Copenhagen here in Denmark is a smart city. A 15 minute city.
Its awesome. I can get anywhere I want on my bike or by the public transportation which is safe and on time.
Whats not to like ?
It's blatant xenophobia: being afraid of what you don't know. And since that threshold is really low for idiots and everyone has an internet connection and a platform to spout their nonsense on, those idiots say things like this.
Also, all of those American dipshits live in some backcountires and are legitimately terrified of cities :D They believe it is some hellscape of crime and corruption.
We can fight this, but we all need to vote for people who want to reign in the power of the Tech Billionaires.
They want us to fear so they push algorithms that promote fear. Take that away and this lessens a whole lot. The EU us currently working against platforms like X who do this and it's working, I mean look at how much they currently rail against the EU.
I'd love the freedom to see more positive messages and can do attitude back in social media in stead of negatives and can't do stuff.
I’d argue it’s not xenophobia, it’s brainwashing. Conservatives were told 15 minute cities and smart cities meant the government blocks you in to your local area and wants to keep you caged up in that area.
Not that the people who believe this likely aren’t also xenophobic but most of it is just believing anything their precious Fox says to them
We have people here in the Netherlands complaining about how 15 minute cities are terrible and like you said some sort of ridiculous confinement by the government.
It's incredibly funny in this regard, because our cities are very small compared to global standards, most can be biked through in 15 minutes due to dedicated bikepaths/lanes and public transport is done pretty well. Even in my case I can walk to the supermarket, which is a 15 minute walk and that's considered far for our standards.
And it sure helped Rotterdam was bombed to shit during WW2 so we were able to rebuild that a bit more efficiently.
But yeah, so many people are just afraid of any change. Because they don't know it, they hate it, or don't want it, or whatever. Which, ironically, reverts back to xenophobia. It's just stupid.
Fascinating, I guess there's always a few dumb people anywhere. I can probably technically walk 15 minutes to my nearest grocery store here in the US, but it's along roads with no sidewalks. Definitely not a nice, safe walk. And it'd be pushing 15 minutes pretty close. I'd guess more like 20 if you're not walking with a purpose.
Definitely, rebuilding is easier when there's some kind of tragic destruction. Chicago is pretty damn good (by American standards, at least) for getting around in large part because the Great Chicago Fire took out a ton of buildings and allowed them to rebuild with purpose and vision.
If you want to see what our urbanisation looks like, just streetview Rotterdam's surrounding cities (like Schiedam, Vlaardingen, Capelle aan den IJssel, Barendrecht, to name a few) and what it's like. I've looked through some random US cities and villages and the difference is mindblowing. You're far more car-centered than we are and it shows, haha.
It's one of the few things that's hilarious to me. You've got a decent sized movement here in the US towards buying local and rebuilding community. Which is great. I'm a craftsman, I make stuff from wood. If we really did focus more locally instead of Walmart or Amazon I'd have a much better chance of making money from my hobby.
The moment it started gaining serious traction the conspiracies started. Now the same people who love their local markets and such that are part of this goal are deeply committed to the idea incorporating these ideas into city planning is evil.
Its funny, but can't laugh too much or it turns to hysteria.
I think it's more that they can't conceptualize what it's like living in places that are walkable. Like, they think that a place having some of the things they need nearby would mean they no longer get to have cars at all.
Like I have a car, but I also have 3 supermarkets within walking distance. If doing 'the big shop' we usually take the car because it's way more than we can carry, but also if I run out of eggs or something, I can just walk round the corner instead of having to drive every time.
It's most definitely an issue of poor urban planning, large builder clout, and corrupt city planners. Many newer American suburban sprawl cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix are designed with swaths of residential-only neighborhoods by large builders (DR Horton, Lennar, Pulte, etc) who are more than willing to help contribute to sympathetic city planner's campaigns. The resulting copy-paste communities are managed by oppressively nitpicky HOAs dotted with chain grocery and retail plaza on the periphery.
I don't need a car but I have a car and a motorbike. I own lot of shit that I don't need XD
You can live in a 15 min city and still have cars...
US people don't need to give up their monstertrucks to have proper infrastructure
Indeed. I can take my bike and get to the city center with the old castles and buildings in a few minutes. Or I can take a bit longer ride and go see the little mermaid ( again) if I want that. I can do all my grocery shopping so close by that all Ill need is a backpack for the things and a few bags and Ill be set just fine.
Id spend longer time trying to find parking than the time It would take me to get there on bike.
Yeha it tales me 4 minutes to walk to the store, pretty sure it takes more than 4 minutes to drive there, if you don't disregard unlocking, starting the car, fixing seat belt, drive and park the car. And during winter, we also need to add scraping the windows and possibly dig it out the car , have the heat on or drive a really cold car. More effecient to just walk.
I think the way I spin it is if we phrase it so that "everything is within a 15 minute drive" kinda like my old neighborhood it was actually great. If I wanted to ride or run to the gym or hardware store I could.
I've often seen Americans who oppose trains and 15 minute cities who seemed to believe it was either a city where you can walk, bike or take the train or a city where you can drive. Like if they had other means of transportation their cars would be taken from them and it would become illegal to leave their city lol.
Many people reply to us saying it's great having trains and walking by saying cars are better for older/disabled people, to transport luggage/furniture, to go anywhere you want whenever you want... Of course when we move furniture or take grandma to the restaurant we can take a car. The point is not that we don't drive cars but that we don't have to.
I'd love to not have to spend $1000s per year on a vehicle I'd rather not have. I'm quite fine with public transportation. Problem is, in the US. It's extremely ineffective and by design. I don't want to spend hours on a bus to get around the city.
I was there once on vacation, didn't speak a single word Danish and I had no problem whatsoever to get around, everyone I talked to could speak English. It was so easy to get around with the Metro. Man, I gotta visit it again, it was amazing.
Yes everyone speaks English in Denmark. Perhaps not always the old people but anyone under 60 at least will usually speak it just fine.
For Copenhagen it's even more people used to it.
It was a son asking his MAGA parents if they were against facsism, and the mother said 'yes', to which the son replied 'so you're Antifa', and then the father who knew it was a setup for a trap refused to answer, and said 'I'm pro Republican' instead. The son asking further about the USA having fought a war against fascists and dad surely having to be against those fascists yielded an eventual response of the father being unsure if Hitler was a fascist, followed by the question if Mussolini was a fascist, to which he smugly answered 'no'.
The dad on this pod doesn’t even know what he’s saying I don’t think. His views are despicable ofcourse, but I think he just seems so intent on disagreeing with his kids and anyone opposing that regardless of what they say he’ll remain argumentative
He started bashing away on the Jews and used extreme fascist language from the very first second, I cannot see how there is something to argue about.
They knew what they were voting for.
Hitler wasn't even in power in Germany when Mussolini turned Italy into a fascist nation. That happened in the 1920s. Mussolini wasn't good at it, Hitler seemed to be very good at it once he started watching what was going on in Italy.
Antifa is not the short form of antifascism. It's short for antifascist action. A loose anarchist/socialist (black and red flag) movement.
You can in fact be against fascism without being antifa.
Of course there is something to be said about the semantics of the term, but in general, the main point of Antifa is that they are against fascism. Being against fascism doesn't necessarily make you an activist, but discounting a movement or group of activists because you fundamentally misunderstand what they stand for and what fascism means is a far worse mistake than to generalize anti-fascist people to align with Antifa.
That's not hard. Just argue that 'Marxists' are followers of Marx, and that Marx obviously can't follow himself. The same way Jesus isn't generally considered a Christian.
If you are debating whether or not a person believes in/upholds certain beliefs, and say that 'fascists are those who believe in fascism', then Mussolini was a fascist, just like 'Marxists are those who believe in the ideas of Marx' would apply to Marx himself as well. You can always make the argument that the ideological leader of a belief system is not themselves to be ascribed by the derivative term of that system, as they are more so the archetype for it, in a context where you are talking about the values specifically, that argument would be a purely technical one, and not one that actually confers the meaning of the person in question upholding that same ideology. If you'd be discussing 'who was the most prolific and archetypical Christian', the answer would be 'Jesus Christ', even though you can say he may not have been a Christian by merit of that not having been a thing back then.
If you're debating anything and say that 'fascists are those who believe in fascism' then you've tragically failed at defining your terms.
And the thing about defining Marxists as those who believe in the ideas of Marx is that a lot of them don't, really. Marxist thought is based on the ideas of Marx, but it's evolved quite a lot over the last 150 years.
Fascism is a bit different because Mussolini invented the term to describe his own beliefs. Marx never self-identified as a Marxist. In fact the first recorded use of the word was after his death. It was invented and defined by his followers based on their interpretations of his ideas.
(Also there is a pretty famous Gandhi quote that relies entirely on the fact that Jesus wasn't Christian. He was Jewish. That's actually a pretty important part of Christian theology.)
The whole point of my argument is that there is no need to be so precise in this context, because it is very clear that the person in question does not understand any of these nuances, and is just straight up dumb. You can indeed have debates about such definitions and you are making valid points, but it shoots past what I am trying to say, which is that a person denies the person inventing something being associated with the thing he invented and lived by. Whether or not indeed Marx was a Marxist is a whole nother story, but not one that is relevant to the argument, because it is not supposed to be a trick or nuanced statement. Maybe I chose a bad example, but the point is that it is evidently nonsensical to not call Mussolini a fascist, like it would be nonsensical to dissociate Marx with Marxism, no matter the fact of whether he would actually himself be a Marxist - He is still the sole proprietor of the entire school of thought that is called Marxism, even if that school of thought diverged from his original ideas, or refers to specifically his followers and not himself. I'll yield that I am not being incredibly diligent in my wording, but that's because I'm not trying to make a point about me being exact, but the opposite - A term that is so broadly associated with an individual that they coined it, or that it is named after them, is inherently to be understood as something that is attributed to them, and saying that Mussolini wasn't a fascist, or Marx wasn't a Marxist, is either wrong, or correct because it is technically correct, but not because within the context of my example it makes sense to be that specific or nuanced.
My first comment was just meant as a light-hearted observation that the 'absurd' thing you were comparing 'Mussolini wasn't a fascist' to was actually more reasonable than the original statement. Which is why the second comment specifically calls out that the same principle doesn't apply to Mussolini and fascism. To be clear, Mussolini was a fascist, and I can't think of any reasonable way to claim otherwise.
So yeah, I agree, the guy claiming Mussolini wasn't a fascist was obviously just ignorant and contrarian. I'm just saying that someone who answered 'was Marx a Marxist' with a 'no' might actually be worth hearing out.
(Meanwhile, someone claiming Keynes wasn't a Keynsian might well be a Nobel-prize-winning economist. Seriously, I know of at least three of them who've implied something along those lines. And they're the three you've actually heard of, too.)
I saw someone on this sub earlier talking about how they didn't know mussolini and hitler lived in the same time period (ww2). Apparently they believed mussolini was post-ww2 and was very concerned that he and hitler might have been contemporaries. When confronted about it because wtf, blamed the american education system and how ww2 is taught to be "all about hitler". And this person was definitely not MAGA.
I mean, tbf, that can be pinned on the burning bag of garbage they call education system.
As a historian myself, I have spoken and read some of the textbooks that some schools use in the USA. A good majority of them don't acknowledge how these characters got a hold of the power. For them, the war started in December 7th, 1941 with an unprovoked attack from the japs.
They weren't just contemporaries, they were born within 6 years of each other and died within 2 days of each other. They basically lived their entire lives at the same exact page of history. Same generation, fought in the same wars, lead countries in the same war after - And they had a very deep political relationship (albeit not a personal friendship).
Yea, he's a clown. I get his kids are making money off his stupid ass, but damn would I even want a relationship with them. There are time his sister is with him. That video was just him, or the part I saw.
Perhaps the geezer thought he was talking about the famous football player Romano Floriani Mussolini, a great-grandson of Benito Mussolini, who has stated he has no political interestes! Common mistake.
I think the constant comparison is unfair. Gestapo was way more organised, disciplined, and sophisticated.
ICE barely even reaches SA level. Although those had proper uniforms and a unified, proper appearance, which made them so terrifying in the first place. Chain dogs who only went wild when unleashed. Still no comparison to chaotic rag tag ICE.
Well, except SA, despite being thugs (just like ICE) were at least partially comprised for the Freikorps, which - in turn - were cimprised of WW1 veterans. Those dudes have seen some shit. ICE are just cowards and thugs.
I wonder how long it will take until ICE get their own version of the night of the long knives. The regime already proved it likes to throw its own people under the bus as soon as they become inconvenient.
That hypothesis can be debunked by the fact emotionally unstable children call everything the gestapo in an effort to make people stop supporting them and it has never worked.
A city the way they were for thousands of years because it made sense. Edit Well 15 minute cities. They probably mixed smart city with it.
Of course you can leave your 15 minute area because not everything would be in 15 minute radius. Post secondary education wouldn't be in every neighbourhood.
Don't you know, the government has snipers positioned to take you out if you try to go to a grocery store other than the one that's closest to your house? It's true, I saw it on OANN.
Yeah, that was another fun thing. I remember seeing some Norwegian YouTuber being opposed to those (or I may be misremembering and it was only folks in his comment section who were against it, but he at least wasn't in favour of it).
Funny thing, though, I live in a Norwegian city and it practically is a 15-minute city. More or less. Of course, job can be further away than that, but most other things usually aren't more than 15-20 minutes away. Even for the university, the student apartments aren't that far away (less than 15 by public transport, at least).
For my part, I'm lucky enough to live about 20 minutes from where I work (walking, it would be less by bicycle or car, but funnily enough it's about the same with public transport because of how the routes are set up), and it's grand. Should really be an option for more people.
There was a coordinated effort against the idea of a compact city some 3 years ago. I suspect it was orchestrated by ruskies and shills like koch brothers - cities less dependent on cars means loss of profit and political leverage.
My last workplace had a team who worked with local councils around australia to help design walk-able "15 minute" communities. When the push back started against them in the cooker community we started getting death threats. I wish I was joking.
They stopped eventually, which shows on top of everything else, these morons have very short attention spans.
That's not fair they haven't been completely silent, for instance there's the people who loudly cheered for it and flocked like tourists to take selfies in front of the sign!
I mean in the context of modern persons criticizing modern city design by comparing them to concentration camps, it's not quite as relevant as the fact that we have concentration camps AGAIN.
Right! And people who weren't there and didn't even bother learning about what happened during that war are lining up to take credit for the victory on America's behalf.
Just to be sure I'm not mixing up the terminology. By "smart city" they mean what was called a "walkable city" a couple of years ago and a "city" for most of human history, right?
Barcelona is often cited as a leader in smart city development. Its IoT-powered street lighting adjusts brightness based on pedestrian movement, and smart bins communicate fill levels to optimize waste collection. Combined with sensor-based air quality monitoring and public safety infrastructure, it’s a city transformed by data
Sounds generally nice, but I can't see how this would not turn into a for-profit hellscape if applied to the US. They'd make illuminated pedestrian paths that only activate with micro transactions.
This. I have heard critiques like this 10 years ago and tend to agree. It was just infrastructure tech companies' marketing schitck. But, on the other hand, Boston and NYC were implementing some tech innovation on thier own. Nesta has had some interesting papers on that.
Yeah we’ve got these muppets all over Australia. Bumper stickers crying out against Smart Cities. Rants on local suburb noticeboards.
I don’t know what these idiot fucking dickhead cooker fucks have against living in a place where you can access everything you need within 15 minutes. It’s like the stupidest fucking dumbshit idiot thing to be opposed to, I just don’t get it. It’s not like you wouldn’t be able to ever travel more than 15 minutes out of town. Do these methgobblers literally think everyone is going to be locked into fenced off communities with armed guards?
Actually who am I kidding, that’s probably exactly what these idiots think.
It's definitely exactly what they think. They're present in the UK too, and it's this kind of placard alongside things like anti-vaccine and anti-WEF placards. Bill Gates features prominently as some kind of satanic figurehead of it all.
My step mum fell in with the conspiracy crowd at the start of COVID; she now thinks that Bill Gates wants us to eat bugs and he’s going to block out the sun like Mr Burns. She read it on Facebook so of course it’s true…
i am really into watching flat earthers from far away being made fun of. this small hobby of mine lead me to learn about the british very experts, and that (sorry i never saw it written out) ULEZ (?) cameras get trashed by them. these people seem to be adjacent to everything conspiracy related. doesn't matter what it is, they just change to something else. those ULEZ cameras are some sort of weapon to keep everyone inside their 15 minute city.
ok i'm sorry, i'm bad at giving a clear picture of what i mean, but they don't know it themselves 😭
I don’t know what these idiot fucking dickhead cooker fucks have against living in a place where you can access everything you need within 15 minutes
oh that's a smart city??? wow. i imagined it to be like a smart home, full of technical gimmicks and surveillance but for a city. Now those guys make far less sense
These people have never been to any of those places. I have been to Buchenwald in the mid 2000s and the feeling you get just walking there is eery. It still has a smell to it that you can't describe. Fucking cunts.
I was in Auschwitz I and Treblinka. Totally different experiences (the latter seemed empty, with almost no visitors, which is, I think, good for this place).
But what I'll be remembering for life too is the flat of Auschwitz and Buchenwald survivor, the godfather of my father. It was in the middle of 1990s (I was ~10), so several years after the fall of communism, but he had stock of flour, pasta, oil, sugar, salt, matches, vodka (!), buckwheat, rice... for half of a year, maybe more. For eating or trading. I suppose he hoarded it not because of communist era (especially 1980s) shortages.
I grew up close to one, visited it often and was raised by my grandparents who experienced the war and had lots of gruesome stories to tell. Those dumb fuckers have no shred of decency or humanity.
There are people that legitimately believe that improving zoning to make your work, home, stores, and recreation within 15 minutes of where you are some sort of ghetto to shove them into
the idea of 15-minute and Smart Cities is to reduce traffic, so the oil billionaires that fund the the think tanks that give right wing chruches and conspiracy theorists their talking points label those as bad.
It’s worth noting that all these people are also fully on board of the police and immigration enforcement creating a police state for the people that they don’t like.
Brought to you by asshole conservative parents that are salty that their children moved out of their garbage backwater city to live in a city where they can actually build a life
The 'Smart City' concept, of everything you need to be within walking distance, dates back to 1864. The Peabody Trust built 57 flats in London, nine shops with accommodation for the shopkeepers, and baths and laundry facilities on the upper floor.
All the UK 'new towns' from the 50s took the concept to larger conurbations.
The sign just proves how susceptible to propaganda Americans are.
America has had actual concentration camps for decades, including the only concentration camps exclusively for children anywhere in human history and these absolute fucking clowns are spending their time and energy misusing that language to complain about completely nonexistent "threats." I fucking hate it here so, so much.
Honestly it’s one of my favorite dumb conservative hate trains in the US. They’ve found a lot of dumb things to hate but “a city you can easily get around” has to be up there for stupidest.
I don't understand how these people can be so fucking stupid. Like how do you get to this point? What life choices do you have to make to get to the stage where someone says 'Hey let's try and make everything better for everyone's and you understand 'The government is sending you to the gas chambers'??
Love the implication that people forcibly imprisoned in concentration camps had the choice all along! Who knew, we should let all those holocaust survivors know that they should have just left!! /s
The message is:
'you don't need a car', they hear 'you can't have a car.'
Or
'you can travel to the things you need for day-to-day life within 15 minutes of your house on foot, public transport or bicycle', they hear 'you will not be allowed to leave your neighbourhood.'
A certain subsect of Americans are losing their shit over the concept of "smart cities", "walkable cities", "15 min cities", etc, cause the conspiracy theory they latch on to is that instead of changing city planning to have mixed use properties be easily accessible by neighborhood residents without the need for cars, they will be violently forced into small districts where travel outside of the neighborhood will be restricted. Like some Hunger Games type shit.
It's a dumb fucking thing to panic about, but hey, they re-elected trump, so they aren't playing with a full deck to begin with.
Copenhagen here in Denmark is a smart city. A 15 minute city.
Its awesome. I can get anywhere I want on my bike or by the public transportation which is safe and on time.
Whats not to like ?
It's blatant xenophobia: being afraid of what you don't know. And since that threshold is really low for idiots and everyone has an internet connection and a platform to spout their nonsense on, those idiots say things like this.
It's a bizarre time we're living in.
Also, all of those American dipshits live in some backcountires and are legitimately terrified of cities :D They believe it is some hellscape of crime and corruption.
We can fight this, but we all need to vote for people who want to reign in the power of the Tech Billionaires.
They want us to fear so they push algorithms that promote fear. Take that away and this lessens a whole lot. The EU us currently working against platforms like X who do this and it's working, I mean look at how much they currently rail against the EU.
I'd love the freedom to see more positive messages and can do attitude back in social media in stead of negatives and can't do stuff.
I’d argue it’s not xenophobia, it’s brainwashing. Conservatives were told 15 minute cities and smart cities meant the government blocks you in to your local area and wants to keep you caged up in that area.
Not that the people who believe this likely aren’t also xenophobic but most of it is just believing anything their precious Fox says to them
We have people here in the Netherlands complaining about how 15 minute cities are terrible and like you said some sort of ridiculous confinement by the government.
It's incredibly funny in this regard, because our cities are very small compared to global standards, most can be biked through in 15 minutes due to dedicated bikepaths/lanes and public transport is done pretty well. Even in my case I can walk to the supermarket, which is a 15 minute walk and that's considered far for our standards.
And it sure helped Rotterdam was bombed to shit during WW2 so we were able to rebuild that a bit more efficiently.
But yeah, so many people are just afraid of any change. Because they don't know it, they hate it, or don't want it, or whatever. Which, ironically, reverts back to xenophobia. It's just stupid.
Fascinating, I guess there's always a few dumb people anywhere. I can probably technically walk 15 minutes to my nearest grocery store here in the US, but it's along roads with no sidewalks. Definitely not a nice, safe walk. And it'd be pushing 15 minutes pretty close. I'd guess more like 20 if you're not walking with a purpose.
Definitely, rebuilding is easier when there's some kind of tragic destruction. Chicago is pretty damn good (by American standards, at least) for getting around in large part because the Great Chicago Fire took out a ton of buildings and allowed them to rebuild with purpose and vision.
If you want to see what our urbanisation looks like, just streetview Rotterdam's surrounding cities (like Schiedam, Vlaardingen, Capelle aan den IJssel, Barendrecht, to name a few) and what it's like. I've looked through some random US cities and villages and the difference is mindblowing. You're far more car-centered than we are and it shows, haha.
It's one of the few things that's hilarious to me. You've got a decent sized movement here in the US towards buying local and rebuilding community. Which is great. I'm a craftsman, I make stuff from wood. If we really did focus more locally instead of Walmart or Amazon I'd have a much better chance of making money from my hobby. The moment it started gaining serious traction the conspiracies started. Now the same people who love their local markets and such that are part of this goal are deeply committed to the idea incorporating these ideas into city planning is evil. Its funny, but can't laugh too much or it turns to hysteria.
So many Americans I know hate this idea with a fiery passion.
They just love owning cars SO MUCH that the idea of living somewhere where they never have to drive is offensive to them.
Personally, I would love to live somewhere where I didn't NEED to own a car.
I think it's more that they can't conceptualize what it's like living in places that are walkable. Like, they think that a place having some of the things they need nearby would mean they no longer get to have cars at all.
Like I have a car, but I also have 3 supermarkets within walking distance. If doing 'the big shop' we usually take the car because it's way more than we can carry, but also if I run out of eggs or something, I can just walk round the corner instead of having to drive every time.
It's most definitely an issue of poor urban planning, large builder clout, and corrupt city planners. Many newer American suburban sprawl cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix are designed with swaths of residential-only neighborhoods by large builders (DR Horton, Lennar, Pulte, etc) who are more than willing to help contribute to sympathetic city planner's campaigns. The resulting copy-paste communities are managed by oppressively nitpicky HOAs dotted with chain grocery and retail plaza on the periphery.
I don't have a car. Because I don't need it.
I don't need a car but I have a car and a motorbike. I own lot of shit that I don't need XD You can live in a 15 min city and still have cars... US people don't need to give up their monstertrucks to have proper infrastructure
In a European city my bike gives me more freedom, than a car to an average American ever will.
Indeed. I can take my bike and get to the city center with the old castles and buildings in a few minutes. Or I can take a bit longer ride and go see the little mermaid ( again) if I want that. I can do all my grocery shopping so close by that all Ill need is a backpack for the things and a few bags and Ill be set just fine.
Id spend longer time trying to find parking than the time It would take me to get there on bike.
Yeha it tales me 4 minutes to walk to the store, pretty sure it takes more than 4 minutes to drive there, if you don't disregard unlocking, starting the car, fixing seat belt, drive and park the car. And during winter, we also need to add scraping the windows and possibly dig it out the car , have the heat on or drive a really cold car. More effecient to just walk.
I think the way I spin it is if we phrase it so that "everything is within a 15 minute drive" kinda like my old neighborhood it was actually great. If I wanted to ride or run to the gym or hardware store I could.
I've often seen Americans who oppose trains and 15 minute cities who seemed to believe it was either a city where you can walk, bike or take the train or a city where you can drive. Like if they had other means of transportation their cars would be taken from them and it would become illegal to leave their city lol.
Many people reply to us saying it's great having trains and walking by saying cars are better for older/disabled people, to transport luggage/furniture, to go anywhere you want whenever you want... Of course when we move furniture or take grandma to the restaurant we can take a car. The point is not that we don't drive cars but that we don't have to.
I'd love to not have to spend $1000s per year on a vehicle I'd rather not have. I'm quite fine with public transportation. Problem is, in the US. It's extremely ineffective and by design. I don't want to spend hours on a bus to get around the city.
Uhm, well ... aren't you aware that you live in a Marxist dystopia? /s
Haha no. I suppose we have been too busy being one of the happiest countries in thr world to notice.
I was there once on vacation, didn't speak a single word Danish and I had no problem whatsoever to get around, everyone I talked to could speak English. It was so easy to get around with the Metro. Man, I gotta visit it again, it was amazing.
Glad you enjoyed it here.
Yes everyone speaks English in Denmark. Perhaps not always the old people but anyone under 60 at least will usually speak it just fine. For Copenhagen it's even more people used to it.
The communism ofc!!11!
I just today saw that Trump apparently wanted people like the Danes to move to USA.
Like.. NO. Why would anyone want that ?
U can also spend a million for a cool golden entry ticket. 🥴
They're called ICE because if they were called the Gestapo, you might not support them.
They probably would tbh
I've seen a video of a MAGA geezer saying that he didn't consider Mussolini to be a fascist. I think you'd be right. Edit: Found the clip.
The guy who… invented fascism…… isn’t a fascist? What?
It was a son asking his MAGA parents if they were against facsism, and the mother said 'yes', to which the son replied 'so you're Antifa', and then the father who knew it was a setup for a trap refused to answer, and said 'I'm pro Republican' instead. The son asking further about the USA having fought a war against fascists and dad surely having to be against those fascists yielded an eventual response of the father being unsure if Hitler was a fascist, followed by the question if Mussolini was a fascist, to which he smugly answered 'no'.
The dad on this pod doesn’t even know what he’s saying I don’t think. His views are despicable ofcourse, but I think he just seems so intent on disagreeing with his kids and anyone opposing that regardless of what they say he’ll remain argumentative
Doesn't matter. If my dad would've spewed this crap, I would've smacked him in his rancid mouth.
I wouldn't personally resort to violence but I would no longer consider myself to have a dad after that.
As a pacifist I agree, as someone who likes history... I find myself questioning if it's better or worse to turn to violence before it's too late.
Violence is a last resort thing imo but oh boy do people in power like to push it
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the American viewpoint in a nutshell. "I don't know what I'm saying or understand the words but I'm against it because you are"
its the same as the DUP and Sinn Féin in northern Ireland.
nothing good comes from it.
Yes, which underlines how stupid you must be to hold such positions. It is literal anti-truth
You could definitely make an argument of how "fascist" Hitler was in the early campaigning and before 1942/3 or so...
But you can't seriously have that discussion without saying that Mussolini is basically the fascism holotype.
You could make an argument, but a barely literate racist piece of shit with zero historical understanding could not.
He started bashing away on the Jews and used extreme fascist language from the very first second, I cannot see how there is something to argue about.
They knew what they were voting for.
Hitler wasn't even in power in Germany when Mussolini turned Italy into a fascist nation. That happened in the 1920s. Mussolini wasn't good at it, Hitler seemed to be very good at it once he started watching what was going on in Italy.
I'm....profa!
Profaundly stupid, is what he is
Antifa is not the short form of antifascism. It's short for antifascist action. A loose anarchist/socialist (black and red flag) movement.
You can in fact be against fascism without being antifa.
Of course there is something to be said about the semantics of the term, but in general, the main point of Antifa is that they are against fascism. Being against fascism doesn't necessarily make you an activist, but discounting a movement or group of activists because you fundamentally misunderstand what they stand for and what fascism means is a far worse mistake than to generalize anti-fascist people to align with Antifa.
No.
You don't get to retcon antifa.
I know exactly which video you are talking about and if it is, that guy's mother is a retired school teacher. From my understanding.
Right !
Wasn't Mussolinis party literally called the fascisti lol.
You know, Mussolini just invented it, but clearly it wasn't fascist at all. /s
He invented fascism to describe himself. It's like saying Marx wasn't a Marxist. Indeed.
That's not hard. Just argue that 'Marxists' are followers of Marx, and that Marx obviously can't follow himself. The same way Jesus isn't generally considered a Christian.
If you are debating whether or not a person believes in/upholds certain beliefs, and say that 'fascists are those who believe in fascism', then Mussolini was a fascist, just like 'Marxists are those who believe in the ideas of Marx' would apply to Marx himself as well. You can always make the argument that the ideological leader of a belief system is not themselves to be ascribed by the derivative term of that system, as they are more so the archetype for it, in a context where you are talking about the values specifically, that argument would be a purely technical one, and not one that actually confers the meaning of the person in question upholding that same ideology. If you'd be discussing 'who was the most prolific and archetypical Christian', the answer would be 'Jesus Christ', even though you can say he may not have been a Christian by merit of that not having been a thing back then.
If you're debating anything and say that 'fascists are those who believe in fascism' then you've tragically failed at defining your terms.
And the thing about defining Marxists as those who believe in the ideas of Marx is that a lot of them don't, really. Marxist thought is based on the ideas of Marx, but it's evolved quite a lot over the last 150 years.
Fascism is a bit different because Mussolini invented the term to describe his own beliefs. Marx never self-identified as a Marxist. In fact the first recorded use of the word was after his death. It was invented and defined by his followers based on their interpretations of his ideas.
(Also there is a pretty famous Gandhi quote that relies entirely on the fact that Jesus wasn't Christian. He was Jewish. That's actually a pretty important part of Christian theology.)
The whole point of my argument is that there is no need to be so precise in this context, because it is very clear that the person in question does not understand any of these nuances, and is just straight up dumb. You can indeed have debates about such definitions and you are making valid points, but it shoots past what I am trying to say, which is that a person denies the person inventing something being associated with the thing he invented and lived by. Whether or not indeed Marx was a Marxist is a whole nother story, but not one that is relevant to the argument, because it is not supposed to be a trick or nuanced statement. Maybe I chose a bad example, but the point is that it is evidently nonsensical to not call Mussolini a fascist, like it would be nonsensical to dissociate Marx with Marxism, no matter the fact of whether he would actually himself be a Marxist - He is still the sole proprietor of the entire school of thought that is called Marxism, even if that school of thought diverged from his original ideas, or refers to specifically his followers and not himself. I'll yield that I am not being incredibly diligent in my wording, but that's because I'm not trying to make a point about me being exact, but the opposite - A term that is so broadly associated with an individual that they coined it, or that it is named after them, is inherently to be understood as something that is attributed to them, and saying that Mussolini wasn't a fascist, or Marx wasn't a Marxist, is either wrong, or correct because it is technically correct, but not because within the context of my example it makes sense to be that specific or nuanced.
My first comment was just meant as a light-hearted observation that the 'absurd' thing you were comparing 'Mussolini wasn't a fascist' to was actually more reasonable than the original statement. Which is why the second comment specifically calls out that the same principle doesn't apply to Mussolini and fascism. To be clear, Mussolini was a fascist, and I can't think of any reasonable way to claim otherwise.
So yeah, I agree, the guy claiming Mussolini wasn't a fascist was obviously just ignorant and contrarian. I'm just saying that someone who answered 'was Marx a Marxist' with a 'no' might actually be worth hearing out.
(Meanwhile, someone claiming Keynes wasn't a Keynsian might well be a Nobel-prize-winning economist. Seriously, I know of at least three of them who've implied something along those lines. And they're the three you've actually heard of, too.)
Jesus wasn't Christian and Christianity was created after he died, not before.
See my parents always told me not to hit. But people like this make it hard.
It's so hilarously ironic how hard dumb people like that can gaslight themselves against every principle they say to uphold.
I saw someone on this sub earlier talking about how they didn't know mussolini and hitler lived in the same time period (ww2). Apparently they believed mussolini was post-ww2 and was very concerned that he and hitler might have been contemporaries. When confronted about it because wtf, blamed the american education system and how ww2 is taught to be "all about hitler". And this person was definitely not MAGA.
So, all this is to say, I am not even surprised.
I mean, tbf, that can be pinned on the burning bag of garbage they call education system.
As a historian myself, I have spoken and read some of the textbooks that some schools use in the USA. A good majority of them don't acknowledge how these characters got a hold of the power. For them, the war started in December 7th, 1941 with an unprovoked attack from the japs.
They weren't just contemporaries, they were born within 6 years of each other and died within 2 days of each other. They basically lived their entire lives at the same exact page of history. Same generation, fought in the same wars, lead countries in the same war after - And they had a very deep political relationship (albeit not a personal friendship).
Mussolini even visited Hitler during the war. Hitler was sad when he heard what happened to Mussolini.
Might have been getting mixed up with Peron.
If there is one person on the entire history of the planet that indisputably and undeniably was a fascist, that person is Mussolini.
No. Source:
https://preview.redd.it/2cksnza4qj6g1.png?width=408&format=png&auto=webp&s=c46e81da023f07271f0c90715d46c4b4ee714a20
Yea, he's a clown. I get his kids are making money off his stupid ass, but damn would I even want a relationship with them. There are time his sister is with him. That video was just him, or the part I saw.
As if the typical MAGA vegetable knows who Mussolini was.
Would somebody with a face this smug (the dad) not know what he's talking about?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLaiP3VP5-g
Mussolini? The founding member of fascism? That Mussolini?
Perhaps the geezer thought he was talking about the famous football player Romano Floriani Mussolini, a great-grandson of Benito Mussolini, who has stated he has no political interestes! Common mistake.
Would love to see that video if you could find it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLaiP3VP5-g
Found it for you!
You're a star.
( sigh ) oh my suffering Jesus ! 🙄🙄
Oh they definitely would, they all support the Fanta Fuhrer
Needs a different nickname, the original was already the Fanta Führer
Fanta was invented by Coca Cola in Nazi Germany...
the gestapo were East German, so communist
you know how much americans hate communists/communism (that's for EUROPOORS silly)
Sure you don't mean StaSi instead? Gestapo was Nazi germany, Stasi followed as the east German Version of it.
I am not 100% sure if the post you are commenting on is a troll or confidentially incorrect.
Debatable, there’s an above average chance that even more people would support them
I think the constant comparison is unfair. Gestapo was way more organised, disciplined, and sophisticated.
ICE barely even reaches SA level. Although those had proper uniforms and a unified, proper appearance, which made them so terrifying in the first place. Chain dogs who only went wild when unleashed. Still no comparison to chaotic rag tag ICE.
MAGA can't even do fascism properly. Pathetic.
Well, except SA, despite being thugs (just like ICE) were at least partially comprised for the Freikorps, which - in turn - were cimprised of WW1 veterans. Those dudes have seen some shit. ICE are just cowards and thugs.
Yes, that too.
I wonder how long it will take until ICE get their own version of the night of the long knives. The regime already proved it likes to throw its own people under the bus as soon as they become inconvenient.
Authocrats are bound to govern via infighting, so we'll see soon enough.
ICE is more like the police in Germany and other areas Germany took over during the war.
There's a documentary about it on Netflix called "Ordinary Men: The "Forgotten Holocaust"
It examines how and why thousands of ordinary Germans carries out mass atrocities as members of the Nazi police squads during the Holocaust.
It's just under an hour and a good watch on how good people do bad things when the government promotes mass propaganda.
Stop. They can only get so turned on.
That hypothesis can be debunked by the fact emotionally unstable children call everything the gestapo in an effort to make people stop supporting them and it has never worked.
What you just did is called projection.
You sound Gestapoey
Papers please!
Seems to be cool with the administration
Oh they don't ask for papers. Straight to jail.
A city the way they were for thousands of years because it made sense. Edit Well 15 minute cities. They probably mixed smart city with it.
Of course you can leave your 15 minute area because not everything would be in 15 minute radius. Post secondary education wouldn't be in every neighbourhood.
Don't you know, the government has snipers positioned to take you out if you try to go to a grocery store other than the one that's closest to your house? It's true, I saw it on OANN.
Wasn't that also on Breitbart News Network?
Yeah, that was another fun thing. I remember seeing some Norwegian YouTuber being opposed to those (or I may be misremembering and it was only folks in his comment section who were against it, but he at least wasn't in favour of it).
Funny thing, though, I live in a Norwegian city and it practically is a 15-minute city. More or less. Of course, job can be further away than that, but most other things usually aren't more than 15-20 minutes away. Even for the university, the student apartments aren't that far away (less than 15 by public transport, at least).
For my part, I'm lucky enough to live about 20 minutes from where I work (walking, it would be less by bicycle or car, but funnily enough it's about the same with public transport because of how the routes are set up), and it's grand. Should really be an option for more people.
There was a coordinated effort against the idea of a compact city some 3 years ago. I suspect it was orchestrated by ruskies and shills like koch brothers - cities less dependent on cars means loss of profit and political leverage.
My last workplace had a team who worked with local councils around australia to help design walk-able "15 minute" communities. When the push back started against them in the cooker community we started getting death threats. I wish I was joking.
They stopped eventually, which shows on top of everything else, these morons have very short attention spans.
But when actual concentration camps are being built, for example, in Florida... crickets.
That's not fair they haven't been completely silent, for instance there's the people who loudly cheered for it and flocked like tourists to take selfies in front of the sign!
Go back.
Manzanar, for interning Americans of Japanese heritage, in WW2.
Well sure but it's a little late to be pointing that out
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I mean in the context of modern persons criticizing modern city design by comparing them to concentration camps, it's not quite as relevant as the fact that we have concentration camps AGAIN.
The added context helps. I retract my previous statement.
I was hoping it would.
To be fair, I get the distinct impression that a lot of people happened to be out sick the day Japanese Internment was taught about at school.
It did, and I'm sorry for implying you were dismissive.
I think a lot of people were sick when all of WW2 history was taught. We won, and that's all you'll ever need to know.
Right! And people who weren't there and didn't even bother learning about what happened during that war are lining up to take credit for the victory on America's behalf.
Just to be sure I'm not mixing up the terminology. By "smart city" they mean what was called a "walkable city" a couple of years ago and a "city" for most of human history, right?
Sounds generally nice, but I can't see how this would not turn into a for-profit hellscape if applied to the US. They'd make illuminated pedestrian paths that only activate with micro transactions.
The more likely outcome is becoming a barely functioning mess because the more complex a system is, the more points of failure it gets.
That not even touching the issue of the IOT which is just yet another way to screw the consumer.
This. I have heard critiques like this 10 years ago and tend to agree. It was just infrastructure tech companies' marketing schitck. But, on the other hand, Boston and NYC were implementing some tech innovation on thier own. Nesta has had some interesting papers on that.
This is probably more of a SovCit / conspiracy cooker trope than a USian thing.
Yeah we’ve got these muppets all over Australia. Bumper stickers crying out against Smart Cities. Rants on local suburb noticeboards.
I don’t know what these idiot fucking dickhead cooker fucks have against living in a place where you can access everything you need within 15 minutes. It’s like the stupidest fucking dumbshit idiot thing to be opposed to, I just don’t get it. It’s not like you wouldn’t be able to ever travel more than 15 minutes out of town. Do these methgobblers literally think everyone is going to be locked into fenced off communities with armed guards?
Actually who am I kidding, that’s probably exactly what these idiots think.
It's definitely exactly what they think. They're present in the UK too, and it's this kind of placard alongside things like anti-vaccine and anti-WEF placards. Bill Gates features prominently as some kind of satanic figurehead of it all.
My step mum fell in with the conspiracy crowd at the start of COVID; she now thinks that Bill Gates wants us to eat bugs and he’s going to block out the sun like Mr Burns. She read it on Facebook so of course it’s true…
i am really into watching flat earthers from far away being made fun of. this small hobby of mine lead me to learn about the british very experts, and that (sorry i never saw it written out) ULEZ (?) cameras get trashed by them. these people seem to be adjacent to everything conspiracy related. doesn't matter what it is, they just change to something else. those ULEZ cameras are some sort of weapon to keep everyone inside their 15 minute city.
ok i'm sorry, i'm bad at giving a clear picture of what i mean, but they don't know it themselves 😭
oh that's a smart city??? wow. i imagined it to be like a smart home, full of technical gimmicks and surveillance but for a city. Now those guys make far less sense
Well, smart city as concept may be dangerous and should be under democratic control. But those morons do not even know the difference.
Yeah, my local MP is one.
I don't think people in smart cities are gassed and then burned into ash
No, but if they were, the chambers would be really close and convenient.
These people have never been to any of those places. I have been to Buchenwald in the mid 2000s and the feeling you get just walking there is eery. It still has a smell to it that you can't describe. Fucking cunts.
I was in Auschwitz I and Treblinka. Totally different experiences (the latter seemed empty, with almost no visitors, which is, I think, good for this place).
But what I'll be remembering for life too is the flat of Auschwitz and Buchenwald survivor, the godfather of my father. It was in the middle of 1990s (I was ~10), so several years after the fall of communism, but he had stock of flour, pasta, oil, sugar, salt, matches, vodka (!), buckwheat, rice... for half of a year, maybe more. For eating or trading. I suppose he hoarded it not because of communist era (especially 1980s) shortages.
I grew up close to one, visited it often and was raised by my grandparents who experienced the war and had lots of gruesome stories to tell. Those dumb fuckers have no shred of decency or humanity.
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… what are you blabbering about? Germany is still one of the least nazi of the whole area.
Sadly the AFD is trying to change that. Well, or they want us to become Republicans
Every country has RW extreme political elements.
The difference in Germany is a stronger sense of public awareness and regret about fascism and populism.
Not impossible, but America is kilometres closer to the precipice than is Germany
Well yes — and the afd has fewer supporters than their counterparts in France, Poland, Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, and Britain.
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Have you been to Germany at any time in the last 7 decades?
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So you live in a country with some of the strongest (almost reactionary) privacy protections and anti-Nazi laws in the world.
And a population that still expresses palpable regret about its historical descent into fascism, even now?
You’ll probably need to expound your home-truths more fully for people to understand the point you are making here.
I never said that I lived there, you assumed that part.
Also, why is Chancellor Merz meeting with Netanyahu in Israel? A person with an ICC arrest warrant for the crime of genocide.
Just a thought.
You think meeting with the head of the Jewish state is a sign that the German government is going nazi?
I have a medical clinic, several restaurants and shops within walking distance. Basically Auschwitz.
I'm not even sure what this is about. And looking at the variety of comments, it's quite ambiguous.
Is it possible to have a bit of comment ?
(The comparison seems clearly ridiculous but I would love to know in what sense it is.)
There are people that legitimately believe that improving zoning to make your work, home, stores, and recreation within 15 minutes of where you are some sort of ghetto to shove them into
So it's about 15 minutes cities?
Thank you for the explanation.
The IOT smart city concept is conflated with 15 minute cities
It is about the 15 minute cities, rebranded somewhere as smart cities
It’s called a smart city because Americans don’t live there.
Brought to you by the same people who vote for politicians who support Palantir
Can someone explain this one? What is it they’re actually worried about, away from all the inappropriately provocative language?
the idea of 15-minute and Smart Cities is to reduce traffic, so the oil billionaires that fund the the think tanks that give right wing chruches and conspiracy theorists their talking points label those as bad.
It’s worth noting that all these people are also fully on board of the police and immigration enforcement creating a police state for the people that they don’t like.
They're worried their
cartruck doesn't get the mileage it deserves.Um... Cheap public transport, and being nice to minorities and gay people equates with systemic mass murder. Yep, got it.
Brought to you by asshole conservative parents that are salty that their children moved out of their garbage backwater city to live in a city where they can actually build a life
Such complete disrespect for all those who met terrible fates at Auschwits, fuck these people
If this weirdo showed up on a German street with this sign, he might have an interesting encounter with the local police.
(For your information: denying or trivialising the Holocaust is a criminal offence in Germany.)
they call it a deportation camp, but if you called it a holocaust camp then the white supremacists will tell you you are wrong and all hail trump.
This is bullshit.
Concentration has way too many syllables for Americans to spell or say it.
...and she put picture of a death camp (Birkenau, aka Auschwitz II), not a concentration camp.
Afaik, Birkenau was both of those thing. It wasn’t a labor camp tho. Auschwitz I and Monowitz were concentration and forced labor camps.
It's called a grandma because if she was called a bicycle she'd have wheels
Smart City / Dumb People?
The 'Smart City' concept, of everything you need to be within walking distance, dates back to 1864. The Peabody Trust built 57 flats in London, nine shops with accommodation for the shopkeepers, and baths and laundry facilities on the upper floor.
All the UK 'new towns' from the 50s took the concept to larger conurbations.
The sign just proves how susceptible to propaganda Americans are.
America has had actual concentration camps for decades, including the only concentration camps exclusively for children anywhere in human history and these absolute fucking clowns are spending their time and energy misusing that language to complain about completely nonexistent "threats." I fucking hate it here so, so much.
Americans built an actual Concentration Camp and sold merch.
Hey i am from auschwitz and this kind of comparation is disrespectful towards people who died there
A bit odd but if you crop the top, it's r/technicallythetruth
I don't mind seeing crop tops.
Americans sure do hate convenience
I meeeean... they're not *wrong* . I wouldn't want to live in something called a concentration camp
doubling down on dumbass - the american way.
They're not wrong...
If a place is called a "concentration camp" you wouldn't want to put a toe there ever.
Anything i cant understand = bad !! Scary !!
Love how the person holding the sign doesn't even bother learning more about what they don't know
They call it soft drink, because if they called it phosphoric acid beverage you might not want to drink it.
Honestly it’s one of my favorite dumb conservative hate trains in the US. They’ve found a lot of dumb things to hate but “a city you can easily get around” has to be up there for stupidest.
Absolute loons.
Do know that some of us USians are actually in favor of fifteen minute cities.
What's a "smart city" and why is this dumb ?
This person ... I really want her to visit Auschwitz! So that she can learn how incredibly disgusting and repulsive this comparison is!
It’s deeply concerning how people can down play the holocaust that way.
I don't understand how these people can be so fucking stupid. Like how do you get to this point? What life choices do you have to make to get to the stage where someone says 'Hey let's try and make everything better for everyone's and you understand 'The government is sending you to the gas chambers'??
IS THIS A MOTHERFUCKING NACHOS BIKES REFERENCE !n!z!n!n
/j
Think she got a smartphone?
Americans when proper urbanism:
God! Please don't make anything so close to me that I don't have to drive there!!!
It's called MAGA because if they were called the Nazis you wouldn't want to join them (a lot of them probably still would)
From the creators of “please show us your social media posts or else we will deny entrance on the country”:
It must be exhausting having to live around people who are so fucking stupid.
Love the implication that people forcibly imprisoned in concentration camps had the choice all along! Who knew, we should let all those holocaust survivors know that they should have just left!! /s
The message is: 'you don't need a car', they hear 'you can't have a car.'
Or
'you can travel to the things you need for day-to-day life within 15 minutes of your house on foot, public transport or bicycle', they hear 'you will not be allowed to leave your neighbourhood.'
well if it is American or Chineese Smart city They can be accidently spot on
Yeah, I just love being forced to get a car, just so I can buy groceries. Freedom!
How does this relate to americans at all??
A certain subsect of Americans are losing their shit over the concept of "smart cities", "walkable cities", "15 min cities", etc, cause the conspiracy theory they latch on to is that instead of changing city planning to have mixed use properties be easily accessible by neighborhood residents without the need for cars, they will be violently forced into small districts where travel outside of the neighborhood will be restricted. Like some Hunger Games type shit.
It's a dumb fucking thing to panic about, but hey, they re-elected trump, so they aren't playing with a full deck to begin with.