RE: re: Big and Fancy, More Pickups Displace Cars

I'd also like to throw in the notion of "The Commons".  Any Europeans on the list would understand what I'm
talking about.  It started out that a community could share a common piece of land to graze their
sheep/cattle/wombats.  It is everyone's responsibility to not overuse the commons.  One commoner gets
the short-sighted idea that he could double his flock and get double the economic benefit at no cost to him. 
His neighbour thinks the same thing and soon everyone is overusing the commons.

For the longer version: http://dieoff.org/page95.htm <http://dieoff.org/page95.htm> 

Now equate "The Commons" with "The Road System" and "Economic Benefit" with "Sense of Security" and
"Mobility".  Now the SUV driver is the commoner who has doubled his flock because no one told him he
couldn't.  And the other "commoners" feel they need SUVs too just to regain their "sense of security".  The
commons gets overuse-gridlocked traffic jams.

Now shine a light into that gloom.  There are efforts underway to "reclaim the commons".  The one we are
familiar with is "street reclamation"-farmers markets, traffic calmed street, pedestrian malls.  In a
seemingly unrelated way "intellectual commons" in computers are being reclaimed by the Open Source
movement (Linux the most famous example).

For the story on Open Source read "Cathedral and the Bazaar":
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue3_3/raymond/index.html
<http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue3_3/raymond/index.html> 

We can win if we just believe.  Even in the face of SUVs, the oil wars and North American hyper-mobility we can
reclaim the commons.

-----Original Message-----
From: greenjeans43606 [mailto:slwirz777@...] 
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 7:18 AM
To: CarFree@...
Subject: Re: [CF] re: Big and Fancy, More Pickups Displace Cars

What's also interesting (and discouraging) about the behemoth SUV / 
monster pick-up craze is that it's having a "trickle-down" effect on 
many other people.  I read an article a few months back (sorry, 
don't have the URL) about how people who drive regular sedans feel 
intimidated by all the pick-ups/SUVs on the road.  Their solution?  
Buy hopped-up sedans that have over 250 horsepower, etc. so they can 
compete with the big boys.  All of which continues to add to our oil 
dependence....

Are any of you familiar with the game Prisoners Dilemma?  I remember 
playing it as part of a political science course in college, and I 
see the exact same principle at work here.  In P.D., the players 
(or "prisoners," if you will) have two options: Cooperate or 
Compete.  No one knows what the others have chosen until they've 
written down their choice beforehand.  Anyway, if everyone chooses 
to cooperate, everyone wins a little.  If everyone chooses to 
compete (or not cooperate), everyone loses a little. But if some 
cooperate and some compete, the ones who chose to compete gain big 
and the ones who chose to cooperate lose big.

The same thing is at work with the politics of vehicles on the 
road.  Those who choose the big SUVs and pick-ups gain safety 
advantages over everyone else.  On the next round, those who chose 
the less safe sedans are choosing "not to cooperate" this time 
around, will act in their own rational self-interest out of fear, 
and buy hopped-up sedans instead.  The result?  Even though everyone 
has acted in their own self-interest, the roads are now more 
perilous for everyone.

As a final thought, I don't think you can underestimate the 
psychological influence that fear has on people, especially here in 
the USA.  We seem to live in fear of everything around here: fear of 
death, fear of failure, fear of government, fear of terrorism, fear 
of germs, fear of people who are "different"....and now fear has 
taken over our roads.  All of which makes convincing people to use 
alternative forms of transport all the more difficult.  Then again, 
sometimes I just shrug and figure these are crazy times we're living 
in.

Cheers,
Greenjeans

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