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by shiroiushi 633 days ago
Sorry, but this is just wrong. The simple truth is that people's opinions are usually a product of their upbringing and experiences. People raised in a warmongering society tend to favor warmongering, and people raised in a peaceful society tend to favor peaceful societies, for instance. In the case of cars, Americans really do favor cars and the car-based society they live in, because it's what they know and are familiar with.

So, if you try polling a bunch of suburbanite Americans and ask them if they'd favor abolishing their suburbs and turning them into extremely dense and generally car-free (or at least "car-inconvenient", i.e. narrow, slow roads and very little parking) urban areas, of course the vast majority of them are going to say "no". You can see it right here on HN every time this kind of discussion comes up: regular Americans like things the way they are. If they didn't, they'd be voting for something radically different, but they aren't. Sure, there's a minority of anti-car-culture Americans and even some activists, but they're a minority.

As for your characterization of Japan as an authoritarian society, that really seems extremely ignorant and probably even racist. It's a democracy, in case you've never read Wikipedia, so just like any democratic society, if people get angry enough, they'll vote for someone different, which happens from time to time.

2 comments

> that really seems extremely ignorant

Given the characterization of Americans that you gave elsewhere upthread, and which I responded to, you are in no position to make any such accusation, even if I were in fact talking about Japan, which, as I have posted already, I wasn't.

> people's opinions are usually a product of their upbringing and experiences

So this would include you, right? So what gives your opinions any more weight than anyone else's?

> Americans really do favor cars and the car-based society they live in, because it's what they know and are familiar with.

And you favor other arrangements because it's what you know and are familiar with. So what's your point?

> your characterization of Japan

Japan was not the society I was referring to. The one I was referring to begins with a "C", and the city within it begins with an "S".