I was recently held up in absolute dead stop traffic. We were sitting on the tarmac with no movement for well over an hour, in the 80 degree sun, before I felt obliged to leave my car and go see if it was because of roadwork or an accident or what.
I joined a small crowd of onlookers after reaching the head, spectating a row of sit-in protesters. One driver had tried to get around but a few protesters moved tactically so that he couldn’t go any further without injuring somebody.
I didn’t wait around, although there were people phoning the police and some tempers beginning to flare. So I head back to my car. The dairy groceries that I picked up on the way back from work had begun to spoil.
I was late home by nearly three hours, so no time to unwind. Just enough to pack away some old leftovers before heading off to sleep and restart cycle all over, -1 hour or so of sleep.
Previously, I had no opinion whatsoever on whether cars=good or cars=bad. But after being held up in traffic, wasting money, wasting gas, losing sleep and perhaps a bit of my sanity I am now totally on board with the Fuck Cars movement. I couldn’t imagine a more convincing strategy to bring people over to your perspective. Excellent thinking. Good job.
I’m not sure what your point is. You come in here with this passive aggressive tone even though this community had nothing to do with the protest you’re talking about. I get that it made you mad and you need a place to vent but this is not it.
Also, forming your political opinion based on the fact that some people made you mad is fallacious reasoning and very immature. Even if the protesters were advocating for the same points this community does, them being annoying does not invalidate (or validate) any of the arguments. Funnily enough, good public transport is actually the best and often only viable way to meaningfully improve traffic so you’re acting against your own self-interest here.
Alright I don’t want to double post because I know it’s spammy. But let’s consider optics.
Person has bad experience with group professing “We hate XYZ!”
Person later finds subforum online titled “Fuck XYZ!”
The natural conclusion that person is going to draw will be something like “Ah, so this is where that sentiment is stemming from.” It would be impossible not to link the two.
I don’t live in a city. My self-interest is with cars. If you don’t have a car out here, good luck getting anywhere lol
It seems to me like you don’t actually know what this community is about and you’re just mad at the somewhat intentionally provocative title. You wouldn’t be the first.
We don’t want to take people’s cars away. We want good urban planning so that not using a car becomes a viable alternative. If done right this also improves the lifes of people who still need cars for various reasons. If you live in a rural area you’ll probably always need a car and that’s fine.
To be clear, you’re against public transport because you live somewhere with insufficient public transport and therefore cannot rely on the public transport that hasn’t been built? Would the problem of insufficient public transport not be solved by building public transport?
This is what I’ve seen called “the subtractive fallacy”.
People say “cars are bad, we should rely on them less”, and instead of envisioning what that would actually mean, you just assume that the future they advocate for is exactly the same as the present but without cars. Of course that would suck. Good thing no one wants that.
What we want is for you and everyone to have the choice of driving a car, or not. If we had good public transport alternatives everywhere, this would me less people driving cars which is a good thing for everyone else who still wants or needs to drives cars. “Fuck cars” because they have taken over too much space and resources that could be better used elsewhere for the benefit of literally everyone.
How is this so hard to understand?
Most level headed and well communicated take.
It is probably now that I should admit to having fabricated the story. I hope everyone is entertained.
Waah they should hold the protests where they affect nobody so everyone can just ignore them waah my spoiled milk
You’re right, I couldn’t ignore it. And it did affect me.
Like I mention in OP, I was previously somebody with no opinion either way on the issue who is now today firmly in favor of the value and dominance of vehicles as America’s #1 choice of transportation.
I have since bought stock in some road surface producers and major auto manufacturers, regardless how they end up performing. If the protestor’s goals were to turn people away from your movement’s ideals, then they’ve succeeded spectacularly here.
Wow you surely showed them who’s boss huh
your 3 stocks surely will make a difference I’m sure
(Imagine being this butthurt)
Well, let’s analyze things. Another comment from your wonderful community:
Right? If it’s years in prison either way, they’re about to find out what real eco terrorism looks like when protestors are ready to go all in.
Advocating violence … because cars exist. Who exactly do they plan on maiming/killing? Indiscriminate driver’s license holders? Surely there must be a better way to get your message across.
If by butthurt you mean remaining grounded in reality, then sure.
I bet you also eat 2 steaks instead of one because a vegan annoyed you that one time.
This feels like an attempt at satire, but they failed to mention what was actually being protested. It probably is because it’s very self-centered (“oh no my milk is spoiled! Who cares that 100 ppl are killed everyday day because of cars, I want my milk!!”)
If it’s not sarcasm, then you’re right! A train would have gotten you home on time 👍
I shit you not, on occasions that I have taken a train, I have had the pleasure to experience the train inexplicably rolling to a stop while we all sit waiting, only for the intercom to cackle out a barely intelligible “explanation” and that we will soon be on our way again.
Why did it stop? Still don’t know. How long were we stopped for? About as long as I was stuck in traffic earlier.
A train would have gotten you home on time
In short, no. And on that day, I found myself wishing I had just driven instead. The parking meter fee I was avoiding would have been much preferable, in retrospect.
Your sorry attempt at a sarcastic post actually proves cars are inferior.
A train would had simply torn those protesters to pieces and got you home on time 🙂
are you sure that they were protesting “because cars exist” ? I’m sure they had another motive and you’re trying hard to ignore their reasons just to rant about cars
Yeah, I’m real motivated now to hear out their reasoning.
Maybe if they physically assaulted me and then asked “Hey, do you care to know the reasons behind why we just assaulted you?”. Same logic.
I mean you’ve spent a fuck of a lot of energy complaining about it. And you clearly have some strong preconceptions what you are angry about. But it turns out, you don’t even know what the fuck you’re angry about. Go take a bath, dude. Get your head on right, because you’re making a fool of yourself.
After a certain point, you begin to realize that some people just can’t be helped. It comes from a place of fatigue.
3 hours ago you wrote this comment 👆
you were right.
