Work by Ron Cobb
Alternative opinion:
Car companies should stop making normal cars and instead only make hardcore vehicles. I’m talking race cars that are challenging and uncomfortable to drive.
manual only, aggressive clutches, loud gears, stiff suspension, non-adjustable seat, no heat, no ac, no radio, etc.
Then while they’re making this change we expand the shit out of mass transport and infrastructure!
I can assure you that nobody wants to daily drive my race car. lol
I want all of those things. I can assure you, I want to drive a V8 loud as fuck, manual thick clutched, wide tired, non AC, non radio, rear wheel drive, fucking street menace of a vehicle.
But I also want an absolute rehaul of our infrastructure to include high speed rail for the entire country, and comprehensive pricing that is subsidized by the government with my tax money and provided for free if I need it.
I’ve always wanted to do this in video form - have a montage of heroic car ads that just crossfade together with tons of shots of those gas guzzlers sitting at red lights and in traffic.
I feel like a more accurate (though much less catchy) name for this community would be !fuckcarcentricsociety. Cars are awesome! They’re fun to drive, feats of engineering, and in the right conditions like a rollercoaster without tracks. They just fucking suck when they’re practically required to live. I’m as big a proponent for public transit, you shouldn’t need a car to get to your job or grocery store, but you can’t look at something like F1 and say that’s not exhilarating.
It’s not even car centric in the US or you would have way more roundabouts instead of traffic lights.
I don’t know what the US is, but it’s shitty for everyone, including cars. The difference is, that cars are comfortable to sit in, but the actual driving is a nightmare compared to Europe. (And walking half a mile in the summer sun from the car to the stadium on a concrete parking lot should be attributed to car centric infrastructure too).
but you can’t look at something like F1 and say that’s not exhilarating.
strong disagree. perhaps in the 60s and 70s - before we understood that ICE was spewing carbon dioxide and ruining the ecosystem sure.
Today? F1 is a fucking travesty - rich assholes burning crazy amounts of fuel to speed around in circles taking more from future generations every fucking lap.
If it were all electric powered by renewable resources harvested nearby I’d have less of an issue, but anything combusting is a giant middle finger to your own children. “Sorry skippy, even we knew, we still didn’t give a fuck to stop the silly games.”
Today? F1 is a fucking travesty - rich assholes burning crazy amounts of fuel to speed around in circles taking more from future generations every fucking lap.
While I don’t disagree that spectating races is boring, the amount of CO2 those put out pale in comparison to commutator traffic or the container ships running bunker fuel. We could have EV races and if each manufacturer entered their base models, could help with adoption. We could also make the ICE races run biogas(methane from antibiotic digesters) or biodiesel(tractor pulls could easily adopt that with only a small lowering of performance that all the tractors would share).
but anything combusting is a giant middle finger to your own children.
All consumption is.
All consumption is.
consumption for production is one thing, entirely optional, benefitting only one party entertainment coming at the cost of everyone else?
that’s a dick move.
I agree the environmental impacts are certainly an issue, but the emissions from the sport alone aren’t that bad, the worst is from all the travel done on private jets between locations. They’ve also done some work towards being more eco-friendly. The cars run hybrid V6s instead of V10s and by 2026 will use fully renewable biofuel. There’s also Formula E, which is an entirely electric motorsport.
There’s just some things an ICU can do that an electric motor can’t. It’s simply impossible to get the same amount of power as an F1 car from purely electric propulsion at the same weight.
so you know it’s a problem, you know the sport’s total footprint is the cause, you even point out THEY know it’s wretched and are making half hearted efforts to someday maybe do something.
but you give them your attention.
There’s just some things an ICU can do that an electric motor can’t.
but it’s entertainment, not some mission critical life saving thing, it’s to watch cars go fast driving in circles.
fuck me, our civilization deserves to collapse.
1969 and it is still relevant.
How I felt last week in my busted up 350k miles shitbox when there was a Lamborghini and Ferrari beside me crawling through traffic. Even once we were out of gridlock their average speed was probably the exact same as mine. My car costs probably 500 dollars and there’s cost literally a 1000 times more than that. Made me feel good. Also made me feel like ramming them just because
As it turns out, road speed is limited by laws, safety and traffic, not the HP of your car engine.
