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Comment by romanoderoma | Hacker News Reader

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romanoderoma

> The climate is fucked

Not because of manual gears...

Or because people love to drive

But because we move too many things burning fossil fuel

Pleasure is never stupid, before considering driving stupid, there are many things I would call it first

For example drinking beer, to quote you "you are literally burning fossil fuel to produce something that poison you"

The war on ice is wrong in many ways similar to the war on drugs: it is punitive only for the final user.

Do you really want people to stop using cars?

Instead of putting public money in private companies to help people buy the expensive new electric cars, give the money directly to people to not use the car and see what they use the money for, so you can better understand what their needs are, instead of creating an artificial one.

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> Do you really want people to stop using cars?

Stop? Nope. Vastly reduce reliance? Yep. Remove all subsidy to this mode of transit? Yes.

Global warming in my opinion is only the tip of the iceberg of "things car-based society has hurt". The massive sprawl induced by subsidized car infrastructure has many societal impacts, pollution is only one small item of a huge list.

> Stop? Nope. Vastly reduce reliance? Yep. Remove all subsidy to this mode of transit? Yes.

We agree

You make an important point, the exact one that makes me doubtful that EV transition should be subsidized, again.

EV incentives will go to the same actors that created these conditions and is going to pay for the same infrastructure that made our cities a living hell.

Instead of banning cars, remove the need to use them.

Instead of subsidize car makers, subsidize the rethinking of the entire mobility plans

If people won't need cars, they won't use them

If people feel that they invested in new "safe" EV cars, even the young people who show no love for cars (not wrongfully) will start using them, because they are new, they are modern, they are safe and probably smell good too and for sure they signal that you care about the environment, so you won't keep them hidden in the garage, you'll use them as much as you can (also to maximize the investment)

Which will bring us to the same point we are now: much of the cities public real estate is eaten by roads and parkings while walking is disincentivized because everything useful, from IKEA to the shoe shop, are in some giant mall out of town unreachable without a car

We need to get rid of cars as a social need, EV or not, it is a really bad habit to rely on them other than for fun and the occasional emergency

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