It's the basic false dichotomy at the heart of every defense of the status quo.
"Oh, you don't support [bad thing]? Well that means you clearly support [even worse, cartoonishly bad thing] instead! I'm not going to listen to you!"
this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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FuckCars
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A community for discussions of how cars have ruined many cities across the globe, as well as alternatives to them.
Cars are deeply tied to capitalism, and in resisting capitalism, it is worthwhile to reconsider personal automobiles place in transportation.
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Normies think buying a completely new electric car is a solution to the climate crisis, in other words, yes normies are oblivious.
How did they get you criticizing private car ownership to supporting urban sprawl? Isn’t that the exact opposite of what you were stating?
That's why I was so confused by their response. Hence this post.
Sounds like you're trying to extrapolate too much from an isolated incident. You know full well that this isn't the mindset of most car owners, you're just "asking questions" like everyone's favorite ex-host.
I expect that my opinion isn't going to popular here but as someone who wants to get involved but is completely put off by the community, I'll dig my grave further:
"Normies"
This sort of thing, along with the edgy 90s teen marketing name, is part of why this movement hasn't gained as much traction as it should have. The holier-than-thou attitude that's prevalent here is awful, fuckcars is the antiwork of infrastructure.
"Fuckcars" is one of the worst names you could have for promoting people-centric infrastructure development. All publicity is good publicity I guess, but the name is divisive as hell and makes the movement (WHICH I AGREE WITH) look like it's run by a bunch of kids who aren't even old enough to drive.
Where was this? Here? I feel like I would know that you were proposing public transportation as an alternative/solution to the massively inefficient system where every individual gets their own vehicle.
Reddit. And it was in reply to a commemt complaining about the cost of car parking too. So yeah I probably should have seen it coming. I was still genuinely surprised enough at the response to warrant this post.
Like, I was prepared for comments about "freedom" or "only poor people use public transit" but not for people to completely not understand why I hate cars.
Like I said in another post, I really need to stop engaging with these kinds of takes. That's on me.
It's very easy to get drawn in. I'm probably wrong about it most of the time because the bourgeoisie isn't all powerful; but for the sake of my own mental health I assume that people I'm arguing with online are paid agents. Either state agents or agents for companies/industries. The effect is the same either way.
People who would die on the hill of e.g. individual modes of transport may as well be paid agents. And they won't ever try to understand your point because they affiliate themselves with e.g. fossil capital like a Roman client to their patron.
It helps to see that there was never a clean break from feudalism to capitalism; an echo of those past relations is still with us. It helps (me) to see e.g. liberals as subservient to their overlord(s) in the same way as knights to their lords. It should be assumed that their loyalty to the 'system' and to the haute bourgeoisie isn't questioned.
In a way the people you're arguing with are all paid agents, if sometimes indirectly. Either as members of the bourgeoisie, labour aristocrats, or compraadors. They see it as their job to proselytise for capital. Any counter narrative or facts are heresies.
Not everyone is like this but once you realise the other person is like this, there's almost zero point in getting worked up about them not understanding you or speaking in good faith; if they could, they would rather burn you at the stake to keep you quiet. It often feels like they do the online version of that, too, as they scorch any possibility of rational conversation with one of their many – intentional, if occasionally subconscious – tactics.