The force that shapes everything around us: Parking • Hacker News Board

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#681

Post by sethrin » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 2:23 PM UTC

midoridensha wrote: post #680

sethrin wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you're lying about the claim being made. It is correct to say that Trump was elected by a minority of the total votes cast. It would be incorrect to say that he was elected by "some vanishingly small minority", but you're the only one saying that. Being elected by a minority is sufficient to sustain the claim that an institution is antidemocratic, particularly in an otherwise simple-plurality voting system. I…

If Hillary had won, it would have also been "antidemocratic" according to your definition. So would you have protested that too? No one was going to get greater than 50% of the popular vote in that election. Apparently there's some reality there you don't like either. You Americans are seriously lunatic reality-deniers. Close to 50% of the voters vote for Trump, but because it's not mathematically 50%, you dismiss it…

You seem confused. It's pretty common in English, particularly when discussing simple plurality voting, to use "majority" to indicate "plurality" instead of absolute majority. It would also be possible to claim that a vote is antidemocratic absent an arbitrarily chosen supermajority, but that's not being advanced here. I decline further semantic arguments as being non-substantive, as well as puerile. Your inventions about my character are nakedly intended to be offensive; probably you shouldn't post like that here.

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#682

Post by wiredfool » Wed, Jul 26, 2023, 12:04 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #411

nerdbert wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much time have you spent here? That doesn't jibe with what I see at all. There are so many more giant truckish cars in France, Germany, and the UK than I see here in the Netherlands. I'm looking out my front window now and I see about 20 cars of which one is in the SUV form factor.

Maybe it depends on where you are? I found the prevalence of Dodge Rams in the Netherlands jarring. They're incredibly poorly suited to the towns and cities there.

It's not that they're common, but at the fringe of the distribution the large "full size" US v8 powered things (Ram, Suburban, Full sized 80's Van, _not_ large EU style SUVs like the Volvo, X5, Range Rover, etc) were noticeably more common in NL than elsewhere.

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#683

Post by UtopiaPunk » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 3:40 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #405

defrost wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your objection is specifically a cultural objection rather than one based on any physical real world issue. Japan, many european cities, etc are all comfortable with the provision and use of widespread public transport. Where it's a problem is those locations where people such as the Koch brothers [1] invested 50 years (1970 - present) and tens of millions of dollars to bend both public opinion and state and city rep…

> a cultural objection rather than one based on any physical real world issue. and this is what i dislike about discourse about public transport. It is woefully inadequate in the majority of the US. Until the day it is fixed, car will always be a superior mode of transport, but then if car is so often used, there's no public incentive to build out more PT. And by now, the suburban sprawl has made it such that buildin…

I don't understand what it is you dislike about the discourse. But to address your point, the United existed before cars. Post WWII, we took very intentional steps to dismantle all the trams and passenger rail we had (we had so so many trains), and to design suburbs that require cars. And by "we," I mean government officals and all levels of governments, along with the wealthy capitalists (car manufacturers could sell more cars if there are more places that require cars, and railroad tycoons made more money in freight than passengers).

Infrastructure is built upon intentional decisions with agendas, not following laws of nature or something.