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PaperclipPerfector  10hr ago (text post)   1747 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026

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Better scenario for dangers of adopting public transport, and abandoning cars, can hardly be imagined. In fact, were one claim it as possible con, he would be considered to have succumb to conspiratiorial thinking.

Blocking roads as a form of political ratfucking works just as well in the world of mass private car use - with Chris Christie being the most famous recent culprit in the USA.

Messing with traffic light timings to cause gridlock in the suburb whose votes you want to suppress would be just as easy as stopping the busses, and harder to detect.

In any case, something is wrong if significant numbers of people who don't actually live on a farm are not within walking distance of their local polling station.

This: In any case, something is wrong if significant numbers of people who don't actually live on a farm are not within walking distance of their local polling station.

Like here in the UK even if you're in a small town your nearest polling station will very likely be within a 5 minute bicycle ride and unlike busses and cars, bikes don't suffer anywhere near as much from malicious road traffic interference.

Optimizing for traffic congestion is a hilarious thought. Like digital price tags in the supermarket, changing thousands of times per day, right when the direct deposit hits, to fuck over shoppers, I can just imagine a hidden, city-wide algorithm that causes all the traffic lights to flicker or maximize highway and 4-way delays to reduce turnout in red districts.

The earliest example in popular culture (and arguably the first movie to feature a computer hacker) is the classic 1969 British movie The Italian Job, where a gang of British criminals shut down the traffic in Turin in order to hold up a bullion van, and then get the gold out of the gridlocked city in a Mini Cooper which is small enough to drive down narrow pedestrian streets and even through the sewers.

Most of the tropes of the computer geek are already in place, including the fat lecherous incel computer programmer done so crassly that it is hard to remember that the film wasn't parodying a pre-existing trope.

That was just pointless pettiness. You could do the same thing with better deniability just by playing games with permits or construction timing. Even worse, it backfired a millionfold. It's been too long to remember the specifics, but there were stats being thrown around like "Network news spent more time talking about BridgeGate in a single day than they did Obama's IRS targeting scandal ever."

Very much agreed. The point I was making is that, once the population density is high enough that heavy rush hour traffic is the default, private cars are not immune to ratfucking. Chris Christie got caught because he chose a particularly obvious and stupid form of ratfucking, probably because this was mafia politics where you need to make sure the victim and any onlookers need to know who kneecapped him if you want them to respect and fear you going forward.

In any case, something is wrong if significant numbers of people who don't actually live on a farm are not within walking distance of their local polling station.

Possibly a good reason to distrust the claim in the first place. Did this even happen or what it simply a pretext to execute the pre-arranged plan? How many busses were stopped? Where?

This is just corruption. Using cars would have protected you from this specific problem, but they would have tried to find another way to profile and delay voters instead.

they would have tried to find another way

Would it have been successful?

Cars are the most freedom-promoting mode of transportation we have (though not the most possible).

the most freedom-promoting mode of transportation we have

Only as long as the roads are maintained and unblocked. A corrupt government could institute road maintenance on the highways out of selected cities, ensuring everyone is pushed onto smaller roads with tighter speed limits thus causing mass congestion and delays on the way to the polls.

Only as long as the roads are maintained and unblocked. A corrupt government could institute road maintenance on the highways out of selected cities, ensuring everyone is pushed onto smaller roads with tighter speed limits thus causing mass congestion and delays on the way to the polls.

I'm kind of skeptical about this. Where I live (suburbs of the Northeastern US), most people live within a mile or two of a polling station. i.e. it's either within walking distance or a short drive on local streets. I would imagine that in more urban areas, most people are even closer to the polling station. And that in more rural areas, there's just not enough traffic density to cause much in the way of traffic delays.

I can imagine super rural areas in the US where blocking one highway could have a real impact on a small neighborhood. But I am pretty sure that the ratio of blockers to blocked votes would be too high to make it worthwhile.

If it is within walking distance, blocking busses would have equally little effect.

If it is within walking distance, blocking busses would have equally little effect.

Agreed. The question is about situations where the polling station or other destination is a modest drive (or bus ride) away. With public transit, the centralized control arguably makes it easier to obstruct people. For example, the authorities could simply tell the bus drivers that they have a day off.

Police roadblocks are capable of stopping cars, too.

“Sorry man, the main highway all the people in this Bolsonaro neighborhood use is down for emergency maintenance.”

Okay, Chris Christie.

I can’t read this without grinning. But seriously, should there be a national announcement on Election Day that runs the opposite?: “Attention! All barriers and roadblocks have been removed to get to your voting stations. Hope all goes well and you make it there alive! Godspeed, fellow countrymen.”

So there's no point in doing anything if you can't be perfect?

It seems straightforward and obvious that people who have private transportation are harder to control than people who don't.

My point is that "maybe the government will use this against me" is not a particularly good argument against public transport considering the many upsides. Especially considering that the corrupt measures taken were ultimately ineffectual.

You could just as easily turn it around: If everyone used public transport, there would have been no reason to delay it, as it would no longer be an effective way to profile people. So actually, you should enforce a ban on cars.

Also consider that private transportation only works as long as the roads are maintained and there is access to fuel. Similarly, private companies can be in charge of bus routes and trains. So I don't think your conclusion follows as naturally as you think.

From what it sounds like, the charge was that they selectively interfered with public transport in cities supporting one particular side, so unless the population is also perfectly geographically shuffled, everyone using public transport would not be sufficient protection.

That being said, I agree that if you already have the sort of corruption that allows selective interference with public transport, private vehicles are hardly safe. If anything, under Brazilian conditions, some tactical road closures that just so happen to result in the city being choked up in jams would be more deniable and even easier to get away with.

I do see an overall argument for small government so that it is less capable of terrorizing you if it becomes corrupt. My issue more broadly is that the idea of personal independence in a modern society is an illusion. Every thing you do is part of a gigantic interconnected network of various technologies operated and built by people who know neither you or each other.

The alternative to big government is not individual freedom. That is impossible because there is no way an individual citizen can be in control of everything he needs to survive. Instead the choice is between big government and big corporation. Private railways that exist to profit their owner, or government owned ones. Both have failure modes. Privately owned infrastructure is subject to profit maxing and anti-consumer practices. If the company is big enough, it basically becomes a dictatorship in its own right. Meanwhile, government owned infrastructure is vulnerable to corruption, populism, and the whims of changing administrations.

Brazil has mandatory voting, though, so manipulating turnout seems like an unoptimal strategy.

My point is that "maybe the government will use this against me" is not a particularly good argument against public transport considering the many upsides. Especially considering that the corrupt measures taken were ultimately ineffectual.

You could just as easily turn it around: If everyone used public transport, there would have been no reason to delay it, as it would no longer be an effective way to profile people. So actually, you should enforce a ban on cars.

Also consider that private transportation only works as long as the roads are maintained and there is access to fuel. Similarly, private companies can be in charge of bus routes and trains. So I don't think your conclusion follows as naturally as you think.

For better or for worse "maybe the government will use this against me" permeates just about all aspects of modern life. That being said, I do think that private cars, as compared to public transport, give a considerable boost to a person's practical freedom.

That they do. But that is only because the government puts a lot of money into maintaining a huge and interconnected system of roads that are open to private citizens 24/7. An expense which is socialized through taxes instead of being applied to the individual car owner. Private cars promote freedom because the system is designed to accommodate them, while other public infrastructure (railways and busses) are deprioritized and left to decay.

You can still drive on shitty dirt roads. It’s unpleasant and hard on the car, but you can, millions of third worlders do it, and vehicles which can handle it on a budget are big business.

I’ll never forget the time I was driving out of state with my then girlfriend, and Christ was this one shitty ass road we had to go down. Road signs non-existent, and the paint job was ass. Didn’t realize I was going close to 70 on the shoulder of the highway for about 20 minutes and the road abruptly ended 2 miles out from my realizing what I was doing.

But that is only because the government puts a lot of money into maintaining a huge and interconnected system of roads that are open to private citizens 24/7. An expense which is socialized through taxes instead of being applied to the individual car owner.

To a large extent, I agree with this. (To some degree there are tolls, gas taxes, etc. which do apply specifically to motorists).

But I think your explanation touches on an important issue. Suppose the government suddenly stopped maintaining the roads. In that case, the roads (especially local roads) would still be largely usable for a few days or weeks, perhaps even months in some cases. Moreover, the job of overseeing the roads is spread out over lots of different government authorities and agencies.

By contrast, public transit is far more concentrated in terms of oversight and far more dependent on daily government inputs.

The result is that in practice it's much easier for a strike, work stoppage, bureaucratic fiat, executive dictate, etc. to block peoples' use of public transit than it is with the use of roads.

while other public infrastructure (railways and busses) are deprioritized and left to decay.

Where I live (Northeastern US) lots and lots of resources are put into railways, buses, etc. But it doesn't change the fact that when you have a car, you are far less subject to the whims of public institutions (and private institutions).

That's a great illustration of the difference I think.

  1. Want to block the roads? You can, but it's going to be expensive. You need to actively deploy resources to keep them blocked.

  2. Want to block public transit? It's free. Just tell the conductors not to show up.

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