Bicycles are the best machine from the industrial revolution. Quiet, healthy, efficient, harmonious with our sensibilities. I think it is precisely these aspirational qualities that is enraging the morlocks in their cars (speaking for US only now, it's better in other countries). A bicycle is a shameful reminder of the virtuous path not taken.
Remember back in the 1970s; if you ever saw anything on the news about China, it would feature rank upon rank of cyclists pouring through Peking's great thoroughfares, with nary a motor vehicle in sight. We all laughed at how backward they were.
Now we'd view a similar scene from any major city in the world as signs of a great environmental advance.
Sadly china embraced 'modernity' and they literally just used the single worst ideas from urban design and traffic engineering.
They went with single use superblocks connected by highways. A terrible system in so many ways.
Thankfully they protected some of the old city centers and those still have the beautiful chinese urbanism.
Thankfully, leadership in China has realized that they really fucked up. Sometimes when building the 5 ring road highway that is clogged you start to rethink the problem. Funny enough by turning to Western New Urbanism:
Single use superblocks? Most Korean/Chinese apartment block regions feature multi-use (without industrial) and do it very well, incorporating commercial slots surrounded by a throng of greenery and apartment blocks for residents, with nearby lower-density, medium-density housing.
Got any examples of China? Because Koreans follow density principles extremely well.
Interesting. I've seen some videos of the empty apartment blocks with small empty commercial areas below them.
Actually, now that I think about it. Korea is actually migrating towards a more Chinese vibe (I call it Americanisation of their planning) where they build the buildings super far apart and make it all way less walkable but still bikeable.
The city I refer to that recently disappointed me and is brand new in Korea is Dongtan, take a look if you get a chance. I think Korea has slipped down the slippery slope unfortunately. Either that or they just haven't filled in the lines yet, but I doubt that. It's just more car-centric.
Things built 5-10 years ago weren't like this, but then neither was the car status symbol race.
>Bicycles are the best machine from the industrial revolution. Quiet, healthy, efficient, harmonious with our sensibilities. I think it is precisely these aspirational qualities that is enraging the morlocks in their cars (speaking for US only now, it's better in other countries). A bicycle is a shameful reminder of the virtuous path not taken.
The power loom?
The electrical generator?
The steam engine?
The telegraph?
The bicycle is a "nice to have" latecomer that can only exist in a world which is already somewhat industrialized.
lol way to miss the point. Hyperbole is a rhetorical device to emphasize a point.
I'm so tired of the internet.
Anyway, yes, let me revise, bicycles are the best invention, of ALL TIME!
Power loom: ushered in capitalist mode of production, alienating us from our labor.
Electrical generator: it's cool I guess.
Steam engine: start of the fetishization of the engineering aesthetic. Awful. Only redeeming quality is that it gave us steam punk fiction 200 years later.
Telegraph: instant communication is way overrated.
Your "hyperbole" was solidly within the fat part of the bell curve of "what people of your bent say unironically". You don't get to say you were just pretending when it's called out for being absurd.
Also, poe's law is very relevant here.
>ower loom: ushered in capitalist mode of production, alienating us from our labor. Electrical generator: it's cool I guess. Steam engine: start of the fetishization of the engineering aesthetic. Awful. Only redeeming quality is that it gave us steam punk fiction 200 years later. Telegraph: instant communication is way overrated.
Once again, it's not whimsical hyperbole when there's no shortage of people saying more or less exactly the same thing unironically.
Fair enough. I am certainly of that bent, and proud (ie. smug if you prefer) about it.
I don't see irony and hyperbole as equivalent though. I am serious that bicycles are an excellent invention, certainly in the context of personal mobility, most certainly contrasted with horrid technology like cars. So unironic in that sense. But certainly hyperbole, as in, "best" invention, that's hard to determine. There's millions of axes on which to judge inventions, can't really put them all on a single line, and find "good, better, best".
> no shortage of people saying more or less exactly the same thing unironically
I was joking, doubling down on the original premise of exaggeration, I thought that was obvious.
