Originally Posted by
McBTC
Absurdity can be best demonstrated by a simple substitution of personal computing, demonstrating that angst against 'the car' by the LCF movement has risen to the level of religious dogma and completely outside common sense and reason--e.g.,
You are using the term, dogma, in a way that has nothing to do with its actual meaning. If anything, it is the driving culture that has become dogmatic, insofar as people drive for no other reason than the ingrained idea that it's "just what you do."
... The Spirit of Liberty Speech by Judge Learned Hand where liberty is clearly distinguished from unbridled freedom as including responsibility. The personal computing (including tablet computer and mobile phone) economy and infrastructure have evolved beyond responsibility toward pedestrians and cyclists. There has always been a certain bullying attitude toward those who resist the use of personal computers, first its influx and later/now its ubiquity. Yes, we should have liberty, and no we can't expect utopia, but CAN expect that the personal computing culture be limited to a level that doesn't inconvenience the choice to LCF (Live Computer Free). The fact is that it was disrespectful to liberty to ever have developed the personal computing culture and sprawl beyond the common ability to function societally without operating a computer. The moment operating a computer became a social-economic pressure, liberty should have taken precedence and steps taken to prevent people's lives from becoming structured around the ability to operate computers in all the ways that have become common.
Personal computing is a totally different type of technology with totally different effects and dependencies. Some of what you quote above could apply to personal computing, especially where smartphones, tablets, social media, video games, and other pop culture computing are concerned, but computing has little if anything to do with sprawl. If anything, computing and internet offer telecommuting possibilities and other methods of organizing economic activities that could be used to make driving more of a choice, if managers chose to use them toward this goal instead of simply expecting people to show up at work and work 40+ hours/week in the spirit of pre-computer, driving-dependency traditions.