— Mister Gotcha (https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/)
That was not what he said. He was quite clear in making a personal decision. There was no force on anyone to make that same decision. That you are reading that into it might say more about the way you think :)
What's the point in saying: "But you do some unrelated thing???"
Is the argument that there's no point in making a small difference, it's only worth it if you're 100% ideologically pure?
Because I don't see where road deaths and microplastics in local rivers come into owning a computer.
The reality is almost all of modern technology, materials, tools, and life have huge externalities. Us being alive consuming resources and emitting green house gases further pushes us towards terrible climate changes, while taking away space from nature before us.
It just feels very arbitrary to stop at personal car ownership but maintain the benefits of all other externalities. Perhaps the OP also has many other resists to modern life under ethical guise. The computer is the one known exception here.
Yes, it's incredibly arbitrary because cars don't suffer from low density development patterns. They don't cause pollution. They also don't cost a significant amount of money and this also doesn't force less well off people to get expensive leases because everyone buys low end cars. The tax burden of suburbia is absolutely insignificant. The fact that you have more roads per resident decreases the tax burden significantly. Their only fatal flaw is that new developments aren't funded by the federal government and private developers. Thanks to cars and suburbia municipalities are swimming in cash and never have to worry about their finances.
We should ban bicycles and pedestrian paths. Everyone should drive, even children. This is the future.
Making a choice not to buy a car makes a measurable impact.
It's not a gotcha to say that they partake in society.
By your logic, it'd be arbitrary to safely dispose of motor oil instead of conveniently dumping it into the local park's pond.
It stops feeling like that once you replace assumptions with numbers.