It really says something. Roads have long served as our public space but we've managed to convert it into the private.
I don't mean materially private, I know we're fishbowls on wheels, but culturally private, as in people often refer to it as such.
It's one of the only times most people are disconnected from internet/work-tech because there is substantial risk of life and limb if they engaged (I know people have made this work regardless, I'm talking about cultures, not outliers)
Also this human need for privacy, if that's the reason to commute, is coming at the cost of literally destroying the planet.
There has to be a healthier way to satisfy these baseline psychological needs. Climate collapsing death machines may be how humans have transported themselves for a while but it shouldn't be the main go-to for how they are alone with their thoughts
Agreed. It seems with our current "world plan" (infinite growth to prop up the asset class), the only way forward is to push people into smaller and smaller boxes with less and less liberties.
Someday we'll be saying that travel is only for the rich - everyone else will be forced to use VR, and they will be brainwashed to like it. As they say, American lifestyles are only sustainable for the 1%. The rest of us should eat bugs and live in pods.
As we move into cities, production becomes cheaper - which means we produce more, which means we can support more people, which means we need to increase efficiency even more.
I'm not sure that this is preferable to life without technology. Aren't family and small moments the things that make life worth living? Squeezing out a few more years of expected lifespan hardly seems worth the tradeoff to me.
Cities offer privacy and anonymity. Smaller towns lack both. Dense urban areas with reasonably easy access to nature on public transport are fantastic resources which are missing in car oriented suburbs.
Both are declining because the scope of government is getting bigger and their capabilities get better. In practice this means that your upstairs neighbor in a city who just doesn't like your hair (or whatever) can likely find a reason to narc on you and in the country your magic mushroom grow op that nobody local cared about will be harassed by the government who formerly didn't have the means to care about what people in the countryside violating laws without bothering people were up to.
Rural areas don't offer you anonymity from the state either.
If your neighbours don't like you, they are likely to bring the state in. To be able to be that anonymous, you would need to be a few days commuting away from all individuals and offgrid.
In cities, the neighbour might not like you, but they don't have the time or energy to care about it. You need a reasonably big and dense city for this though.
I used to commute on BART from El Cerrito for an hour. Read so many books on that ride. When I had a 10 min commute, book reading dropped through the floor till I made time again.
I converted my commute time to walking time and yardwork time last spring through fall (too cold for walking now, and yardwork is now 10 minutes of shoveling snow every couple of weeks). I think I listened to more thanks to the lack of a commute. I didn't feel bad about leaving the house at 4:30pm (end of workday for me) and finding my way back home at 5:30pm or 6pm, especially since I knocked out a lot of household chores/tasks during the workday in quick 1-5 minute bursts so I was more helpful around the house than when I was in the office.
Pretend I'm naïve (better yet don't pretend): can't you set some boundaries? If you need to get out of the house why not go for a walk? Is it because doing something for/by yourself is seen as selfish (even by yourself), while before the commute was imposed by your job, so you could enjoy that alone time guilt-free?
It's really not about boundaries. It's about efficiency. If I'm at home, there's always something I can be doing more "valuable" than podcasts. Working, playing with the kids, helping with chores, etc.
When I'm driving, there's nothing I can do otherwise, other than audio. Which means either podcasts or phone calls with family or friends.
I've been WFH for about 5 years now and also have two young ones so I know the feeling :)
I've found that any chore time is now also podcast time. So things like cleaning, laundry, or mowing the lawn I've always got one headphone in (the other ear is for listening for the kids)
Yeah when I'm doing yard work my headphones do double duty for listening to podcasts and being earplugs. But that was true even before I stopped driving anywhere.
I noticed this problem. I read during my commute (it was by train don't worry), and since I've started working from home my reading time has absolutely tanked.
