tandempower

So basically you're calling them self-righteous and disrespectful of others' POV?

You wish for a car until you understand that driving one is part of a bigger problem, not just your personal choice that has no effect on anything else.

[qipte\I believe you would find the car-wishers and car getters somehow wrong-headed and misguided - if only they could see the light.[/quote]
Yes, they should see that it's all the individual choices that add up to the collective problems of sprawl and deforestation and then make choices with the scaled-up effect of their choice in mind.

How is there nothing wrong with it if it causes the collective effects it does when everyone chooses to whitewash their choice in this way you describe?

If carbon disappears as an issue, it will be because of intentional ignorance and not because it ceases to be a real factor in the chemistry of the planet.

But you can't erase the moral correctness for those who understand it as such.

Mobile 155

The condensed answer to my question is, no? You don’t know why someone would want to work to provide comfort to their families. Living with a low paying job and staying close to home all you life is all anyone should want? Do you ever wonder why you solutions sound like regression? I think working for financial comfort beats struggling just to get by every time. But don’t worry, you would have to work at it to rain on my parade and that isn’t likely.

Somehow I cannot see many buying what you are selling.

Walter S

At least it's cheap

Mobile 155

We will get nowhere with this TP because I don't believe you are interested in goodness as much as you are in defense of living like you are poor. There is nothing wrong with being poor but there is very little to recommend that as a lifestyle one aspires to. That is what I keep saying you need to get out there and learn what people that are living like you suggest and have limited resources are thinking when they want more out of life than just getting by. You seem to think success is trespassing on private property rather than spend the few bucks to camp while on vacation is success. Because success to you doesn't require you to do any extra work to earn enough to just take a vacation. I don't see it that way.

Goodness to me is a bit like Oliver Wendell Holmes says. Your rights end at the tip of my nose. Your right to tell others how to spend their money ends at your front door. Or at least the need to listen to you ends there. Your goodness is different than mine. Goodness is providing for emergencies in the family. Goodness is donating part of what you have so that others that don't have get some relief. Goodness is helping your kids get schooling even college. Goodness is putting feet to helping others be they sick or just poor. Goodness is not doing only what is absolutely necessary to get through the day it is doing just a bit more. Goodness is helping real people now, today, where ever they are. Goodness is going to a shelter and help feed the poor. Goodness is not doing just the minimum today in the hope that people that have worked hard for material success will have enough left over to take care of you when the time comes when you cannot take car of yourself. It is true, we are not the same. I am glad.

Mobile 155

As different as we are you almost always make me smile.

tandempower

Comfort is relative.

No, because I understand the materialistic mindset and how it confuses quantity with quality.

Financial comfort comes from having money saved and a cost of living low enough to make your savings last when they need to.

Once upon a time, prudence and conservation were widely understood. Unfortunately there was an advertising campaign to pervert the old ideas into the kinds you espouse. It's unfortunate that some people still don't question the scam.

tandempower

I am not the only person who sees value in living poor. Ever heard of people taking a vow of poverty, such as priests, monks, etc.? There are also many people who aren't poor by your definition but who are happy with a modest level of material consumption. They don't measure themselves or their friends according to material wealth or status.

Like I said, you are a materialist who can't understand a philosophy of minimalism and conservation as a better way to live for everyone, including yourself. Maybe you are still dreaming of the robust life of Roman indulgence, complete with gluttonous feasts and vomitoria.

And others' rights to borrow and spend money they never had and are never going to pay back without lots of other people borrowing/spending money and playing musical chairs with it isn't your right or anyone else's, but they do it and it affects us all.

Yes, but it's not good to use fear of family emergencies as an excuse to motivate unnecessary purchases that put people in debt and cause other problems as well.

You can donate everything you don't consume by not consuming it. The market is supposed to produce and distribute useful products efficiently, so if there is a glut caused by conservation, the surplus should become accessible to anyone who needs it.

And when you have an education, it is good to teach for the lowest wage possible, so that the maximum teacher-student ratios are possible with any given education budget.

No, it is using a minimum of material resources to be healthy, and then using the rest of your time/effort to be healthy and happy by going outside and getting exercise while setting an example for others to do the same.

Help them by revealing the big secret that they need very little to be self-sufficient.

You go on patting yourself on the back for taking a big cut of money from the economy and then going to a shelter to help feed the people who can't afford the cost of living that's been driven up by greedy business. I'm glad you're glad we're not the same, because I don't think you could survive the misery if your conscience worked like mine.

Mobile 155

No thanks TP. Actually talking with people and actually lending a helping hand soothes me a lot more than sitting back and thinking about what they should be doing. Because some of those people don’t live here and even if I worked for free it wouldn’t add to their income. They would still be poor and I would rather help where I can. Ideas are fine but action does something and talking not so much.

You are right, looking at your response I couldn’t live with your conscience either.

I am out on this, you can pretend you care all you want but as it has been said actions speak louder than words.

jon c. 

Ironic that "minimalism" now includes a computer and internet service. You've bought into the grand conspiracy that you need these things to be happy. Despite the environmental consequences of manufacturing (and later disposing of) chips, boards, batteries and screens. At least it's all assembled by someone who makes a very low wage for doing it. You can feel good about that.

badger1

Pretty much says it all as far as the individual in question is concerned. Bag of wind, signifying nothing ... absolutely nothing.

tandempower

What are you talking about? When you lend a helping hand, you are working for free and adding to their income by providing them value at a 100% discount.

Well, you can build bike/pedestrian infrastructure and plant trees for shade so people can walk and bike comfortably to work, shopping, or wherever; but if they don't understand that they can actually use that affordable infrastructure to live affordably, you're going to have to explain it to them somehow.

Yes, live the lifestyle you believe the poor can achieve and be an example of how to achieve quality with the means available.

tandempower

I used to eschew computers and internet. Then I read Nicholas Negroponte Being Digital. Information economics is about replacing atoms with bits, which is efficient. Do you realize how much paper it would take to write and read everything that we write and read over the internet?

You need to contribute something for the benefit of others to be happy. Information exchange is minimal social interaction.

The things I hear about China sound pretty efficient, but it always saddens me a little that the transportation cycling culture seems to have been largely replaced with electric scooters. Yes, electric scooters are probably the most efficient and envirofriendly form of motorized transportation, but I think people are generally healthier and happier pedaling to get around than sitting still and letting a motor get all the exercise.

Walter S

All in keeping with the fact that most people actually don't enjoy riding bicycles, at least not over average terrain (unacceptably difficult hills are nearly everywhere). The small numbers of bicycle purchases are in keeping with the general interest. In fact they overstate it - bicycle purchases include quite a lot of people that thought they were up for it but do not currently ride. The bicycle is in the basement.

eBikes will get a lot of these people riding I bet (i.e. the ones that thought they wanted to ride). The rest are too lazy and/or scared or need more than a bike.

cooker

If you refer to them by negative terms like "lazy or scared", isn't there an implied moral judgement that they ought to be riding?

Maelochs

I think ti shows your issues, not his---not to be critical, but being critical constructively (i hope)

He said "too lazy and/or scared or need more than a bike." And that is Very different.

face it ... of the people who do not choose to go car-light or car-free, there are different reasons and those three categories pretty much do cover them all.

Too lazy to ride? For sure. Other ways to say it might be "don't want to put out the energy, don't want to sweat a lot, don't want to work to get to work...." but it is the same thing. They do not want to make the effort.

ONLY if you (as you do) see car-light or car--free as a superior state, would you think that pointing out that a person doesn't want to ride because they don't want to make the effort, that that would be negative. For most people, they would simply say, "yeah, I Don't want to make the effort" and most people would agree and think that made more sense.

As far as "scared" goes ... there are people I have spoken to who ride, who hate riding on the road and some who won't--because they are scared. They understand that they are out there in their underwear jousting with with 3000-lb. metal battering rams. They read about the multiple cyclists killed over and over ... they are scared.

I don't look down on them. I have been scared plenty of times on the road. Some folks decide to go anyway, some don't.

And the third category---they need more than bike. That one often coincides with the other two.

Only if yo think riding a bike and not driving is Better ... for everyone, not just for yourself ... would you think that being too lazy or too scared to ride would be bad things. For most people those are perfectly normal attitudes.

Not everyone feels the same as you, so not everyone read that sentence the same way, or emphasized two of the three parts.

My way is right for me, and your way is right for you, and Walter S has his own way as well .... Unless you Really know him deeply and personally ... most anything you say is as much about you as it si abut him.

I'd say ... all of us are alright ... except for a couple. of us.

cooker

Fair enough - let's drop the scared people and go with one of three parts instead. For those he referred to as too lazy to bike, isn't he judgmentally implying they ought to be biking? Had he said they chose not to put in the effort, that would be a less moralistic way of putting it, but "lazy" implies a character deficiency preventing them from doing "the right thing".

Walter S

Yes I guess it's negative. Most of the country is afflicted with this weird disease that makes them avoid exercising beyond the minimum. I call it laziness. That doesn't mean I think they should be biking everywhere when that's not their thing or that it's immoral to own and operate a car regularly. But people are waking up to being more active, at least in the city.

btw "scared" is not something I meant as an insult. In particular some people should not ride a bike and they know it.

cooker

Yes, I shouldn't have lumped in scared with lazy.

Machka 

I will agree with you there. That's part of the reason why I've taken on two or three or even four jobs at the same time, on a temporary basis ... it has allowed me to save for things I want. That's part of the reason why I've accomplished further education, often while working ... like I'm doing now.

I happen to like being able to live a comfortable life.



When I was poor, I wanted quantity.

Now that I'm somewhat better off, I am more interested in quality.

It has been an interesting switch.

tandempower

All people are essentially lazy. It is in the nature of the mind to look for solutions that require less effort because, logically, it would be wasteful to put in more effort than necessary into something when you need to save it for other things to survive. That logic functions well in a survival situation where all your effort needs to be devoted to accomplishing critical goals.

In modern times, the same survival instincts that once served us well have been re-directed into other things that serve us less well and/or even harm us. So, for example, whereas it once made more sense to save time by using a horse, car, or other faster-than-human means of transport, it now results in us saving time to do things that don't actually render any real benefit to our survival. E.g. we get paid by the hour because of economic tradition, so it is logical to work more hours to get more money, but are we really producing more by working more hours? Not necessarily, but if we can get the hours and thus the pay, it seems like we are doing more for our well-being than if we devote that time to biking/walking.

If people really reflected on the big picture of what they were accomplishing with their time, and they were able to restructure their work time-use without losing money by working less hours, I think many people would be rational enough to realize that they should spend more time exercising and less time sitting at a desk or in the car, and then it's only a short logical jump to realize it's actually more efficient to combine time spent exercising with transportation, i.e. because that reduces traffic on the roads and reduces the demand for pavement/lanes, sprawl, etc.

tandempower

Comfort is relative. Happiness comes from gaining clarity and being able to apply what you learn, in my experience.

Mobile 155

And there you have it in a nut shell. Moving past living just to get by allows someone to know what quality is rather than just taking what you can get.

Roody

Different people obviously want different things out of life. Arguing about it is a silly waste of time, IMO.

Jim from Boston

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roody

Different people obviously want different things out of life. Arguing about it is a silly waste of time, IMO.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackmate

[from the thread "Living with/without a car"] If you have good bus/train service, it can be easier than a car. But life in the suburbs without a car can be too rough at times.

Succinctly said IMO, @Roody and @jackmate, to consolidate the preceding long posts. I think we can agree that LCF, as discussed above is mostly a lifestyle choice (excepting circumstances like poverty, revocation of driver’s license…).

When I was asked a few years before starting my career, while living in Boston,“Where would you like to live?.” my criteria were living near a big body of water, and the ability to live without a car as I had been much of my earlier two-plus decades; and I was already an avid cyclist.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim from Boston

…Back in the 60’s in the Motor City, I had an “English Racer,’ and longed to tour at about age 14, but then joined the car culture. In Ann Arbor MI in the 70’s I really realized the utility of bicycles for commuting, and began touring on a five-speed Schwinn Suburban, but soon bought a Mercier as did my girlfriend, later my wife…

I learned to love the water from the Great Lakes in Michigan, and the Atlantic Ocean in Boston. I vaguely considered my ambition not as “Car Free," per se, but a lifestyle choice. Through certain life circumstances I was already primed to be Car Free.

Fortunately I found a happy career here in Boston, and Living Car Free then became easy. So as a corollary to not arguing about what we want, should we rather discuss how we obtain our goals. By choice or luck?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Introduction to Living Car Free Forum

Do you live car free or car light? Do you prefer to use alternative transportation (bicycles, walking, other human-powered or public transportation) for everyday activities whenever possible? Discuss your lifestyle here.

Walter S

A factor yes. But people will see to it that it's a manageable factor with cleaner technologies. Either carbon will not accumulate or people will develop controls that reduce (like with mirrors etc.) UV/carbon or sequester it. There are many feasible approaches and a combination will probably be the answer.

If you like the think the world is swishing around the commode don't read this book https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...-pinker-review