Image transcript:
Calvin (from Calvin & Hobbes) sitting at a lemonade stand, smiling, with a sign that reads, “Trains and micromobility are inevitably the future of urban transportation, whether society wants it or not. CHANGE MY MIND.”
I like how you assume that society will choose to have a future over self-immolation.
Yeah that’s a bold assumption. My bet is on “it’s going to get progressively worse and never better”. I have yet to be proven wrong. Since the day I was born everything’s been enshittening with only inconsequential cosmetic improvements (lol technology, what a joke).
My plan is to work from home, be completely self sufficient with minimal transport and do all I can do online.
So your definition of self sufficient is to be 100% reliant on Internet infrastructure?
If nothing else, car dependency is fiscally unsustainable. We might go kicking and screaming towards the solution, but eventually people will have no choice but to abandon the financial suicide that is making your city car dependent.
True, and I wish my city would realize it harder, sooner. On the other hand, I just read an article the other day that claims that the collapse of civilization has begun. A lot of societies throughout history perseverated with maladaptive habits after the local environment changed, and thus collapsed. A lot of them didn’t, though, and I hope that we’ll wise up in time.
But yeah, honestly, I’m worried myself that our society is starting to unravel if we don’t get our act together. Unmitigated climate catastrophe may well prove to be the greatest disaster in human history, if you count all the wars, famines, genocide it may cause. I sincerely hope it doesn’t turn out so dire, but so far humanity is stubbornly refusing to do anywhere near enough to stop it. Whether that’s civilization-ending or merely really frickin bad remains to be seen, but it’s also worthwhile noting that collapse doesn’t always mean post-apocalyptic; for farmers in ancient Rome around its collapse, life probably didn’t seem all that different day-to-day.
Let me remind you that there are rural areas where people life in farms and need to drive to the factory they work in, there’s no shuttle bus, no train no nothing, and while isolated factories exist this will still be the case. They can’t really arrange a bus that goes to pick up their employees, since the roundabout would make it more gax expensive and some people live in places where a bus can’t even dream to get in.
I wish things improved, and that this became a reality for cities, there’s already cities in holland where getting the car in is prohibited, you need to leave it outside the city, but making car dependency fiscally unsustainable is punishing people that can’t have the privilege to work on other stuff. Imagine electrical technitians, they can’t take a bus/train/tram with machinery, even in a city. I’m all in for improvement and punishment for whim driving, but it needs to be regulated well not to fuck again poor people, because factory workers of rural areas aren’t partcularly rich.
For reference, I live in a mountain area, Europe.
OP mentioned Urban in their post, City in their comment, why do you need to come in with the “but muh rural” argument?
Depends on society. Here in Europe we build more and more railways even though we already have shitloads (compared to US).
But build very slowly. Compare to USSR where shitloads of railways were made in 70 years.
Although “better less, but better”
Well, USSR was a different beast. You can’t build that fast in a democratic society.
![[meme] Trains -- not driverless cars -- are the future of transportation(lemmy.world)](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/f6468af5-8151-4b4c-b339-2fa0b0373c3a.webp){kind=link}