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Posted by: Qbix89
Talking about Sweden is an ultrabannable offense.
Posted by: Achronos
Too bad being completely and utterly wrong isn't a bannable offense.
Do you Americans even include global geography as a subject in your education?
Tell me, objectively, the positives and negatives to a walking cities under the criteria of social, economic, environmental and political impacts. That's how they taught me to evaluate proposals in geography class and you damn well better learn how to do it yourself.
Same with bureaucracies, same with spending money on third world nations, same with increased national parks, same with all your points.
The Earth is not an infinite well of unlimited resources. If we don't get our -blam!- together and start acting in ways that will make it last, someday, in the far future, those resources are going to run out. And what then?
Is that a burden you want to put on your children? Your grandchildren? Your great grandchildren? Their great grandchildren?
Here's a word to mull over: Sustainability. Its definition:
Fulfilling the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to fulfil their needs.
Are we living in a sustainable world? Short answer: no.
Long answer: definitely no.
Let me give you an example: Australia. My country of residence and my country of expertise. Australia is not a sustainable society. We are using up our resources at an incredible rate, so much so that we are in fact an overcrowded nation. This continent is not able to support our current societal model, due to high consumption of resources.
But your country is so big! I hear you yell. 70% of the country is arid desert. It doesn't produce drinking water, food, resources, anything. It's a big bloody great expanse of absolutely -blam!- all. The water isn't drinkable, you can't graze animals on it, you can't grow crops on it. We mine what we find but eventually that will run out.
Due to poor farming practices of the past, we are running out of land to farm on. I'm sure you Americans are familiar with the 'dust bowl'? It's happening here. The large amounts of cattle are stomping up the dry earth, and when it rains, all that rich topsoil is washed away down the river. Without that topsoil, grass can't grow, and without that grass, cows can't eat.
Due to overuse of our main water catchments, we are running out of water. Farmers pull water out of the Murray River for irrigation. Grazers pull water out of the Murray River to water their livestock. Three capital cities, with up to five million people combined, not including the many hundred thousands living in the country side, have to drink that water every day. Not only that, but pesticides, poisons, and farming chemicals get washed into this same river during times of rain. The drinking water of five million people has to be filtered, cleaned, distilled and more to make it drinkable.
Adelaide, the capital city at the end of the Murray, is coincidentally notorious for its dirty foul tasting tap water.
WE'VE GOT SO MUCH CATTLE IN THIS COUNTRY THAT OUR ECOSYSTEM IS DYING BECAUSE OF IT.
That is not the model of a sustainable society. -blam!- rabbits, introduced in the 1800s, have turned lush grassland that stretched for thousands of kilometres in to sandy desert. They ate all the grass, over competed the native species, and have caused ecological collapse all throughout south-east Australia.
So tell me, why is it that banning cars in urban areas is a bad thing?
Rezoning suburban sprawl into natural forest parks, why is that a disgusting idea?
Why is the concept of a walking city so abhorrent? Everything you would ever need would be in walking or train ride distance.
Why is it that the collective must suffer so that the individual can get stronger? Why must the weak become weaker so that the strong become stronger? Why must the weak starve and die so that the strong can live until they're a hundred?
Why is the third world not deserving of a comfortable life?