pezmico

pezmico OP , 1 month ago

Israel must be stopped.

pezmico OP , 1 month ago

@sinabhfuil @palestine thank you!

pezmico OP , 1 month ago

Not really interested in arguing with MAGA, red or blue.

And as for "America is not an Empire" ... I'll stare at you in central and south American (almost every one of our countries has had a coup, dictatorship or otherwise American imposed client regime) and point at the map of somewhere between 750 and 1000 American military bases the world over (we don't even know the number for sure).

That's an Empire, babe, they just don't let you call it that.

pezmico OP , 1 year ago

Probably my personal favourite one is this extremely text heavy Simpsons #meme.
I love it because it suddenly questions our assumptions of how normal it is to move about our cities, and it also highlights how wasteful and inefficient #cars are.
Our cities can be very quiet and clean if we move in our feet, or bikes or scooters.
Cars are noisy dangerous and dirty. We should make cities where we need to use them as little as possible.

pezmico OP , 1 year ago

In our unquestioning worship of the #automobile, we have built cities that are hostile to people!
Cities OF people that are hostile TO people! How ridiculous is that?
This image is a classic and it illustrates how most of our #carCentric spaces feel for humans on their feet, for kids wanting to play, for our disabled whānau trying to live a normal life.
We can do better! We have done better for our whole history. It's really the last century or so where we allowed cars to take over everything.

pezmico OP , 1 year ago

And yet we've bought into this idea that a car is indispensable. A basic need for our lives.
A big metal box that spends over 90% of its existence just sitting there, waiting for us. Using up valuable space in our streets, gardens, parks, houses.
Spaces we could use to play, plant, socialise, exercise or really anything else is devoted to the storage of a box that most of us use for an hour or two.

pezmico OP , 1 year ago

But we've adopted #CarCulture so deeply that for many, an attack on cars in general feels like a personal attack. Any attempt to reclaim space in our cities for #bicyles, #people, #parks or children feels like a loss that needs to be stopped and defended against.
Often ignoring the reality that our urban built environment (and much of the rural building too) is completely car centric.

pezmico OP , 1 year ago

Cars take up unnecessary space when they are moving too!
In a cruel reflection of the class hierarchies we've created for society we prioritise space in our roads for the single most inefficient users. Effectively devoting a limited resource (#transit capacity) in who uses it in the most wasteful way possible, a privilege of owning a car. We struggle with city councils to get scraps of sometimes temporary space for buses or bikes.
And yet this space is not enough. It will never be enough.

pezmico OP , 1 year ago

Space for cars can never be enough because of the natural rules of geometry and maths.
You cannot move that many people in their individual boxes. It is inefficient, wasteful and really at some point just plain impossible.
The #car is quite unique in the way that it is a mode of #transport that really quickly becomes worse the more people use it.

pezmico OP , 1 year ago

But true to form, we have refused to learn from the last few decades of #motorway development.
#InducedDemand is the phenomenon that explains that the more lanes we build, the more cars will be out driving on them. That's why widening #roads, adding more lanes ends up being a temporary relief, if anything, and quickly reverts to traffic jams, potentially worse than the ones we had to start with.

pezmico OP , 1 year ago

City governments, urban developers, fossil fuel companies, #road builders and car manufacturers have created a self reinforcing ecosystem, where they all get wealthier by depending on each other. Convincing us of the lie that we do need one more lane. This is the one that will fix everything. This bypass, this new road, this expansion, once we get it done #traffic will be solved. For good.
But it is never true and yet we try again, hoping for the silver bullet in the next lane we build.

pezmico OP , 1 year ago

It is a well known and tested fact that a city where everybody drives is a city where nobody moves.
But we still have a really bad case of #CarBrain in our societies.

pezmico OP , 1 year ago

#CarBrain is what happens when we let our #cars become our identities. When we prioritise cars over the lives of the people who surround us, of our own children.
Car Brain is the reason why #jaywalking even exists as a concept. Car Brain is a group project that the automobile industry has been working on for decades, and they have successfully installed it in most of us.

pezmico OP , 1 year ago

#Motorists seem to be angry by default. And that's of course quite bad.
They are angry at other drivers, angry at pedestrians, angry at #buses, angry at potholes and traffic jams.
But the worst of all their anger is usually directed at #cyclists.
We can't seem to get it right. Always in the wrong place, too slow and too fast at the same time.

pezmico OP , 1 year ago

This culture of anger that #CarCulture encourages has a very high cost. Lives are lost everyday inside and out of cars, but we've convinced ourselves that this is the only way to live. There's nothing we can do and these lives must be sacrificed in the altar of the #car.

Cars ruin cities. Cars ruin public transport, our health and our very lives.

pezmico OP , 1 year ago

We've built streetscapes that centre and prioritise cars before everything else. And then we wonder why kids don't play outside anymore, why they can't be independent.
Entire parks, playgrounds, homes and other amenities have been demolished since the 50s to make space for parking and motorways and service stations.
The cult of the #car has robbed us even of childhood.

pezmico OP , 1 year ago

Once you start seeing how much space we sacrifice for #cars, you can't unsee it. They have taken over our cities completely.
And they feel entitled and justified to every single space available. Given a chance, anything becomes a parking spot.
And if you dare speak up about it or oppose it, #motorists respond immediately with aggression, violent threats, racism and sometimes actual violence.
Don't dare advocate for a cycle lane, some space in the footpath for a wheelchair user, or a stroller.

pezmico OP , 1 year ago

Now we know that we are in a #ClimateCrisis. We know both that urgent action is crucial and that transport (our cars mainly) are an important source of our emissions.
So they sell us an answer: #ElectricCars.
But although they are part of the answer. They are nowhere near the silver bullet we're told they will be. And other, more important and effective solutions are ignored meanwhile. Like #bicycles and #publicTransport