Unpopular Opinion
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You know whose hurt by high prices? Poor people. Guess whose not hurt by them? Rich people.
Exactly. Based on this, and based on OP's other responses, OP is basically saying "I want poor people to suffer so rich people can make more money" (off of new car sales with more efficient engines, or electric).
So my question for them is: is the income divide not great enough? If not, when will it be?
That's mainly a problem for car-brained people. There are other modes of transportation, you know.
No, there aren't.
Plenty of places have no other option.
have no other option yet
People like you remind me of evangelical Christians.
You are all perfectly content to have other people suffer in hopes that a wonderful future will emerge.
If you want to suffer, go right ahead. Don't expect other people to be miserable so you can feel superior.
yeah, let's keep things just the way they are and stop hoping that societal changes can be a motor for improvement
all I'm saying is there aren't alternatives YET, but situations like this could create a positive change in mindset and eventually infrastructure as well. fine by me if you want to be a glass-half-empty kind of person
So when people can't afford basic life necessities today so poor people starve and go homeless, but that pressure has some unrealized future benefit the current generation likely won't live to see, that's glass half-full for you?
I'm hopeful for better too, but I'm not going to be happy about human suffering.
Climate change is an extinction level event. You don’t think that is going to cause suffering? You’re clutching your pearls at the idea of trying to prevent extinction so you obviously don’t care about human suffering.
Yea, because alternate options just pop up over night.
People in dense cities who only drive are car brained. People who live where there are zero other options are simply getting to the store or to work the only way they can.
There are many regions where alternative forms of transport aren't very viable. Nearly non-existent public transit and bike infrastructure because everything was designed from the beginning with cars in mind. Zoning requirements that mean everything is spread out and impossible to walk between. Possibly even combined with terrible weather for much of the year.
Places where making changes to fix those issues, increase public options, etc. are met with stiff political backlash, not necessarily from the car people, but just simple conservatives or regressives that don't think any money should be spent on that infrastructure, often simply because it's not something they'd use.
but, and I realise this might be a bit utopian, the more people (have to) use alternative modes of transportation, the more the need for better infrastructure will grow. domino effect and all that
Oh definitely, but making those changes requires funding them. And that's virtually impossible to get voters to approve in some places currently.
Which is why the pain has to come first and therefore high oil prices are good.
Building a city wrong doesn't mean "alternative forms of transport aren't very viable;" it means the city was built wrong and that must be corrected.
And make no mistake, that is very viable: the Netherlands already did it (it was not always like that: it was rebuilt for cars after WWII and then rebuilt again starting in the 1970s when they realized they'd fucked up). Paris is doing it right now. It is not actually hard, and it is not actually expensive -- at least not compared to the long-term societal costs of continuing car-dependency.
This is a straight-up lie, BTW. All the cities -- including "newer" sunbelt ones, like LA or Houston or Atlanta -- were in fact built for walking and streetcars first, and then demolished to accommodate cars.
My suburb was built in the 50s, and it's one of the oldest in my area. Almost half of the homes in the township are from the last 20 years. It was all 100% built for cars, there are zero other options. And moving isn't really an option at this point.
Its true! I strongly believe in public transport. Particularly the transport that is also dependent on oil... Where I live though, if I wanted to get to work without my car it would change my trip time from 45m - 1.5h to about 2h-3h. Each way. I don't feel like spending 6h travelling so it's not really a choice for many of us.
At least you have an option. If I wanted to get to work without owning a car I'd have to call an Uber or a friend with a car.
When I started my job last year they straight up told us Uber doesn't come out there cause it's too rural and Google Maps still hasn't bothered updating to list the street the building was built on last year.
Well, in a high gas price environment, workplaces are forced to stop requiring their employees to commute to bumfuck nowhere simply because they can buy land cheap there. Companies that insist on building factories or facilities without any respect for their employees' commuting needs will simply go bankrupt, fools and their money being soon parted.
Are car brained people going to be the only ones affected by rising food prices due to an increase in transportation costs? How about those that don't have any other means but to drive to work to make a living because public transportation isn't available and buying an EV isn't an option?
It's not just an issue for car brained people, it's also an issue for narrow minded people, such as yourself.
Gonna just go for a spin in my private jet.
Taylor???
Yeah, in a major metropolitan area.
Trains are cool! There's like two train tracks that go through town and they only carry freight. There are no passenger trains anywhere around here.
We also have buses. They don't come within 5 miles of me. Also a non-starter.
I guess it's cool to hate cars if you live with your parents, but for those of us with bills to pay, we gotta go get that bread. But uh, have fun with your online gaming or whatever. It's just not sustainable for most of us.
Unless you drive a much bigger car than you need to (i.e. that guy who drives a ford 350 to the office), there's probably not much to save on engine efficiency. Maybe a liter/100km
A lot of people in the US still have states that don't allow mail-in voting, and can't get off work to vote. Those people are poor.
A lot of poor people voted against this. Didn't matter- they still got it.
They're going to suffer heavily. We can all try to do what we can to reduce the use of fossil fuels, but consumers have not had enough power to do anything meaningful at any point in my lifetime.
Rich people will still technically be affected, but yeah they aren't going to go hungry.
I'm hoping some of the poor people start to realize how dependent they are on gas though. They've been too comfortable with subsidized gas for too long, with us taxpayers all paying to lower gas prices artificially. It's time they notice and start thinking that maybe it's time to think about carpooling or buying smaller cars.
You know who could hurt rich people? Poor people.
Sure there are infinitely more people who suffer from this than people who benefit.
But people have a limited amount of energy to do things or even think. I believe with people who actually have to work for a living, most of the energy goes towards immediate necessities: the daily tasks, working, getting food on the table, paying bills etc. A huge amount of energy and even time is consumed by stress alone that results from living like this. The tiny amount of energy and time people have for passions and socialising are probably spent on those or resting, or just escapism.
How can people living and feeling like this actually change things ? I'd assume massive systemic change needs consistent mass movements.
People would need to have time and energy to think and act. We'd also need willingness to do those things. It feels like not thinking and not acting consumes less energy and time, and therefore is the more likely choice.
If it is possible to change things for the better for the vast majority of people, why aren't they changing ?
Things aren't bad enough yet. Watching the political scene for the past 10 years has been like a frog slowly acclimating itself to a boiling pot of water that eventually kills it.
Also, power IS power. Do you find yourself wondering why North Koreans put up with their Dear Leader? Or how the USSR was able to control half of Germany, along with Ukraine, Belarus and a dozen other nations?
You've been taught that in America, power resides with the people. But it never did. Power always follows the money. Those who own property have the power. It's always been this way, a struggle against all the greedy, power-hungry fucks who can't get enough.
rich people are stoked to be selling oil that high