But a police officer can stop your car _right now_ if your passenger-side taillight is broken and then search your vehicle for a variety of things. So many marijuana related arrests have happened exactly this way. With license plate scanners and chips being embedded into cars, the ability to be pervasively tracked in a car is more apparent than ever. In contrast, walking or biking doesn't require registration or licensing by the government.

(As silly as I thought the movie was, the protagonist of the first Jack Reacher movie took the bus everywhere specifically so the government had no records on him, so the idea certainly isn't lost in popular culture either.)

Arguments like this ignore the billions of dollars that maintain and create highways, roads, parking lots that the government already invests in. The blindspot regarding this "freedom" which apparently to some people exists magically is astounding.

The government created the current layout of cities by building highways and making laws and regulations that birthed the city structure we have today. It did not develop organically.

The let me astound you even more that there also exist such things as off-road vehicles, natural roads (think of countries like SA or AUS), and that .gov cannot just bomb all it's roads away in an instant, like they could stop all trains and most flights.

But most people don’t drive off-road vehicles anyway, so redesigning cities to prioritize trains over minivans does nothing to increase the population’s dependence on government infrastructure. The minivans won’t work without the roads the government built either.

an interesting point but such a quintessentially american mindset imo. This thing could potentially used wrong so let's build in all kinds of hedges and failsafes; our freedoms could be impinged in these edge cases so this is a no go, etc.

cannot help but lament the inefficiency and stagnation arising from this culture of distrust

Sorry to the American folks here, this might sound offensive, but I agree with bllguo. As an European colechchristensen's point of view feels alien.

I'd argue that for the average European this kind of comment would seem paranoid bordering on insane.

I guess some cultural differences are found way deeper than you'd expect.

The European point of view about the whole "government opression" thing is that you don't fight tyranny with guns and cars (LOL), but with a population educated about the benefits of democracy. If you've lost the people, nothing can save you.

on the cultural differences.. I've always loved the saying: Europeans see 100km as a long distance, while Americans/Australians see 100 years as a long time.

Well, 100 km is next door when there's a direct rail line and when discussing with my granparents, 100 years is a long time. I get what you mean though

> This thing could potentially used wrong so let's build in all kinds of hedges and failsafes

Lmfao if anything this is a super European mindset. Does this not remind you of another hot button issue? (hint: GUNS)

> If you only have your feet and public transit you are very limited to distance and location and tracking movements is an easy feature of the system.

I don't know about you, but I feel like if you're trying to avoid being tracked driving around in a large shiny vehicle with a uniquely identifying number mounted on the front and back seems to be about the worst thing you could do.

> A car grants a whole lot of freedom that many progressive people are really excited to give away.

A car grants dependence on a long supply chain (oil drilling, shipping, processing, storage) of fuel that the government can easily sever. Not only are you dependent on the supply chain but you are dependent on the government and foreign governments to maintain it.

If you really want to be a freedom loving, rugged individualist then you'd get an off road capable bike or a horse.

The US has had gas shortages and gas rationing several times within living memory. Maybe you should take up long-distance bicycling?

Yeah, everyone on this site seems really eager to move to Mega-City One.

You think if Hong Kongers had cars it would save their city from being taken by the Chinese Communist Party?

Not even necessarily without cars... imagine if you could sell the populous on a car with limited range that took ages to fill back up. If they were gullible enough, you could probably even sell it at a premium. What a wonderful stepping stone to the post freedom era.

Yes, if only said car had some other benefit, like being cheaper to run and maintain.

Imagine if the same car had more than enough range for 95% of people's travel and could be filled up at home for a fraction of the cost. Finally, imagine if there was some other indirect benefit, like helping stop the world burn.

What a dystopian nightmare.

Sadly your snippy little comment doesn't make them any better. They cost more, don't go as far, take longer to refill, and do very little to help stop the world burning. If people need to head to the capital to protest or whatever, electric vehicles make that demonstrably more difficult. There is nothing about them that gives their owners more freedom than they have now. We are definitely in a golden age of freedom, and electric cars are just another method in which that will be chipped away.