• Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 days ago
    • Yes. Yes. We played video games or read books or had to have our parents drive us to a park or walked the whole way (no sidewalks) there.

    • Because our officials are incompetent. Yes. Yes.

    • See above on lobbying from oil and car companies.

    • Because the word “commie” is scary to Americans from decades of indoctrination and the “nuclear family” having their own home is the biggest lie in the “American Dream.”

    • Because of zoning laws. Refer to the above about incompetent officials. Yep, it is simply not possible and legal.

    • Americans care way more about appearances than actually having things be useful. What can I say, we’re fucking coddled.

    Hope this helps. It’s valid to still be baffled at such.

    • minnow@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      incompetent

      No, malicious. Racist in fact.

      Suburbs were intentionally designed to be hostile to families without a car. This created a financial barrier to living in the suburbs, organically weeding out “undesirable” (aka non-white) families. Yes this also meant that many white families also couldn’t afford to move to the suburbs, but that was a downside the rich white racists were willing to accept if it meant keeping most non-white families out.

      • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 days ago

        You’re absolutely right but I’m also gonna go out on a limb and say malicious/racist and incompetent are not mutually exclusive from one another.

        • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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          2 days ago

          They are not but this incompetence angle ignores a more likely scenario: corruption

          But people in us sleep better when we say:

          don’t atribute malice when incompetence will do

          Yeah sure but this big money and when there is money, there is corruption

          This the hill I will die on.

          • otp@sh.itjust.works
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            2 days ago

            Then literally everything bad involving people becomes a conspiracy theory

            • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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              23 hours ago

              Yes, Capitalism is a big conspiracy involving the capitalist class conspiring against the working class. Look at their class interests. They are and have always been quietly waging a class war.

              • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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                20 hours ago

                Amen…

                They are still living in the world where a good rich daddy guiding the country to a prosperous future…

                ADULT FUCKING MEN LARP THIS SHIT

                🤡

            • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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              2 days ago

              Well you see if this information was easily accessible online and we could review it then we would be able to tell what is going on buy government contracting while pretending to be transparent is hardly “open source”

              So taking tech analogy unless I can inspection the code or people smarter, why would I assume it is not malicious?

              So while I can’t claim that every government contract has corruption attached boy any close inspection surely always yields something, it is part of colloquial speech re “efficiency” of government contracting is always bring mocked but the people can’t reach a logical conclusion here.

              I am just positing that based on circumstantial evidence this is how corruption would look like.

              Sure they tell telsa get some money to do something but we don’t get the terms and conditions and performance unless some shit really got botched

      • Sergio@slrpnk.net
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        2 days ago

        many white families also couldn’t afford to move to the suburbs, but that was a downside the rich white racists were willing to accept

        I think this was a feature, not a downside. (I agree with the rest of your post tho)

    • Wrufieotnak@feddit.org
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      2 days ago
      • Americans care way more about appearances than actually having things be useful. What can I say, we’re fucking coddled.

      But that is the strange part to me: its appearance is awful. A big garden full of plants is much nicer looking than only grass.

      • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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        1 day ago

        So many Americans get rock hard about their lawns, and demand that everyone else does as well. There is no logic to it

        • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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          23 hours ago

          Two pet theories I have about this

          1. it is profitable for big chemical companies and whatever lobby makes the lawnmowers and weed whackers for everyone to have these big lawns that need to be maintained via mowing and pesticides. There are breeds other than bluegrass that don’t grow that tall, chiefly buffalo grass, with deeper roots that make it generally more healthy, less patchy, less susceptible to weeds, etc.

          2. It is convenient for the ruling class that we have to do all this maintenance individually, leaving us less time (and wealth) to organize and build community/alternative modes of governance. Divide and conquer and all that.

          OK I lied here’s a 3rd:

          1. Western society is pretty much defined by our need to control nature/the world around us in outright denial of any consequences that might arise from doing so.
        • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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          1 day ago

          The logic is that they are modeling how the rich maintained their houses in england …

          So they want to do it in Arizona and Florida and Texas because they are clearly on the same boat as an inbred English nobility

        • That Annoying Vegan@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          15 hours ago

          I saw a case of a guy who was being prosecuted for having unruly lawn. The kicker? He was elderly with cancer, and his son used to do it, but he went away for a while and no one was doing it. The judge said, and I quote: “You should be ashamed of yourself. If i could give you jail time, I would. Why should the neighbours have to look at that?”. HE WAS ELDERLY AND CANCER RIDDLED.