[QatzelOk]

More anti-car propaganda from the cycling enthusiast on Pofo. Cars have been around for a long time and they are no more dangerous now than they were 50 years ago.

First of all, children were forced off of the streets and herded into playgrounds and, eventually, the TV room in their suburban basements, starting just after WW2. The car was the end of the sound of children playing outside on the street unattended. And cars have gotten a lot more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists in the last 20 years because of the fad of SUVs and trucks, both of which kill at lower speeds than regular cars.

Qatz should blame this on TV. In the 90s violent crime fell 10% in the US but coverage of violent crime rose 150% because it was cheap fodder for cable TV. The pervasive coverage of crime gave people the impression that crime is pervasive.

TV came online in the 50s, same time as cars took over. And TV receive their greatest adverstiing dollars from car companies, oil companies, and other car-related products. This ad money could be considered a bribe.

Towns and cities built around cars are too spread out to allow walking and public transport to be viable options. This greatly reduces a child's independence until they are old enough to drive.

Car companies lobbied politicians relentlessly in order to make them zone areas to make cars mandatory. The sprawling suburb was created by Detroit, just like the caged-in playground.

Free-range parenting was the norm in crowded cities, until the car destroyed this. Humanity suffers more than it knows because it is forced to forget its past.

[AFAIK]

They also invented the crime of jaywalking via a long term campaign in the press and convinced everyone that cities are for cars first and pedestrians should be relegated to the side of the road and a few strips of paint where they have permission to walk, only briefly, in the street.

[Godstud]

They also invented the crime of jaywalking via a long term campaign in the press and convinced everyone that cities are for cars first and pedestrians should be relegated to the side of the road and a few strips of paint where they have permission to walk, only briefly, in the street.

For their SAFETY!!

Moronic view you guys. Moronic. You enjoy those things you have in the city because of those automobiles.

Qatzelok's primitivism is short-sighted, and based on his own strange ideological views that most people don't ascribe to. Don't get sucked into his stupidity, AFAIK.

[One Degree]

In my ‘primitive’ area, 4 lanes of traffic come to a stop when I jaywalk. It is disturbing in it’s unusualness, but it does put people before cars. Pedestrians are suppose to have the right of way. We just usually ignore it.

Edit: I just realized this only applies to the North/South main road and not to the East/West. Weird.
people often get hit on the East/West.

[Victoribus Spolia]

For their SAFETY!!

Moronic view you guys. Moronic. You enjoy those things you have in the city because of those automobiles.

Qatzelok's primitivism is short-sighted, and based on his own strange ideological views that most people don't ascribe to. Don't get sucked into his stupidity, AFAIK.

I don't get this conspiracy either, free-range kids were still common in the city in the 1980s when both cars and television were ubiquitous....the same conditions were also common in the rural areas I grew up through the 1990s, but in both places both are now frowned upon.

I live in a rural area, but unless I am in the woods with no neighbors, I could not let my kids wander without someone calling CPS.

This has nothing to do with cars, my little neighborhood is a no outlet with little traffic....This is a cultural matter stemming from hysterics regarding child-abductions peddled by the media for ratings for over 30 years, a culture where people are becoming more insular and polarized, and a society that has become so degenerate that it relies upon the state for everything.

Indeed, when neighbors call CPS on a pair of parents for letting their kids ride a bike down the street to the post office, they might as well be saying that they believe they are calling "The real parents," in that instance.

People no longer believe parents are anything more than babysitters for the real possessor of all children, the state.

[AFAIK]

@Godstud Idiot, idiot,idiot. I am awesome, you are idiot. Modern cities are built around cars therefore cars are good. No need to think about things more deeply than that.

I don't get this conspiracy either, free-range kids were still common in the city in the 1980s when both cars and television were ubiquitous.

Cable TV was in its infancy in the 80s. The cop shows were big in the 90s along with live coverage of the LA riots.

Car free zones are more adult friendly than kid friendly due to the population density needed for them to be practical. Strict zoning could make the outer areas kid friendly if each community was separated from others. Our current ‘urban sprawl’ design is not kid friendly.

In Japan it is common for young kids to go out alone. But they have very high social cohesion and low crime; something you can only dream about in the US.

[One Degree]

@Godstud Idiot, idiot,idiot. I am awesome, you are idiot. Modern cities are built around cars therefore cars are good. No need to think about things more deeply than that.

Cable TV was in its infancy in the 80s. The cop shows were big in the 90s along with live coverage of the LA riots.

Cool. I did not know that. Learning is fun. I even went on the internet to verify it.

[Victoribus Spolia]

Cable TV was in its infancy in the 80s. The cop shows were big in the 90s along with live coverage of the LA riots.

I think there is a quibble in there somewhere, but as far as I can tell nothing you said really serves as a critique of my general point. In fact, the latter part of this quote actually compliments my point about media hysterics.

But they have very high social cohesion and low crime

Bingo.

Like I said, that is ultimately the real issue. This free-range thing is not about cars and TV, what a load of horseshit. Its about cultural rot.

[AFAIK]

@One Degree
Is your complaint that I put as much effort into my post as Godstud did?
I'm not going to put time and energy into a discussion where the response is, "Anyone who disagrees with my assertions is a moron."

@Victoribus Spolia
Yeah, it looks like we're broadly in agreement.

[One Degree]

@One Degree
Is your complaint that I put as much effort into my post as Godstud did?
I'm not going to put time and energy into a discussion where the response is, "Anyone who disagrees with my assertions is a moron."

@Victoribus Spolia
Yeah, it looks like we're broadly in agreement.

I am not complaining. I was serious. I appreciated you posting something I did not know. I knew my choice of words was ‘kid like’, but that was not intended as ridicule. I was trying to show my ‘childish delight’.

[AFAIK]

Cool. I did not know that. Learning is fun. I even went on the internet to verify it.

[One Degree]

Cool. I did not know that. Learning is fun. I even went on the internet to verify it.

I had no idea ‘jay’ was an insult.

[Godstud]

@AFAIK I never called anyone an idiot, but addressed their infantile(I used that word), and thoughtless, arguments.

I am very sorry you want that to respond with feelings and then dismiss all I say because it doesn't correspond to said feelings. Your lack of argument is telling, and a fun video about jaywalking is irrelevant to the topic.

Car haters are in a minority, and primitivists who hate cars and cities, like Qatzelok, even moreso.

As has been the case since the question was first asked in the 1970s, an overwhelmingly number of Americans consider a car a necessity in life. Fully 86% say a car is a necessity, compared with just 14% who say a car is a luxury you could live without.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... necessity/

Now, I am going to drive my family to a nice island, that I wouldn't otherwise be able to visit, with my car, so my son can swim in the surf, whilst I drink mohitos.

[AFAIK]

Normal person: I don't like living under a flight path. The planes are so noisy.
Godstud: You consume food and medicine, some of which is transported by plane!
Normal person: Wow, good point! Noise pollution doesn't bother me anymore.

Also cool poll. What % of people feel a car is a necessity in Japan or the Netherlands? It is possible to build cities around public transport, walking and cycling.

[Hong Wu]

[QatzelOk]

This free-range thing is not about cars and TV, what a load of horseshit. Its about cultural rot.

You just named the two primary causes of America's social rot: TV and cars.

Of course, it's a lot more fun to blame other races and religions, and makes it seem possible to find "salvation" by just repeating a few words of Latin, or jumping into water and saying Halleluyah. Giving up cars and commercial media are much more difficult, so the working class is convinced these difficult things are "irrelevant."

Back in the 70s, when lead from gasoline was giving inner city black kids brain damage, most of the commercial media (car advertisers) were blaming Malcolm X and "blackness" for the number of insane inner city residents. In the meantime, "there was no way that my driving is having any effect on those people over there."

You mention "back in the 80s" as if nothing has worsened (in terms of car ownership) since then. In 1980, I biked to school. No one can bike to school where I grew up now. The roads were widened, SUVs and pickups became more ubiquitous, and many drivers really don't care about what a menace they are to others because they know that the state will consider their killing of another person "a little accident" rather than criminal negligence.

Drivers are the school-shooters of outside play for children. They killed this for inner city kids, and now most kids don't even remember what it "must have been like" to play freely outside in their community.

Suburbanites simply don't have a community.

Free-range parenting means nothing in a land of chainlink fences and death-by-car.

[Hong Wu]

I agree, fuck cars. You haven't lived until you've eaten fried Chinese street food while sitting on your scooter

[Godstud]

[quote="AFAIK"]Also cool poll. What % of people feel a car is a necessity in Japan or the Netherlands? It is possible to build cities around public transport, walking and cycling. [/quote I'm going to still blast around past people like you with my Ducati. Suck it!

Warning:Image may be offensive to some tree-hugging cyclists...

Spoiler: show

Your argument, if you have one, is simplistic and ill-conceived. Most people don't live in places designed public transportation and bicycles.

Note: The topic not about cars, but kids. You've gone off-topic.

[AFAIK]

Yes it's a simple argument.

Kids can't drive cars therefore cities built around cars are not kid friendly.

[Victoribus Spolia]

You just named the two primary causes of America's social rot: TV and cars.

Did TV and Cars cause social rot or are they a result of social rot?

You mention "back in the 80s" as if nothing has worsened (in terms of car ownership) since then. In 1980, I biked to school. No one can bike to school where I grew up now. The roads were widened, SUVs and pickups became more ubiquitous, and many drivers really don't care about what a menace they are to others because they know that the state will consider their killing of another person "a little accident" rather than criminal negligence.

Well, I never made the claim that there was no difference at all whatsoever, but I did say that the city was sufficiently automotive in its orientation that the antipathy to free-ranging in the last 30-35 years cannot merely be explained by the presence of cars. I get your anecdote about your former-school; however, I know that in the case of many schools, kids not being permitted to bike-themselves has had little to do with the ability of people to bike-or-not bike and more to do with schools requiring students be brought by parents or the bus for safety reasons. Many schools do not permit elementary age kids to leave the school without being checked out by a legal guardian. This is not the fault of cars, but a society that is paranoid and ever-concerned with covering its own ass.

Drivers are the school-shooters of outside play for children. They killed this for inner city kids, and now most kids don't even remember what it "must have been like" to play freely outside in their community.

Suburbanites simply don't have a community.

I notice how you persist in mentioning urban and suburban areas; however, you have failed to address the fact that rural communities are still struggling with free-ranging as well. I live in an extremely rural area and if someone spotted my children unattended, they would and could call CPS on charges of neglect. This is in spite of far lower automotive presence.

My point is this, you are putting the cart before the horse on this issue.

Indeed, I am quite sympathetic towards your criticism of automobiles and television, there is alot of valid concern there (I am a traditionalist after all); however, on this particular issue I think your explanation is simplistic and does not sufficiently account for all the variables involved.