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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023

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The cost of a car vs the cost of walking? There's no comparison

Compared to utility? There is. How much would you spend to be able to walk 500 miles? How much would you spend to be able to walk with a ton of load?

is exactly the argument that urbanists make, and claim that this situation is bad

I've seen a few cities hostile to personal transport, and it didn't make them significantly more friendly to walk. It just made them less convenient to those for whom walking, for one reason or another, is not the preferable mode of transportation.

Is just so utterly wrong and backwards

But is it? I mean, cities certainly existed for thousands of years, but were those "15 minute walkable" cities? Was everything accessible to a person in medieval city within a 15 minute walk? Or did you have, for example, to keep a large, smelly, expensive beasts to get to some places and to bring some things - or pay people that have such to bring yourself and your things places?

changing a word so that it's completely wrong doesn't make an argument

The point wasn't to make a good argument. The point was to show the original argument wasn't good.

How much would you spend to be able to walk 500 miles? How much would you spend to be able to walk with a ton of load?

I'm not doing either of those things on a regular basis, and 500 miles is by definition outside of my metropolitan area and thus irrelevant to the question of city design. I don't really see why it makes sense to spend thousands of dollars a year on a car if the reason to do so is things that I do maybe once per year, but you do you I guess.

Was everything accessible to a person in medieval city within a 15 minute walk?

Most people did walk, yes. Your average person probably could not afford to take a horse everywhere. But do you think that history jumped straight from the middle ages to 1960? Why not at least try to make the best comparison possible, and look at what cities were like, say, after the invention of trains and street cars?

The point was to show the original argument wasn't good.

The statement I made was true, so I don't know why you think making an incorrect statement shows anything.

I'm not doing either of those things on a regular basis,

Are we discussing your personal life, or societal patterns? If the former, then you are the expert and I have nothing to say here. If the latter, then my experience shows a lot of people travel distances that are not easily walkable every single day, multiple times. How long you can walk - not 500 miles, but how about 10 miles, 20? Can you walk it every day, back and forth, day to day, rain or shine? Maybe you can. I wouldn't.

I don't really see why it makes sense to spend thousands of dollars a year on a car

Then don't buy a car and leave it to people that so see it. I, for example, see a lot of sense and so, obviously, do many other people - do you think all people that buy cars are stupid? No, we aren't - we derive a lot of utility from it. Much more than the cost. I am not sure how typical my costs are, so let's see: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/auto-loans/total-cost-owning-car - this site says the car driven 15k/yr (more than I drive) costs about $10k/year. Would I agree to forgo all the use of my car in exchange for $1000/month? Not likely. Just a simple calculation - if I only use it twice a day (it's likely more) and I only drive to places which can be covered by $20 taxi/Uber ride (also not completely true) I'm already over $1000. And that's not even counting various additional utility.

Most people did walk, yes.

Did they only walk? Did they walk if they had a choice not to walk?

The statement I made was true

No, it was not. People lived in non-dense-ubran places long before "past 70 years". And people in cities used horses - a lot. So much that there's a famous example of how people were worried they'd drown in horse manure right before the car was invented. Why do you think they had this worry if they could easily find anything within a 15-minute walk before top-down planners spoiled all the fun? Why they insisted on keeping and using those massive, unwieldy, smelly, voracious and dangerous beasts? Were they all stupid?

Did they only walk? Did they walk if they had a choice not to walk?

I never see this brought up much in urbanist discourse, so I'll just support your position by pointing out that before the automobile, horses ruled the streets, and people used horses quite a lot.

Incidentally this also contradicts the claim that auto lobbyists "invented" jaywalking and took space away from pedestrians - pedestrians already had their spaces taken away, by horses. Maybe that's why I don't see it discussed much.

I think you underestimate the extent to which people used to live where they worked.

How long you can walk - not 500 miles, but how about 10 miles, 20? Can you walk it every day, back and forth, day to day, rain or shine? Maybe you can. I wouldn't.

That's a wildly different amount. No, I wouldn't walk 10 miles every day if I could avoid it; ideally I would take the train. I don't think walking in the rain is that bad if you have, you know, some clothing for it. Here's my question--would you drive everywhere every day if you actually had to pay all of the costs?

Then don't buy a car and leave it to people that so see it.

I don't really have that option, because of the laws that other people passed.

I, for example, see a lot of sense and so, obviously, do many other people - do you think all people that buy cars are stupid? No, we aren't - we derive a lot of utility from it. Much more than the cost

This statement is meaningless unless you actually pay all of the costs.

People lived in non-dense-ubran places long before "past 70 years".

Oh, you never read what I actually wrote, I see.

I don't really have that option, because of the laws that other people passed.

I never heard of the law that mandates people buying a car. What is this law?

This statement is meaningless unless you actually pay all of the costs.

Nobody ever "pays all the costs" in our society. It's impossible and impractical. You make thousands of choices and thousands of actions, and they all can have costs, radiating through the society. It is not possible to even approach to calculating them all, let alone ensure everybody pays exactly the costs they caused. It is a wild technocratic dream that would never ever come true. Thus, arguing "but it has costs! And you don't pay them, ergo you can't do that!" is pointless - this is a normal situation in a modern (or, in fact, any beyond those lost in the sands of prehistoric times) society. Forget "all the costs", it's a useless idealistic concept.

Oh, you never read what I actually wrote, I see.

I did. You claimed, rephrasing, that "dense, walkable, urban environments" are "natural", and sprawled, low-density environments is something "planners" created over the last 70 years. I claim such environments existed long before, along with urban ones, and your claim is false.

I never heard of the law that mandates people buying a car. What is this law?

Buying a car is not literally mandated, but it's the only way to get around after zoning, parking minimums, lots of big roads with no alternative infrastructure, etc. (Actually in some cases, cars are literally the only legal way to get certain places--there's no sidewalk, bike lane, or transit, and the surrounding land is all roads or inaccessible).

Nobody ever "pays all the costs" in our society.

Whether or not this incredibly vague statement is true, it still remains that "some people find that cars have more utility than costs" doesn't mean anything. The extent to which cars are subsidized could easily vary by quite a lot. If they were subsidized less then fewer people would use them. The reverse is also true.

sprawled, low-density environments

That isn't what I said. I very specifically used some important words.

The extent to which cars are subsidized could easily vary by quite a lot

I think the burden is on you to prove they are "subsidized". Just saying "oh but costs!" doesn't cut it - everything has costs, every decision in a society has some costs. If you want to fundamentally reform US society so that it does not rely on car ownership, I think it's on you to prove these costs are higher than it is obvious. I think you didn't do that and didn't even seriously try to - that's what I tried to show. Just picking obvious and known to all facts like "cars need roads" and "some people dislike driving" is not nearly going to cut it - it's not even a good first step to cutting it. All these things - like roads, etc. - are already priced in, and the utility of the car is still way above costs. If you want to argue real costs are higher, you need to show it, not just vaguely hint at it.

If you want to fundamentally reform US society so that it does not rely on car ownership, I think it's on you to prove these costs are higher than it is obvious.

US society was fundamentally reformed by at least the magnitude I would propose, starting after WW2. Are you interested in proving these changes (which, in many cases, my "radical" changes simply seek to undo) were a net positive? In my opinion, anyone who wants substantial government interference and subsidy is responsible for showing that those interventions are justified. Your argument is just status quo bias.

The costs of cars and car dependence aren't hard to find. Car pollution likely contributes to asthma (also https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK218136/ as another example, cars produce NO2 and contribute to ozone). Several thousand Americans are killed due to being hit by cars while walking or cycling every year (https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedestrians). User fees only cover roughly half of road costs, etc.

Your argument is just status quo bias.

Status quo bias is good. Status quo has been formed as a result of massive amount of choices and preferences of millions over millions of people. If you want to declare all of them were wrong - damn well I'll ask some proof for it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Car pollution likely contributes to asthma

That link talks about general pollution. There are many sources of NO2, which will not go away if you remove passenger cars. Moreover, in the same source, the leaders among asthma problems were not exactly the countries you'd pick as leaders in car usage: Peru, Nigeria, Colombia, China. Maybe generally bad pollution policies and bad medical care contribute much more to the problem?

Several thousand Americans are killed due to being hit by cars

You can see pedestrian deaths a) mainly occur in dense, urban environments - ones that you propose should become a model and b) has been steadily declining since 70s, even unadjusted by population - are we using much less cars than then? There is a certain bump after 2010, but it's hard to argue we didn't use much cars from 70s to 2010s and then suddenly started using a lot of them. Also, guess what, more than half of the cases have alcohol involved. I think with the development of technology, this number will further go down, but will never be zero, because if somebody drunk want to jump in front of a bus, there's not much that can stop them. But I don't think anybody can seriously argue it is a good argument for eliminating private cars - no more than thousands of Americans dying from drowning is an argument for banning pools.

User fees only cover roughly half of road costs,

You forget here private drivers aren't the only ones who use roads. How do you think bread and milk gets to your grocery store?

Also, I don't see how that calculation - which includes commuter parking tax benefits, government costs and imaginary uncompensated damages - can be taken at face value. I could prove arbitrary cost to anything this way. Say, I made a law to tax hats at 50%, but shoes at 0%, and then claim that if I taxed shoes at 50% too, that would cost billions to people that walk (which is true), so then I claim all these billions is a subsidy for walking. This would be an insane argument - absence of potential taxation is not the same as expense. Otherwise, as there is no natural limit for taxes, anything can be attributed any arbitrarily high cost by just pointing out it's not taxed by that number yet, even though it could be.

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