Re: [OT, FLAME] Linux Sucks

[Hal Vaughan <hal@thresholddigital.com>]

On Thursday 27 March 2003 07:38 am, Paul Johnson wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 12:38:27AM -0500, Hal Vaughan wrote:
> > If Henry Ford had your attitude, autos would have never been for more
> > than mechanics.
>
> With over five times as many people being killed by autos in the US per
> year as died in the terrorist attacks back in '01, not to mention the
> pollution, noise, and roughly 50% of livable space in cities being
> sacraficed to the transporatation and storage of autos, I think the
> would might have been a better place had Ford had this attitude.

So you're saying autos are a Bad Thing (tm)? 

Hey, if you don't like autos, why do you participate in using them?  If you do 
think we'd be better off and that autos are such a curse (no pun intended -- 
curse, not curses), as a Quaker, I have connections with Mennonites and 
Amish.  I can certainly help you find a community where they use horses and 
buggies instead of autos.

While you say (part not quoted here) that I picked the worst impossible 
metaphor to make my point, you seem to talk your talk but not walk your walk.  
If one is to take you at your word, then you take part in using autos even 
when you consider them bad (or you at least ride in them), and feel the world 
would be much better off if the automobile had never been invented.  Are you 
really trying to make such a far reaching statement?  Can you back it up?

I might add that I use a bicycle for a good deal of my transportation.  I 
don't have trouble with cars getting in my way or running me down.  If you 
feel so strongly about cars being a bad thing, what do you do to reduce their 
use?  Do you avoid driving and use other transportation?

Yes, people get killed and maimed in auto accidents.  Yes, there are careless 
drivers.  But for your point to be valid, you would have to argue that we 
would be better off without them than we are with them (in which case how 
many lives would we lose because non-auto-accident victims never get medical 
attention in time because of distance -- among other things).

Oh, and as a note -- I've spent most of my life working with children, as 
well, in psych hospitals.  If you want to talk about what dangers cars are to 
children, I'll go call your bluff and raise what I've seen hundreds of other 
elements of our culture do to fsck up kids and teens.

Hal