I’m getting a lot of ‘but my car is more convenient’ arguments lately, and I’m struggling to convey why that doesn’t make sense.
Specifically how to explain to people that: Sure, if you are able to drive, and can afford it, and your city is designed to, and subsidizes making it easy to drive and park, then it’s convenient. But if everyone does it then it quickly becomes a tragedy of the commons situation.
I thought of one analogy that is: It would be ‘more convenient’ if I just threw my trash out the window, but if we all started doing that then we’d quickly end up in a mess.
But I feel like that doesn’t quite get at the essence of it. Any other ideas?
I think your approach is wrong.
Lemmy has too small a presence to influence the larger populace. You are shouting at a highway from a grass field across town.
People love convenience. So much they built trash chutes in their buildings to throw away their garbage. If someone implemented a system where you could throw out your garbage through the window, it would be an absolute hit.
What you need to do is sell the convenience. Make it cooler, cheaper, easier and/or faster.
People aren’t convinced by doing the right thing, that’s just masochism.
And they aren’t convinced by the “sacrifice now, get paid later” convention… Well, actually they are else scams wouldn’t be so successful. Anyway, people are dumb so the key to success is hitting that dumbness the right way to make it resonate in concert.
Build an orchestra of convenience, maestro!
Yeah, that’s pretty much how it is. People will take what they perceive to be the fastest, safest, and most convenient route from A to B, and they don’t really think about the long term cost or externalities of it.
Some of it is also about politics, particularly in cases where surburbs and cities share a political “unit”. So you get a situation where people in the city want walkability, but surburbanites vote against it so they can continue to drive into the city without any perceived obstacles.
That’s the struggle, isn’t it. Public transit won’t become what the majority use until it’s faster than driving, and I don’t see how that’s possible in most cities unless parking lots are banned.