Against Individual Rights

>>8681420
One central authority would be in charge of telling everyone where to go and how to get there. In this context it's pretty harmless but once you start surrendering your individual rights to a central authority you're gonna have a bad time. This is why we need to abolish the department of education.

>>8681420
>special interest group wants something banned in order to serve their particular interests
>this turns out to cause other problems of greater importance
>but because we have reformed away our individual rights there's nothing anybody can do

There's no law preventing people from taking the bus. They use their own vehicles (at great personal expense) because they choose to allocate resources that way, and although individuals often misallocate resources we've seen even worse out of central bureaucracies.

That's a cool opinion, OP.

If you try and take my car I'm going to fucking shoot you.

>and thus, the concept of individual rights was born.

His arguments don't really correspond exactly to the line of thinking you illustrated in your post, but Thomas Carlyle very heavily argued that people did not benefit from individual freedom and a proper society would require centralized, autocratic leadership to attain universal happiness by Machiavellian means if necessary.

>>8681770
The humans kinda like to make decisions on their own. They get pissed off if they are just thralls of a greater authority, even if that authority makes better decisions than they can (which doesn't happen anyway). This unhappiness is a form of negative utility.

At this point in history, only tankies are willing to argue against the existence of human nature, so this whole theory is done with.

>>8681420
>The most effective way to reduce cost, time, and accidents is to ban all forms of personal transportation.
Interesting you say that, because I did think that the personal car was a mistake. But for other reasons. Some purely environmental, others have to do with the effects the personal car had.

I think it destroyed some communities by moving faculities. I come from a rural region and feel the car is partly responsible for the lack of liveability. And second, we come dependable on cars.

The environmental part has to do with the infastructure splitting natural areas apart and road kills. That and fossil fuels. I think it would have been better if we used those fuel fossils on the military, public transportation and good transportation.

But hey, it doesn't matter because it already happened.

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>>8681790
>I think it destroyed some communities by moving faculities
True, but the automobile created other communities to replace them. Camping, for example, is only possible as a holiday because of the automobile. A day-trip to the beach, for a picnic, drive-in movies etc. etc. - the automobile creates new cultural artefacts as it integrates with our lives.

>>8681420
Humans are shitty creatures and would turn this kind of power into something negative, though.

>>8681778
Well, nigga, I didn't say I agreed with his notions, I was just telling OP a thinker he might be interested in researching.

>>8681742
>>8681778

>be obligated to spend money on a poorly engineered thing
>be obligated to keep spending money on it for the rest of your life
>be obligated to operate the thing every day and put your and your family's spines on the line every time you drive
>be obligated to face criminal charges because of other drivers' and pedestrians' carelessness
>be obligated to waste countless hours in traffic getting to otherwise hilariously close destinations

I don't think there has ever been a Totalitarian regime so unnecessarily sadistic.

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>>8681824
Or, y'know, just have both?

It's not like building roads makes it impossible to build a metro or light rail, you stupid cunt.

>>8681804
>True, but the automobile created other communities to replace them. Camping, for example, is only possible as a holiday because of the automobile. A day-trip to the beach, for a picnic, drive-in movies etc. etc. - the automobile creates new cultural artefacts as it integrates with our lives.
You are right that it did not only "destroy" (bit harsh word really) but also created.
But I don't think what you described are communities. With communities I mean a village for example with jobs, shops and schools.
Jobs and shops have become concentrated in urban areas.

The school in my village had to close because there were too few children. Not sure if that can be attributed to the personal car, but it is an example of lower quality of liveability that can be potentially caused by it.

Though one can ask: wouldn't public transportation have the same effects?

And you know, public transportation could do some of the things you mentioned.

But as I said, it doesn't matter. That's just the way it is.

>>8681831
>Jobs and shops have become concentrated in urban areas.
That's due to simple economics, not the automobile. The harsh truth is there's no reason to live in the countryside unless that's where your work is. Cities have better and cheaper services and far more opportunities. Everyone who can is going to go to the city eventually because it simply makes sense, with a few exceptions.

The solution to this problem (and I agree that it is a problem) isn't to force people back into the countryside, it's to bring the countryside to the city. More green space, better architecture, town-planning that moves away from suburbs and back to neighbourhoods that form their own little quasi-villages, etc. etc. There's a lot of inventive ideas floating around about how to fix cities.

It's sadly the case that concentrating people is more efficient.

>>8681843
>That's due to simple economics, not the automobile.
Isn't it due to the combination of? I do not know, was just speculating desu.
I suppose it is not even as bad where I come from, in places like Spain you have whole villages depopulated. My country is at least not as sparsely populated.
But does make me a bit sad, I write about it in my diary desu. There's no to little sense of community in my village, little to do and my friends are scattered around and often far away. The village consists of very old people or former city folk from far away.

Wonder how it could have been different. Can't say however that I've put much effort into the community itself...

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>>8681873
>Isn't it due to the combination of?
Not even. The thing that prevents big cities is lack of transportation infrastructure to get raw materials to them, and lack of population free to move to them. You can fix both of those problems without cars - and we did fix both of those problems long before cars. Most over-land freight travels on trains, and that's not even mentioning that sea and river freight is as important today as it was in the 1500s. The second issue is more a political and industrial issue. As farming becomes less labour-intensive, farmers move to the city to work in industry. This was happening long before the car and is purely a product of labour demand. It's a trip they only need to make once and, again, it can easily be made by train.

You're absolutely right, it sucks. I hate cities and I hate the homogenous and individualistic culture they create where, ironically, the more people there are around you the less you care about other people. But it is what it is. Cities are engines for wealth and misery. We have to either give up the wealth, or accept the misery. Imagine, for example, that 20,000 people moved back to your town? What jobs would they do? Where would they live? Etc. etc.

Like I said, the solution I see is to bring the countryside to the city, not the city to the countryside. Unfortunately it's prohibitively expensive to just bulldoze an entire suburb and build something better, and the modern "architects" of the 60s thru to the 80s and 90s have destroyed entire districts of venerable old cities with their vomit-inducing abortions, and that can't be undone.

>>8681900
True desu, I do know - from memory so I hope it is correct - it is currently the intensification of agriculture and that causing some lands to become unproductive (or not productive enough really) that causes the rural exodus in certain parts in Europe. And yes these people move to the cities for work, and of course young people also do.

Enjoyed reading your post desu. Don't think cities are all that bad, some are quite green. I lived in two. The current one is a bit of a bummer due to roads but also a railway. They go straight through the city and seperate it, which make it less satisfying to walk through.

The other city had the traffic around it, so you aren't bothered by it as much as you walk. It had a nice park and some (be it young) woodlands near it. Nice library and bookstores as well.