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Comment by amrocha | Hacker News Reader

The vast majority of trips are taken by foot or bicycle where I am. Statistically speaking, YOU can do it too.

The fuck do you think “statistically speaking” actually means? Your anecdote of 1 does not a statistic make.

My "anecdote" is the fact that I live in Tokyo where we get extreme weather regularly and yet the vast majority of trips are taken by public transport, walking or biking.

Stop pretending the rest of the world is like Tokyo, it isn’t.

The rest of the world can be like Tokyo, that's the important part.

Weather is not a good enough reason for why we need cars in cities.

No, it’s can’t. Full stop, end of argument. You clearly are not well-traveled if you believe this.

Why not? What is so special about Tokyo/Japanese that it can’t be emulated?

I can’t bro, it’s not worth my time. Look it up.

I don’t even know what to look up.

You could start with a list of things the rest of the world would need in order to emulate Tokyo, which basically means turning the entire world into a walk-able city only involving the temperate band hf the planet. If you would like me to hold your hand though generating this list of material and labor costs, I'm not going to do that. If you want me to put on a PM hat and give you a sample schedule and estimated costs, I'm not going to do that either.

If you can't even figure out how to look up _anything_ about how to implement your plan, how the fuck do you expect it to ever become a reality?

This is nonsense. It will not happen.

You seem to not understand the point of this conversation. You admit Tokyo is a walkable city. And you think it’s impossible to convert existing infrastructure to be like Tokyo. The point of this conversation is existing infra is the way it is because of various influences and choices, some of which can be called “car culture.”

Car culture is not a foregone conclusion. Claiming 100% of the world has to be converted to Tokyo and if that is not possible then we should give up is hilarious. What an illogical, sad and pitiful argument/attitude. Cities are being changed every day, and those ongoing investments can be made to make cities more car dependent or not.

Not to mention there are A Lot of cities more dependent on cars than lots of other cities many with nearly identical climates. Tokyo isn’t the only one lol. It’s not some magical unicorn.

> The rest of the world can be like Tokyo, that's the important part.

Someone else said this. This isn't possible. Stop.

I agree that thinking the entire world could be replaced with Tokyo style infrastructure is incredibly unreasonable. But that’s a very fringe idea. And rejecting the rest of the conversation from that and thinking the entire conversation is about that just as silly. And frankly you haven’t even been able to engage enough to understand what they mean by it. For all you know they mean something much more reasonable than you’re imagining, but you’re so quick to jump to thought terminating cliches you can’t have a productive conversation. I don’t know why you bother to participate if you won’t participate. Try being curious and finding common ground, you might learn something.

Guess you ran out of arguments? Hahaha

> The fuck do you think “statistically speaking” actually means?

I think it means "The vast majority of trips are taken by foot or bicycle where I am." Which was, from another (very) nearby comment, Tokyo.

> Your anecdote of 1 does not a statistic make.

No, but the vast majority of trips in Tokyo does.

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