I was recently held up in absolute dead stop traffic. We were sitting on the tarmac with no movement for well over an hour, in the 80 degree sun, before I felt obliged to leave my car and go see if it was because of roadwork or an accident or what.

I joined a small crowd of onlookers after reaching the head, spectating a row of sit-in protesters. One driver had tried to get around but a few protesters moved tactically so that he couldn’t go any further without injuring somebody.

I didn’t wait around, although there were people phoning the police and some tempers beginning to flare. So I head back to my car. The dairy groceries that I picked up on the way back from work had begun to spoil.

I was late home by nearly three hours, so no time to unwind. Just enough to pack away some old leftovers before heading off to sleep and restart cycle all over, -1 hour or so of sleep.

Previously, I had no opinion whatsoever on whether cars=good or cars=bad. But after being held up in traffic, wasting money, wasting gas, losing sleep and perhaps a bit of my sanity I am now totally on board with the Fuck Cars movement. I couldn’t imagine a more convincing strategy to bring people over to your perspective. Excellent thinking. Good job.

  • Sylveon@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 months ago

    I’m not sure what your point is. You come in here with this passive aggressive tone even though this community had nothing to do with the protest you’re talking about. I get that it made you mad and you need a place to vent but this is not it.

    Also, forming your political opinion based on the fact that some people made you mad is fallacious reasoning and very immature. Even if the protesters were advocating for the same points this community does, them being annoying does not invalidate (or validate) any of the arguments. Funnily enough, good public transport is actually the best and often only viable way to meaningfully improve traffic so you’re acting against your own self-interest here.

    • LunchMoneyThief@links.hackliberty.orgOP
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      3 months ago

      Alright I don’t want to double post because I know it’s spammy. But let’s consider optics.

      Person has bad experience with group professing “We hate XYZ!”

      Person later finds subforum online titled “Fuck XYZ!”

      The natural conclusion that person is going to draw will be something like “Ah, so this is where that sentiment is stemming from.” It would be impossible not to link the two.

      • jerkface@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        You… you think WE started the anti-car movement? Seriously?

        Goddamn it, they’re finally on to us.

      • MachineFab812
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        3 months ago

        That’s great, but where did OP mention what the protest was about, at all? All OP mentions is their methods, not opinions, message, or affiliation.

      • Sylveon@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 months ago

        It seems to me like you don’t actually know what this community is about and you’re just mad at the somewhat intentionally provocative title. You wouldn’t be the first.

        We don’t want to take people’s cars away. We want good urban planning so that not using a car becomes a viable alternative. If done right this also improves the lifes of people who still need cars for various reasons. If you live in a rural area you’ll probably always need a car and that’s fine.

      • my_hat_stinks@programming.dev
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        3 months ago

        To be clear, you’re against public transport because you live somewhere with insufficient public transport and therefore cannot rely on the public transport that hasn’t been built? Would the problem of insufficient public transport not be solved by building public transport?

      • november@lemmy.vg
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        3 months ago

        This is what I’ve seen called “the subtractive fallacy”.

        People say “cars are bad, we should rely on them less”, and instead of envisioning what that would actually mean, you just assume that the future they advocate for is exactly the same as the present but without cars. Of course that would suck. Good thing no one wants that.

      • jol
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        3 months ago

        What we want is for you and everyone to have the choice of driving a car, or not. If we had good public transport alternatives everywhere, this would me less people driving cars which is a good thing for everyone else who still wants or needs to drives cars. “Fuck cars” because they have taken over too much space and resources that could be better used elsewhere for the benefit of literally everyone.

        How is this so hard to understand?

        • LunchMoneyThief@links.hackliberty.orgOP
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          3 months ago

          Most level headed and well communicated take.

          It is probably now that I should admit to having fabricated the story. I hope everyone is entertained.

          • jol
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            3 months ago

            Let’s be honest here, the only thing missing in your story to make it more obviously fake was “and then everyone got up and clapped”.

      • Sauerkraut
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        3 months ago

        Ideally you would park your car outside of the city and then take public transit into the city. Cities should be dense, walkable communities connected by light rail and bike paths