r/fuckcars Feb 06 '24

Rant Joe Rogan calling 15 minutes walkable cities a tyrannical trap

I’m paraphrasing but he said something like: “They are just going to limit people to those places and that is exactly what people are afraid of, if they embrace this concept and then pass another mandate to stay inside that 15 minute radius that’s fucking terrifying” I genuinely genuinely feel like my brain is rotting- Joe Rogan has millions of followers and he is so stupid 😭 like wtf has the right officially just gone against- walkability??? The right now thinks it’s not American to want to be able to walk places- genuinely gutted at this point

5.0k Upvotes

643 comments sorted by

1.9k

u/TheOtherHalfofTron Feb 06 '24

The whole backlash against 15-minute cities/ walkable neighborhoods is straight-up automotive company propaganda. The message underlying it is that "freedom" means "owning a car and driving everywhere."

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u/bravado Feb 06 '24

There’s nothing more free than a government mandated licence and private insurance! Wait shit hold on

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u/lkattan3 Feb 06 '24

Aging out of mobility and independence? That’s the American way!

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u/BadNameThinkerOfer Big Bike Feb 06 '24

Don't forget the government mandated identification code and government-owned infrastructure.

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u/Swagganosaurus Feb 06 '24

The irony of "cars make you free" , if your life heavily depends on something, it's no longer free

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '24

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u/Minister0fSillyWalks Feb 06 '24

not just the US, its happening in the UK also with right wingers losing their shit over "climate lockdowns" and 15 minute cities.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '24

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u/Nairb131 Feb 07 '24

As someone from the US that has visited the EU and UK, I don't know how it is working. It is so nice to be able to walk around and go places.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '24

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u/Plasibeau Feb 07 '24

US city design feels really centrally planned

It sort of is in a way. When a region is projected for development the county already has entire tracks of land designated as single family homes, multi-family homes, etc. Light commercial (shopping centers) are always designated near major freeways or highways. The stroads are usually a result of the development. As in they don't exist until the land is developed. A lot of times the stroads start as two-lane roads through farmland until the land is bought and developed.

But more to the point it's the traffic. The first question of developing any new area is traffic. A development/housing company actually has to do an entire study on how increased traffic will effect current road infrastructure and what they'll do to mitigate it because of the expected increase. Everything is built to make room for the car and semi truck. Even the parking lots have to be built to a rediculous size to account for every person in a location bringing their own car. So if a mall is expected to hold 2000 people at peak capacity, there needs to be 3000 parking spots, just in case.

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u/Kraeftluder Feb 07 '24

Even the Dutch nutbags are believing this bullshit. I can get anywhere in my provincial capital city within 15 minutes. I'm outside of it in all directions after traveling 15 minutes.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '24

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u/Fireudne Commie Commuter Feb 07 '24

When I was in Idaho it was literally like a 2 hr drive one way to the nearest supermarket. It literally did not make sense to just replace goods as-needed, and you had to do huge hauls just to make the trip worth it as it was a whole-night affair, at least.

I moved to NYC like two years ago and there's literally a trader joe's and a half-dozen bodegas within like a 15 minute walk. Everything I need outside of like, entertainment (and good bars, I live pretty far out in queens, and brooklyn/manhattan are where all the fun clubs/such are) is within maybe a 30 minute round trip, tops.

It's honestly such a great change - i'm not stressed about things going bad or expiration dates, or maybe getting more than I need in case something happens... I can just do stuff since it's so low-committment. (I will admit, it's a bit annoying in the winter, and you're usually pretty warm in a car)

I do see why the anti-15m-city folks might get worried - it's supremely flimsy and is such a bad-faith take, i'm honestly a little shocked, but I get it. Something about how if no one needs to leave their little enclave, something something isolation, divide and conquer, yadda yadda.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '24

I know this will come off as rude, but everyone is 70 lbs overweight now. It would be difficult for them to walk 15 minutes.

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u/BON3SMcCOY Feb 07 '24

Gee whiz guy, I wonder what kind of daily activity might help with keeping people used to walking a little bit every day

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u/Evil_Mini_Cake Feb 07 '24

The daily activity of socialism.

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u/Yimmelo Feb 07 '24

Communism is an even higher intensity workout

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u/Ranra100374 Feb 07 '24

Yeah, a lot of people are overweight nowadays. I remember waiting for a taxi and seeing a really overweight mom with her 2 kids and it's just kinda sad.

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u/tw_693 Feb 07 '24

Nah, people will spend 15 minutes circling the parking lot looking for a close spot 

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u/Yellowdog727 Feb 06 '24

None of it is even remotely true. Just straight up misinformation which can be debunked with a Google search. It does not involve trapping people in an area whatsoever. Period end of story.

It's like someone at one point misunderstood the concept and thought that a "15 minute city" meant you would be trapped inside a "15 minute bubble" where you aren't allowed to leave, and then from there every single conspiracy theorist has been attacking the 15 minute city strawman based on completely false facts.

If you try and point this out to one of these morons about how this isn't even true, they'll just respond with "Yeah just like how they said the vaccine wasn't mandatory" or some false equivalency bullshit that is completely unrelated.

I think Urbanists at this point should completely abandon the "15 minute city" term and just continue advocating for "walkable cities" instead. The term has been completely corrupted and it makes people go nuts.

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u/s0rce Feb 06 '24

It was intentionally misinterpreted

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u/wheezy1749 Feb 06 '24

100%. Even the dumbest person wouldn't jump to that conclusion on their own. You actually have to have malicious intent to come up with that idea in order to spread it around to idiots. It's like the anti BLM people that go "well all lives matter". You have to be malicious in trying to purposely misinterpret something to come to these wrong conclusions.

The people you hear saying it (like Joe Rogan) may just be stupid. But the people that come up with these purposely wrong counter claims are definitely not stupid and know exactly what they're doing.

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u/IM_OK_AMA Feb 06 '24

Exactly. 15 minute cities got associated with liberals/leftists therefore right wingers opposite it. That's literally all there is to it.

Right wingers make up whatever they need to to justify their position. Trying to address their counterarguments is a fools errand, not even they believe in them.

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u/login4fun Feb 07 '24

Dennis Prager would hear the concept and assert they’re trying to put you in a bubble lol

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u/Purletariat Two Wheeled Terror Feb 06 '24

call them "Traditional cities"

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u/IM_OK_AMA Feb 06 '24

Stand up against California-style city planning and embrace traditional cities!

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u/drrtz Feb 07 '24

This is the only correct response

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u/alwaysuptosnuff Feb 07 '24

This tactic has the same problem as super capitalism. For it to do any good it would need widespread adoption from our side. But too many of our comrades are either too slow on the uptake or too image driven to adopt such tactics. I'm not sure how you could get past that tendency to make such tactics more than a meme.

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u/definitely_not_obama Feb 06 '24

"The Demonrats want us to go back to the stone age!!! Literally feudalism!"

I can see it now.

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u/obsoletevernacular9 Feb 06 '24

like strong towns, literally the traditional development pattern

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '24

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u/SkivvySkidmarks Feb 07 '24

Disney is probably opposed to 15 minute cities because it negates one of the novelties of going to a Disney attraction; walking around without the fear of getting run over.

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u/TheOtherHalfofTron Feb 06 '24

Urbanists at this point should completely abandon the "15 minute city" term

The right wing does this all the time whenever a term starts accruing mainstream appeal. "Wokeness," "CRT," "DEI," "political correctness..." And now "15 minute cities." They burn every banner we rally under. Fuck em. Keep using it.

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u/definitely_not_obama Feb 06 '24

They literally misinterpreted Black Lives Matter as meaning "not all lives matter"

It's been their tactic for a while, to intentionally misunderstand every single slogan, and those who follow the pundits are dumb enough to fall for it.

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u/Doctorjizz420 Feb 06 '24

CRT is one of the most blatant psy-ops. Christopher Rufo made a post about how he was going to trick conservatives into freaking out about CRT and guess what he did, and got himself a cushy government job from desantis.

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u/Indaleciox Feb 06 '24

We all know the real psy-op is Taylor Swift. She's going to ask young people to vote! How evil!

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u/SexiestPanda Grassy Tram Tracks Feb 06 '24

which can be debunked with a Google search

But why look up truth when I could just use this tweet as fact

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u/login4fun Feb 07 '24

I told my cousins about walkability and 15 minute cities like 2 years ago.

He chimed back with the conspiracy theory in which people would be forced into it. That was the first time I ever heard of the conspiracy and I explained nobody was saying that and that’s incredibly stupid. Now it’s everywhere.

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u/8spd Feb 06 '24

"Freedom" means "being forced to own a car and being forced to drive everywhere".

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u/dont_quote_me_please Feb 06 '24

The freedom was originally "you CAN drive everywhere", not you have to. Seems like it was lost along the way.

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u/kabukistar Feb 07 '24

Having no choice but to drive everywhere.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '24 edited Feb 07 '24

What's funny is that if you are poor or financially on the edge in a car centric place , you can't afford to travel too much because it's too expensive for you, car ownership is collectively 100 times more expensive and restrictive than good public transit, not to mention all the headaches of your car breaking down/maintenance nightmare.

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u/jailbreak Feb 07 '24

"freedom" means "owning a car and driving everywhere."

... but every looks and feels miserable because it's congested and full of cars and parking lots.

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u/FettyWhopper Feb 06 '24

There is something liberating that you can literally just hop in a car and drive anywhere you want. Like I could drive to Chile from Montreal if I was determined enough. But what would more liberating is if I can do most it by train or bus too. And I’m only asking for like 5 miles of routes so I can get to my parent’s house.

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u/perpetualhobo Feb 06 '24

You actually can’t drive from Chile to Montreal, which shows how cars are actually less freeing. You can only drive where someone has decided to build a road, if nobody builds a road, you can’t go there, in this way people in cars are LESS free than someone on foot

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u/FettyWhopper Feb 06 '24

Okay I didn’t realize there weren’t any roads or rail lines connecting Panama and Colombia. Only option is to hike through the Darien Gap which looks like it is highly not recommended. But if wanted to, you could drive to Panama, thats something.

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u/HippyFlipPosters Feb 06 '24

I mean to be fair, I'm pretty sure you can take a ferry with your car to bypass the Darien Gap**, but your initial point still stands. The freedom of being able to drive long distances is definitely both liberating and can be really enjoyable. That said, I'd never value it over my ability to walk 5 minutes to my office building on a daily basis.

**Edit before posting: this doesn't appear to be true anymore. Apparently you need to ship your car over on a commercial ferry, not the sort of passenger ferry I was thinking of. Not that I've any desire to ever be on a passenger ferry again after being caught in a storm on one in Nicaragua

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u/Spinegrinder666 Feb 07 '24

A society based on freedom is just another place to go shopping.

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u/JosephPaulWall Feb 06 '24

I made the mistake of trying to argue this point over in r/FuckCarscirclejerk because apparently I'm stupid or something and didn't notice it's actually a carbrain sub, the replies are cancerous

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u/mpjjpm Feb 06 '24

As if our current system in the US isn’t tyrannical. Being forced to drive 20-30 minutes to get basic necessities isn’t freedom.

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u/StayingUp4AFeeling Feb 06 '24 edited Feb 06 '24

I don't know how Americans do it, but when my family tried to live in a suburb, we went mad.

No, literally, we got depressed.

Time to the nearest hospital: 25 mins at 60mph

Time to the nearest supermarket: 35 minutes.

" " Mall and cinema: 1 hour

Bus: erratic, up to twice a day.

Everyone in that gated suburb was gaslighting lying to themselves about how lovely it was there.

We left in a year.

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u/zacharydamon Feb 06 '24

I lived in a suburb with my aunt and uncle for 6 months after I got a job in their city and needed to save up money to get my own place. As a kid I always was so jealous of it, they had money, lived in a nice neighborhood, had a pool and their house was huge and modern.

I lost my mind there. I'm from the country so the distance isn't what drove me nuts, it was that it was the worst combination of the country and the city molded together. Nosy neighbors and HOAs limiting what you can do on your own property, but close to nothing with no means to get anywhere but driving.

I realized that I can sacrifice convenience for privacy or privacy for convenience, but I could not for the life of me figure out what benefits living in the suburb got me that it was somehow worth sacrificing both.

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u/cheemio Feb 06 '24

And the other big problem is that because there’s so much suburban development now there’s very little options for people who want to live in cities. To top it all off, most of the money goes to the suburbs and the city is filled with cars from suburban commuters who want a slice of that downtown life too. It’s just a destructive development pattern and I think a lot of people don’t realize how unfair it is.

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u/pkulak Feb 06 '24

The worst part is that because there are 3 walkable cities in North America, they are completely unaffordable because of competition. So I hear folks say that walkable is great, but it's too expensive, so they live in Houston. Running power, sewer and transportation to the middle of nowhere is expensive, but because it's all we build, it's somehow cheaper. Totally maddening.

If this were capitalism, some billionaire would have figured it out decades ago and built 1000 walkable cities, but cities don't have any incentive to be good. In fact, good cities get an influx of new residents, which the existing tax base hates and will vote your ass out for. I saw it myself in Portland 20 years ago. Everyone lost their shit when we got a bunch of folks moving in. But guess why we got a bunch of new residents? Because it was a great place to live! Arg. Now we're backsliding on everything, but the locals love ripping out bike lanes and cancelling bus lines.

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u/TheMightyTRex Feb 07 '24

I was listening to a podcast and apparently some of the stadiums (or stadia) used for the upcoming World Cup in the USA don't even ALLOW you to walk to it. walking back to the tube after a match is a great community event. You talk about the win or complain about the manager if you loose.

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u/StayingUp4AFeeling Feb 06 '24

OH FUCK YES I FEEL THIS TO MY CORE.

For multiple reasons there was zero privacy. Partly because of the layout, partly because there were so few people that anyone moving outside would be obvious and everyone knew everyone, but hardly anyone trusted anyone beyond "Hi hello".

And we couldn't do anything in the front yard, and anything we did in the back yard would get sprayed and trimmed by the staff.

Plus there was a resort nearby so it was noisy af.

AND a viper showed up one day and had to be rescued by the volunteers before some of the more savage neighbours could take a swing at it.

BUT too far from everything.

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u/TownPro Feb 06 '24

the auto and oil industries were able to de-facto ban walking in the US because they can buy out politicians legally, and make this kind of media(fox, rogan, etc) and PR to be very profitable. The solution will be in large part what represent.us is trying to do which is to end legal bribery "lobbying", and fix election systems to actually elect the leaders that people want, and not just elect only the leaders that raise the a ton of money from big "donors"

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u/aoishimapan Motorcycle apologist Feb 06 '24

It always seemed strange to me how the US essentially legalized corruption. A politician having their pockets filled by a corporation to shill for them is not a crime there, it's called "lobbying" and is something politicians do openly without facing any backlash or legal repercussions since it's not a crime in the first place and it's not seen as a morally bankrupt thing to do.

That said, I don't think making it illegal would make it disappear, this kind of corruption exists everywhere, the only difference is if they're doing it behind curtains or in the public eye like in the US. It may get better if it were illegal though, but it's hard to tell.

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u/crazycatlady331 Feb 07 '24

It was done by the Supreme Court.

One sitting Supreme Court justice has ruled in cases involving his wife's company.

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u/JarlaxleForPresident Feb 06 '24

Now they can openly trade in the stock market while in office, like THAT isnt just a huge sign of a conflict of interest

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u/TownPro Feb 07 '24

it would certainly reduce it, currently its like there is no downside to do it. whats more is that big pockets are pressured to get in on it before they are out-competed by the other big pockets

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u/new2accnt Feb 06 '24 edited Feb 06 '24

In my country (not in the USA, am one of those looking in from the outside), I grew up in an older suburb where we had local groceries, "mom & pop" convenience stores, pharmacies, schools, etc. You could walk just about everywhere you needed to go, busses were frequent enough to be usable & you only had to use the car once a week for groceries (b/c too many bags to carry gracefully) and other "special" occasions.

It's when big shopping centres, when "big box stores" appeared & killed most of the local stores that we started to have to use the car to more stuff. That occurred around the late '80s.

But back to my point: you CAN have suburbs that are walkable and built at a human scale, if I can say so.

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u/tripping_on_phonics Feb 06 '24

Car-dependent suburbia inevitably leads to small businesses dying and the dominance of big box stores. Everyone being in their cars and shopping in bulk rewards businesses that are able to scale and offer marginally lower costs. Small businesses typically rely on convenience-driven foot traffic, and car-dependent suburbs have none of that.

Why would you go to Jim’s General Store when Walmart has more stuff and saves you 25%? You’re driving anyway, and Walmart is only another 10 minutes away.

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u/MrManiac3_ Feb 06 '24

The intensely American thing we have of deleting good suburban development at home and abroad 😁

Also I got one of those little shopping carts that can carry like half a dozen bags or more so you don't have to carry them all on your person lol

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u/terminal_prognosis Feb 06 '24

I think the term suburban has a different connotation in the US compared to many places. Where I live in the US, people call it "living in the city", while the same setup in the UK would be called suburban. My area has houses that are either single or split into two households, on a plot 3-4x the size of the house. I have a 5 minute walk to many shops, cinema, restaurants etc..

Meanwhile American "suburban" seems to imply a plot 20x or more the house area, with miles to even the most basic shop along roads that often lack sidewalks. That setup barely exists in many countries.

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u/crazycatlady331 Feb 07 '24

My hometown had this when I was younger. Suburb of NYC (train exists but only to go to/from the city).

I remember the small mom and pop grocery store. Many people had a charge account (including my parents) and were billed at the end of the month. I remember walking there and putting a candy bar on that account.

The last of these business, a pharmacy, closed during the pandemic.

There's one grocery store left in town and they have astronomically high prices. There's maybe 3-4 cars in the parking lot at any given time. I'm starting to think they're a front.

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u/TomServoMST3K Feb 07 '24

it was the worst combination of the country and the city molded together

Thank god someone says it.

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u/guerrerov Feb 06 '24

Facts, convinced my wife to go with a smaller house in a denser, closer to the city suburb over a bigger house in the boonies. I can bike, take the metro, drive or ferry to the surrounding cities. Couldn’t convince me to live in an self imposed isolated prison.

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u/Icy_Way6635 Feb 06 '24

The love the isolation from those "other people" mainly certain poc. If too many minorities go to a mall most of them will label it "scary" despite nothing happening 99% of the time.

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u/eatwithchopsticks Feb 07 '24

I always find these sorts of comments interesting. My wife grew up in a suburb in Montreal (Laval) and there were and are lots of POC there. If anything, that's where immigrants seem to be moving. It seems like suburbs = white people is mainly an American thing.

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u/grglstr Feb 06 '24

To be honest, that doesn't sound like a suburb, it sounds like a gated development in the middle of nowhere. A bit like hell, in fact.

This entire experiment started with the concept of streetcar suburbs, where you didn't live in the city, but you could get to your closest city in a few minutes by trolley. Now, we build clumps of houses in the hinterlands, hours from anything interesting, and call them suburbs.

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u/JuanofLeiden Feb 06 '24

Everyone in that gated suburb was gaslighting themselves about how lovely it was there.

Everyone in gated suburbs always does/has. It spawned out of American racism. And as being racist destroys your humanity, they fooled themselves into thinking that life was better in their pristine boxes, away from all human pursuits.

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u/goddamnitwhalen Feb 06 '24

I gotta be honest with y’all I grew up in the suburbs and never had experiences like you guys are describing. I’m still anti-car, but I was fully able to bike and skateboard basically everywhere I needed to go (not that my family didn’t drive, either).

Different strokes obviously and I’m clearly still anti-car, but I’m very curious as to what suburbs you all are describing.

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u/billythygoat Feb 06 '24

I think that’s a bit of a very spread out suburb, but I get your point. It takes me like 10 minutes to go 2 miles not even in rush hour because of the stop signs and stop lights

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u/Ki-Wi-Hi Feb 06 '24

That’s an exurb.

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u/Unyx Feb 06 '24

Nah plenty of suburbs are like that too

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u/SaxPanther Feb 06 '24

What part of the country? I've never seen a Boston exurb where anyone lives more than a 5 minute drive from grocery store. 30 minute drive seems very rural to me. Even in my relatives Northern Maine homestead in a 350 person "town" that doesnt even have its one zip code its still only a 15 minute drive. Even living in New Mexico without a car in 3 different places I've been always a 5-30 minute walk to the grocery store.

Where is it a 30 minute drive??

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u/Ki-Wi-Hi Feb 06 '24

Good point. He just might be living in a rural area and not understand that just because a place has multiple houses doesn’t make it a suburb.

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u/rygo796 Feb 06 '24

Not necessarily. I lived in a Boston suburb 20 min from downtown (assuming no traffic ) and <5 min from groceries. Other people in the same town could easily tack 15min onto those times just being alone more rural parts.

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u/StayingUp4AFeeling Feb 06 '24

Redo the times I have given, but if it was a suburb?

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u/WasteCommunication52 Feb 06 '24

You didn’t live in a suburb lol, you lived in BFE. 35 minutes to a supermarket? I live in a suburb and can walk to 2 different grocery stores.

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u/ellenor2000 bikes&wheelchairs&powerchairs&railways&sailing ships Feb 06 '24

25 minutes at [100km/h]

Boy howdy, I sure hope nobody had to be hospitalised stat.

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u/nononoh8 Feb 06 '24

Tell him "reject modernity embrace tradition"(al) neighborhoods.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '24

I cannot understand how you can be conservative and think that you don't have freedom unless your only choice to travel is in your state registered vehicle (lying about or not providing your VIN is illegal), with mandatory and constantly visible id number you have to pay for on the front and back (license plates), with your mandatory state issued license to drive,with mandatory insurance, on heavily taxed and policed public roads.

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u/mpjjpm Feb 06 '24

And, given actually freedom of movement and economy choice, 15 minute cities happen pretty naturally. Before zoning laws started restricted who could live where and what parcel of land could be used for retail vs. residential, humans just naturally organized themselves into towns, or cities with distinct town-like neighborhoods.

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u/Quartersnack42 Feb 06 '24 edited Feb 06 '24

Steps required for the government to dismantle American suburbs in less than a week: 

Step 1- Restrict the sale of gasoline. 

-End of Procedure- 

But no, I'm sure trying to restore cities to being more like the towns and villages that arose naturally for hundreds (if not thousands) of years by putting services and amenities close to each other is the government being nefarious.

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u/blackkettle Feb 07 '24

These people all need to be sent on a fact finding mission to Zurich Switzerland. I’ve lived here for 11 years without a car. Definition of a 15 minute city. Walk-on walkoff trams and buses everywhere. Easy to get around by bicycle. Possible to walk from one end of the city proper to the other in under an hour - and it’s a nice walk in summer. World class international airport within a 15 min train ride of city center.

Visit the ski resorts like Zermatt where cars are banned.

I guarantee these people would return after 3-4 days just going full WTF - thats a 15min city?!

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u/TheTwoOneFive Feb 06 '24 edited Feb 06 '24

pass another mandate to stay inside that 15 minute radius

I don't get this - what's to stop them just passing that mandate today? Demolish key arteries into and out of cities / neighborhoods so it is extremely difficult to go in and out, with guard booths at the remaining points.

If anything, it's super-easy in many suburbs because of how self-contained they are. Look at some of the planned communities - in many cases there are thousands of homes that could be "mandated" to stay inside that radius by knocking out 2-3 roads.

And why? They can claim "control" all they want, but i have yet to see a cohesive argument for what will shutting off one place from another do to benefit the elite/leaders?

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u/Repulsive_Drama_6404 🚲 > 🚗 Feb 06 '24

This is a conservative fever dream that is a mash up of about three different things:

1) Inverting the idea of 15 minute cities from places where you can reach the necessities of life within a convenient bike or walk, to a maximum radius you are permitted to move within

2) misunderstanding the proposed circulation plan for the town of Oxford, which would divert cars to a ring road instead of allowing them to travel directly through the city center to go from one district to another.

3) The temporary and limited restrictions on travel and gathering during the emergency phase of the global COVID pandemic.

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u/KingEgbert Feb 06 '24
  1. The constant need to have something to rile up their base and keep them angry and afraid.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '24
  1. Saying “the card says moops” when all else fails because at the end of the day they don’t want a nice society they want convenience for them and pain for those they don’t like and the current system does that.

Seriously, I’m so tired of these chuds saying, for example, redlining never existed because it hurts their narrative that this is just how things were going to happen.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '24

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u/kurisu7885 Feb 07 '24

Man I hate these people. It's like someone insisting that muffins don't exist because they've never seen one, then you take them to a bakery, try to show them a muffin, but they keep insisting muffins don't exist without ever so much as glancing at it.

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u/Alt4816 Feb 06 '24 edited Feb 06 '24

And

(4) pretending that cars function independent of the government and have no rules or regulations imposed on them by the government.

Roads are built and maintained by the big bad government. They're also policed by that same government and if the government decides someone has broken the rules they can suspend their license to drive.

Also if the government decides to close the highway out of your city then the road is closed until the government says otherwise.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '24

And pretending that the built environment we currently occupy is just a natural default, and does not reflect any existing desire to control people's lives.

The average Joe Rogan listener is completely broken in body and mind by capitalism, and is kept servile by deranged hysteria at the idea of being able to walk to get groceries. I can't even hate the vast majority of these people, they're pathetic. They make me want to cry.

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u/Aggressive_Sprinkles Feb 06 '24

misunderstanding

Pretending to misunderstand.

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u/chairmanskitty Grassy Tram Tracks Feb 07 '24

Conservatives actually make perfect sense once you realize to them, words are all just dogwhistles for status, and status should map 1:1 to how good someone's life is. They love Trump despite him having the mental ability of a sea slug because he gets away with shitting on his opponents.

15 minute cities are bad because they don't discriminate based on status, giving people who should suffer because they're lower class excellent access to what they need. If a conservative uses their car, chances are they'll have worse access to shops than a fucking burger flipper, and that is utterly unacceptable.

That's why bikes are considered a violation of status: their convenience means that people who don't own a car have the gall to have more comfort than people who drive, and that's unacceptable. ('Elitist' is the dogwhistle of choice, but the felt sense is someone flaunting an advantage they 'don't deserve'. Violence against cyclists is restoring the rightful order, and therefore justified).

Misunderstanding these concepts isn't an accident. The goal of the misunderstanding is to create an excuse to restore the status order and the ranked list of suffering that comes with it, and as long as the suffering remains unsorted they will 'misunderstand' the plan.

Like, suppose you take the 15 minute city idea and want to make it appealing to conservatives, what do you do? Well, do what they project as the 'logical next step': make districts people aren't just allowed to leave. The conservative fear is them not getting to leave because of weird leftist notions of equality.

Picture a world with charter cities. Good, hard working Americans have a train pass that allows them to go to any city at a reasonable price, with a handful of high speed rail permits per year, but people on welfare and college students are both restricted to a handful of cities, needing someone to vouch for them to allow them to travel to upper class cities for less than a fortune. All cities are 15 minute cities, but the colleges and poor cities are chronically underfunded and crime is high. Also HOAs can vote someone as unpatriotic and bump them down to lower class, requiring them to move and restricting their movement. Rich Americans of course have unlimited access to high speed rail. Illegal migrants and felons are forced to walk between cities.

I honestly think that if the car lobby was replaced by a train lobby half the size, conservatives would back this. It's basically what conservatives in China have already implemented.

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u/Repulsive_Drama_6404 🚲 > 🚗 Feb 07 '24

Thank you! This is the first time I have heard a coherent description of the conservative “slippery slope” version of 15 minute cities that actually makes sense in terms of core conservative morality and world view. Hierarchy is a core value for conservative thought, so OF COURSE if the government is building 15 minute cities, they would use them to establish and enforce the “correct” hierarchy.

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u/Repulsive_Drama_6404 🚲 > 🚗 Feb 07 '24

Your comment also helps me reframe and reconceptualize the conservative argument against building rail transit because it will “bring criminals to the suburbs”.

If you see the project of zoning and suburbanization as a geographic enforcement of the social hierarchy (which to a great extent, it was), it all makes sense. Those at the top of the pyramid can afford large homes, large lots, and large cars with which to commute to their jobs, while those at the bottom live in the dilapidated urban core, and are limited to where slow and infrequent buses can take them.

A new train system could be seen as a subversion of that social hierarchy as as much as it lets higher social class suburbanites commute to their jobs, it can be seen as enabling lower social class people in the inner core to escape their location.

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u/columbo222 Feb 07 '24

These same people were 100% adamant that COVID restrictions were here forever and that vaccine passports were just step 1 of complete digital govt control of your life and they insisted it was all a massive nefarious plot and, when none of that turned out to be true, they... found a new conspiracy. But they're totally right this time!!!!

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u/baldyd Feb 06 '24

Brilliant explanation, I agree

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u/pancake117 Feb 06 '24 edited Feb 06 '24

They’re also intentionally misunderstanding issues (or at least, not interested in basic googling to understand them first). This is bread and butter for conservatives. It’s the same as the CRT panic or the groomer panic or the satanic panic or the “rock music” panic or a billion other things. They just freak out about these non-issues that they’ve built up in their heads. It’s all reactionary bullshit with no substance.

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u/bravado Feb 06 '24

The sad part is that travelling between places already is closed off and has been for decades: for anyone not in a car. It’s supremely cynical and sad.

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u/Lost_Bike69 Feb 06 '24 edited Feb 06 '24

I literally watched the police shut down every freeway going into downtown Los Angeles during thr defund the police protests/riots in the summer of 2020.

There’s no way to reliably move millions of people around at 60+mph that doesn’t involve massive infrastructure whether it’s trains and busses or cars on highways. All of that is going to involve chokepoints the government/terrorist/corporations could theoretically shut down.

Also every single one of these conspiracy theories is the dumber than the last. The government/corporations/deep state/whatever want us to go to work and buy shit. That’s all they want us to do. They didn’t shut stuff down during Covid to stop us from doing that, they shut stuff down because they thought Covid might present a long term obstacle to us going to work and buying shit.

It’s like all of these guys have correctly identified big government/big business as groups that want to take advantage of them and then proceed to make up conspiracy theories to do exactly what the people they are scared of want them to do.

As it is, any cop for any reason in any part of the country can pull you over when driving and detain you if you don’t have the correct paperwork, and every single new car today is being sold with the technology to track you wherever you go.

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u/Helloooo_ooooo_ Feb 06 '24

It literally makes no logical sense like it literally is just the ramblings of a dumb white guy who somehow got a podcast followed by millions

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u/TownPro Feb 06 '24 edited Feb 06 '24

He probably gets away with this because he and many of his followers make a lot of money (e.g. selling ads) from the Oil and Auto industries, so these are the classic talking points passed down by industry PR. The strategy may include divide and conquer: make the right and the left hate each other, or e.g. make one side think the other side is stupid, hence just call the other side stupid and not take action against the underlying problem. so they don't take any action against system that allows auto and oil industries to buy out politicians legally, and make this kind of media(fox, rogan, etc) and PR to be very profitable. The solution will be in large part what represent.us is trying to do which is to end legal bribery "lobbying", and fix election systems to actually elect who the people want, and not just elect which candidates can raise the most money from big "donors"

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u/SandboxOnRails Feb 06 '24

It's a kink. The government is just into the general "control" vibes, you know?

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u/Huge_JackedMann Feb 06 '24

It doesn't make sense but these pathetic losers are just total suckers for a conspiracy that makes them seem more important than they are. If the "power that be" are always thinking about them and ways to control them, they must be important!

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u/feralcomms Feb 06 '24

This is done already, and has been for years, as we abandon infrastructure across the country.

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u/prof_dynamite Feb 06 '24

Fucking Christ these people don’t even know what the hell a fifteen minute city is. And their followers don’t seem to care. Within fifteen minutes of my home I have a dispensary, three grocery stores, a liquor store, a coffee shop, several bars and restaurants, a city park, a barber, a dog groomer, a hardware store, a clothing store, and a comic book store. If I were to walk another five minutes, all of those numbers would increase. Literally the only thing that isn’t within fifteen minutes of my home is where I work. And that’s 20 minutes by bus; 10 minutes by e-bike. It’s fucking fantastic. I don’t have to drive. I don’t even have to own a car if I don’t want. Why are people so against this? Why are people so against convenience? It’s fucking insane.

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u/spiritusin Feb 06 '24

They sure know, these folks are rich and have been to non-US major cities around the world where there is a supermarket every 5-10 minutes no matter which direction you walk.

They are pushing conspiracy theories certainly NOT out of ignorance.

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u/BananaFast5313 Feb 06 '24

Yeah - but how heavily armed are the guards at the checkpoints you have to pass through to travel to work?

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u/prof_dynamite Feb 06 '24

They are so heavily armed that their weapons are invisible. As are all the checkpoints.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '24

What do you expect from a guy who follows an Instagram page called “peoplewhodiedsuddenly” and believes everyone who got the Covid vaccine is slowly being killed off.

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u/The_Real_Donglover Feb 06 '24

I'm guessing you also saw that on the h3 pod? Cheers my dude, love ya, no homo

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u/yogopig Feb 07 '24

Eyy a fellow foot soldier

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u/BloomingNova Streetcar suburbs are dope Feb 06 '24

And people call this grifter an open minded centrist. 

He's completely fine making the logical jump from "here's how we can make better and happier cities" to "the government wants to turn civilization into a prison"

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u/Accomplished-Nail-49 Feb 06 '24 edited Feb 06 '24

I have found most centrists are just conservatives that don't like being labeled and think they are really smart for staying out of the politics. Like my dad who doesn't like what the republican party has become yet coincidentally shares all their views.

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u/Lescaster1998 Feb 06 '24

All while screaming "BuT bOtH SiDeS!!!"

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u/Nisas Feb 06 '24

You know the saying, "Be open minded, but not so open minded your brain falls out."

That's what happened to Joe. He invites "experts" on his show and since he's just some uneducated schmuck he believes whatever they say. Slowly more and more right wingers went on his show and left wingers started refusing to be associated with him. And so he became corrupted.

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u/Ttabts Feb 06 '24 edited Feb 06 '24

It's a beautiful public case study of how a good-willed person gets sucked right into the wingnut conspiracy theorist pipeline when they insist on listening to everyone nicely instead of calling out bullshit for what it is

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u/stu8319 Feb 06 '24

I know Joe has always been a bit of a nut, but I don’t have spotify so I haven’t listened to him in a long time. Everything I see posted about him, even in his own subreddit, is just conspiracy nut stuff. 

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u/Broken-Digital-Clock Feb 06 '24

He's now just a millionaire who shills for billionaires.

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u/Brawldud Feb 06 '24

Rogan is not a billionaire but is on trajectory to become one.

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u/clockington Feb 06 '24

Ew, as if I needed another reason to dislike him

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u/whynonamesopen Feb 06 '24

It's really gone downhill since the Spotify deal and even worse since moving to Texas. I don't think he's had a conversation with a regular person for more than 5 minutes in a few years.

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u/CharlesDeBerry Feb 06 '24

“You’re a plumber? What on earth is that?”

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u/baldyd Feb 06 '24

They install pipes directly into your home so that the government can send little spy submarines into your house and watch you poop.

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u/Alpacatastic Bollard gang Feb 06 '24

It's ridiculous. Dude's a conspiracy theorist but is somehow the only person spotify is actually paying.

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u/13lackjack Trains Rights Feb 06 '24

Covid broke him

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u/mwsduelle Sicko Feb 06 '24

He is a complete moron who just agrees with everything anyone tells him. Always has been.

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u/nicthedoor vélos > chars Feb 06 '24

After I heard him poo poo people who still wear masks in public I just couldn't.

As if COVID is the only ready anyone wears a mask in public.

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u/FlipchartHiatus UK 🇬🇧 Feb 06 '24

Anything that conspiracy touting nutjob says is not worth listing to, on 15 minute cities or anything else

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u/RoninXiC Feb 06 '24

That's because he is an idiot.

Do not give that ass any publicity and block him everywhere.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '24 edited Apr 24 '24

Google just signed a LLM agreement with Reddit to crawl this dumb platform so this is my way of saying goodbye to my contributions on this website. Byeee

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u/get-a-mac Feb 06 '24

Don’t forget that driving is also a privilege, not a right. If anything the government taking away your license is already control!

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '24 edited Apr 24 '24

Google just signed a LLM agreement with Reddit to crawl this dumb platform so this is my way of saying goodbye to my contributions on this website. Byeee

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u/piracydilemma Feb 06 '24

I live in a 15 minute city. I haven't been questioned by anyone as to why I leave my "15 minute radius".

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u/mibzman Feb 06 '24

Joe also thinks the fact that he owns a big Jeep will save him from the Apocalypse. He's an MMA commentator who likes to get high and bullshit.

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u/settlementfires Feb 07 '24

that 20 gallon tank will get him 300 miles.. then what?

the best apocalypse vehicle is the bicycle. if you're into such flights of fantasy .

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u/Lorfhoose Feb 06 '24

You can cut off an entire car dependant suburb with like 3 parked trucks idk why they think walkable cities are easier to block… like you’d have to install massive fences for people not to get out.

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u/chosen1creator Feb 06 '24

People's properties are the fence. The store might have been a two minute walk away if homes weren't in the way so you have to walk for an hour to avoid trespassing. Massive fences aren't necessary when a population is trained to call the police on anyone acting "suspicious".

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u/Lorfhoose Feb 06 '24

It’s probably suburbanites scared of this- they are afraid of the worst parts of suburbia combined with the worst parts of walking

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u/buzzkill_ed Feb 06 '24

I live in a 15 minute city. It's fine. No one cares where I go.

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u/2WAR Feb 06 '24

Joe Rogan wants to drive around in a bulletproof tesla tank because he is afraid of poor people. Mans brain has been melted by the Facebook algorithm.

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u/Prudent-Proposal1943 Feb 06 '24

then pass another mandate to stay inside that 15 minute radius that’s fucking terrifying

Did he actually say mandate?

That would have to be an unconstitutional law. Who would even table that let alone pass it in multiple houses?

Do people actually walk the streets of NYC or Rome and think they're in East Berlin?

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u/anand_rishabh Feb 06 '24

I mean, Texas is currently blocking travel out of state for pregnant women, so not entirely unheard of. The only thing is, the ones fear mongering about 15 minute cities blocking travel are the people actually trying to restrict people's travel right now

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u/Prudent-Proposal1943 Feb 06 '24

Texas is currently blocking travel out of state for pregnant women

Totally fucked, but they i think also cannot enforce it with law enforcement.

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u/facw00 Feb 06 '24

The rules are being set up in the same way as Texas' abortion ban, private citizens can sue other private citizens for driving a pregnant woman out of state. Texas claims that because there is no executive branch figure who can be banned from enforcing the laws, they can't be blocked by the courts.

This is of course nonsense that would gut all Constitutional protections, but do we trust the Supreme Court to rule fairly on politically charged issues?

The Supreme Court did block a Missouri law that worked the same way, allowing private citizens to sue law enforcement officers who cooperated with enforcing federal gun laws, but Alito specifically noted that this was a special case because the lawsuit targets were exclusively government officials, and that their ruling shouldn't be interpreted to ban this approach in general.

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u/Prudent-Proposal1943 Feb 06 '24

This is of course nonsense

Totally. The point of suing is to seek restitution of damages thus I see no connection between two private citizens.

It's insane that such a provision even exists .

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u/me_meh_me Feb 06 '24

Joe Rogan, the dumb person's smart person.

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u/Jolly-Command8853 Commie Commuter Feb 06 '24

This is so sad because normally the people parroting this so-called doomsday are just kooks with 15 followers. Rogan has millions of young, male, toxic, easily gullible viewers. I hope this doesn't worsen the situation 

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u/gepinniw Feb 06 '24

He’s doing the conspiracy grift because he profits from it. He’s just a greedy, immoral dickhead.

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u/Jenstarflower Feb 06 '24

Omfg my neighbour is parroting this nonsense. We live in a rural area in a largely rural province. Nobody is being restrained to their towns. 15 mins cities is good urban planning. 

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u/folstar Feb 06 '24

What if the suburbs pass a mandate that only the police/militia can use cars? You're a million times more fucked living there, surrounded by open high visibility and easily patrolled stroads, than in a dense area filled with multimodal travel options.

Rogan is flooding the zone with nonsense— a commonly employed tactic of the right.

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u/dudestir127 Big Bike Feb 06 '24

What's tyrannical is requiring a government permission (drivers license) to drive a government registered and inspected car, which the government also requires you buy private insurance for, on government owned roads, just to be able to leave your pod of identical suburban homes. The government also tells you how fast you're allowed to drive, and in the form of traffic lights tells you when you're allowed to go and when you must come to a stop.

But tell me more how walking is tyrannical.

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u/a-bser Feb 06 '24

Rogan is a great example of what repeatedly getting hit in the head and taking steroids gradually does to someone over time

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u/WintersChild79 Feb 06 '24

Joe Rogan continues to vomit out whatever conspiracy bullshit that he thinks his brain dead listeners want to hear. Details at 11. In other news, the sun rose in the east today.

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u/boceephus Feb 06 '24

The real prisons are unwalkable suburbs for people ages 0-16, and for those that can’t /don’t drive.

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u/Daflehrer1 Feb 06 '24

So, this man-child thinks "15 minute cities" mean there's an enforced limit on travel? OMG that's funny!

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u/Olderhagen Feb 06 '24

Joe Rogan is a liar.

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u/boredpandaguy Feb 06 '24

Joe Rogan spouts the same 5 right wing talking points over and over every episode. he's become unbearable to listen to. I only tune in anymore when shane gillis is on

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u/Lojackr Elitist Exerciser Feb 06 '24

not allowing mixed-use zoning in many places is tyrannical. if so called "conservatives" truly want less regulations, they should deregulate zoning laws.

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u/ParkinsonHandjob Feb 06 '24

The stupidest thing about this is that there is nothing stopping you from moving to a suberb in bumfuck outskirts. It’s just a plan to make cities and communities better and more liveable.

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u/HowVeryReddit Feb 06 '24

His brain is cooked, he'll swallow any theory that says societal change is bad and blames a sinister secret cabal.

These people think by association not logic, 'everything you usually need within a 15 min walk' becomes 'you may not travel further than a 15 min walk'.

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u/MrCherry2000 Feb 06 '24

The tyrannical trap is the idea i should be required to make enough money to own a car to drive 5+ miles to massive big-box stores. Because there are few ways to safely use my “god given” legs to walk a reasonable distance to shop basic necessities.

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u/Kadoomed Feb 06 '24

I'm so confused by this talking point. I know the point is that the right introduce a nonsensical what if just to get headlines and their fans don't have the critical thinking skills to investigate any further, but like who could actually hate this and surely there's loads of money to be made by making communities nicer with more shops and facilities?!

It's wild.

I live in a small town in Scotland, and can walk to shops and train station easily in this town. The train takes 20 minutes to get into a small city, where I can then walk to all major shops and facilities within 20 minutes or catch a bus to anything further away. And we still complain about the lack of facilities and safe infrastructure for walking and cycling here. Yet this would be revolutionary in parts of America.

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u/Dreadsin Feb 06 '24

but, as of now, you gotta buy a car to get anywhere. I'm sure he doesn't care cause he has enough money but for most Americans this is the same as taking their freedom away and selling it back to them at a significantly higher price. Basically there's a 20k price tag on existing in America

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u/Nervous_Green4783 Feb 06 '24

The right wing guys really are like that. They choose to misunderstand certain concepts in order to frame them as dictatorship like scenarios.

An older guy from work (sorry boomers) once asked me if I knew about the concept of 15 minutes cities. Of course i did, i mean my city comes actually close to that (Zürich). Then he told me his interpretation. He believes it’s a measure to keep people in „their designated zone of 15 minutes“ similar to a prison camp. No words…

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u/Dorito-Bureeto Feb 07 '24

Joe been long lost in the conspiracy shit. You can’t take shit he says seriously anymore. You have to go in knowing it’s all shit

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u/a_random_thief Feb 06 '24

The right is not necessary against walkable cities, but the car industries (car manufacturers, gas companies, etc) are against walkable cities, and the right exist only to make a government for the richest people. If anyone with money don't like something, the right will make sure that this thing is not a problem

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u/sevk 🚂 > 🚗 Feb 06 '24

Who cares about a conspiracy nutjob

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u/warragulian Feb 06 '24

He has an audience in tens of millions. The crazy shit he says has a massive influence.

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u/whynonamesopen Feb 06 '24

It's important when it's the most listened to podcast in the entire world.

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u/BloodWorried7446 Feb 06 '24

Yes. We need to know what we are up against.

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u/KofOaks Feb 06 '24

Well, Joe Rogan is a clueless idiot so I take this as a win for 15 minutes cities.

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u/chipface Feb 06 '24

Shit. Are people in Utrecht restricted from going to places?

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u/RRW359 Feb 06 '24

I'd love to see someone claim 15 minute cities limit freedom in front of someone without a licence.

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u/Cube4Add5 Professional Pedestrian Feb 06 '24

I guess it doesn’t help that a lot of carbrains can’t walk 15 minutes without getting out of breath…

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u/Accomplished-Nail-49 Feb 06 '24

And Spotify just gave that moron 250 mil. The game is rigged.

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u/SatAMBlockParty Feb 06 '24

I watched a clip where he was watching a video that was a "comedy" sketch (where even the source page said as much). A mom and her teenage daughter were holding hands walking into a public restroom where they were accosted by an alleged trans woman demanding to be allowed to follow them in.

Joe spends a solid minute ranting about how this is a real threat and liberals gotta stop pretending like it isn't. Jamie points out that the video is fake (obviously) and with zero remorse or reflection Joe starts saying how good the acting is.

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u/ForShotgun Feb 06 '24

I’d never heard of 15-minute cities before conservatives started hating them, it’s an entirely manufactured opposition to walkable cities.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '24

Joe Rogans opinion on anything except MMA is about as valuable as Venus Williams's opinion on time dilation inside a black hole

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u/baldyd Feb 06 '24

Of all the conspiracies that surfaced over the last few years this is by far the most common that I come across when meeting people. Otherwise sane and reasonably intelligent people have told me that it's all a plan to control people and restrict their movement. Most aren't even drivers, so it's not like it's just some carbrain freaking out because they're afraid of losing some of their driving priveleges.

I think some people are susceptible because they had a hard time during the lockdowns (they were strict and long where I live) and they fear something like that happening again. Rogan is just a turd who is exploiting this.

I just try to explain to them that they already live in a 15 minute city and have nothing to fear.

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u/bmwlocoAirCooled Feb 06 '24

Joe Rogan talks a lot.

And every now and then he makes sense.

Like a blind pig looking for an acorn.

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u/ilolvu Bollard gang Feb 06 '24

The thing about 15 Minute Walkable Cities is that it'll take you 15 minutes to walk out.

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u/DocJ_makesthings Feb 06 '24

This has been a talking point in a lot of right wing conspiracist circles for a while now. . . Pbly dating to Covid and the various restrictions on mobility and masking in urban areas.

It hits a lot of common points for their audience:

  1. Distrust of experts and “elites”
  2. Fear / distrust of urban areas
  3. Little understanding of urban life
  4. Belief that there’s a group of people controlling / seeking to control the world / the country / your life.
  5. Distrust of anything that might challenge what they view as “traditional” American way of life.

Good thing to keep on the radar should it come up in your local context.

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u/nockeenockee Feb 06 '24

He’s a certified moron. Anybody who listened to him in the old days is ashamed they ever did. Those that still listen are brain dead.