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Crazy how... (thelemmy.club)
submitted 4 weeks ago by to c/fuckcars@lemmy.world
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crazy how trains take 37 years of committees but a million flock cameras and data centers can go up in a month
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[–] 1 point 4 weeks ago (5 children)

For sure. Know how much a cup of coffee was inflation adjusted? Roughly $10-15. On top of that those 'coffee houses' weren't remotely close to what you have today. They were bulk brewed diluted black coffee with no sugar or other condiments because those too were expensive. A cup of coffee for the common man in 1700 was roughly 10% of his daily wage. Not exactly sure what point you are even trying to make here though, especially considering the highest cost for getting coffee in the 1700s up to the invention of the car was you guessed it, transportation costs. Invention of the car and transportation networks, why look at that, the price of coffee and other non-local agriculture products plummeted.

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  • [–] -1 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

    That's bizarrely incorrect. According to the Bank of England inflation calculator, the cost for a cup in, 18th century Britain would be equivalent to £1.57 now.

    But I'm glad you asked about the point, which is: A functioning, healthy society (with coffee shops, even) does not require everybody driving their private vehicle everywhere, for every function of daily life. In fact, the opposite appears to be true, given that we can draw some pretty direct lines from a car-dominated landscape to the affordability crisis. We could have good lives without streets and roads filled with high-speed traffic.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 weeks ago (1 child)

    Considering coffee is only cheap because of slaved workers, you’re incredibly missing the point.

    Coffee is only affordable because of mass transport, and that’s only after the slave work is done.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 weeks ago

    Somebody made a ridiculous claim that coffee shops can only occur in the presence of cars, when they predate cars by hundreds of years, but I'm missing the point?

    There are lots of problems with the global coffee trade, and always have been. That doesn't change the fact that logistics and personal transport are two very different processes, and the OC was right, roads full of speeding traffic are bad.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    LOL bud, you may want to actually read a little more into history instead of assuming from a single calculator. Can you name a single country that lives good lives without streets with traffic?

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago

    I did read the history out of curiosity after being surprised at hearing Bach's cantata.

    I can name several such places. The United States, for one. The Census Bureau declared the frontier closed in 1890. That is, the continent was fully-settled from coast to coast before automobiles were a thing. Immigration was in full swing because the country was becoming an economic powerhouse. People lived quite well.

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