07-02-2021, 05:15 PM
We are going to need alternatives to the private automobile and air travel. Maybe we will be unable to remove the private automobile from rural areas, but it needs to nearly disappear in places like urban California. Poor people who have nothing else in rural New Mexico have cars, but the middle class in New York City is priced out of automobile ownership. In contrast very poor people on the Rez in Arizona or New Mexico who have little else have a jalopy for that rare trip to the "candy store" (which is my slang for an electronics retailer).
When I was traveling with my parents in New England in 1993 I noticed motor-coaches labeled "Vermont Tours". These were fall color tours from Greater New York City. That is telling of how people adjust to not having cars. OK, so if you live in New York City and must travel to Jackson, Michigan, you probably take a flight from New York City to Detroit and rent a car in Detroit to get to and around Jackson.
People will eventually be using self-driven, electric cars, so vehicle use will be possible for people who rarely drive a car now. They will get one to a favored fishing hole or whatever is one's favored recreation. Yes, we will need recreation, and with the time that many of us have due to a shortened workweek. More time-consuming activities that allow one to enjoy something like this:
One hour is a considerable outlay of time, something that one lacks if one is working two jobs to stave off hunger and cold and to prevent homelessness by paying exorbitant rent to a slumlord. I predict a complete repudiation of neoliberal "Sadonomics" that assumes that the common man exists solely to make people already filthy rich even more filthy rich in a grim, dreary, joyless world for all but the economic elites. One of the symptoms of neoliberal economics is that people are reduced to costly, ephemeral, witless, and ultimately destructive delights. I see salesclerks outside of some dollar store on their breaks, and what are they doing? Smoking. One needs nearly an hour to fully savor this delightful piece of music.
Classical music takes time and learning to fully appreciate, and in view of the stresses that have been the norm for about forty years upon working people one can understand why it no longer sells.
When I was traveling with my parents in New England in 1993 I noticed motor-coaches labeled "Vermont Tours". These were fall color tours from Greater New York City. That is telling of how people adjust to not having cars. OK, so if you live in New York City and must travel to Jackson, Michigan, you probably take a flight from New York City to Detroit and rent a car in Detroit to get to and around Jackson.
People will eventually be using self-driven, electric cars, so vehicle use will be possible for people who rarely drive a car now. They will get one to a favored fishing hole or whatever is one's favored recreation. Yes, we will need recreation, and with the time that many of us have due to a shortened workweek. More time-consuming activities that allow one to enjoy something like this:
One hour is a considerable outlay of time, something that one lacks if one is working two jobs to stave off hunger and cold and to prevent homelessness by paying exorbitant rent to a slumlord. I predict a complete repudiation of neoliberal "Sadonomics" that assumes that the common man exists solely to make people already filthy rich even more filthy rich in a grim, dreary, joyless world for all but the economic elites. One of the symptoms of neoliberal economics is that people are reduced to costly, ephemeral, witless, and ultimately destructive delights. I see salesclerks outside of some dollar store on their breaks, and what are they doing? Smoking. One needs nearly an hour to fully savor this delightful piece of music.
Classical music takes time and learning to fully appreciate, and in view of the stresses that have been the norm for about forty years upon working people one can understand why it no longer sells.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.