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What an amazingly witty and civil idea. Without having any clue why the individual owns a large vehicle you lambast them. How intellegent. The only difference I can see between you and the obnoxious Christian who comes to my door and assures me I'm going to hell because I don't attend her church is that you don't appear to have the balls to actually identify yourself.
By the way - I own a Cooper Mini and my wife owns a Prius. But we still think you are out of line
David
at October 16, 2004 6:51 AM
Heh heh...David, the new campaign is NOT witty in the least...and both have information on contacting me. I'm not putting a phone number on this one - but my amyalkon@aol.com email address. I feel
The old campaign was witty, because we weren't seeing these handsome dead boys (and the occasional girl) in their military attire in the paper every day like we are now. They're dying so a million-some people can drive a Ford Expedition? That's sick. The old campaign was created based on principles of evolutionary psychology (cheater detection, Zahavi and Zahavi's handicap principle, and Dawkins' meme theory [of creating cultural evolution]) to motivate people to think it was uncool to drive a huge vehicle when it's unnecessary. It was actually a success -- in that it spread via media coverage and word of mouth to England, Japan, and Europe. (Andrew Gumbel did a piece on me for The Independent and Duncan Campbell, for the Guardian...and I was on over 100 radio stations here, including Air Talk with Larry Mantle, locally, and I think, The John and Ken Show...although I'm not positive that they were the other one...it was a big FM show on LA radio.)
Now, I have no problem with some contractor driving a big'un to get his equipment and timber to a construction site, but where I live, it's not the contractors in Lincoln Navigators and expeditions. Nor was it in this Hummer. (It was a tiny blond woman with two children.) Unnecessary use of gas is completely unpatriotic -- and terrible -- and moreover, I think putting more smog out into the environment than necessary is criminal (even though it hasn't been criminalized). PS I drive a Honda Insight, the highest mileage car on the road. I haven't had time to blog about it yet. Moreover, if somebody can afford to drive a Navigator, they can afford a Volvo station wagon. People have a moral duty to pollute as little as possible and add as little as possible to the crisis situation in the middle east. As for people who suggest we're there for humanitarian reasons...I don't see us marching into Sudan...do you?
Moreover, I don't see why any person has the right to impair the breathing of the rest of us by driving a big smog-producer when they have no need to do so. As for carrying a lot of stuff, my friend Jay, a 6'5" producer/director of low-budget films, fits a garage full of equipment into his VW Golf. He told me it has more room than his old Pathfinder.
Oops, I feel, if I'm criticizing the person, they have a right to right back and protest their "right" to pollute the air of the rest of us, and endanger everyone else on the road. If you, in your Prius or Mini Cooper, get hit at any speed above parking velocity, by the vulgarian pictured in the SUV here, do you really think you have much of a chance of living? Think of what that woman is teaching her kids -- "we can be safe and it's fine if other people die horribly"
> ...uncool to drive a huge vehicle when it's
> unnecessary...
How do you know when it's necessary? Most of those constrcution types could do their trips in Mini Coopers too.
> People have a moral duty to pollute as little
> as possible...
An impossibly high and intolerably vague standard. Amy, you have an opinion on what's necessary. So does every one else. SUVs suck, but there are lot of sweet, not-terribly-arrogant people driving them. A better approach is policy.
These things should be priced and taxed (at manufacture) to reflect their cost in a more appropriate way. Snotty notes on cars is emotinally gratifying, and a lot of fun to read about, but y'know... When you consider the vast global need for oil, drawing the line at SUVs, but not say, recreational air travel and frivolous home expansions seems a little peevish.
Meanwhile, light, sweet crude is $55 a barrel. And that price is driven by worldwide demand. There's something to be said for letting prices do their part to change behavior.
And if we went into Iraq just for the oil, why didn't we just send a couple of Brownie scout troops down to take over Venezuela?
Anonymous
at October 16, 2004 8:08 PM
twas me
Cridland
at October 16, 2004 8:10 PM
My own SUV hatred is based mainly on their size. We have a lot of skinny streets over here by the beach, and SUVs -- parked or moving -- have made driving down a 2-way street a lot more difficult for me. I also think that SUVs increase my accident risk by blocking the view when I'm turning or pulling out of driveways or parking spots. SUVs are completely impractical for city living.
I took Microenonomics 101 too, Crid, and I agree that we should let rising prices work their magic on the demand for gas-guzzlers. I also took Sociology 101, however, and I think that cultural norms have a role in shaping people's behavior as much as prices do. We might not have a "moral duty" to drive gas-efficient cars, but if claims like that can help to clear up the roads (and air) a bit, my attitude is "whatever gets the job done." The great thing about Amy's work is that it's aimed at changing cultural norms, while being clever and funny at the same time.
Lena Cuisina
at October 17, 2004 9:58 AM
"These things should be priced and taxed (at manufacture) to reflect their cost in a more appropriate way. "
Yes, per English economist Pigou, taxed to reflect their cost when I get lung cancer from the pollution, and lose a leg in an accident with one. So...a Hummer should cost...$30 million?
What I'm doing is working to create a meme -- social oppobrium against SUVs to help the rest along. As someone who's more libertarian than anything else, I used to be against legislation against SUVs. After some thought, I've changed my mind. You can't sock somebody in the nose with abandon - why should you be able to sock them in the lung?
Something a little shocking, Amy: Your lung cancer and missing leg are worth a lot less than $30 million to health economists. In most cost-effectiveness studies I've read, the monetary value of a life is estimated to be somewhere between $40,000 and $100,000.
Lena
at October 17, 2004 11:55 AM
Amy, what person NEEDS to fly to Paris for pate (or whatever) 5 times a year? What's with all those sequinned dresses, wouldn't it be more effiecient to wear demin and t's? I have my indulgences too (favoring scuba in the south Pacific). You're drawing the line of tolerable "need" just outside of the place you live. But 'need' is not a word you'd want a dispassionate observer to apply to your own consumption patterns... It's a meme that could bite you on the ass.
Cridland
at October 17, 2004 12:17 PM
Well, if I were a meme, I'd want to bite Amy's ass.
Hopefully, that should make a few sit up and take notice.
rhc
at October 17, 2004 5:28 PM
rhc --
I'm not trying to be difficult, rhc, but could you elaborate on how that piece applies to this discussion thread on SUVs? Maybe it's obvious, and I'm just stupid from working too much over the weekend.
thanks,
Lena
Lena
at October 17, 2004 6:04 PM
You must go down about 22 paragraphs through the TENG story to GAS GUZZLE.
"...Sean Comey, a AAA spokesman, attended an energy supply summit in Lake Las Vegas, NV. Comey couldn't believe his ears hearing executives "gush" about high gas prices and exclaim how consumers are not complaining. They were "pumped" at the high profits margins. One of the big corporate CEOs said, according to Comey, that owning a refinery was like a license to print money.>.."
rhc
at October 17, 2004 6:08 PM
>Amy, what person NEEDS to fly to Paris for pate >(or whatever) 5 times a year? What's with all >those sequinned dresses, wouldn't it be more >effiecient to wear demin and t's?
This doesn't relate because her indulgences, if they are defined as such, are not imposing something noxious on others around her, unless pate creates an inordinate amount of transcontinental gas.
Doug Mason
at October 17, 2004 8:01 PM
Well ya know, jet planes on their way to Paris do fart out nasties that damage the ozone layer. But since those planes would be flying whether Amy was on them or not, I don't think we Paris-lovers can be held responsible for the heat-death of the galaxy.
Stu "L'Anglais" Harris
at October 18, 2004 8:14 AM
As of yet, there's no more fuel efficient way to get to France without taking months to travel there. You're so freaked out that I would publicly express an opinion about others' piggish behavior that you still don't get it: I'm not suggesting that people stop driving -- or flying. Merely that, if there's a way to get from place to place while making others suffer for it as little as possible - it's the right thing to do. (It's a libertarian way of thinking: my right to punch you in the nose ends where your nose begins.) What's amazing to me is that this seems to be a difficult and upsetting concept for you. Just wondering, but do you, by any chance, talk loudly on cell phones in restaurants?
"do you, by any chance, talk loudly on cell phones in restaurants?"
No, but my farts frequently rank as "deep orange" on the Homeland Security terrorist alert system.
Lena Cuisina
at October 18, 2004 8:49 PM
> I'm not suggesting that people
> stop driving -- or flying.
No, you're suggesting that "People have a moral duty to pollute as little as possible." Or you're saying "Unnecessary use of gas is completely unpatriotic -- and terrible -- and moreover, I think putting more smog out into the environment than necessary is criminal."
In no sense are your trips to Paris necessary. By my calculation, that is. Not that I'd interfere or anything, because I'm not facist. But environmentalism is a precise analog of religious faith, with it's own impatient tenets and busy crusaders. (David was on to something up there.)Everything has a price and everything has a cost, and enviromentalists who say otherwise are just look for a way to irritate people. The constitution protects me from religious freaks, but greens have no such boundary.
You confuse Bush with the most freaky religious freaks of your nightmares, but are unable to hear the extremism in your own rhetoric.
Cridland
at October 19, 2004 2:15 AM
When we Americans living in Europe hear Americans living in the USA complaining about the high cost of gas, we tend ñ unfortunately and incorrectly ñ to yawn and say "Oh, come off it." Y'all should see the prices here. (smile)
The whole SUV/NO SUV discussion will be moot as soon as one or more oil-exporting countries starts pricing its oil in euros, which have increased markedly against the dollar even as the price of oil has risen to over US$55. Make no mistake about it: it's in the cards.
The US press seems to be silent on this. Could it be anything to do with ñ gasp - the elections ?!
L'Amerloque
L'Amerloque
at October 22, 2004 9:52 AM
Face it Amy, you've been busted. The amount of oil you waste on your frivilous trips to Paris vastly exceeds the waste you can pin on any SUV driver in the US, and your use of a battery-powered mini-car is aesthetically motivated, as in "if you didn't have that mini-car, somebody else would." This is right in line with criticizing people for doting on their children while you dote on that stupid animal you carry in your purse.
Hoggy and rude? Patriotic was kind of a shorthand -- meaning, how can you expect people to die in the Middle East so you can drive around in an excessive car -- excessive if it's more than you actually need. What's "need"? You're a contractor who needs to get wood and tools to a construction site. You are not some ditso mom carting back a single shopping bag from Niemen Marcus. Just because you CAN drive a huge vehicle doesn't mean you should. Not if you're endangering the rest of us and impairing our breathing unnecessarily. Nobody has the right to cause somebody else physical harm. Certainly not because they have vulgar aspirations to drive some huge war tank around suburbia. I worked at persuading a change in public opinion, but you know what? I've had it with burning lungs when I run. A good deal of that burn comes out of the exhaust pipes of cars. If you can't afford a clean-burning car, fine. If you can afford a Hummer, and you buy one, you're a vile pig.
What an amazingly witty and civil idea. Without having any clue why the individual owns a large vehicle you lambast them. How intellegent. The only difference I can see between you and the obnoxious Christian who comes to my door and assures me I'm going to hell because I don't attend her church is that you don't appear to have the balls to actually identify yourself.
By the way - I own a Cooper Mini and my wife owns a Prius. But we still think you are out of line
David at October 16, 2004 6:51 AM
Heh heh...David, the new campaign is NOT witty in the least...and both have information on contacting me. I'm not putting a phone number on this one - but my amyalkon@aol.com email address. I feel
The old campaign was witty, because we weren't seeing these handsome dead boys (and the occasional girl) in their military attire in the paper every day like we are now. They're dying so a million-some people can drive a Ford Expedition? That's sick. The old campaign was created based on principles of evolutionary psychology (cheater detection, Zahavi and Zahavi's handicap principle, and Dawkins' meme theory [of creating cultural evolution]) to motivate people to think it was uncool to drive a huge vehicle when it's unnecessary. It was actually a success -- in that it spread via media coverage and word of mouth to England, Japan, and Europe. (Andrew Gumbel did a piece on me for The Independent and Duncan Campbell, for the Guardian...and I was on over 100 radio stations here, including Air Talk with Larry Mantle, locally, and I think, The John and Ken Show...although I'm not positive that they were the other one...it was a big FM show on LA radio.)
Now, I have no problem with some contractor driving a big'un to get his equipment and timber to a construction site, but where I live, it's not the contractors in Lincoln Navigators and expeditions. Nor was it in this Hummer. (It was a tiny blond woman with two children.) Unnecessary use of gas is completely unpatriotic -- and terrible -- and moreover, I think putting more smog out into the environment than necessary is criminal (even though it hasn't been criminalized). PS I drive a Honda Insight, the highest mileage car on the road. I haven't had time to blog about it yet. Moreover, if somebody can afford to drive a Navigator, they can afford a Volvo station wagon. People have a moral duty to pollute as little as possible and add as little as possible to the crisis situation in the middle east. As for people who suggest we're there for humanitarian reasons...I don't see us marching into Sudan...do you?
Moreover, I don't see why any person has the right to impair the breathing of the rest of us by driving a big smog-producer when they have no need to do so. As for carrying a lot of stuff, my friend Jay, a 6'5" producer/director of low-budget films, fits a garage full of equipment into his VW Golf. He told me it has more room than his old Pathfinder.
Amy Alkon at October 16, 2004 8:41 AM
Oops, I feel, if I'm criticizing the person, they have a right to right back and protest their "right" to pollute the air of the rest of us, and endanger everyone else on the road. If you, in your Prius or Mini Cooper, get hit at any speed above parking velocity, by the vulgarian pictured in the SUV here, do you really think you have much of a chance of living? Think of what that woman is teaching her kids -- "we can be safe and it's fine if other people die horribly"
That's some sick shit.
Amy Alkon at October 16, 2004 8:44 AM
> ...uncool to drive a huge vehicle when it's
> unnecessary...
How do you know when it's necessary? Most of those constrcution types could do their trips in Mini Coopers too.
> People have a moral duty to pollute as little
> as possible...
An impossibly high and intolerably vague standard. Amy, you have an opinion on what's necessary. So does every one else. SUVs suck, but there are lot of sweet, not-terribly-arrogant people driving them. A better approach is policy.
These things should be priced and taxed (at manufacture) to reflect their cost in a more appropriate way. Snotty notes on cars is emotinally gratifying, and a lot of fun to read about, but y'know... When you consider the vast global need for oil, drawing the line at SUVs, but not say, recreational air travel and frivolous home expansions seems a little peevish.
Meanwhile, light, sweet crude is $55 a barrel. And that price is driven by worldwide demand. There's something to be said for letting prices do their part to change behavior.
And if we went into Iraq just for the oil, why didn't we just send a couple of Brownie scout troops down to take over Venezuela?
Anonymous at October 16, 2004 8:08 PM
twas me
Cridland at October 16, 2004 8:10 PM
My own SUV hatred is based mainly on their size. We have a lot of skinny streets over here by the beach, and SUVs -- parked or moving -- have made driving down a 2-way street a lot more difficult for me. I also think that SUVs increase my accident risk by blocking the view when I'm turning or pulling out of driveways or parking spots. SUVs are completely impractical for city living.
I took Microenonomics 101 too, Crid, and I agree that we should let rising prices work their magic on the demand for gas-guzzlers. I also took Sociology 101, however, and I think that cultural norms have a role in shaping people's behavior as much as prices do. We might not have a "moral duty" to drive gas-efficient cars, but if claims like that can help to clear up the roads (and air) a bit, my attitude is "whatever gets the job done." The great thing about Amy's work is that it's aimed at changing cultural norms, while being clever and funny at the same time.
Lena Cuisina at October 17, 2004 9:58 AM
"These things should be priced and taxed (at manufacture) to reflect their cost in a more appropriate way. "
Yes, per English economist Pigou, taxed to reflect their cost when I get lung cancer from the pollution, and lose a leg in an accident with one. So...a Hummer should cost...$30 million?
What I'm doing is working to create a meme -- social oppobrium against SUVs to help the rest along. As someone who's more libertarian than anything else, I used to be against legislation against SUVs. After some thought, I've changed my mind. You can't sock somebody in the nose with abandon - why should you be able to sock them in the lung?
Amy Alkon at October 17, 2004 10:14 AM
PS Come on: what person NEEDS to drive a Lincoln Navigator?
Amy Alkon at October 17, 2004 10:15 AM
Something a little shocking, Amy: Your lung cancer and missing leg are worth a lot less than $30 million to health economists. In most cost-effectiveness studies I've read, the monetary value of a life is estimated to be somewhere between $40,000 and $100,000.
Lena at October 17, 2004 11:55 AM
Amy, what person NEEDS to fly to Paris for pate (or whatever) 5 times a year? What's with all those sequinned dresses, wouldn't it be more effiecient to wear demin and t's? I have my indulgences too (favoring scuba in the south Pacific). You're drawing the line of tolerable "need" just outside of the place you live. But 'need' is not a word you'd want a dispassionate observer to apply to your own consumption patterns... It's a meme that could bite you on the ass.
Cridland at October 17, 2004 12:17 PM
Well, if I were a meme, I'd want to bite Amy's ass.
Lena at October 17, 2004 1:05 PM
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/10/17/BAGNA9BBNS1.DTL.
Hopefully, that should make a few sit up and take notice.
rhc at October 17, 2004 5:28 PM
rhc --
I'm not trying to be difficult, rhc, but could you elaborate on how that piece applies to this discussion thread on SUVs? Maybe it's obvious, and I'm just stupid from working too much over the weekend.
thanks,
Lena
Lena at October 17, 2004 6:04 PM
You must go down about 22 paragraphs through the TENG story to GAS GUZZLE.
"...Sean Comey, a AAA spokesman, attended an energy supply summit in Lake Las Vegas, NV. Comey couldn't believe his ears hearing executives "gush" about high gas prices and exclaim how consumers are not complaining. They were "pumped" at the high profits margins. One of the big corporate CEOs said, according to Comey, that owning a refinery was like a license to print money.>.."
rhc at October 17, 2004 6:08 PM
>Amy, what person NEEDS to fly to Paris for pate >(or whatever) 5 times a year? What's with all >those sequinned dresses, wouldn't it be more >effiecient to wear demin and t's?
This doesn't relate because her indulgences, if they are defined as such, are not imposing something noxious on others around her, unless pate creates an inordinate amount of transcontinental gas.
Doug Mason at October 17, 2004 8:01 PM
Well ya know, jet planes on their way to Paris do fart out nasties that damage the ozone layer. But since those planes would be flying whether Amy was on them or not, I don't think we Paris-lovers can be held responsible for the heat-death of the galaxy.
Stu "L'Anglais" Harris at October 18, 2004 8:14 AM
As of yet, there's no more fuel efficient way to get to France without taking months to travel there. You're so freaked out that I would publicly express an opinion about others' piggish behavior that you still don't get it: I'm not suggesting that people stop driving -- or flying. Merely that, if there's a way to get from place to place while making others suffer for it as little as possible - it's the right thing to do. (It's a libertarian way of thinking: my right to punch you in the nose ends where your nose begins.) What's amazing to me is that this seems to be a difficult and upsetting concept for you. Just wondering, but do you, by any chance, talk loudly on cell phones in restaurants?
Amy Alkon at October 18, 2004 6:39 PM
"do you, by any chance, talk loudly on cell phones in restaurants?"
No, but my farts frequently rank as "deep orange" on the Homeland Security terrorist alert system.
Lena Cuisina at October 18, 2004 8:49 PM
> I'm not suggesting that people
> stop driving -- or flying.
No, you're suggesting that "People have a moral duty to pollute as little as possible." Or you're saying "Unnecessary use of gas is completely unpatriotic -- and terrible -- and moreover, I think putting more smog out into the environment than necessary is criminal."
In no sense are your trips to Paris necessary. By my calculation, that is. Not that I'd interfere or anything, because I'm not facist. But environmentalism is a precise analog of religious faith, with it's own impatient tenets and busy crusaders. (David was on to something up there.)Everything has a price and everything has a cost, and enviromentalists who say otherwise are just look for a way to irritate people. The constitution protects me from religious freaks, but greens have no such boundary.
You confuse Bush with the most freaky religious freaks of your nightmares, but are unable to hear the extremism in your own rhetoric.
Cridland at October 19, 2004 2:15 AM
When we Americans living in Europe hear Americans living in the USA complaining about the high cost of gas, we tend ñ unfortunately and incorrectly ñ to yawn and say "Oh, come off it." Y'all should see the prices here. (smile)
The whole SUV/NO SUV discussion will be moot as soon as one or more oil-exporting countries starts pricing its oil in euros, which have increased markedly against the dollar even as the price of oil has risen to over US$55. Make no mistake about it: it's in the cards.
The US press seems to be silent on this. Could it be anything to do with ñ gasp - the elections ?!
L'Amerloque
L'Amerloque at October 22, 2004 9:52 AM
Face it Amy, you've been busted. The amount of oil you waste on your frivilous trips to Paris vastly exceeds the waste you can pin on any SUV driver in the US, and your use of a battery-powered mini-car is aesthetically motivated, as in "if you didn't have that mini-car, somebody else would." This is right in line with criticizing people for doting on their children while you dote on that stupid animal you carry in your purse.
Some people have absolutely no self-awareness.
Richard at October 22, 2004 3:35 PM
"Unnecessary use of gas is completely unpatriotic"
So? Not all of us want to be patriotic. Patriotism is just another nasty collectivist religion to some of us.
Perry de Havilland at October 26, 2004 11:00 AM
Hoggy and rude? Patriotic was kind of a shorthand -- meaning, how can you expect people to die in the Middle East so you can drive around in an excessive car -- excessive if it's more than you actually need. What's "need"? You're a contractor who needs to get wood and tools to a construction site. You are not some ditso mom carting back a single shopping bag from Niemen Marcus. Just because you CAN drive a huge vehicle doesn't mean you should. Not if you're endangering the rest of us and impairing our breathing unnecessarily. Nobody has the right to cause somebody else physical harm. Certainly not because they have vulgar aspirations to drive some huge war tank around suburbia. I worked at persuading a change in public opinion, but you know what? I've had it with burning lungs when I run. A good deal of that burn comes out of the exhaust pipes of cars. If you can't afford a clean-burning car, fine. If you can afford a Hummer, and you buy one, you're a vile pig.
Amy Alkon at October 26, 2004 11:51 AM