• @RiderExMachina@lemmy.ml
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    716 months ago

    I wish I could find it and share the actual quote, but someone on Twitter (iirc) posted something like, “the best way to approach urbanism and biking to conservatives is to say ‘I’m for traditional neighborhoods that use independent transportation methods without government overreach’ or ‘I want fiscally responsible transportation methods’.”

    To no one’s surprise, these refer to walkable cities, using walking or biking, and include buses with the second quote.

      • Ook the Librarian
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        76 months ago

        At least the appropriated buzzwords are used correctly. We’re not twisting words like hearing “affordable healthcare” and using an ingrained Rush Limbaugh decoder to hear “death panels”. We’re just preserving the poison that was already in their buzzwords.

        Limbaugh’s gone, but the playbook is the same.

    • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      “the best way to approach urbanism and biking to conservatives is to say ‘I’m for traditional neighborhoods that use independent transportation methods without government overreach’ or ‘I want fiscally responsible transportation methods’.”

      I mean, sure. And that might stick for a conversation or a few days. But come back in a week, after their ears have been pumped with Agenda 21 China Takeover Shari Law Communist Prison State talk radio gibberish. You’ll be right back to square one.

      At some point, it isn’t the quality of message but the quantity. If you want to trick your Evangelical Homophobic Constitution Party voting uncle into supporting 15 minute cities, you need to configure his AM radio to play Well There’s Your Problem podcast episodes in place of whatever crap Clear Channel is transmitting.

      • @RiderExMachina@lemmy.ml
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        116 months ago

        Well there’s our problem. There’s no way you’d get my Evangelical Homophobic Constitution Party voting uncle to even listen to There’s Your Problem because within the first two minutes they’ll say “So the problem is Capitalism,” and he’d go back to Limbaugh reruns.

        • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          56 months ago

          The first two minutes of any WTYP episode is Rocz or Liam fighting with the recording interface, to comic effect.

          And I think that’s one of the selling points of a lot of these indie leftist shows. They’re entertaining in a way the old grouchy wingers aren’t. Admittedly, it’s very Millennial/Zoomers humor. So maybe Alice joking about bombing the local golf course isn’t going to be Uncle’s speed.

      • Exocrinous
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        6 months ago

        Is Well There’s Your Problem very leftist? I listened to a couple episodes and I got more of a politically uninvolved vibe, so I got bored

        • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          16 months ago

          Is Well There’s Your Problem very leftist?

          YMMV. The crew feels like the left-most fringe of /r/neoliberal if you aged them 20 years, gave a few of them actual experience in civil/architectural engineering rather than just State Uni B-school, and shaved off the knee-jerk hatred of Bernie Sanders / Jeremy Corbyn.

          I got more of a politically uninvolved vibe, so I got bored

          They tend to be more on the technical side of the FALGSC spectrum, so you get less “this is the politician/union leader who you should be organizing with” and more “this is the highly technical reason why you shouldn’t let your nation’s largest failson administer the construction of a transcontinental railway”.

          I enjoy it because I’m genuinely interested in the science/engineering/math behind a lot of these industrial scale failures. It is cathartic, particularly when I’m grinding through my own workplace engineering/accounting crisis of the day.

    • ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠
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      86 months ago

      This but not sarcastically. I’m politically conservative, and for the same reasons that I’m an environmental conservationist. Framing things in a way that makes sense to the listener is just good messaging.

    • @aberrate_junior_beatnik@midwest.social
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      16 months ago

      Libs (and a lot of leftists) are always looking for the magical incantation. The thing they can utter that will make conservatives realize how ignorant their views are. It’s at once a cynical and cruel belief (that conservatives are sub-human) and completely naive. Convincing conservatives they are wrong is often impossible, but there are two ways to do it when it is possible. 1) spend a long time in honest and empathetic interaction, and 2) take power and show them. The second way is exemplified by the ACA (despite its many flaws): conservatives threw an absolute tantrum and made it extremely unpopular. Democrats passed it, and now it’s popular to the point that Republicans couldn’t repeal it despite campaigning on it for 7 years.

  • @SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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    686 months ago

    Here’s how I interpret their reactions:

    Conservatives tend to have much larger amygdalas, which makes sense, as their worldview is based around fear. The brain/ amygdala treats threats to personal identity with the same fear response as physical threats.

    A 15-minute city means you don’t need a car, and it’s far less convenient to have one. But for a lot of people, especially the conservative folks, their car (or bro-dozer) is their identity, or at least a huge part of it. Their identity is fragile enough already, it can’t withstand removing a big chunk of it. (How would a man know he’s a man without a truck to perform masculinity in?)

    Therefore, a walkable city is s threat to their vehicle, which is a threat to their identity, which is just as frightening as a physical threat, like being hunted for sport.

    • @intensely_human@lemm.ee
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      06 months ago

      The brain/ amygdala treats threats to personal identity with the same fear response as physical threats.

      Yeah this is the statement of a person who’s not been in physical danger before. The response to physical threat is so fucking far beyond that of a threat to personal identity.

      I’m a conservative specifically because I know there is a whole different level of fear beyond social fear and the fear of work or boredom or identity confusion. I became a conservative the moment I encountered malicious violence for the first time, the first and only time I ever experienced mortal terror.

      Realizing that there was an emotion I had never felt before, but that had been in reserve, ready to go when I got that close to being killed, that changed my worldview.

      You know what kind of life experience makes a person’s amygdala bigger? Trauma. Having been through shit is what makes a person’s amygdala bigger.

      • @SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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        36 months ago

        That’s odd, I have experienced mortal terror a few times, and it somehow didn’t magically turn me into a conservative. Anyway, I’ll note that my comment contained no physical threats, yet still seems to have triggered a fight-or-flight response.

  • @FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I recently moved to an apartment with decent walkability to basic neccesties and I feel far more free than a car has ever made me feel.

  • stinerman [Ohio]
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    206 months ago

    Oddly enough, Ellis Hedican (the voice of Stormy) was a Fox News contributor and overall conservative back when the show first ran.

        • Flying Squid
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          6 months ago

          I hope so.

          EDIT: Wikipedia says: “He is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller The Party’s Over: How the Extreme Right Hijacked the GOP and I Became a Democrat.” So basically an ‘enlightened centrist.’ Better than before, I guess.

            • Flying Squid
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              86 months ago

              Imagine thinking becoming a Democrat because Republicans went too far right actually makes you a centrist.

              America has two parties. A right-wing party and a far-right wing party.

              • @SpookyUnderwear@eviltoast.org
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                -16 months ago

                Or, now hear me out, you don’t have to align with either of the two major American political parties. You don’t have to support either. What either party does or does not do has no bearing on my views on a subject.

                • Flying Squid
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                  36 months ago

                  When did I say what he or you had to do?

                  If you don’t like being criticized for your political position, keep it hidden and don’t get butthurt when people criticize someone else’s.

                  Neither you nor he are granted a special dispensation to be free from criticism, sorry.

            • @frezik@midwest.social
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              16 months ago

              Being centrist inherently means trying to hold two opinions that don’t jive together. Say someone likes lower taxes, but also says health care will be publicly funded. We would need higher taxes on that system–which would be less money out of your pocket over time–and something needs to give.

              Then there are issues where there is no center position. Like getting into a war or not.

              • @SpookyUnderwear@eviltoast.org
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                -36 months ago

                You’re entitled to your opinion. It’s wrong, but you’re entitled to it. Centrists have views all across the political spectrum. One can support abortion rights while supporting the 2nd amendment. One can support smaller government (in a individuals life) while supporting more regulations for corporations.

                • @frezik@midwest.social
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                  16 months ago

                  One can support abortion rights while supporting the 2nd amendment

                  There’s leftist groups that agree. That’s not inherently centrist.

                  One can support smaller government (in a individuals life) while supporting more regulations for corporations.

                  Which of these positions do you consider left or right? Because if you’re confusing Democrats with leftists, I can see how you think this is centrist.

            • Exocrinous
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              06 months ago

              Centrists are the ones who think they can agree with everyone. They think you can strike a compromise between genocidal neo nazis and gay people who want to be alive, and make everyone happy. Leftists are the ones who understand that some opinions are just plain bad.

  • @dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    156 months ago

    Remember that old saying “every accusation from a Conservative is a confession”?

    Well, the next time you see someone respond to densification or 15 minute cities on this level, it’s because they were already thinking of ways to exterminate folks on the left.

    • @intensely_human@lemm.ee
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      16 months ago

      Yeah next time you’re (a) actually conversing with a conservative and (b) they respond to your mentioning city density benefits by claiming you plan to kill them, you are green light to go on that conclusion

      Give it a break man, fuck. This is memes.

    • @bigboig@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      176 months ago

      I think of it like getting better public transport. Even if you don’t use it, other people will and that will give you more space

    • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      146 months ago

      In Houston, during the 60s, you could drive out into the wilderness once you passed 610.

      But with urban sprawl all the way out to Conroe, Katy, and Rosenberg, what used to be a 15 minute drive has turned into hours in the car to escape the edge of the city.

      Every new subdivision pushed the rural neighborhoods farther and farther away.

    • nifty
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      6 months ago

      I feel the same way, I don’t mind people but in small, small, smaaaaaall doses. But cities like that are great for others, I don’t have to live there.

      • @RiderExMachina@lemmy.ml
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        146 months ago

        Y’all might be imagining NYC levels of density and, while that’s important, is definitely several steps further than what’s needed to make America not terrible. Something like rowhouses or even 4-plexes would be an improvement, and that would, at max, only add 50-100 more people to the average city block.

        If you already live in a neighborhood, you would really only be interacting with your neighbors as you do now. It’s not as if your entire city is going to be in the same 15 minute stretch.

        • nifty
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          6 months ago

          I’d like that for other people! I don’t think it’s bad if some land is less dense though? I can’t stand living in anything that has connecting walls with another house. People are loud, they don’t respect each others spaces or things, and they get super entitled to using common spaces and not sharing with others. People with children are especially bad at all this. But eh, maybe my experience has just been bad.

          • @Ashelyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            86 months ago

            I mean, the whole crux of the issue right now is that it’s illegal to build “missing middle” multi-family homes due to zoning in most of the US–it’s almost entirely either single family homes or apartment blocks, two extremes with nothing in between.

            It’s fine if some of the land is less dense, if you don’t like dealing with other people fixing this issue would be a good thing for you too! Imagine if all the people who preferred the option of a house with 2-4 units and its own yard were afforded that option; 100-300% density increases would free up so much of the land that’s mostly chemically treated lawns and unnecessarily wide roads, not to mention even more rural areas farther out. I think it would do a lot to help the housing cost crisis even if nothing else were accomplished alongside it legislatively.

          • @brb@sh.itjust.works
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            36 months ago

            People are loud

            This is a problem with soundproofing. I didn’t know I had neighbors until I saw one guy leave his apartment

            super entitled to using common spaces

            Not sure what spaces you are talking about. The only common space I have is sauna, and that is optional

          • @frezik@midwest.social
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            16 months ago

            The solution to sound is building the walls better with sound proofing. This only happens because houses are built with so many corners cut.

          • DroneRights [it/its]
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            06 months ago

            Modern insulation technology has advanced further than you think. An apartment built to a modern standard will have a lot less people loudness than you’re used to. Also, people get louder when the environment is loud, and cars are loud. If you take the cars out of a city, the people get quieter.

        • @themelm@sh.itjust.works
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          26 months ago

          Plus you can still just put headphones in and quickly dash home to lock yourself away just like now. And I’m sure you’ll still be able to get people to deliver things to you even if those people are on foot or bike.

      • DroneRights [it/its]
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        26 months ago

        Dutch cities are way quieter and more peaceful than American cities. This is because cars are loud.

    • @Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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      36 months ago

      In a weird way the higher density is actually liberating because it gives you cover for just ignoring everyone. It’s a cognitive trick which takes a bit of practice, but eventually there is a strange solace in urban life.

      I lived in suburbs and a small town for about half my life and those places get smaller the longer you are there. You run into someone you know whenever you go out, and people are always waving or saying hi because they think that’s just being friendly. In the city nobody is going to say hi or wave at 3000 people per day. And nobody get labeled rude or antisocial for it.

  • @verity_kindle@sh.itjust.works
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    16 months ago

    Sea Lab 2021. I need my Happy Cake Oven. This thread has gotten so serious, I need my Cousteau analogue to dive down and grab one for all of us, it’s way too Hazel Murphy in here. Translation: let’s stop masturbating about what’s wrong with somebody else’s amygdala and lighten up. None of us are smart enough to have a food handler’s license, let alone a medical degree.