- cross-posted to:
- greentext@sh.itjust.works
- fuck_cars@lemmy.ml
- greentext@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- greentext@sh.itjust.works
- fuck_cars@lemmy.ml
- greentext@lemmy.ml
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I hate cars and love walkable cities as much as the next guy in this community, but this comparison is just nonsense.
If the only thing you do and are comparing is 4 trips a month to the grocery store that is in walkable distance you are not spending $200 a month on gas and probably also less on maintenance and stuff. And if you are only doing that you also don’t need the newest and best car.
I feel like this type of bad faith analogies just hurts the message.
Buy a 5000 lbs truck to haul less groceries than cyclists do on bikes.
Thr dutch are laughing with their bikes with the massive storage box thing
Bakfiets
Let green text guy live his own definition of an ideal life, but it would be a pretty pathetic life for me if the only place I ever had to go was the grocery store.
If you live in a place where walking to the grocery store is feasible, chances are pretty good that you can get to your job and most other important places via sidewalk, bicycle or public transport.
He works there too! Eat, sleep and shit at the grocery store. The civilized dream.
Walking to my grocery store and back would be an all day affair and I’d have to have help hauling everything because I’m married with two kids, so our two week grocery bill runs between $200 and $300 depending on what all we need. My closest Walmart is 25 miles away. My closest local grocery store is about 7. And there is no public transportation here.
US pilled
I mean its less us-pilled and more us-locked. If I could snap my fingers and make every city over 500 people walkable, mix-zoned, and locally owned, I would in a heartbeat. But no one built any cities that way outside of the east coast, and even if all the capital in the US was used responsibly, fixing us would be a century-long project. Now show me one politically effective American capable of seeing past tomorrow; I’ll wait.
All american cities were built that way until the suburbs were deliberately built to destroy that, because there was more profit in the system of private vehicles. (Along with everything else that falls on each individual in the suburbs, which also prevents us from organizing, which benefits the designers of this system)
Your problem is assuming if it can’t be done by one person, single-handedly, then it can’t be done at all. For every person that thinks like this, our capacity as a class is reduced.
I never said it could be done by one person; my point is that there is not even one politically effective person that wants this, let alone a group. Sure, we have leftists in America; we just bitch on Lemmy instead of actually stand on street corners handing out pamphlets.
Sure, we have leftists in America; we just removed on Lemmy instead of actually stand on street corners handing out pamphlets.
lmao, speak for yourself dude. There are plenty organizations doing this work; not just handing out pamphlets but actual organizing, direct action, education, mobilization, etc; you just haven’t gone looking for them and by default you exist in an ecosystem that suppresses them from your view.
Uh-huh. Let me know when they win a city council seat, lol. Leftists be like ”I’m politically effective! I’ve convinced no one."
Sure, and you let me know when your city council; or any politician at any level of government for that matter; does anything to materially improve conditions for the working class, completely unprompted by working class people organizing and making demands. And you let me know too if they are faithful to those demands and give any credit to the organizations that pushed it through, or give just enough to shut people up and present it as if it was all part of their plan the whole time.
My call out was not constructive, but it wasn’t intended to be. You can always emigrate.
Fair enough. Idk why someone downvoted you; I shitpost all the time, you’re good. Although, good luck to anyone wanting to emigrate, lol. Even if it was financially feasible, I truly wonder how welcome we’ll be if America keeps down this fascist route. I’d imagine the Germans that left in '33 were a bit more well liked than the ones who left in '46, though 😂
Germany is going to turn you away because they’re also becoming rightwing authoritarian, not because they think US immigrants are too fascist.
Also, they’re too scared of the US to officially grant US citizens asylum, even if they did want to do that.
I gotta be honest: As much as I’m trying to leave the US, I don’t think I could ever go for Germany after Israel. Obviously the US is Israel’s biggest sponsor, but for as much discourse as there is about the UK being right behind us, I’m convinced that Germany is worse (than the UK).
AFAIK the other EU/EFTA countries aren’t much better when it comes to rightwing authoritarianism. Even the ones that currently have center-left governments usually have a strong far right opposition waiting for next election, and a lot of the time the center-left governments are already enacting rightwing authoritarian policies (see UK).
But fair, Germany should know better given its history, but instead it just made them more vulnerable to Israeli propaganda and blackmail.
deleted by creator
Rough!
I have 3 large supermarkets in less than a 10 minute walk and another small one that would be “walking from the parking lot” distance.
We also have a local sourdough bakery and a sort of farmers market pickup point within walking distance.
We must have grown up on the same street. Lol
You could take a bus to Costco…
2 hours, two trains (the first being 21 miles in the wrong direction) and 4 busses for my closest one
Ah yes, I love when my city’s shitty public transit also takes me completely out of the way of my destination
buses tend to question people carrying more than a backpack full of stuff
Where i live that makes a 10 minute drive 50 minutes 😭
Yeah same, if not longer. I just like Costco, that’s all lol
Here on Copenhagen:
- Buy a bicycle for 4000 dkk.
- Bike less than 1 km to arrive at Netto/Rema 1000/lidl/Coop 365.
- Buy a kanelsnegle for 8 dkk.
- bike gone.
Only in Nørrebro.
Kanelsnegle doesn’t even sound like a real word.
Edit: It’s a cinnamon bun.
Kanelsnegle is the plural of kanelsnegl, so I understand the confusion. It should’ve been a kanelsnegl.
It literally translates to cinnamon snail.
But as I know the Danish, you probably pronounce it more like Ka
nelsnegle
That can be a long, painful walk depending on where you live. Even with public transportation, there are stretches (say a mile or more) where you’re caring at least 20 lbs of groceries. Without a backpack or a cart, it’s quite the pain.
Then bring your backpack, or better yet, a cart. Both can be quite cheap.
I would walk with my backpack full of grocceries about once a week. The execise is great, walking with extra weight is called rucking and many athletes train by rucking as it builds muscle, endurance, and a bit of cardio while being easier on the joints than running.
In the army, we called it a rucksack march.
cheap in money, expensive in time and effort.
ditch the gym membership, get your workout in during regular tasks. It’s an investment in your own health.
I’m skeptical if health is of value or if there are higher priorities for our life. I am reminded of this quote,
"You will find rest from vain fancies if you perform every act in life as though it were your last. " Marcus Aurelius
Would I be concerned for my health if my day was my last? I think not. Perhaps I would prioritize other people, express my farewells.
depends on your priorities. Personally, i intend to live forever in spite of my disgusting american diet.
The intention is false bc all things come to an end.
ok, well, have fun
backpacks are still cheaper than cars
the point is that a car is labor-saving in the context of groceries.
Im sure your physical health will thank you for that in the long run. Granted most people live farther than a 15-20 minute walk from their nearest groccer and thats the bigger problem.
This makes sense, though there are more variables to consider. In a city, a walk means you’re inhaling car exhaust, cigarette smoke from passerbys, and at risk of being victim to a crime. Less dramatically, there’s the risk of falling or getting lost. All these things are problems for “physical health”. From this perspective, it may be better to drive as the air quality is better and the car provides shelter, like a big shield. Although driving is risky in its own right such as car accidents or road rage. For context, rage is stressful, and stress is not conducive for health.
Stepping back for a moment, should we care about health? Aren’t we fighting the inevitable? What good is it to be healthy yet suddenly die, like Charlie Kirk? Is the practice of being healthy a denial of our mortality? Is being in denial of mortality to live life in bad faith? Is this willful ignorance a virtue, a vice, or something we ought to entertain? I don’t know. It’s hard to say that we ought to be unhealthy. That also seems wrong. Then again, a stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger once said,
“Why does God afflict the best of men with ill-health, or sorrow, or other troubles? Because in the army the most hazardous services are assigned to the bravest soldiers … No one of these men says as he begins his march, " The general has dealt hardly with me,” but “He has judged well of me.”"
I lived next to a little natural grocery for a few years. Prices were about 20% higher than the ordinary grocery and maybe double what I’d pay at Costco. At first I was resistant because they seemed to be overcharging so much. Overtime I talked to the employees and realized the savings I made on time and not needing a car more than made up for the higher price. Plus they had to keep prices high because shoplifting was very common.
I started figuring my time and car expenses into future shopping trips and now I don’t mind paying a bit more for the local co-op.
This is assuming you live in a walkable town or neighborhood. I remember a reddit post (can’t find it anymore) of a guy trying to walk less than 2 miles to an appointment in Orlando. He followed Google Maps directions down the shoulder of a highway that led to a dead-end, backtracked, tried again, and finally made almost all the way to his destination, which was on the opposite side of a 6-lane highway Google wanted him to cross.
I’ve only ever visited the theme parks in Orlando, but I experienced one intersection I had to share with cars. I spent every walk sign waiting for cars making a turn to yield. Even though I had the right of way, literally none of them did, until I finally had to run across the street because the cars at the red light, who could see I was 1/3 through the intersection, floored it the second their light turned green. Sure, fuck all of those car-brained drivers who refuse to yield to pedestrians, but also fuck that city for not fining drivers for shitty behavior, or at least changing their traffic lights so all cars have red lights when pedestrians have the walk sign.
Anyway, point is, personal choices are important, but they can’t overcome the systemic issues created by car culture without collective action. And Orlando sucks ass.
Congrate, your first sentence figured it out.
Maybe you just got here but bud I’m getting so tired of people assuming that people like the person in the post aren’t also the same people screaming for better infrastructure so we can ditch this high dependence on cars. We know that not everywhere is like this and that’s why we also have a MOUNTAIN of examples of even the shittiest places in the US, but also all over the world, doing things to build better for not that much money.
The entire point of the post is to show that people who fight against that change don’t have much of an argument. We know how things are but they don’t need to be like forever. Nearly every city used to be a 15min city before the car and then 50-100 years ago we fucked it all up(because of bribes from car manufacturers) and kept that shit train rolling.
Yeah, that would be a great point if the entire post wasn’t a 4Channer framing this as personal choices and not systemic ones. The dudes not talking about how the car industry destroyed railcars, he’s dunking on people who drive to the grocery store, and the implication is clearly, “everyone can and should do this,” which is bullshit.
Except there are places where that’s true. There are also people in places with the same mindset who buy trucks for twice the price of a reasonable hatchback and act like the extra $30k+ is less than occasionally renting a U-Haul.
You not being smart doesn’t diminish my point.
Except there are places where that’s true. There are also people in places with the same mindset who buy trucks for twice the price of a reasonable hatchback…
Yeah, I never said this wasn’t true, but again, none of that is in the fucking post. The dude’s not making a nuanced point about people who live in walkable areas but buy large trucks over sensible hatchbacks. He’s making a sweeping statement about how people who don’t walk to the grocery store are idiots, but America has the walking score of a developing nation; if you live somewhere where you can walk to the grocery store, you’re breathing rarefied air, and calling other people stupid for driving is entitled.
Like, what are you so pissy about? That I was responding to the content of the post instead of the points you assume the 4Channer would make, but didn’t? OK buddy, in the future, I’ll try to infer what you presume the OP’s hidden beliefs are and tailor my comment to that. Seems reasonable.
So you get to have all the nuance but they don’t? Ok, buddy.
The fuck are you talking about? Yeah, they don’t get to have the nuance; it’s not in the fucking post. It’s a pithy 50ish words about how they’re so much smarter than other people for not driving to the grocery store. I pointed out the reality is more nuanced than that for most people, and your whole response has been, “yeah, well, they probably know that, so why don’t just act like their response is nuanced?” To which the answer continues to be, “Because that’s not what they fucking said, are you high?”
Wahh wahh oh my god, dude. Congrats, you showed up and started running your mouth like you had access to special information and were teaching people that there are places without good infrastructure. We know this already, and I even showed you other extremely related examples.
Yes, you’re a very special smarty-pants thank you for this wonderful and definitely new take that will totally help and isn’t at all the same old tired shit that constantly bloats the discussion.
The whole “turn right on red” in north America baffles me as a European.
American here, this is just as stupid and dangerous as it sounds. The idea is that it’s very easy to check for pedestrians before turning but literally almost no one even looks. Even if the crosswalk light is lit they don’t notice and just plow right through.
Id argue the idea is that its easy to check for cars as you only need 1 lane of traffic. Traffic engineers don’t really consider the needs and safety of pedestrians, they just do the bare minimum to accommodate them. And the engineers that do try to care about pedestrians are told things like “well thats not how its done in this book from the 50s” or “that would reduce our throughput by 5% meaning we’d need to invest in another car lane”
Oh, this wasn’t even a right on red. The green light for cars was lined up with the walk sign for pedestrians going rhe same direction. In a situation like that, when a car with a green light needs to turn through the crosswalk, they are supposed to yield to any pedestrian crossing at that time, but apparently the people of Orlando have so much car entitlement that they don’t even slow down when a pedestrian is standing in the middle of the crosswalk trying to complete a legal crossing.
In NYC it isn’t allowed and now I think it’s insane we allow it everywhere else.
I know this is fuckcars, but I personally I think it makes sense. Our brothers in Lithuania are also doing it (tbf there needs to be a specific sign next to the light saying you can do it).
The less people spend waiting on pointless traffic lights, the faster cars get to their destination, the less cars there are on the street. At least that’s how I view it.
All of this is of course keeping in mind to always yield to a pedestrian.
it works great if you just break check the fucker that’s trying to turn, if you lack the confidence it works less well
here it’s more like this:
don’t own a car no store in reach ??? starve
Forgot the gym membership. With a car you can drive to the gym to walk on a treadmill.
Once again a post about zoning laws instead of cars.
“I would like to live in a carless society”
v
“I would like somewhere to park my car”
is a real dichotomy that spans both issues.
A great example is my own hometown of Houston, a city famous for its lack of zoning.
By 1978, the city had gutted itself in order to clear space for more parking. It took decades to reverse that mistake and rebuild the interior of the city. A big part of that was the introduction of (still very modest) bus and light rail.
Still a ton of parking spots I see, could’ve been replaced by bicycle racks, apartments, and parks.
The parking spots could have gone underground.
There’s a series of underground shops and restaurants in downtown Houston, connected by tunnels. Great way for someone working downtown to walk to lunch when it’s too hot to go outside.
There is some underground parking on the edge of downtown.
With that said, it’s actually very difficult to build underground in Houston because of the high water table.
could’ve been replaced by bicycle racks, apartments, and parks.
We did actually have a ton of public racks and even rental bikes installed under Mayors White and Parker. Turner kinda neglected them. Then, over the last year, John Whitmire tore them all out again.
I’ll also note that the Main Street light rail has created a boom in apartment housing along its length. South of downtown was basically a slum until the rail was installed. Now it’s a bunch of 8+ story apartments and a few high rises with shopping/restaurants on the first floor.
Then I hope Whitmire gets ran over by a car. Hope he plucks the sour fruits of his own policies.
Reading more on him and he sounds like an ass. No AC for inmates in hot summers… then he’s a criminal himself for making people die. Maybe he should undergo a lack of AC himself.
He also seems awfully willing to lock people up, instead of actually making the situation better by ending his own life.
Living within 1 kilometer walking distance of a grocery store is amazing. Instead of expensive fast food I can get comparatively inexpensive deli food. And if I want to be frugal and cook meals myself, cheap beans, rice, fresh meat, dairy, and produce are all available. Plus, I get a nice daily walk instead of checks notes from a previous life drive twenty minutes to the gym each day to walk on a treadmill.
The way to go IMO. I’m on a 20-year streak in not having a car. When I pick a new place to live, walkability to a good grocery store is one of my primary considerations. I only shop for one, so lugging groceries is no big deal, and I enjoy the extra exercise.
Throughout my life I’ve watched people spend all their money on conveniences and degrade physically, mentally, and financially as a result. Why not situate yourself for long-term success from the get-go? I wish more people were conscientious of the energy balance required to sustain a healthy life and best aligns with the environmental impacts we’ve wrought upon ourselves.
I just broke my 12 year streak of not having a car. I took a job as a city bus driver. Whaddya do when you’re supposed to run the first bus out of the garage and it’s too snowy to bike? I feel like a failure and a jerk. But I am trying to move close to the depot, so hopefully I could walk.
I think if anyone gets a pass for needing a car to get to work it’s the early working bus driver, haha.
That sucks, but we gotta do what we gotta do. I don’t begrudge anyone for adapting to the environments society has established. Sticking to ideals is a rarity when things are structured to push us toward consumptive lifestyles. So, I’d not feel like a jerk; heck, just having a modicum of awareness is a step in the right direction.
I got a rice cooker recently, great investment. I pan fry up whatever, some protein and vegetables, I’ve got a few good recipes going. With rice. I’ve been eating healthier and way cheaper. Tonight was chicken, green beans, and various seasonings. Was delicious af and cost me like 1.50$, if that.
do grocery stores where you live not have frozen food? that’s the ideal in my book: perfectly decent quality and you just have to heat it.
This is the best one i’ve tried, it’s literally just frozen veggies, precooked pasta, chicken, and sauce. Healthy as fuck while tasting great and taking 0 effort to prepare.Healthy as fuck is a bit of a stretch for industrially-processed food grown with pesticides. It’s better than fast food.
Come off it, chopping veggies up and freezing them (‘industrial processing’) doesn’t make them unhealthy. There’s also not a way to guarantee that your food has no pesticides (it’s permissible under the organic label in some conditions) unless you grow it yourself.
Hell studies show that frozen and then cooked food is the easiest to absorb nutrients from so in a sense it’s even healthier.
Oh boy, if you really think these are healthly I have bad news for you… Sure there are worst options around, but that still counts as processed food on my book!
so, respectfully, what the absolute fuck are you on about? do you only eat roots you dig up in the forest?
The secret is cooking yourself.
The pasta you sent, have a Nova Score of 4, which means ultra processed food:
https://world.openfoodfacts.org/product/7310500184180/tagliatelle-chicken-findusNutri-Score A
Very good nutritional quality
The science on “ultra-processed” foods is scattered because even dietitians can’t agree on what an ultra-processed food is, or agree on what exactly it is that’s so harmful about it. If it’s high sugar and salt then the processing has fuck all to do with it. If it’s specific preservatives then processing has fuck all to do with it, it’s those specific things that are bad.
Until it’s something other than vibes-based, it’s a bad idea to exclude affordable vegetables or fruit from your diet solely because they’re processed.
For me its about what you said: processed is adding stuff to preserve and “improve”. Nothing bad about frozen basic ingredients that arent cooked. Also in my country fresh veggies and fruit are cheaper than frozen ones.
For me its about what you said: processed is adding stuff to preserve and “improve”.
Which is why it’s a bad, wobbly standard to use. Lactofermented vegetables are incredibly healthy for the gut microbiome, but would fall under this processed label. Processing isn’t inherently bad, and neither is preserving.
so clearly you didn’t read your own link, because that is literally based on the fact that it contains glucose, that is the ONLY reason it’s classed as ultra-processed.
you cannot seriously look at this and conclude it’s processed, there’s no way in hell you’re here in good faith and i very much suspect your upvotes are fake.
i very much suspect your upvotes are fake.
k
Maybe its a cultural thing, but mostly fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, fresh meat, fresh fish… I think you got the idea. Frozen veggies are good too (if not pre-cooked or seasoned).
Yeah, but these frozen meals aren’t much more processed than frozen veggies, at least the good ones. Can be a little pricey for what you get though.
I think you’re right about that. They’re just frozen veggies mixed together with chopped meat. The main thing I’d look at is how much salt they dump into these things.
Spices wouldn’t be fresh, either, but that’s more of a taste issue than health issue.
I live less than a kilometer from a grocery store but it takes me a half hour to walk there because I’m in a subdivision and there’s no direct sidewalk.
I used to be able to cut across yards but somebody put up a fence to stop that.
The gym is such a waste of energy. With proper form you can get that workout doing useful things. For charity if nothing else.
Ok let’s flip this to cherry pick my example.
Don’t need a car most of life, get to 40 and upskill and become a software engineer. Job market is terrible due to saturation and I suck at interviews so can only take a job 40 miles away from home.
No problem.exe. I can take 2.5-3 hour commute each way 5 days a week.
Fast forward a few months and I’m just dead on my feet, do nothing but go to work come home goto bed get up and repeat.
Decide this can’t continue. Can’t afford to move to the bougie town where I work so decide I need a car finally.
Save 12-15 hours per week and it’s not too much more expensive than taking a Metrolink and a train to work with 30 mins of walking too. Plus all the meals you need to eat out of the house when you’re out for 14 hours in a day.
On my days off I’ll take the tram 20 miles each way to go rock climbing but some people actually do need cars and they shouldn’t be made to feel bad for it.
Also the sunk cost of the car’s capital goes toward all the other things you’ll use your car for, like leisure time and driving other humans around. Also the practicality of walking to get groceries decreases as you gain more mouths to feed.
I’ve got a family of four, soon to be five. There’s no way I could possibly do all my grocery shopping on foot. It’s just too much to carry. I’d have to bring a wheelbarrow, and all the ice cream would melt.
It’s also not super practical to walk to get groceries if you live in a hot climate.
or cold climate
Exactly. I’ve actually used the car at weekends to do some work for friends. So can earn more money with it.
