1d ago

Any analaysis or discussion about the mechanisms of conspiracy theories that does not include carbrain is worthless

There is an incredible amount of conspiracy theories surrounding cars and whenever the discussion or analysis of how in gods name did we get to so many people believing in them so many smart people do a lot of thinking and just entirely blank what, to me, is the most obvious entrypoint for this sort of thing.

I'm not talking about the crank shit that is also car, like the idea that the jewish lizard people are hiding the water based engine that can drive around the earth on 500ml of liquid here, but the explicitly carbrained ones that never seem to be called out as conspiracy theories despite hitting all the marks.

How many people do you know that think whatever the authority on traffic light timings is just making them bad on purpose to annoy every car driver? Like there's a big red "make car traffic flow good" button in the central control unit everybody involved just refuses to press or even talk about despite literally every document around this topic clearly lining out how they're optimizing all this shit for optimal car throughput at every turn?

The idea that there isn't enough parking that goes full steam into being aggrieved about not being able to park in the 4th dimension because you can't park 5 cars directly infront of a storefront that's about one car wide and somehow this is again the doing of the shadowy cabal that runs the municipality to annoy every car driver.

The idea that for some unbeknownst reason every western government is in cahoots to build roads like shit so they deterioate within a year or two, on purpose, to...annoy car drivers, again.

The idea that one more lane will fix it, where there is a magic solution to congestion, despite that having never worked, decades of scientific evidence that it doesn't and also again begs the question as how do you figure every level of government everywhere just refuses to do the one magic thing that fixes it all.

Your average carbrain sits at a traffic light, see's people go the other way and figures the government is gangstalking him, specifically. The reasons entirely unclear, but some sort of entity out there is dead set on making you miserable by making you wait. That's the common thread here, it's being annoyed and then figuring out this is targeting you, specifically, completely ignoring how much the built enviroment you're using is made to serve the cars despite all the very much published evidence around it and instead believing there's some conspiracy going on that hides the magic solution that would make it all better. It's all conspiracy theories, except enough people believe in them that it's just mainstream politics now. Wonder where else we might find this phenomenon.

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There’s a pretty lib documentary, The Brainwashing of My Dad, that aligns with some of the things you’re saying. Basically the filmmaker’s father used to be an apolitical democrat until he took a job that required a much longer commute. Now he’s fascist. There’s a lot of missing dominoes in that transformation, but the longer commute was one of the biggest factors.
- might've started listening to right wing radio stations during the commute
  
  i dont think it's just right wing radio stations...left wing ones flat out don't exist and "centrist" ones like npr is so radically committed to both sidesism that they will let any crank talk unchallenged
  
  That was what the bulk of documentary was about.
- Joke’s on him, to be apolitical in a fascist dictatorship is to be a fascist.
- Is it a longer commute or the desecration of his "free time" and there alienation from his labor therefore?
  
  It's the AM radio being piped into every car, longer commute = more propaganda exposure

I'll be honest I've never heard anyone make any of the claims you've given as examples
- all real life examples, but you can find these people in any given citys subreddit or facebook group
  
  I simply don't use Facebook or Reddit

I read an interesting book recently- "Paved Paradise"- that basically blamed a lot of urban planning problems on there being too high mandates for parking:
Density is lowered by demanding an ocean of parking lot for apartment buildings and public facilities even when the spaces are empty most of the time.
Free parking tends to hinder urban businesses as non-customers occupy limited free spots in front of shops
Emissions and frustration trying to find affordable/optimal parking
Public parking can become a flashpoint for NIMBYism (they're taking valuable parking spaces to huild houees)
Economic mismanagement as paid parking becomes an asset that cities can privatize or misprice.
Annoverall fear of chang making the cluster--- worse somehow.

- It's impossible to formulate some sort of working definition of what a conspiracy theory is that includes all the ones that are usually accepted as such outside of their believers and proponents and does not include very common grievances of car drivers and their theories as to why things are like that. Yet, whenever the rise of conspiracy theories is brought up that part gets entirely excluded from the topic.
  It's functionally no different to think that somehow every municipality purposefully fucks up the timings of traffic lights and has for decades, entirely in secret and in opposition to what their published works show and to no clear benefit to anyone than it is to think the US faked the moonlanding, but the latter is a conspiracy theory and the first one is just a respectable normal opinion (TM).
  
  Ides of March has returned

cars are freedom

How many people do you know that think whatever the authority on traffic light timings is just making them bad on purpose to annoy every car driver?
This one is true through, Mr Traffic Light is a comrade who is trying to destroy our car based society and replace it with robust public transport.

Most of these seem like people venting frustrations without much thought
- This refusal to think about it is what starts people down the conspiracy theory path though, even removed from the carbrain, but also definitely there. Many conspiracy theories and their proponents start somewhere somewhat sane, pharmaceutical companies do bad shit, the government does not care for you etc. but then it goes off the rails from there as they refuse to interrogate the situation and instead just figure it's the jews, the lizards, the jewish lizards or such that are gaining from this somehow, in some way, even if it is entirely unclear how that would happen
  EDIT: Look at any number of tabloids here that help people along, they're all very big on the sort of "THE ELITE CYCLIST MOB IS CAUSING CONGESTION SO YOU DON'T SEE YOUR KIDS AS MUCH" which is of course supposed to make everything more car centric so friends of rupert murdoch can sell oil and/or cars but if you do not realize any of this there's your idea of the shadowy cabal that fucks up traffic presented on a silver platter, albeit at least with a clear recipient of benefits within the scenario

Okay but there’s a four-way intersection in my commute which is usually green throughout the fall, winter, and spring, but when the tourists arrive for the summer, it’s red constantly because one of the adjoining roads leads directly to a campground that is only open during the summer. This causes incredible amounts of traffic. Answer me that, lib!
Also fuck cars.
- yeah this "it's car brain, stupid" shit like this
  How many people do you know that think whatever the authority on traffic light timings is just making them bad on purpose to annoy every car driver? Like there's a big red "make car traffic flow good" button in the central control unit everybody involved just refuses to press or even talk about despite literally every document around this topic clearly lining out how they're optimizing all this shit for optimal car throughput at every turn?
  Like sorry but no, there are 100% lights that are improperly timed or with shitty (or no) sensors that fuck up traffic for no fucking reason. There are TWO lights immediately on the only road into or out of my town that are set up on some shitty timer so they'll literally turn red for nobody, and stay red for no reason.
  It's not some grand fuckinv conspiracy but it's definitely annoying, sorry I don't relish sitting in my car for a second longer than I have to because the city im in has shitty planners, OP
  P.s. im pretty sure highway traffic congestion would be solved if they simply summarily executed all drivers in the left lane who are not actively passing, boom no need for more lanes ever again
- this is not making traffic worse for no reason, it's just prioritizing tourists over residents
  
  Okay well it’s a bad reason, they should press the magic button that makes things better for me.

How many people do you know that think whatever the authority on traffic light timings is just making them bad on purpose to annoy every car driver?
tbh this did happen near me with a new light on some shitty high-traffic stroad but obviously it was fixed within 3-4 days and then it was just regular (bad) traffic instead of insanely bad traffic
most of these "conspiracies" are based in something but people are just too alienated from everything to make connections beyond just "government make my car-driving bad". like the western governments making roads bad on purpose - it's because they contract it out to shitty EPCs to build the road on the lowest budget but somehow it is purposeful instead of just capitalist municipality doing capitalism stuff.
- tbh this did happen near me with a new light on some shitty high-traffic stroad but obviously it was fixed within 3-4 days and then it was just regular (bad) traffic instead of insanely bad traffic
  wake up sheeple they just did this to placate you. they've pressed the big salmon "make car traffic slightly better" button so they don't have to press the red one
  most of these "conspiracies" are based in something but people are just too alienated from everything to make connections beyond just "government make my car-driving bad". like the western governments making roads bad on purpose - it's because they contract it out to shitty EPCs to build the road on the lowest budget but somehow it is purposeful instead of just capitalist municipality doing capitalism stuff.
  I think most conspiracies are based in something and then just going into odd directions with it, barring some of the really crank shit or the idiosyncretic stuff like the timecube or the pepsi logo design charta.
  Also roads keep being used more and by heavier vehicles due to population and car growth and road wear scales on the 4th potency with axle weight. The 1955 Chevy Bel Air was apparently the most popular car back then and that clocks in at 1,6 tons. Sure theoretically you could build everything to like highway standards, except of course you can't unless your entire nations project is to built good roads and have literally no economy or services since all the money's used up. Everywhere is basically bankrupting themselves on the current standard already.

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