All great stuff. Now convince this asshole to support it:

I’m totally here for all the things you said. But maybe 1 in 10 people where I am would even consider the idea. Carbrain has metastasized here, and it’s terminal.

I understand the problem fully. The problem of solving it is a whole different kettle of fish.

How do you break the cycle? In the USA it feels insurmountable. Nothing is close enough to be walkable, so you must have cars to do just about anything. But that makes everything more spread out, which leads to even less walkable environments and so on.

I live in a hilly area, for example. Being built around car infrastructure means that steep grades don’t matter all that much because you won’t be sweating your ass off pedalling up a 10% incline; you’re in a 3 ton hermetically sealed air conditioned box with a 6.0L V8 chugging diesel to get your fat ass up the hill.

I’m sure that if we were building our environment around bike infrastructure and public transit and actually had to think about things like this, the entire road network and neighborhood layout would be drastically different. Without just starting over from the beginning, how do you fix that?

100% this. I’ve been on Linux for 27 years now (ffs I’m getting old), and until proton, I just wrote off gaming as a hit or miss experience, usually not worth the trouble. Now I’ll buy Windows only games without even checking compatibility in most cases. Unless it’s a full price AAA game, I’ll risk the off chance that it doesn’t work.

America is so fatally car brained, I’ve lost all hope it will ever change. I literally was yelled at yesterday for making a left turn on a two lane road on my bike because I was holding up traffic… completely ignoring the fact that the exact same situation would happen if I was in a fucking car.

I really hope he is successful.

Good. Fuckem. They make shitty, oversized trucks that are a danger to pedestrians and people who drive reasonably sized cars anyway.

I would be on board with this if we would just finish the job and throw the rest of the cars off a cliff too.

I am so completely fucking done with these brain dead ass conspiracy theories about cloud seeding. Science illiteracy is a real fucking problem.

You. Cannot. Create. Torrential. Rain. With. Cloud. Seeding. Alone.

Cloud seeding precipitates rain from existing weather systems. If those clouds do not contain the water required to create a torrential downpour then it is impossible to create a torrential downpour. And if those clouds have enough water in them to create a torrential downpour, it does not require cloud seeding to precipitate it.

It is soul crushing to have to explain to people that human beings do not yet have the capacity to steer and control large weather systems. And it’s very likely that we never will, given the scale and the amount of energy that it would require.

We cannot control hurricanes. Why? Because hurricanes possess and release more energy than the entire combined energy production capacity of human civilization. They are mind bogglingly powerful, and to think that we can steer them to target political enemies IS BATSHIT INSANE.

Climate change is real. Republican conspiracies cause me physical pain. And I need a stiff drink.

To be honest, following instructions from scammers couldn’t be much worse than doing what the real Marco Rubio says.

I bought a car in 2003. Hopefully, that will also be the last car I buy. “BuT rEpAiRs ArE eXpEnSiVe!!1” See above. Also, when your infotainment system takes a shit and makes it so you can’t use your AC anymore, let me know how that goes.

Because many people cannot distinguish between word salads and insight.

I would love to be able to just take the bus to work. Even that would be great. Instead I have to drive and deal with traffic. I could be browsing lemmy or checking my schedule for the day, or taking a damn nap. But no, I’m “free” to take literally the only transportation option I have: my car. Walk? Nope, way too far. Ride the bike? If you like unprotected bike infrastructure and people passing you at 60mph, sure. Take the bus? Sure, just drive 10 minutes to the closest stop and take two different buses to get there on time.

God forbid we spend money on infrastructure that benefits us all. No no, let’s build asphalt oceans so we can ply the open road with our Ford F-9000 Pedestrian Pulverizer Special Edition with the CUMmins My Ass v8 9.0 liter Diesel. Because you wouldn’t want anything fuel efficient, then you can’t bitch and whine about gas prices of course.

But it’s cool, I guess. It’s not like we’re slowly cooking the planet with our shit box cars and stupid obsession with rugged individualism.

Ah yes, the car: the pinnacle of freedom. Except no, it’s the opposite. It’s like being addicted to cigarettes. Once you’ve become fully dependent on them, and built your routine around them, and literally your whole schedule revolves around them, you forget how much life was before you decided to pick it up.

Freedom of mobility is being just as able to get from point A to point B as anyone else despite being physically unable to operate a motor vehicle. Freedom of mobility is not being stuck in endless traffic jams, burning the planet to the ground to stay cool in the middle of a 12 lane asphalt heat trap. Freedom of mobility is being able to hop up to the corner store without ever setting foot inside a car.

We, citizens of the USA, are slaves to the car.

This is the hurdle, but we have to find a way. I honestly believe this is a big part of the dysfunction in the USA at the moment. We are so disconnected from each other. Cars exacerbate that problem.