Islabikes new range

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:25:54 +0200, Ace wrote:
On 18 Sep 2008 13:31:53 GMT, Ian Smith wrote:

I am simply asserting that it is untrue to say that the car meets
every transport need of everyone.

Not sure why you're bothering, TBH. I never made such an assertion,
and I don't think anyone else has.

Who wrote "Cars can do everything for everyone - that's the long and
short of it." then?

It was in Message-ID:
and claimed to be From: Ace

This sub-thread is actually more telling in what it says about the
state of the group than anything else. Such a simple statement is
twisted this way and that,

How on earth is it twisting the assertion "Cars can do everything for
everyone" to say that it is a statement that the car meets every
transport need of everyone?

Do you believe that "Cars can do everything for everyone"?

If "Cars can do everything for everyone" is not an assertion that the
car meets every transport need of everyone, what do you think it
means?

regards, Ian SMith
--
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|o o|
|/ \|

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008, JNugent wrote:
Ian Smith wrote:

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008, JNugent wrote:

Unless one wants to nitpick to the nth degree (a time-honoured
usenet diversion - NASA and the shuttle, anyone?), the statement
"Cars can do everything for everyone" (in the context of surface
transport on land) is pretty well unarguably true.

It is plainly and factually not true that cars can do everything for
everyone.

sigh

It is true that they cannot (on their own) satisfy ther transport needs of a
newborn (but then, can anything?).

It is equally true that a car isn't much use (on its own) to a blind person.

So, you're agreeing that everything I've written on this topic is
completely true. Thank you.

Is it really necessary to point out every last iota of lack of
generality of a reasonable statement

It's not a reasonable statement. It is entirely reasonable to point
out when people make untrue statements and try and embark on proof by
assertion, yes.

I doubt the car meets every transport need of anyone.
I doubt that it meets the vast majority of transport needs of more
than a minority of the people on the planet.

It's just a wrong (very wrong) statement.

Which bit of "in the context of surface transport on land" did you
miss?

The bit where it occurs in the original post. Here it is (in full):

"I say the same about pedal-cycles too, which is why we've got a
garage full of them[1]. But as a single mode of transport there are
very few people that would agree with them being convenient outside of
a city environment.

"Cars can do everything for everyone - that's the long and short of
it. No-one says you have to like it though.

"[1] As opposed to motorbikes, of which I have zero."

I completely missed, and continue to miss anything about the context
of land transport in that posting. Perhaps you will point it out to
me.

Even if you retrospectively add the context, however, the statement is
wrong.

Even if you retrospectively add the context, my statements remain
correct - the car does not meet every surface transport on land
requirement of everyone. I doubt it meets every surface transport on
land requirement of anyone.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

Quoting Ace :
wrote:
Quoting Ace :
People found out what a tremendously useful, convenient and fun thing
a car can be.
Three thousand people a year find out, permanently, that that's not the
case - many of those deaths are caused by the dangerous ****wits who
think operating heavy machinery in public is a good time to have fun. I'm
guessing you're one of them, too.
Really? You guess all that from one post?

That you think operating lethally dangerous machinery in public is "fun"?
Yes. You said so. That that's a stupid thing to think, and anyone who
wasn't caught up in this insane car culture would be constantly nervous
and careful when in a position where they were likely to kill or main
their fellow man? Yes, that too.
--
David Damerell Oil is for sissies
Today is Epithumia, September - a weekend.

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008, JNugent wrote:

You might be 101% cortrect in all of that, and yet it still does
not undermine that porevious poster's statement to the effect that
a car can satisfy all of the (non-pedestrian) land transport needs
of a reasonable person leading a reasonably ordinary life.

Wow. If you sat on those goalposts you'd have a land speed record
on your hands.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

Ian Smith wrote:
On Thu, 18 Sep 2008, JNugent wrote:
Ian Smith wrote:

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008, JNugent wrote:
Unless one wants to nitpick to the nth degree (a time-honoured
usenet diversion - NASA and the shuttle, anyone?), the statement
"Cars can do everything for everyone" (in the context of surface
transport on land) is pretty well unarguably true.
It is plainly and factually not true that cars can do everything for
everyone.
sigh

It is true that they cannot (on their own) satisfy ther transport needs of a
newborn (but then, can anything?).

It is equally true that a car isn't much use (on its own) to a blind person.

So, you're agreeing that everything I've written on this topic is
completely true. Thank you.

Is it really necessary to point out every last iota of lack of
generality of a reasonable statement

It's not a reasonable statement. It is entirely reasonable to point
out when people make untrue statements and try and embark on proof by
assertion, yes.

I doubt the car meets every transport need of anyone.
I doubt that it meets the vast majority of transport needs of more
than a minority of the people on the planet.

It's just a wrong (very wrong) statement.

Which bit of "in the context of surface transport on land" did you
miss?

The bit where it occurs in the original post. Here it is (in full):

"I say the same about pedal-cycles too, which is why we've got a
garage full of them[1]. But as a single mode of transport there are
very few people that would agree with them being convenient outside of
a city environment.

"Cars can do everything for everyone - that's the long and short of
it. No-one says you have to like it though.

"[1] As opposed to motorbikes, of which I have zero."

I completely missed, and continue to miss anything about the context
of land transport in that posting. Perhaps you will point it out to
me.

Even if you retrospectively add the context, however, the statement is
wrong.

Even if you retrospectively add the context, my statements remain
correct - the car does not meet every surface transport on land
requirement of everyone. I doubt it meets every surface transport on
land requirement of anyone.

regards, Ian SMith

Well done - you're obviously hoping to get right up to the front of the
field in the Pedant of the Year Race 2009 - and what's the point?

Reading the context reasonably is necessary and inescapable. You *knew* he
didn't mean that you can make intergalactic journeys, ocean voyages,
Dover-Calais crossings, trips to the summit of Everest, trips to the bathroom
or journeys to the dustbin at the bottom of the garden, by car. So why
pretend that he did?

And while we're at it, why pretend that he said that the car "...meet[s]
every surface transport on land requirement of everyone..."?

He didn't say that it did. Neither did he say that it could do it better than
other modes (even though it is widely agreed that it can and does). He simply
said that it *can*.

See the difference?

Ian Smith wrote:
On Thu, 18 Sep 2008, JNugent wrote:
You might be 101% cortrect in all of that, and yet it still does
not undermine that porevious poster's statement to the effect that
a car can satisfy all of the (non-pedestrian) land transport needs
of a reasonable person leading a reasonably ordinary life.

Wow. If you sat on those goalposts you'd have a land speed record
on your hands.

regards, Ian SMith

Notyhing has moved unless you take the view that he was making claims to the
effect that a Vauxhall vectra will take you across the Atlantic.

JNugent writes:

You might be 101% cortrect in all of that, and yet it still does not
undermine that porevious poster's statement to the effect that a car
can satisfy all of the (non-pedestrian) land transport needs of a
reasonable person leading a reasonably ordinary life.

So far we seem to be up to:

"Cars can do {almost} everything for {almost} everyone provided
they're 'reasonably ordinary', not counting congested cities and
excluding journeys better made on foot, and are not always the perfect
or best choice even then"

I may have missed some of the other qualifications proposed/accepted,
as I kind of lost track of some of the subthreads in all the
excitement. When we have finished a comprehensive analysis, though,
perhaps we can return to the original question that this was posed as
an explanation for, which as I recall asked about our "utter
dependence" on the things. With all those caveats inserted, the
revised version looks like a much poorer explanation.

Why does it matter? Because there are people who will seize on the
statement in its original form and see it as a justification for the
way things should be, not just as an explanation for how they are.
Result: we will move even further into a car-centric culture and your
originally ludicrous example of using a car to pick up a sandwich from
the shop across the plaza will begin to seem quite normal. Dont
laugh. People are already complaining that when they drive half a
mile to the end of the road for newspaper and cigs they can't find a
parking spot, and therefore something must be done.


-dan

"wafflycat" wrote in message
...

Rhetorical: what happened in the interim to get us so utterly dependent
upon cars?

1. We removed one third of the rail network.
2. We privatised a lot of the bus services, resulting in the closure of bus
routes that were useful to many people, but weren't profitable enough.
3. Living standards have risen to the point where a car is affordable to the
masses, instead of just the rich. Once this happens planning policies tend
to assume that driving will be the default option so build shops, facilities
that are out of town and difficult to get too without a car.
4. The out of town facilities, with their large, free car parks become so
popular that the smaller local shops (easily accessible to people on foot)
can't compete so go out of business.
5. With the loss of the local shops, people have to travel much greater
distances to get their food. In many cases this means they now have to drive
(so much for the freedom of the car!).
6. Longer working hours means that people have to make fewer, larger trips
to the shops because they don't have the time to make lots of journeys.
7. As car use has expanded, development has sprawled out rather than
following the rail/bus routes so that many suburbs don't have viable public
transport alternatives. Also, businesses now locate near bypasses and
motorways and thus cannot be accessed very easily other than by car.
8. Road planning has favoured trying to maximise the throughput of motor
traffic, often at the expense of making the alternatives (walking, cycling)
less safe/convenient which discourages these alternatives.
9. The type of vehicle you drive seems to be an indicator of status.
Bicycles are seen by some as "poverty transport".

Ian Smith wrote:

On Thu, 18 Sep, Roger Merriman wrote:

a car can do, short/middle distances, it leaves when you want to,
doesn't charge you for arriving too early, if there is more than one of
you can be cheaper, in my case as i drive back to wales from sw edge of
london, it's so much cheaper and faster it's joke.

But last time I did it my family south London to Edinburgh was cheaper
by train than just the petrol cost (ie, exclude capital cost of the
car, exclude road fund licence, exclude insurance, exclude maintenance
and tyre wear and wear-and-tear - just the straight at-the-pump cost)
for a family of four.

Out of interest, when was this journey? In my experience, weekend travel
is routinely ludicrously expensive. Indeed, I've usually found that the
car wins as soon as more than one person is travelling over any
significant distance.

Cheers,
Luke


--
Red Rose Ramblings, the diary of an Essex boy in
exile in Lancashire http://www.shrimper.org.uk

David Damerell wrote:

Quoting Ace :
wrote:
Quoting Ace :
People found out what a tremendously useful, convenient and fun thing
a car can be.
Three thousand people a year find out, permanently, that that's not the
case - many of those deaths are caused by the dangerous ****wits who
think operating heavy machinery in public is a good time to have fun. I'm
guessing you're one of them, too.
Really? You guess all that from one post?

That you think operating lethally dangerous machinery in public is "fun"?
Yes. You said so. That that's a stupid thing to think, and anyone who
wasn't caught up in this insane car culture would be constantly nervous
and careful when in a position where they were likely to kill or main
their fellow man? Yes, that too.

For much of my commute, the risk of me killing or maiming another soul
is low, often close to zero. Your abuse of 'Ace' does you no favours.

Luke


--
Red Rose Ramblings, the diary of an Essex boy in
exile in Lancashire http://www.shrimper.org.uk