pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 35mOnly about 100 people killed by cars each day in the US. It's not like they're being killed by immigrants, which would be a crisis. It's just by cars. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 2hSure. Tell politicians to stop designing every community to require private car use, and stop using hundreds of billions of public dollars each year to subsidize that private car use, so that people have an actual free choice about how they move around their communities. That would help here. 020
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 23hCars do have uses. But their use in US society far far outstrips the need. And the key reason is that the government requires every community be built to the preferred size of cars, then tricks folks by vastly subsidizing what they pay to use them. We could just demand politicians stop doing that. 050
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 23hI'm thinking of buying a 747 because I might need to fly to LA next year. 0130
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 12/10/2026Such fun that Americans are buying motor vehicles so unnecessarily enormous that children get killed under them -- www.nsc.org/road/resourc... -- and the mass media celebrates them for it. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 12/10/2026These motorized machines reflect a society try to cope with communities spread out to the size of cars, without insisting the government stop requiring that every community be built to the size of cars. The obvious answer is to insist the government end that hugely expensive undemocratic mandate. 060
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 11/10/2026As a critique of schlocky theater OK. But let's not forget the value of a society that is fundamentally thoughtful, careful and considerate. And the relationship between the stories we share and celebrate, and our communal well-being. Maybe the complaint here could be about quality not compassion. 020
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 10/10/2026Yes. And the tragedy is that it takes an exchange this bluntly direct for Americans to question the fundamental wisdom of the government, on a bipartisan basis, designing every single US community to require private vehicles for every human movement in their lives. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 10/10/2026Yes about 40,000 deaths a year in the US. But as hidden as that constant toll is, the non-road carnage is far far higher, news.mit.edu/2013/study-a... while politicians of both parties are pleading to increase their subsidization www.cnbc.com/2026/10/09/t... and www.boston25news.com/news/local/g...boston25news.comGov. Healey moves to suspend Massachusetts gas tax amid skyrocketing fuel pricesHealey says new legislation will slash gas prices by 24 cents per gallon statewide for two months. 110
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 10/10/2026The licensing issue is important. But the actual problem is the government forcibly designing every single community to require private vehicle use as the norm. Few people can drive competently -- www.npr.org/2026/10/05/n... -- so the US norm has become one of giving everyone a license regardless.npr.orgWith parallel parking turning competitive, one producer gets a lessonPhiladelphia held a parallel parking competition, and crowned Mario Zucca the winner after three rounds of challenges. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 09/10/2026Oh that's just a tiny fraction of the thefts from your life -- in time, health, wealth, noise, sanity, humanity -- from the government requiring that every US community be built to require private car use, while aggressively hiding the losses by transferring the costs to other parts of our lives. 010
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 09/10/2026Does this technology also make them somehow fit in cities? Any less likely to kill people on the streets? Fundamentally less reliant on designing communities around their many needs, pushing people apart, or less requiring of massive taxpayer subsidies? Somehow magically affordable to people? 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 09/10/2026EVs are also louder than other transit options, just as deadly in crashes, just as physically impractical in many locations, requiring devastating mining practices, can't be charged in many locations, and are completely unaffordable for many people. Private cars require massive public subsidization. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 09/10/2026Example Number 5385 of why appeals to common sense and humanity will not work in transportation as long as everyone keeps utterly quiet about massive governmental subsidization of private motor vehicle use and keeps pretending that's just an odd happenstance of society that we all must work around. 010
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Ok fine. Sure. I don't know where this response is going. The point was not to waste any credibility on debatable critiques of krasnov when there's a zillion clear-cut ones. That's all. If that message just isn't getting through, despite repeated attempts, then so be it. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Funny you mention. I was thinking of buying one of these inflatable bouncy houses because the kids might want to use it some weekend next summer. 131
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 07/10/2026There's so many more important things out there. And yes, for what it's worth, his press folks have walked it back. See www.factcheck.org/2026/10/the-... for an explanation. It's just not worth that much mental energy. He's simply not capable of coherent sentences. 210
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 07/10/2026People are buying cars, of all kinds, because the government designs every community to require them, and hugely subsidizes their cost of operation. And our widening wealth divide means bigger cars for some, and no good transit options for others. Public funding for private transit is the error. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 07/10/2026That's not a fair summary. The study is www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... and it just says the cost struggle hasn't gotten a lot worse. It notes car use is mandated by government design decisions, that it's very expensive, especially for low-income folks, not even counting all the health harms. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 07/10/2026I realize sanewashing is a popular term these days, and for good reason. But contrary to that, I'm agreeing that's what he actually said, and just didn't say it correctly. He's just not coherent, and this one isn't worth the effort. He says and does enough crazy things without making a few more up. 100
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Crazy. Next thing, people will start describing motorized bikes as "e-bikes" just because the industry wants that, to try to help hide the fact that they're putting more and more motors everywhere, including on bike lanes, which were created for the very purpose of allowing us a break from motors. 030
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Nobody would put anything past him. Which is why this doesn't amount to much. He's not well. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 07/10/2026This really isn't worth a lot of time, but yes he did say it. It's also pretty clear he speaks quite poorly and was trying to suggest that attacking Iran somehow deterred attacks on those two cities. Cmon we need don't need to be distracted by poor phrasing when the guy is committing actual crimes. 110
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Both of you are correct. But hopefully this question can stop being an element of strategy. The umpires have proven that overall they are excellent. But they're human, and human element should be limited to the teams not the umpiring. End the experiment and just use the system. It works. 010
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Sorry can we have a little sanity here. The guy is insane, psychotic, hateful, racist, criminal, incoherent. And his words technically did say what is being suggested here. But it's pretty clear he was just saying an analogy backward. There's enough real genuine inhumanity without seeing it here. 210
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 06/10/2026The actual unsubsidized cost is far more, www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainab... meaning $6 is outright welfare. The crime is that buying such a subsidized poison matters so much to so many people, and both parties keep mandating community sizes that require such extreme concern for this pollutant. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Ok. And against people who use their products knowing now for decades the damage they cause? And against government leaders who, also knowing this for decades, continue to design communities to require its use and heavily subsidize its cost? 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Absolutely. The emergence of motorized vehicles leaves us to ask if they help solve the central problem of government forcibly requiring every single US community be designed to the deadly sizes of private motor vehicles, or further entrap those who can't afford cars. The answer is becoming clear. 010
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Oh, motorized bikes can be elitist too. Certainly not like cars. But not everybody can afford or ride a motorized vehicle, and the motor is fundamentally an admission that our government continues to build every US community spread so far apart that a motor feels virtually mandatory to most people. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 02/10/2026OK fun. But does this -- and the other posting with the baby -- really reflect an optimal way to design communities, or are these motorized bikes really just a crutch, sitting beyond the means of many, that accepts the reality of communities designed to the dimensions that make sense only for cars? 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Even Mamdani, who bravely and cleverly challenges orthodoxy all over the place, won't dare touch the US delusion that -- despite all evidence to contrary -- we must surrender all common sense to an establishment steeped in the spiritual fervor of car-first community design and public spending. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 01/10/2026This is one of the zillion questions that will remain distorted beyond comprehension as long as government keeps designing every US community to require personal motors and hugely subsidizing their costs. Motorized bikes aren't as dangerous as cars but they are dangerous and part of the compulsion. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Agree on all that. Plus the fact that AI, when not ambiguous, will keep changing its answer based on what it thinks you want based on your questions back. AI can do repetitive tasks but has no underlying sense or judgment. Camberville is decent, but relative to a terribly designed car-first nation. 010
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 29/09/2026If folks really badly want to live their lives inside super expensive metal boxes that whittle away their physical and mental capacities, ok whatever, but why is the government forcing everyone else to spend hundreds of billions of our public dollars every year to finance that personal decision? 130
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 29/09/2026There's lots of reasonable choices for how to live. The issue in the US is that the government forces people to live in a spread-out design that requires private cars to move around. It's a government mandate to use the most expensive, destructive and deadly way to move around. 110
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Who funds the car lobby? The government of course. It spends hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars a year building -- and regulatory muscle requiring -- car-only roads. It's a farce to suggest the resulting "demand" for cars reflects anything close to public opinion. Work to end the compulsion. 121
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Exactly. Just like Healey. Afraid to tell the truth, which is that we're all harmed, and the most vulnerable are harmed the worst, when politicians do everything possible to resuscitate a failed system of government massively subsidizing a structure of communities designed to require private cars. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Yes. And "rugged American individualism" is of course largely a farce, because getting everywhere by private motor vehicle, and making up reasons why extreme government subsidization of it must continue , is far more an act of government welfare dependency than any so-called Welfare Mom ever was. 110
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Good question. And ditto for motorized bikes or other "solutions" involving the government requiring all movement by personal motor. The government would save us piles on money and carnage if it stuck to the basic idea of using public money to assistant transportation modes that benefit the public. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 26/09/2026For sure. And not everybody can live spread far apart. The question for transit is why the government as a matter of policy is forcing every single community to be spread far apart, and then massively subsidizing a purely private mode of getting around, to the point of compelling its widespread use. 130
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 25/09/2026The price of cars and gasoline reflecting the actual cost of getting and using them sounds marvelous, creating essential market structures for consumer demand to match underlying affordability. And those huge numbers may approach accuracy. Food and housing, by comparison, are actual human needs. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Yes. Exactly. When killed by private motoring -- far far more likely than with any other mode -- people keep out of your pine box. 001
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 21/09/2026That's just a symptom. Stupid is the government using massive subsidization and extensive regulatory compulsion to force every single US city-town to require the use of personal private motor vehicles as their overwhelmingly most favored transportation mode regardless of any public benefit measure. 030
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 21/09/2026They're crowded but you can always putsch your way in. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 20/09/2026This is good, as long you understand that no part of private car use, including gasoline prices, reflect market demand. The government massively subsidizes all aspects of personal car use, forcing it on everyone. www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainab... and www.eesi.org/articles/vie... for instance. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Wouldn't know. The government effectively bans them here in the US. The country has about 19,000 cities and towns, and every single last one of them is forcibly designed to prioritize the use of private personal motor vehicles. The odds of that ratio coming up by pure chance are unfathomable. 000
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 19/09/2026The Europeans are probably doing something technologically impossible, like reserving public transportation money for public transportation. 060
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 17/09/2026So nice. As just one element of that today, www.npr.org/2026/09/17/n... shows how badly harmed we are by constant noise pollution. And usa.streetsblog.org/2026/09/17/t... shows how we've normalized and ignored that deadly behavior when it involves government-imposed car-first community design. 010
pbasken.bsky.social @pbasken.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Sure. Though we could use a break from the "socialism" in which the government spends hundreds of billions of dollars a year subsidizing personal private car use, spreading the cost to everyone regardless actual use. Perhaps reserve social spending for cases that generate actual public benefit? 000
