Fuckcars is made up of people with little life experience who think they have all the answers, and people who fetishize city living and think it's normal or healthy for humans to live at a density like NYC (and fuck you if you disagree). They're oversimplifying to the point of meaninglessness, and handwaving away the problems.

I feel like this point is missing the big picture: people create the demand, and companies supply what the market demands. Like or hate "the free market", this is essentially what it is. If there were magically 1/10th the number of humans on the planet, we would expect those companies to have 90% less emissions. It's not that some of these companies aren't bad actors, and have actions that are at times immoral, it's that they are amoral actors in a market economy that is only responsive to consumer demand.

The example I like to give is that companies' race to the bottom on quality. They're responding to human behavior, where if an item on Amazon is $6, and another very similar item is 10 cents cheaper, the cheaper item will sell 100x more. This is a brutal, cutthroat example of human behavior and market forces. It leads to shitty products because consumers are more responsive to price and find it hard to distinguish quality, so the market supplies superficially-passable junk at the lowest possible price and (with robust competition) the lowest possible profit margin.

That's a good way to put it - it's laziness. Maybe it's laziness though the burden of history where the structure of the system is cobbled together from hundreds of years of increasingly irrelevant procedures and precedent that can't be modernized with society. I'm not a legal scholar by any stretch, but the whole thing looks suspect to me.

I've heard from medical experts that appear not to be mercenaries, but my issue is that there's no way for the legal system to distinguish between a person who takes the job only when they're on the right side of an issue, and a person who will craft an argument to make their side seem right regardless of the facts. The process all seems very corrupt from the outside. It incentivizes financial conflict of interest.

That's the issue I have with the justice system - it's much too loose with facts because it's designed around persuading non experts (and arguably jury selection is designed to reject people with high education or relevant background knowledge). The adversarial process gives each side an equal go at persuasion even if one side doesn't have a leg to stand on scientifically. The judge isn't in a position to disallow something that would be considered bullshit to an expert, and any qualified expert is allowed to sell out and present a biased interpretation of facts, even if 99% of their peers would disagree. More often than not, your resources determine whether or not you're right in the eyes of the law. It's bullshit.

Edit: if you're a physician on trial for malpractice, "A jury of your peers" would consist entirely of physicians in your area of practice, as they are the only people with the relevant understanding and background knowledge to evaluate whether your actions followed the standard of care or constitute malpractice. The fact that courts don't operate this way means that findings of guilt or innocence are basically a popularity/debate contest with a veneer of authenticity.

Have you seen the unbelievably entitled, self-centered assholes who play music on trails because they're too cool for headphones and fuck what anyone else wants?

I don't WANT to own an apartment. I don't WANT to share walls with my neighbors. I want space to work on my hobby projects like with wood and metal. To make noise without upsetting anyone. To have privacy, and the ability to get away from people. I need a shed, a garage, and some yard space. The only way I can swing it is fewer people and more space. Europe is too crowded for that in many places. It sounds unpleasant.

So would I, but when you try to talk to ultra-urbanist zealots about that, they act like you're deranged for wanting your own land in a quiet place, using the devil's transportation to go places public transit could not reasonably service.

I've lived in 4 major cities including NYC, and several small cities. The small cities and green suburbs are light years better than the dense urban hellscapes, without exception. Apartment living is also universally awful. There's nothing desirable to me about what you idealize.

This is the insanity of people who advocate for densified housing, IMO. I loathe apartments and attached dwellings. It's like a dystopian future where you can't own anything or have private space. If I never have to share a wall or floor with someone again, it will be too soon.

For reasons I don't understand, people seem to be incapable of separating any discussion of overpopulation from racism and eugenics. I think it's at the point where it's disingenuous, willful, or at the very least a massive blind spot in people talking about the problem. You should understand that bad people can embrace overpopulation with bad conclusions, and that should not taint reality. Hitler was an animal lover - does that mean it's wrong to love animals? That's the level of flawed argument we're dealing with here.

They really aren't. I have a couple friends with them and they can go months without buying gas.

In most states, riding a bicycle in a crosswalk is not legal, and you are not considered a pedestrian that cars are obligated to yield to. I was taught at a young age to dismount the bike and walk it across for this reason.