Here’s how I interpret their reactions:
Conservatives tend to have much larger amygdalas, which makes sense, as their worldview is based around fear. The brain/ amygdala treats threats to personal identity with the same fear response as physical threats.
A 15-minute city means you don’t need a car, and it’s far less convenient to have one. But for a lot of people, especially the conservative folks, their car (or bro-dozer) is their identity, or at least a huge part of it. Their identity is fragile enough already, it can’t withstand removing a big chunk of it. (How would a man know he’s a man without a truck to perform masculinity in?)
Therefore, a walkable city is s threat to their vehicle, which is a threat to their identity, which is just as frightening as a physical threat, like being hunted for sport.
You’re fun. I like your brains.🤙🏼
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter
In the sense of all politics is sexual pathology I’d argue these people would to just like to fuck their car. It’s an object kink or however that’s called. I ain’t shaming anybody over it, it’s not like the car is going to care, but it makes for terrible transportation planning
You ever see how much car-people describe cars as sexy or go like weirdly overboard with the curves? It’s because they all want to fuck cars. We should just allow that, hell, build infrastructure for it.
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The brain/ amygdala treats threats to personal identity with the same fear response as physical threats.
Yeah this is the statement of a person who’s not been in physical danger before. The response to physical threat is so fucking far beyond that of a threat to personal identity.
I’m a conservative specifically because I know there is a whole different level of fear beyond social fear and the fear of work or boredom or identity confusion. I became a conservative the moment I encountered malicious violence for the first time, the first and only time I ever experienced mortal terror.
Realizing that there was an emotion I had never felt before, but that had been in reserve, ready to go when I got that close to being killed, that changed my worldview.
You know what kind of life experience makes a person’s amygdala bigger? Trauma. Having been through shit is what makes a person’s amygdala bigger.
That’s odd, I have experienced mortal terror a few times, and it somehow didn’t magically turn me into a conservative. Anyway, I’ll note that my comment contained no physical threats, yet still seems to have triggered a fight-or-flight response.
Whoosh. Stick to that straw man.
I wish I could find it and share the actual quote, but someone on Twitter (iirc) posted something like, “the best way to approach urbanism and biking to conservatives is to say ‘I’m for traditional neighborhoods that use independent transportation methods without government overreach’ or ‘I want fiscally responsible transportation methods’.”
To no one’s surprise, these refer to walkable cities, using walking or biking, and include buses with the second quote.
As always, the way to get to them is using buzzwords
At least the appropriated buzzwords are used correctly. We’re not twisting words like hearing “affordable healthcare” and using an ingrained Rush Limbaugh decoder to hear “death panels”. We’re just preserving the poison that was already in their buzzwords.
Limbaugh’s gone, but the playbook is the same.
you may get them to agree to it in a conversation or two, but they’re going to forget after 10 seconds of FoxNews or a Facebook rant. They certainly won’t do anything like organize or boycott oil money, or even something as small as voting for city council measures to increase public transportation
“the best way to approach urbanism and biking to conservatives is to say ‘I’m for traditional neighborhoods that use independent transportation methods without government overreach’ or ‘I want fiscally responsible transportation methods’.”
I mean, sure. And that might stick for a conversation or a few days. But come back in a week, after their ears have been pumped with Agenda 21 China Takeover Shari Law Communist Prison State talk radio gibberish. You’ll be right back to square one.
At some point, it isn’t the quality of message but the quantity. If you want to trick your Evangelical Homophobic Constitution Party voting uncle into supporting 15 minute cities, you need to configure his AM radio to play Well There’s Your Problem podcast episodes in place of whatever crap Clear Channel is transmitting.
Well there’s our problem. There’s no way you’d get my Evangelical Homophobic Constitution Party voting uncle to even listen to There’s Your Problem because within the first two minutes they’ll say “So the problem is Capitalism,” and he’d go back to Limbaugh reruns.
The first two minutes of any WTYP episode is Rocz or Liam fighting with the recording interface, to comic effect.
And I think that’s one of the selling points of a lot of these indie leftist shows. They’re entertaining in a way the old grouchy wingers aren’t. Admittedly, it’s very Millennial/Zoomers humor. So maybe Alice joking about bombing the local golf course isn’t going to be Uncle’s speed.
Is Well There’s Your Problem very leftist? I listened to a couple episodes and I got more of a politically uninvolved vibe, so I got bored
Is Well There’s Your Problem very leftist?
YMMV. The crew feels like the left-most fringe of /r/neoliberal if you aged them 20 years, gave a few of them actual experience in civil/architectural engineering rather than just State Uni B-school, and shaved off the knee-jerk hatred of Bernie Sanders / Jeremy Corbyn.
I got more of a politically uninvolved vibe, so I got bored
They tend to be more on the technical side of the FALGSC spectrum, so you get less “this is the politician/union leader who you should be organizing with” and more “this is the highly technical reason why you shouldn’t let your nation’s largest failson administer the construction of a transcontinental railway”.
I enjoy it because I’m genuinely interested in the science/engineering/math behind a lot of these industrial scale failures. It is cathartic, particularly when I’m grinding through my own workplace engineering/accounting crisis of the day.
This but not sarcastically. I’m politically conservative, and for the same reasons that I’m an environmental conservationist. Framing things in a way that makes sense to the listener is just good messaging.
yeah except the problem isn’t messaging to the sensibilities of individual conservative people, the 15 minute city concept is offensive to oil and automotive money. The private car industry has had a strangle on urban planning since the 1950s and they’re not going to release it just because some words get swapped around. They’ll only change it through destroying their power, and that’s the part that politically conservative people aren’t going to fathom nor support.
Also the messaging of “get anywhere you need to go through 15 minutes of walking or cycling” is already as good of messaging as it’s going to get. That sounds like absolute utopia on its face. Conservatives have somehow twisted that already perfect message to mean no one would be allowed to leave a grid or that people are going to be shot in the street for thoughtcrimes. They think it means cars will be outright illegal, or I’ve even seem some claim the concept means parents and children will belong to different sectors and won’t be allowed to see one another.
They’ll also point to crime rates in large cities and cherry-pick statistics that suit their arguments without doing any in depth analysis. Especially when they can parrot irresponsible politicians. They don’t care that cities like Baltimore and St. Louis have it really bad right now because all they every hear about is Chicago. And as with other topics, the problematic ones will reject any new information you present that doesn’t match their pre-determined conclusions.
If you try to discuss what “per-capita” means, it doesn’t matter. They’ll point to the fact that there were 100 murders without any regard to the fact that it may be out of a half million people or more. They won’t acknowledge the different kinds of drug crimes that happen in their own towns like meth production.
The problematic people refuse to accept the fact that poor economic conditions lead to higher crime rates. They’ll give the “get an education, get a better job, people flipping burgers shouldn’t earn $15 / hour.” arguments. They don’t care because often they haven’t experienced it, and even those who have lack the empathy to see that the impoverished people in the country aren’t so different from the impoverished people in big cities.
I could continue this rant but I think I’ll end here. I’m trying to be cautious about using the word “they” as a blanket statement. Not all people who are conservatives believe these things, but you can’t deny that a fair portion do. It’s hard for us all to find a common ground and speak the same language.
i mean I’m gonna be honest, I think conservatives at their core have an underlying belief in misogyny, transphobia, or racism that informs all their subsequent beliefs. It’s their starting point. So when you try to get into very complicated things like how to set up urban planning to facilitate better transportation, conservatives are gonna come at that with their underlying biases on which humans are inherently better than others.
So that’s gonna be a main reason for why discussing this stuff isn’t going to seem like the same language. They start every thought with “but how does this help rich white people?”
I’ve even seem some claim the concept means parents and children will belong to different sectors and won’t be allowed to see one another.
The conservative mind is a wild place
The only halfway good argument against 15 minute cities is that kids aren’t safe on their own. Which is true in terms of how cities are currently set up where kids might have to cross a six lane highway to get to school. Or they might be forced to walk across someone’s yard and the house could belong to a deranged racist with a gun just waiting to start trouble with whoever walks by.
But these types of problems are remedied by having more dense urban areas to begin with. I’ve been to Japan and China and one of the most striking differences over there are how you’ll see kids walking around unaccompanied by adults. Kids exercising more independence and autonomy at a younger age is a good thing. Not to sound too boomer, but I think it instills a sense of community and responsibility into kids if they’re not always reliant on their parents driving them everywhere until the age of 16.
First paragraph is spot on. It’s business propaganda, through and through.
They think it means cars will be outright illegal
I wish cars were illegal
How is “15 minute city” bad messaging? Like how does that term lead other conservatives to leap to complete dystopia where no one can leave there zone and they will be hunted for sport?
Because imposing Draconian border regimes and terrorising violence on those deemed inferior is exactly what they themselves would do.
Honestly, for a lot of rural dwellers and exurbanites, “city” is a scare word all on its own.
They’re not who need to be convinced, though, it’s the urbanites and suburbanites. There are more conservatives in cities than our in the country, it’s just that in the country we’re in the majority and in the city we’re not. The urban conservatives are the target audience for this message.
yeah that’s another bucket of worms onto itself. “City” is already charged in conservative language to mean something bad. It’s like how “urban” is sometimes used to mean “black” in a negative way.
It’s great messaging that has no real reason against it. This is a problem for people who have power and money based on urban sprawl, and so they need some kind of argument. If they can’t find one even halfway reasonable, then they must create a strawman version of the original idea. Conservatives are already primed to believe that leftists want to control every aspect of your life, and so it’s a simple leap to believe this is yet another attempt at control. In turn, this reinforces that same belief for next time. It’s the cycle of bullshit.
Maybe they’ve distorted it in the same way the BLM slogan was distorted? Like, when conservatives heard “black lives matter”, it got translated to “only black lives matter” in their weird little absolutist brains. Maybe “15 minute city” translates into “you can only go 15 minutes from the bus stop or train station” for them.
This is a fool’s errand, because it will just make them think cars should be regulated less
Libs (and a lot of leftists) are always looking for the magical incantation. The thing they can utter that will make conservatives realize how ignorant their views are. It’s at once a cynical and cruel belief (that conservatives are sub-human) and completely naive. Convincing conservatives they are wrong is often impossible, but there are two ways to do it when it is possible. 1) spend a long time in honest and empathetic interaction, and 2) take power and show them. The second way is exemplified by the ACA (despite its many flaws): conservatives threw an absolute tantrum and made it extremely unpopular. Democrats passed it, and now it’s popular to the point that Republicans couldn’t repeal it despite campaigning on it for 7 years.
I recently moved to an apartment with decent walkability to basic neccesties and I feel far more free than a car has ever made me feel.
I’m helping! I’m helping! I’m helping you! God I loved sealab2021
WELL HELLO CONSUMER, YES HELLO CONSUMER!
Daddy needs some of his pick me up juice
Uh-oh!
My user name came from the bebop cola episode where Murphy is stuck under the vending machine.
I love that episode so much. Just a ridiculous set up
I love youuuu
Oddly enough, Ellis Hedican (the voice of Stormy) was a Fox News contributor and overall conservative back when the show first ran.
Well that sucks. I love Sealab.
I think he has changed his views since then.
I hope so.
EDIT: Wikipedia says: “He is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller The Party’s Over: How the Extreme Right Hijacked the GOP and I Became a Democrat.” So basically an ‘enlightened centrist.’ Better than before, I guess.
Imagine thinking being a centrist is a bad thing. God forbid everyone’s views don’t align with yours.
Imagine thinking becoming a Democrat because Republicans went too far right actually makes you a centrist.
America has two parties. A right-wing party and a far-right wing party.
Or, now hear me out, you don’t have to align with either of the two major American political parties. You don’t have to support either. What either party does or does not do has no bearing on my views on a subject.
When did I say what he or you had to do?
If you don’t like being criticized for your political position, keep it hidden and don’t get butthurt when people criticize someone else’s.
Neither you nor he are granted a special dispensation to be free from criticism, sorry.
Being centrist inherently means trying to hold two opinions that don’t jive together. Say someone likes lower taxes, but also says health care will be publicly funded. We would need higher taxes on that system–which would be less money out of your pocket over time–and something needs to give.
Then there are issues where there is no center position. Like getting into a war or not.
You’re entitled to your opinion. It’s wrong, but you’re entitled to it. Centrists have views all across the political spectrum. One can support abortion rights while supporting the 2nd amendment. One can support smaller government (in a individuals life) while supporting more regulations for corporations.
One can support abortion rights while supporting the 2nd amendment
There’s leftist groups that agree. That’s not inherently centrist.
One can support smaller government (in a individuals life) while supporting more regulations for corporations.
Which of these positions do you consider left or right? Because if you’re confusing Democrats with leftists, I can see how you think this is centrist.
Centrists are the ones who think they can agree with everyone. They think you can strike a compromise between genocidal neo nazis and gay people who want to be alive, and make everyone happy. Leftists are the ones who understand that some opinions are just plain bad.
We should do both.
Stormy is like a little otter. A sexy little otter 🦦
There’s a black Stormy?
“I’m regular Stormy!”
Got a glorious and rare SL2021 meme, I’ll vote for whatever you hippies want. Where’s the booth.
I read this in Stormys voice. I really loved that show.
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Sea Lab 2021.
Sorry just saw this, yeah Sealab 2021. Was on adult swim in 2000 - 2001. They took a Hanna Barbera cartoon called Sealab from the 70s cut it up and made episodes out of it. Extremely stupid/ dry humor, every episode something happend and they all get killed. It’s worth a watch, episodes are really short.
Here’s a clip. It’s a spoof from the end of Apocalypse Now: https://youtu.be/PL23meWoB9k?si=pWxkJO0ewq0NFB7S
Huh. I’m gonna have to start with the original Sealab then, to appreciate the depth of the remixing. Thanks
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Remember that old saying “every accusation from a Conservative is a confession”?
Well, the next time you see someone respond to densification or 15 minute cities on this level, it’s because they were already thinking of ways to exterminate folks on the left.
Yeah next time you’re (a) actually conversing with a conservative and (b) they respond to your mentioning city density benefits by claiming you plan to kill them, you are green light to go on that conclusion
Give it a break man, fuck. This is memes.
I only have one issue with these types of cities.
I don’t want to be that close to other people.
Many Americans are already dealing with the downsides of urban density but without the benefits of a walkable city.
I think of it like getting better public transport. Even if you don’t use it, other people will and that will give you more space
In Houston, during the 60s, you could drive out into the wilderness once you passed 610.
But with urban sprawl all the way out to Conroe, Katy, and Rosenberg, what used to be a 15 minute drive has turned into hours in the car to escape the edge of the city.
Every new subdivision pushed the rural neighborhoods farther and farther away.
I feel the same way, I don’t mind people but in small, small, smaaaaaall doses. But cities like that are great for others, I don’t have to live there.
Y’all might be imagining NYC levels of density and, while that’s important, is definitely several steps further than what’s needed to make America not terrible. Something like rowhouses or even 4-plexes would be an improvement, and that would, at max, only add 50-100 more people to the average city block.
If you already live in a neighborhood, you would really only be interacting with your neighbors as you do now. It’s not as if your entire city is going to be in the same 15 minute stretch.
I’d like that for other people! I don’t think it’s bad if some land is less dense though? I can’t stand living in anything that has connecting walls with another house. People are loud, they don’t respect each others spaces or things, and they get super entitled to using common spaces and not sharing with others. People with children are especially bad at all this. But eh, maybe my experience has just been bad.
I mean, the whole crux of the issue right now is that it’s illegal to build “missing middle” multi-family homes due to zoning in most of the US–it’s almost entirely either single family homes or apartment blocks, two extremes with nothing in between.
It’s fine if some of the land is less dense, if you don’t like dealing with other people fixing this issue would be a good thing for you too! Imagine if all the people who preferred the option of a house with 2-4 units and its own yard were afforded that option; 100-300% density increases would free up so much of the land that’s mostly chemically treated lawns and unnecessarily wide roads, not to mention even more rural areas farther out. I think it would do a lot to help the housing cost crisis even if nothing else were accomplished alongside it legislatively.
People are loud
This is a problem with soundproofing. I didn’t know I had neighbors until I saw one guy leave his apartment
super entitled to using common spaces
Not sure what spaces you are talking about. The only common space I have is sauna, and that is optional
The solution to sound is building the walls better with sound proofing. This only happens because houses are built with so many corners cut.
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Modern insulation technology has advanced further than you think. An apartment built to a modern standard will have a lot less people loudness than you’re used to. Also, people get louder when the environment is loud, and cars are loud. If you take the cars out of a city, the people get quieter.
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Plus you can still just put headphones in and quickly dash home to lock yourself away just like now. And I’m sure you’ll still be able to get people to deliver things to you even if those people are on foot or bike.
Dutch cities are way quieter and more peaceful than American cities. This is because cars are loud.
In a weird way the higher density is actually liberating because it gives you cover for just ignoring everyone. It’s a cognitive trick which takes a bit of practice, but eventually there is a strange solace in urban life.
I lived in suburbs and a small town for about half my life and those places get smaller the longer you are there. You run into someone you know whenever you go out, and people are always waving or saying hi because they think that’s just being friendly. In the city nobody is going to say hi or wave at 3000 people per day. And nobody get labeled rude or antisocial for it.
Well, yes, but not because of the urban redesign.
“Be a hitter, baby.”
Sea Lab 2021. I need my Happy Cake Oven. This thread has gotten so serious, I need my Cousteau analogue to dive down and grab one for all of us, it’s way too Hazel Murphy in here. Translation: let’s stop masturbating about what’s wrong with somebody else’s amygdala and lighten up. None of us are smart enough to have a food handler’s license, let alone a medical degree.
Sure why not? It would be cool to have “enclosed” cities (as in a big dome, only with multiple levels). Huge structures that are several miles across, but self-contained and multi-level. So you’d have houses and apartments on one level, and work spaces, offices, business, malls, etc on the lower levels. The temperature would be controlled at around 72 every day, and there’d be no need for a car, you simply hop in the elevator to go the floor you work on. And there could be ample rooms on other levels for farms and hydroponic gardens. There would be electric carts to drive you if you have to cover a long distance. You’d have everything you need and never have to leave “the dome” (except to go to the Las Vegas dome for recreation).
Or we could start by designing walkable cities
I went to CA for the holidays and was utterly dismayed by how unwalkable it was. It’s honestly tragic, I really took for granted being able to walk a few blocks for groceries.
It’s awful! I was staying in a hotel one mile from my job’s main office in Silicon Valley, so I figured I’d get some exercise and walk to the hotel instead of getting an Uber. And holy crap it was almost impossible. The sidewalk kept disappearing, especially at major roads and freeways, there were no crosswalks, I had to cut through multiple parking lots. I’ve never seen a place more actively hostile to pedestrians.
Wait till you visit Kathmandu
I tried walking from one house to another in a Texas suburb, near Houston. Similar experience. There were NO accommodations for pedestrians at all. Long stretches had no sidewalks, no crosswalks, and drivers seem to think anyone walking would be completely insane or dispensable, and aren’t looking for them at all. Truly ridiculous. Plus of course the town was insanely spread out and something that seemed like a reasonable walk, having driven many times, was actually 9-10 miles.
Lol. California is huge and incredibly diverse. I live in San Diego. I can walk to 4 different grocery stores in less than half a mile. Additionally, I have a weekly farmers market down the street I can visit. Not to mention the Ethiopian market and Mexican market that are an additional couple blocks away. Wherever you were in California only represents that specific area, and not the state in total by any means. I’m sure the area you visited has plenty to be desired as far as walkabaility, but I’m sure it’s an issue divided along rural vs urban lines, not a state by state thing. Please don’t contribute to misinformation. Making a sweeping generalization about a huge and incredibly populous state only adds fuel to the misinformation fire.
I was more thinking about not having to deal with six months of snow (like we do in Utah) - being able to actually get to work or to a store without having to plow through two feet of snow. Walkable cities are great, Seattle is kind of like that - Salt Lake, not so much, it’s more of a jungle of highways and not much room for pedestrians.
I live where there is snow. Walkable cities would work.
a jungle of highways and not much room for pedestrians
Yeah, that’s the problem.
If only…
Wait, those actually exist, but do get hella expensive.
Le Corbusier just came in his grave.
!! I’d like to think so.
Kowloon walled city 2: electric boogaloo
Ugh that walled city of Kowloon. I don’t know how people can stand to be so cramped together. But when I was in China, there were high rises everywhere with small apartments and laundry hanging out to dry, so maybe it’s just something you get used to (?) I dunno though, with my claustrophobia.
Caves of Steel
Yeah that - uh, that sounds terrible. If nothing else at least make the whole thing open and airy with lots of light.
Anything to not be under The Naked Sun.
I dunno though, I’d rather be under the naked sun myself in all honesty. I’m just thinking about decades from now when “up” is the only way left to build, and the naked sun may be too hot to endure for long. Still, I’m much more into outdoorsy stuff myself, like kayaking and hiking, that I am into sitting inside on a nice day.
That sounds absolutely hellish as someone that can’t stand cities
Well hopefully it would be designed to be comfortable and have lots of “outdoor like” spaces like parks and gardens. I’m not too fond of cities either, I’ve always lived in a part of the west where things are open and we have lots of “big sky,” so i totally get what you mean. You can’t really imitate that with artificial means.
I am Wyoming born and raised, cities drain me of my very will to live, I can’t see the sky, the air burns my lungs, there is nowhere that isn’t artificial and drained of its natural soul. I just can’t live there and it kills me when people are pushing to make urbanization even worse
I totally relate, I was born and raised in Salt Lake. It’s not the most urban of cities, but we have a lot of air pollution (and it gets trapped here in winter by the inversion). I really wasn’t intending to push for more urbanization - only for thinking about the far future when the planet may be so crowded and polluted and hot that we need to “dome in” our living spaces.
Trust me I’d rather have open air and open sky also. I’m not a city person at all. There is just no place as wide open and unspoiled as many of the lands we have here in the West, and I do cherish and appreciate them.
Did you learn nothing from Midgar in Final Fantasy VII?
