this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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Unpopular Opinion

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They get unnecessarily VIOLENTLY angry if you address how other political issues are also important.

They are rabid, and do not have 'chill' mode. It's impossible talking to them at all. They also force their beliefs about using public transportation on everyone when they don't take into account that not everyone lives in a city.

Also, they fail to acknowledge that public transportation is not safe.

Listen, I get that climate change is a thing. But it's not THEE ultimate and almighty issue.

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[–] Chestrade 18 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Explain how is public transportation not safe?

[–] Viking_Hippie 19 points 1 year ago

Methinks OP is afraid of people less privileged than them. Which is probably most of the world population.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He's probably from India or the US.

[–] Chestrade 12 points 1 year ago

I think it's a troll account. Look at the things op posts.

[–] andrewta -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Try riding public transport in certain large cities in the US . Then look up real world numbers of crime in public transport. Then come talk to us.

[–] Viking_Hippie 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Certain large cities like New York? When I visited, public transit was how I got around and while it wasn't the cleanest I'd ever seen, people just went about their business being bored and doing their best to not annoy anyone or engage with anyone annoying.

That's how public transit is in big cities all over the world btw: just bored people on their way from one place to the other while releasing a hell of a lot less CO2 and other pollutants and killing a hell of a lot fewer people than people in cars do.

[–] AA5B 2 points 1 year ago

Like Boston? I’d really hate to have to drive downtown.

Like DC? Yeah, it was fun to drive during COViD when the place was as empty as it was going to get, but the Metro rocks for a park and ride. I have to admit to never riding a bus there though

Detroit? Ok, I’ll take Detroit as a poster child for whatever negative stereotype you have about cities. However, they’re starting to get a nice little tourist area and maybe one day the People Mover will go somewhere. Stop by Eminem’s place have have a spaghetti sandwich

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

it's not THEE ultimate and almighty issue

We're talking about the possible extinction of the human race. That seems to me to be the ultimate and almighty issue. I can't imagine what you could think was more important.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Climate change threatens to kill everyone on the planet. It is the ultimate issue right now. This is just humans going into survival mode and focusing on the big death.

It's akin to trying to talk to somebody about a food shortage while they're actively on fire. Yes food's important, but it's less urgent

Everyone who's down voting, this is clearly a bona fide unpopular opinion, don't downvote. It's exactly why this community exists

[–] InvaderDJ 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I don't think climate change threatens to kill everyone in the medium term at least right? It threatens to make large portions of the world uninhabitable and spark wars, civil unrest, etc as people fight over dwindling resources.

[–] AA5B 3 points 1 year ago

That’s the problem: it may not be impending but it is urgent. The effects of climate change will get gradually worse over decades, but that doesn’t mean we have decades to fix it. Nor that we can wait until it gets bad before fixing it. How do you instill urgency for a crisis that needs action now, even if the worst effects are still decades in the future?

Excess carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for decades to centuries. This year’s pollution might not seem to bad in this year but will make things worse for many years to come.

We still don’t fully understand tipping points but they do exist. What happens when we pass one that “suddenly” makes things even worse, but is irreversible? We may already have started one or more in process and don’t even know it yet.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Your right, we don't know how much time we have left, but we know the earth is becoming unsustainable. 4 generations? 10? we can't say.

The fighting over dwindling safe places to live will probably be the actual thing that wipes us out, but the root cause will be the climate change.

[–] themeatbridge 9 points 1 year ago

Have you ever been on a road trip with the family, and you've been stuck in traffic for a while, and you start to get low on gas, but the next station is closed, and you aren't sure if you'll make it to the next gas station, so your trying to drive in a way that conserves fuel, but the traffic is barely moving? And then two people in the back start arguing over the song on the radio, and they demand you change the station? This is like that, except if you run out of gas, everyone on earth will die. Everyone you care about will suffer and die. All of the children everywhere, whether they starve or freeze or drown or burn, their lives will all be cut painfully short, all because you ran out of gas.

And you're in the back whining about the stereo.

[–] Candelestine 5 points 1 year ago

Actually, it kinda is the almighty issue of the day, similar to how nukes and the cold war was that issue for our parents and grandparents. It's a reflection of humanity's kryptonite, a problem that is both too big (to fix) and too slow/small (to care about), simultaneously. Somehow.

If we can't grow up enough to address it in a serious fashion, we're going to rip ourselves to shreds in the coming centuries, as technology gives us more and more power to change our world in ways we can't necessarily foresee. With nukes, we just had to "don't shoot", and everything would be fine. No apocalypse. With this, and other potential future problems, we have to do something to help, we can't just wait and do nothing this time. We need to devise a new general strategy, better than wait-and-see.

Regarding mass-transit, that's a more complicated issue. Global warming is not though, global warming is a very simple issue. Which ends up being part of the problem, annoyingly, as it's so easy for people to come to lazy conclusions concerning it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Who is the “they” you’re referring too? From the title I guess all people are too heated up over climate change for you? (See what I did there ;) I am absolutely a climate activist but I for sure have a chill mode. I’m not violent and all I do is try to educate my friends and family. If we don’t address climate change we will destroy the world that’s a fact, so to me it is THEE most important issue. (FYI- thee actually means you, it’s not a stronger form of the like you’re using it).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Okay bud you are wrong not just unpopular.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Indeed. The other issues don't matter if we can't get this under control.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dude, great post!

That is a truly unpopular opinion.

And, you aren't wrong about most of it! The only thing I'd disagree with is the relative importance of the issue. Even that's only because we're at a tipping point where shit is getting close to being impossible to fix.

I agree that there's a shit ton of zealotry around the subject, and that public transportation is not the answer to the problem everywhere. Folks that live in rural areas simply can't use public transport because it doesn't exist. It doesn't exist because there's got enough tax base to support it. And there's not enough population to use it even if it was economically feasible. That means that you're still causing the same amount of pollution unless the area can support electric bases transport, which isn't always possible.

And, you're dead on with public transport not being safe everywhere. Even in fairly stable cities with good levels of security personnel have troubles. All you have to do is check places like r/subwaycreatures used to be, or publicfreakouts, or the lemmy equivalents, and you'll see that even in places with great subway or bus service, you aren't guaranteed a safe ride.

And places with less security? There's way too many stories of women being damn near raped on busses in countries around the world to pretend that humanity is trustworthy in tight, cramped busses and trains.

[–] AA5B 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Folks that live in rural areas simply can’t use public transport because it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist because there’s got enough tax base to support it. And there’s not enough population to use it even if it was economically feasible

There was a recent thread around here somewhere about a small town that replaced its bus service with a public on call van service. They compared themselves to a public version of Uber but with fares like a bus service.

Yes you can have transit anywhere: it just may have different forms