This is not sane as it is giving some "value" to armies of BS jobs.
Post COVID supply shortages shows the critical importance of many seemingly BS jobs. Similarly a spike in cancer deaths showed up when hospitals delayed less critical procedures.
Rather than BS what’s actually going on is more often chasing diminishing returns. Half the effort may be spent chasing 1% better outcomes as long as the difference is worth the expense.
Is asking Americans to have less than one car per adult family member really that much? Or to start buying smaller/more efficient cars instead of the monstrosities that pass for "Utility Vehicles"?
> children, winter, not being in their 20s and etc. etc.
Two kids, way past my 40s and biked year-round in Germany. Do I still use public transport and taxis? Yes. Have I spent less in a year on public transport and taxis that I would have spent on parking and car insurance alone if I wanted to have my own car? Also yes.
Which is somewhat ironic, given that the US is the richest country in the world yet the people seems to be okay with such a miserable way of living.
And yes, I agree it's pretty miserable.
And, yes, of course there are also benefits. On the net though, I think mass private vehicle ownership is one of the worst mistakes we've ever made although I don't blame any individual for their choices. The reasons people use cars are rational but the externalities of mass car ownership are significantly and ultimately I believe unsustainable and undesirable. At the same time, chill, nobody is coming to take your cars or your guns.
But those are reasons to be against car-centric design[1], and in favour of public transport - the disabled, children, the elderly, those with slowed reaction times, the poor - can't actually drive, or safely drive, or legally drive, or afford to own, cars. If cars are the only option for transport then life can only be good for the healthy mostly-able-bodied car driver[2].
> "One size doesn't fit all."
In all too many places, the only size available is 'car'; that you rally against bikes - and implicitly in defense of the status quo - while reminding people that "one size doesn't fit all" is dischordant. Can we have two, three, four sizes then? Walking, bussing, biking, tramming, driving?
> "is a thing someone else can't live without."
It's not an accident that you can't live without your car. Los Angeles had the largest electric tram network on the planet, and car companies used shell companies to buy them up and scrap them. Car companies spend a lot on advertising and propaganda to sell the idea of car ownership as a kind of American Freedom, and various zoning laws came to mandate car parks around businesses - pushing everything too far away to walk. It's not all conspiracy, but it's certainly not an inevitable "the way things must be". Arguing that 'fuckcars' people shouldn't want bikes, because some people can't live without cars, is reinforcing exactly the kinds of things they are angry about. That having to have a car to live, is an unquestioned default.
[1] not cars necessarily, but urban planning, laws, town and city layout, spending priorities, traffic priorities, where all the levers have been pushed fully over to cars.
[2] and being stuck in traffic on an ugly stroad which costs vast amounts of taxes to maintain and is dangerous to drivers and pedestrians, with car fumes, is not a particularly good life for those people either.
BS jobs are the ones that only exist to support hordes of people having jobs; middle managers, service industry (all the downtown office worker coffee/lunch/bar/cleaners/maint). And most retail.
If that doesn’t make the cut then 100% of jobs are BS. You don’t “need” a farmer when you can just plant your own food etc.