might have a point but you're being an insensitive ass and it's definitely possible that there are under-researched/discussed potential mental health side effects to apartments / city living. There is certainly a conversation to be had.
Sure, but it is not this discussion and bringing it up is derailing.
How is it "not this discussion"? The general topic is about peoples' housing/aparment preferences and Rukmer's concerns are perfectly valid.
No, because it's such a small number of people it's not worth changing the whole of society for. Obviously, people with disabilities will be accommodated for. This one person having agoraphobia doesn't change the fact that society-wide we should be striving for more dense housing.
We literally change every building we touch to make “reasonable accommodations” for people who have handicaps.
Yes? What is your point?
A good amount of them also seem to be unaware of middle housing (still have your own house, with much, much, much less sprawl)
Exactly! Townhouses/multi family homes are amazing. I can’t wait to own one when I’m older.
Lemmy is just too small so it doesn't attract the same hard core crowd that it did on reddit. Lemmy also promotes controversial comments by default.
So far I'm liking this, that in Reddit fuckcars and other subs would become full circle jerks, with any discussion squashed and "me too" comments ruling the day.
So far, I've enjoyed that me balanced conversations emerge in Lemmy communities.
Fuck cars have had a lot of good points, but buried in falling to understand other perspectives. Here folks can actually see perspectives that would block their goals, and maybe actually talk about some paths forward that might get both sides living with it.
I mean now it is more the other way around. I have scrolled way too much to never find any actual fuck cars member or maybe they are just hypocrites.
Well you do get that, the poster for example. And generally you see replies that are clearly from fuck cars perspective.
Neither sure of the discussion is able to participate without at least seeing the other perspective, which seems healthier.
The corporate/political agents haven't infiltrated Lemmy yet like they have reddit and radicalized these groups so you see less radicals. Give it time and we will attract our paid pipers
Who do you think would be funding these "paid pipers" in an anti car community?
Car companies. They just make the community so toxic that the car-heads will never listen to anything associate with the group. They also use tactics like make in and out groups so you either belong or you're one of them. Here we're family.
But the best strategy is usurping groups by helping the most unpalatable people rise to the top.
Ask yourself who was the last charming social justice advocate? Its probably been decades.
Bugs bunny nailed it when he said "if you can't beat em, join em" there is more bang for the buck by creating and promoting unpalatable groups then there is in fighting them.
Oh the car companies probably, I'm not saying it's happening but it's an age old tactic to fund groups with extreme options, you hype them up into saying things like 'no one needs a car' then you put in your other hat and go over to everyone else saying 'look at this crazy, they say no one needs car but that's because the don't understand rural areas/ disabled people / women / trade workers... (Delete as appropriate for the person you're talking to)
Then if they hear a sensible argument against cars the man in the hat says 'oh they're trying to sneak in the fuckcars stuff my the back door, remember how they want to take your car away because they don't care about your situation...'
Again I'm not saying this is what's happening, I'm just saying how a very common tactic of PR happens, the oil companies have done it loads.
As a corporate/political agent, whose main source of income is his paid piping on Lemmy, I take offense to this comment.
I've noticed that once a post gets enough up votes (and presumably starts to appear in people's 'all' feeds), some different opinions start to appear.
Imo it's because most of the "fuckcars" types are not "pro density" or "pro transit" types. They literally only care about "fuck cars, bikes rule". Usually upper middle class WASPy types. High overlap with NIMBYs.