partisan rant so I've been listening to republicans on Bill Maher's show lately alright→[More:]

man how defeatist about everything on the planet can you get? nothing can be done about anything cause it's already there and when you do want to do something about it, it's too expensive and we're broke so let's not do it. except the reason you're broke is cause nothing's being done and everything's too inefficient!

I just don't understand arguments like "X amount of people go to places in a car so let's not make alternative transport available cause they already do." Like.. the reason they go in a car is cause all the systems and choices laid out for them default to using the car. Subsidies. Reshaping of cities. Legacy industries. Advertising. Social convention. Blah blah blah. A century's worth of allathat. The reason things happen is because there is a structure in the world, an arbitrary social structure that makes them happen. That structure informs our individual choices however subconsciously so said choices don't exist in a vacuum. What this means is when you change structures and incentives and beliefs, then voila, behavior changes. How sad a worldview is it to not understand that?

This guy PJ O Rourke was on and he said something like "tell billions of Chinese that they can't have a Buick and 1.3 billion Indians they can't have a toaster oven." Are you bleeping kidding me man? Nobody wants your wack-ass Buicks. We want post-green-revolution farming techniques and post-gas-guzzling era cars. Indians like breathing too! Dumbass