[Kbelicius]

> This is a tired meme and essentially an ad hominem "silly Americans never experienced civilization so they don't know better"

It has nothing to do whit Americans, nor did I imply it. Simply put, as it wasn't already simply put, my claim is that changing incentives changes peoples (not just Americans) wants. I would really like to hear why you think that that isn't true. I didn't even mention the US in my post, GP did. But he isn't making an ad hominem but somehow, according to you, I am. Is that because you agree with him and not with me so I'm making a fallacy and not him? Either way, neither did I nor GP make an ad hominem. If you thing that somebody made an ad hominem show some good faith and show where and why is it an ad hominem.

> I grew up in Moscow, USSR. With 2 min subway, trams, rail, buses and trolleybuses going everywhere. There was no private car ownership in the USSR until 1950s so nothing was built "for cars". Yet everyone dreamed of owning a car. There were films about people getting cars. The government ran lottery where prizes were appliances and the main prize was a car. The wait list to buy an overpriced (~2 annual average incomes) car was 5+ years. People still bought them at 3x price on the black market. Some people bought motorcycles and drove them with a sidecar as poor replacement for an unaffordable for them car. People went to work in the oil fields in the north for a year to afford a car. So yes, people do want cars even after they experienced the wonders of public transit.

It didn't occur to you that maybe back then people dreamed of owning a car because it was a novelty, a status symbol? Are they still making films about getting a car in Russia? Why not?

I'm not saying that nobody wants or needs a car. All I'm saying is that in places with good public transit and walkablity not everybody needs a car for day to day life, and of those that don't need a car majority don't dream of getting a car as you put it.

> People who have anxiety driving or cannot give up their drinking habit are a small minority.

Wow, everybody that doesn't dream of owning a car suffers anxiety or is an alcoholic... really?

[pandaman]

Changing incentives does not change what people want, it can only change what people do, IME. And I am pretty sure I described why I think so in my post - the incentives in the USSR were against private ownership of cars yet people still wanted that, even though the vast majority could not afford them and kept using public transportation. It's not limited to cars though, people also want to live in big stand-alone houses but in many countries are forced to live in tiny apartment, for example. Does not mean they want to share room with their grandma and listen to what their neighbors are watching on TV, does it?

>It didn't occur to you that maybe back then people dreamed of owning a car because it was a novelty, a status symbol?

It could be for whatever reason, I am not a psychic to read people minds, for all I care they wanted cars because they liked the sounds they make with the horn. The empirical fact remains unchanged: people wanted cars despite the developed public transportation network and heavy burden of car ownership. Which is contrary to the "urbanists" claim that people only want cars because of the lacking public transportation and as soon as the latter becomes "good" people will abandon cars. Some might, some people still want cars. If you see footage of Tokyo, London or whatever place is touted as the public transportation paradaise, you will still see cars on the streets.

>Everybody wants a car because public transit sucks.

>I'm not saying that nobody wants or needs a car.

These two statements cannot be true at the same time, can they?

>Wow, everybody that doesn't dream of owning a car suffers anxiety or is an alcoholic... really?

Did you notice people on the Internet do these sound imitations in writing if and only if they cannot make a concise argument? It's rather peculiar. You can see somebody writing pretty well and making logical points until they can't and then, suddenly, it's "er,...,hhmmm, wow, ugh" etc?

[racional]

There was no "er,...,hhmmm, wow, ugh" in the commenter's post. To the extent that rambling and evasive rhetoric is being deployed here, it's coming from you.

First you made a plainly irrational (and basically pretty silly) assertion -- that the only people who don't want to own cars are anxiety cases and alcoholics. Right here, on the internet, in front of all these people. And so you got rightly cornered and called out for it.

You then followed that up by attributing a quote to person that you're responding to ("Everybody wants a car because public transit sucks") that they plainly didn't say, and then put it alongside something they did say, in order to claim they were making some kind of contradiction.

It's difficult to see what you might hope to accomplish with such tactics.

[pandaman]

>There was no "er,...,hhmmm, wow, ugh" in the commenter's post

Why lie if a simple search can prove you wrong?