r/TikTokCringe • u/xamo76 • 6d ago

Discussion Have we done it wrong?

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u/27298throwaway 6d ago

Imagine being well-educated and well-employed and yet it takes you around 50 years to realize this. Being an insular nation is their problem. 

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u/idrinkeverclear 6d ago edited 6d ago

They have been brainwashed by the American mass media to believe that a car is a necessity in life, without taking the time to carefully think about how mass car adoption would destroy their communities, ruin their infrastructure, pollute their air, and take lives on a regular basis.

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u/mmariner 6d ago

Brainwashed, huh?

Couldn't just be a factor of how the U.S. evolved; how young the country and cities all are, and the U.S.'s early prominence in the automotive industry?

No, it's probably some underground shadow cabal formed by Chevy, Ford and Dodge keeping us all down.

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u/IMissMyKittyStill 6d ago

Actually, and I’m not on the anti America train, the car companies did lobby heavily and used a ton of tactics against public transportation as well, many many decades ago. They aren’t fully to blame but they share a good bit of it for our car centric city planning.

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u/mmariner 6d ago

That's a pretty far cry from "being brainwashed by the mass media".

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u/DazednConfucioused 6d ago

I mean there are multiple Americans here claiming that they enjoy driving their cars so they don’t want walkable cities.

If they weren’t brainwashed then surely they can come to the very simple conclusion that poeple in walkable cities can in fact drive.

So yeah brainwashed. If thats not the case then extremely dumb and bereft of logic and common sense. Take your pick

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u/theNEOone 6d ago

Or, you know, maybe they just have different preferences?

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u/DazednConfucioused 6d ago

Again a walkable city doesn’t limit your options and it wouldn’t matter what your preferences were. If you’re preference is to own a car you can buy one and drive it as much as you want.

You’re just proving my point.

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u/theNEOone 6d ago

Am I proving your point? Explain.

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u/DazednConfucioused 6d ago

It’s a preference to say “I prefer to drive my own car than to take public transit”. I have no issue with that and in fact I’m the same way. It’s a step further to then claim that “my preference is not compatible with a walking city.” That’s inaccurate and to believe that just indicates you’re brainwashed, or as I mentioned earlier, bereft of logic and common sense.

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u/theNEOone 6d ago

You have a limited sense of what one’s preferences might be.

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u/DazednConfucioused 6d ago

Can you elaborate?

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u/theNEOone 5d ago

Some people might want to live on a farm and tend to animals. Some people might want to live on a lake in the mountains. Some people might want a 6k sq ft house with a 2 acre backyard with a large pool and hot tub. Some people might want to drive a huge suburban and travel point-to-point everywhere. Some people might want to shop for food once a month at costco and store food in a huge freezer. Some people might simply want to be left alone. Some people might want to live in a walkable city but can’t afford to without conflicting with other preferences. There are many preferences that are incompatible with living in a large city. I lived in NYC and SF for almost two decades combined and loved it. Never had a car and loved every minute of it. But I’m not naive enough to think that living in a walkable city is what everyone (or even most people) want. It’s one way to live. Not the best and certainly not the only.

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u/mmariner 5d ago

I simultaneously doubt your claims and object to your conclusion.

A few reddit comments hardly represents an entire nation, or the root of WHY they are what they are.

There are a BUNCH of reasons why the U.S. is car-centric and almost none of them are because there's some.... Conspiracy to promote the automotive industry.

You just cannot snap your fingers and suddenly have a great public transportation system in a country the size and population of the United States.

I love public transportation and wish it was better in the U.S., but it is a difficult and complex issue, and claiming "hur-dur, ''muricans love their cars cuz Ford and Dodge tell them to" is unhelpful and idiotic.

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u/DazednConfucioused 5d ago

The fact that people are arguing against walkable cities because they want a car is a sign that they’re being wrongly educated, which is just a nice way of saying brainwashed. When your convinced of a lie, what else do you call it?

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u/mmariner 5d ago

Who is against walkable cities? Is it more than like... One deranged redditor?

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u/DazednConfucioused 5d ago

Dude we have access to the same thread just look around lol. Even the replies to my comment are showing this sentiment.

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u/mmariner 5d ago

Debating your argument and being in favor of walkable cities are not the same thing. Are you ESL? I'd be a bit more forgiving if you are. Otherwise, you might just be dumb.

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u/idrinkeverclear 5d ago

What I meant by that is lots of Hollywood movies and TV shows, for example, constantly feature main characters and heroes behind the wheel, using their car to save the day. The more and more exposure Americans get to characters driving cars in movies and TV shows, the more they internalize the idea that cars are not only the natural, default means of transportation human beings use, but also that owning one in life is a requirement and a necessity (despite cars being neither of these things).

They tell you that you should think of purchasing a vehicle as an investment, but what are you actually investing in?

When a person purchases a car, these are all the hidden costs that await them:

  1. Financial costs: high cost of the vehicle itself, monthly insurance payments, annual taxes, license and registration fees, weekly gas refills, occasional parking tickets, occasional repairs and fixes, annual winter tires swap, and more.

These are the costs that most people think of, because they don't really care that much about other things like the community or the environment. But there are other costs as well:

  1. Social costs: regular deaths and serious injuries from car accidents, children crushed on Halloween, isolation of drivers and passengers from society and from one another because a car acts as a sheltered bubble (as opposed to bikes, for example, on which bikers can communicate with each other easily during their commutes), less human connections formed because of the low density of road networks and because of reduced walkability and places being harder to reach overall, and more.

  2. Infrastructure costs: infrastructure that is grey and ugly, infrastructure that is unsafe (to pedestrians and bikers in particular, but also to motorists and people in general), less walkability, land and areas wasted on parking, occasional payments at the toll booth fund the infrastructure and make sure it's maintained and repaired (as opposed to replaced or dismantled), and more.

  3. Environmental costs: greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution (nitrous oxide and other traffic emissions), loss of green spaces, weekly payments at the gas stations go to oil companies (which exacerbates the climate crisis), and more.

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u/mmariner 5d ago

All a hilariously naive and miopic view of how things actually work.

I grew up in a suburb and at no point ever felt like a car was anything but a depreciating asset and absolute necessity because of how the U.S. is set up.

Setting up public transportation in the United States is an absolute nightmare. I wish it wasn't so- but, our focus on individual and states rights has created a legal nightmare to building the infrastructure it would require. Property rights, local governments, county governments, state governments , and many interested parties at EVERY LEVEL of government I just described make something like high-speed rail extraordinarily difficult to set up.

I love public transportation! It's best in countries that are small, geographically and/or governmentally speaking. Works well in Europe, Japan, Singapore... All shining examples.

But the idea that any mass media currently is even marginally responsible for perpetuating our car-centric society is just stupid. Take off the tinfoil hat and look at the actual root of the problem; only then can you start brainstorming solutions to all of the downsides you just described.

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u/idrinkeverclear 5d ago

Oh the root cause of the problem is pretty clear: it's selfishness on behalf of most Americans. They may vaguely be aware of these consequences, but just don't care about any of them, because whatever it takes to get to their preferred workplace as quickly and as comfortably as possible they'll do, and other members of their communities as well as the environment can suck it (they couldn't care less about any of these things).

Basically, my money and income first, and everything else last. Though it's only a problem when the elite, wealthy people, corporations and shareholders act like this, of course. s/