| > But people value convenience and time higher than maybe you do See, this is where the consumerism propaganda comes in. Larger vehicles don't get you anywhere faster, because the road decides that. The vehicle you choose has literally nothing to do with that. They're also not more convenient in the general case. They're not easier to maneuver, they don't perform better on concrete, they're much harder to park. You refill more often, they don't hold more people. > "Rational" and "efficient" is something that never actually applies to almost any consumer behavior Right, yes, you have walked directly into my point. That's correct. This is because of advertising. People are manipulated. > Most people who write things like this are walking around with tons of pointless irrational luxuries, just in a different product category. I never said I didn't. I don't understand why everyone is getting defensive and acting as though I'm taking a "holier than thou" approach. I'm not. These conversations are so difficult to have because everyone is so emotionally invested in their metal box on wheels. Sorry, I don't mean to offend you. When I call you an irrational consumer that's not me singling you out. I'm an irrational consumer, and so is everyone else. My point is to highlight the dangers and real-life harm of advertising. Because it's a fairly abstract problem. But when you put it into real-life terms maybe you can see the tons of CO2 caused by car ads or maybe the children crushed by car ads. Obviously I don't know those numbers and they're probably not measurable, but point is human behaviors cause problems, and human behaviors are influenced by ads, ergo advertisement causes problems. |