Doug GordonDec 26, 2022

For my own sanity — and as the unofficial moderator of The War on Cars account — I'm actively muting anyone who thinks "Not everyone can bike everywhere, you know" is a cogent argument against reducing car dependency.

I've taken the attitude of @notjustbikes to heart and simply don't have patience for it anymore.

Show threadBørgeDec 26, 2022
@BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes Good! There has to be a limit to how long we have to explain the same, most simplest of facts. Maybe we need some sort of version of https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/, where we can link to a crowdsourced bedt possible reply to each of these simple, stupid arguments every time we see them, instead of having to type the same thing over and over and over...
Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies

A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning. Logical fallacies are like tricks or illusions of thought, and they're often very sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people. Don't be fooled! This website has been designed to help you identify and call out dodgy logic wherever it may raise its ugly, incoherent head.

Show threadeviloatmeal, resident Death Stranding 2 apologist (arch, btw)Dec 26, 2022
@forteller @BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes Can these people be reasoned with, though? They come into pedestrian streets and run your over, and you still feel like there's hope?

I may be rather naive, but personally I've only really encountered maybe three different categories of viewpoint:

A) "My car represents my freedom, and any criticism of cars is a personal attack on my freedom." I reckon there's no way to reason with these folks. We're just going to have to wait for them to go away.

B) "I am physically and / or systemically trapped, and my car is the only thing that enables me to participate in society, so I can't give it up." They don't disagree with us, but they also don't have the capacity to personally contribute to our ideals, so I don't suppose they need to be argued with.

C) Variation on B, which is "I'm already doing so many other things in other aspects of my life, I don't have the capacity to make adjustments in that part of my life as well." Like, the poor guy who is already rescuing animals and reducing waste and growing his own food and carrying an entire neighborhood on his back, running afterschool programs and coaching sports and spending all his holidays helping those in need, isn't the person I'm going to press hard on trading his electric car for an electric bike.

It seems to me like the kind of person who goes "oh, well, when you put it that way, I'd better get rid of my car, then" is exceptionally rare, and other than that we're just arguing with category A, which we already know aren't going to change their minds. Maybe I just haven't met enough people from category D? 🤷
Show threadSir ToastyJan 4, 2023
@eviloatmeal @BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes @forteller
I'd argue that even the A group is smaller, and that those comments are more of a reaction to the inflammatory moralising attitude that tends to infect the commentary, and so suffer from the "you aren't wrong, you are just an asshole" effect.
Transport is a complex issue at a minimum, and so if someone in (mainly)B, or C, hears 'fuck cars, increase congestion' no wonder their reflexive response is 'wtf I need mine, and can't bike everywhere'
Show threadeviloatmeal, resident Death Stranding 2 apologist (arch, btw)Jan 4, 2023
@SirToasty @BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes @forteller Sure. Yes, A is a very small, vocal minority (they just tend to drive very large-and-in-charge cars, so they are very visible and audible and noticeable, when they are). But my question is, who are we trying to reason with, if everyone falls into one of the categories A, or B / C, and everyone who could be convinced to give up their car lifestyle doesn't drive a car (anymore) in the first place?

I'm certainly naive about these things, but to me most of this discourse feels a lot like preaching to the choir.
Show threadSir Toasty
@eviloatmeal @BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes @forteller My general go to depends on the person, but generally revolves around 1. Poor drivers generally don't like driving, getting them into other modes reduces the number of them, 2. If you have to drive, getting people who can take alternatives to do so means less congestion without months of construction. The idea being to change the attitude to supporting bike lanes/better transit even if they 'aren't going to use it'
Jan 4, 2023 at 12:30amWeb
Show threadeviloatmeal, resident Death Stranding 2 apologist (arch, btw)Jan 4, 2023
@SirToasty @BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes @forteller But has that worked? Like have you gotten someone to stop driving?
Show threadSir ToastyJan 4, 2023

@eviloatmeal @BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes @forteller
I feel that attitude is the problem, the goal isn't to 'stop people driving', the goal is to get support to build up alternatives so people don't have to.

Getting their support is more important because they have the numbers & so if it's a small group of pro-transit/bike people vs a large number of drivers they get listened to politically, getting their support even if they don't think it will benefit them individually helps shift the needle

Show threadeviloatmeal, resident Death Stranding 2 apologist (arch, btw)Jan 4, 2023
@SirToasty @BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes @forteller Ok, fair, yeah, I'm projecting a little. MY goal is to stop people driving, because they're killing people, people who aren't participating in the driving. Sure, that might be a problematic attitude, I don't deny this.
Show threadSir ToastyJan 4, 2023
@eviloatmeal @BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes @forteller Think of it this way if you said to someone 'Electricity kills people we need blackouts so people use less electricity' they would generally write off your opinion on that topic even if you are technically correct, if someone isn't tuned into urban planning topics, saying 'cars kill we need congestion so people drive less' will get the same reaction.
Which to me is counterproductive vs giving them reasons to be pro-transit/bike infrastructure
Show threadeviloatmeal, resident Death Stranding 2 apologist (arch, btw)Jan 4, 2023
@SirToasty @BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes @forteller Sure, I just don't know if I believe that this approach will do anything in particular in the timeframe of my lifetime, in the context of my opinions.

Like, the bike infrastructure is already there, there's just a bunch of carbrains using it to drive on. And the transit is already there, if you look in between all the cars.

But specifically in the context of the idea that it would be helpful to have a sort of playbook or digital pamphlet that addresses all the counter-arguments that people make. I guess if your goal is a very gradual change in which you co-exist with the car industry, which has infinitely more resources to argue against you, then yeah, this might be a worthwhile thing to spend time on. 🤔
Show threadSir ToastyJan 4, 2023
@eviloatmeal @BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes @forteller The fact that people regularly point out that they don't use transit/bike infrastructure because of it's real or perceived negatives indicate it's not at the level it needs to be in most places to take mode share from cars.
Using phrases like 'carbrains' is what I referred to earlier, it doesn't matter if you are right, if people think you are insulting them they won't listen to you & in the worst case actively work against you.
Show threadeviloatmeal, resident Death Stranding 2 apologist (arch, btw)Jan 4, 2023
@SirToasty @BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes @forteller I just feel like it's never going to "take mode share" because nobody is interested in "sharing". Or those who are interested keep getting figuratively and literally run over by people who are so attached to their car that they take any insinuation of alternative modes as a personal attack on them (vocal minority or not, they sure are doing a lot of work).

It's very frustrating coming from a place and an upbringing where drivers are as dangerous as they are, and I guess that makes me naive. Maybe my perspective can change on that, wherever I end up now that I'm moving.
Show threadSir ToastyJan 4, 2023
@eviloatmeal @BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes @forteller
Just for clarity 'mode share' doesn't involve sharing, it's a reference that if you put all trips A-B on a pie chart/graph etc, separated by type Car/Bike/Walk/Transit, and how much each 'mode' has, its amount or 'share' of the total trips, so increasing the share of bikes would require decreasing the share of another mode like driving.
And you can take mode share from cars when you improve others to be as desirable to use, or more, than cars
Show threadeviloatmeal, resident Death Stranding 2 apologist (arch, btw)Jan 4, 2023
@SirToasty @BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes @forteller Oh, I understood what you meant. But people who are being vocal about their right to drive are not interested in letting go of (or "sharing") any part of their majority share of "amount of total trips", and I'm not interested in them having any of it.
Show threadSir ToastyJan 4, 2023

@eviloatmeal @BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes @forteller

Oh, so nothing to do with actually improving peoples ability to not need a car, just stereotyping a group and hating them, yeah I'm not interested in that.

Show threadeviloatmeal, resident Death Stranding 2 apologist (arch, btw)Jan 4, 2023
@SirToasty @BrooklynSpoke @notjustbikes @forteller Right. Something like that. Like I said, I've lived my whole life in a place where you don't need a car, but everyone drives one anyway. So my naive perspective is that the resources necessary to improve people's ability to not need a car already exist, if we just stopped putting them into subsiding cars and building car infrastructure.

I don't have any ill will toward people who drive cars in general. Like I said originally, it seems to me that most of them are simply stuck in a vicious cycle, and they know it. Whereas the ones who are speaking out against non-drivers don't seem to be doing so in good faith, which is why I wonder if debate is the right approach.

I harbor a lot of frustration from how I've lived until now. Hopefully I can change that. But it's hard to see past my feeling that (passenger) driving is categorically too dangerous and chaotic to be tolerated.