Terrific article, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the series!
You are right to look at problems that arise through new technologies not through the lens of good and evil, but rather through negative externalities and how we avoid them. I have an example to support your point about how cultural norms can be an effective solution: We have those scooters in Switzerland too (weirdly, their brand name is Tier, which means animal), but the Swiss never, ever leave them lying around. People always put them tidily back in their proper place. That’s not surprising; the Swiss have a strong cultural norm to be tidy, well-organized, and considerate of other people. A few years ago, my daughter needed community-service hours for her IB diploma, so she joined a litter-pickup afternoon her school organized. But there was no litter to be found anywhere--not along the riverfront, not near the outdoor bars, not even in the train station!
Whenever I mention something that works well in Switzerland, people will jump in to say that cultural changes that are easy there would be impossible in the US. But they are wrong; our cultural norms change to condemn destructive behaviors all the time. (Think of smoking, drunk-driving, littering, casual use of the N-word, or beating dogs, all heinous actions that were totally normal in my childhood and are rightly considered totally unacceptable now.) I wrote about changing norms in my own Substack, here: https://marischindele.substack.com/p/sea-changes?r=7fpv6&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=direct
Those changing norms are coming for the scooter-slobs too, I promise!
In Manchester UK one bike rental scheme a couple of years ago was abandoned because so many of the bikes were stolen and some just dumped. A newly launched scheme is already six months in reporting similar problems but say they have “added an additional locking system” Duh!!
Two points here. 1) Some Manchester citizens steal bikes with crap locks and don’t care about litter, unlike Switzerland. The social and economic reasons for this behaviour can be found in much more detail elsewhere.
2) Sone bike hire companies don’t do enough planning or research about the security or the systems concerning their schemes or learn lessons from failed schemes. This seems to be the case for scooter hire as well.
I don’t read of problems with abandoned hire cars (although some must get stolen) and this must be due to stricter procedures during the hiring.
That Netflix article was linked at a news aggregator, for whatever it’s worth. At least that’s where I found it.
I’ve liked the theme and writing thus far, and you have an easy-to-read style. Everything I’ve read has been thought-provoking, even if I may not necessarily agree with it, so you earned another subscriber at least.
When I briefly lived in Seattle, those fucking bikes were in - the scooters would replace them a bit later. I still have the scratches on my car from where people just threw their fucking rent-a-bikes against it, or left them standing haphazardly in open parking spaces, or lying invisibly on the ground in open parking spaces.
Bison as the anti-Steven Seagal just made me fall through the floor.
My honest view on technology is both that I think it's obviously good and obviously technological progress has largely made us better at increasing purposeful human misery.
Like, it's fantastic that we can now produce more food than someone 100 years ago would have thought possible, even at their most optimistic. It's less good that we also throw away enough edible food to feed hundreds of millions of people but choose not to because corporations would rather throw literal tons of food away than allow people to have it for free.
Terrific article, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the series!
You are right to look at problems that arise through new technologies not through the lens of good and evil, but rather through negative externalities and how we avoid them. I have an example to support your point about how cultural norms can be an effective solution: We have those scooters in Switzerland too (weirdly, their brand name is Tier, which means animal), but the Swiss never, ever leave them lying around. People always put them tidily back in their proper place. That’s not surprising; the Swiss have a strong cultural norm to be tidy, well-organized, and considerate of other people. A few years ago, my daughter needed community-service hours for her IB diploma, so she joined a litter-pickup afternoon her school organized. But there was no litter to be found anywhere--not along the riverfront, not near the outdoor bars, not even in the train station!
Whenever I mention something that works well in Switzerland, people will jump in to say that cultural changes that are easy there would be impossible in the US. But they are wrong; our cultural norms change to condemn destructive behaviors all the time. (Think of smoking, drunk-driving, littering, casual use of the N-word, or beating dogs, all heinous actions that were totally normal in my childhood and are rightly considered totally unacceptable now.) I wrote about changing norms in my own Substack, here: https://marischindele.substack.com/p/sea-changes?r=7fpv6&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=direct
Those changing norms are coming for the scooter-slobs too, I promise!
In Manchester UK one bike rental scheme a couple of years ago was abandoned because so many of the bikes were stolen and some just dumped. A newly launched scheme is already six months in reporting similar problems but say they have “added an additional locking system” Duh!!
Two points here. 1) Some Manchester citizens steal bikes with crap locks and don’t care about litter, unlike Switzerland. The social and economic reasons for this behaviour can be found in much more detail elsewhere.
2) Sone bike hire companies don’t do enough planning or research about the security or the systems concerning their schemes or learn lessons from failed schemes. This seems to be the case for scooter hire as well.
I don’t read of problems with abandoned hire cars (although some must get stolen) and this must be due to stricter procedures during the hiring.
Those godawful scooters shrink a city. By simulating a smaller place and giving everybody else a bit less space to occupy. How meta is that
I found you by way of the Netflix post! I enjoy your writing very much so I’ll gonna stick around. :) This is a great article!
That Netflix article was linked at a news aggregator, for whatever it’s worth. At least that’s where I found it.
I’ve liked the theme and writing thus far, and you have an easy-to-read style. Everything I’ve read has been thought-provoking, even if I may not necessarily agree with it, so you earned another subscriber at least.
Looking forward to this series.
When I briefly lived in Seattle, those fucking bikes were in - the scooters would replace them a bit later. I still have the scratches on my car from where people just threw their fucking rent-a-bikes against it, or left them standing haphazardly in open parking spaces, or lying invisibly on the ground in open parking spaces.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHhbdXCzt_A <== This is a documentary
Bison as the anti-Steven Seagal just made me fall through the floor.
My honest view on technology is both that I think it's obviously good and obviously technological progress has largely made us better at increasing purposeful human misery.
Like, it's fantastic that we can now produce more food than someone 100 years ago would have thought possible, even at their most optimistic. It's less good that we also throw away enough edible food to feed hundreds of millions of people but choose not to because corporations would rather throw literal tons of food away than allow people to have it for free.
Great piece! But, and I hope this mind bender doesn't DQ me from Technopoptimism fandom...what if the electric scooter is the buffalo of our time?