A “V4”? Do you mean flat 4 (subaru) or is there actually a V4 configuration out there. Just curious.
And if I choose to make those choices, I can also choose to not care about your opinion of those choices.
Since never, AFAIK. But a person’s assessment that an action I take makes me a jerk does not necessarily mean that I won’t take that action and definitely doesn’t mean that I am under some obligation not to take that action.
Also, I will not “be surprised” when that person thinks I’m a jerk or calls me a jerk for taking that action. (In these types of discussions people often say “well don’t be surpised if” blah blah blah. Trust me, I will not be surprised.)
Imagine that. And I can choose not to care that you don’t care and…
Yeah.
What I can do, though, is be thankful that there aren’t more people in the world whose lives are exclusively driven by thoughtless self-gratification. I can also only hope that more people who feel trapped in unhappy, self-gratifying lives will recognize the sources of their unhappiness and make the necessary corrections. But it takes all kinds to move the world.
My point, which I may have not made clear, was that they should not have to justify need. They want it, they get it.
Wear and tear on roads is already covered in taxes. Whether the money actually goes to road repair is a whole 'nother can of worms, but, there are taxes levied for road maintenance.
Air pollution is a given, so long as we burn fuel of any kind - oil, coal, wood for old timey steam engines. Even without vehicles, we pollute, to generate electricity. So in an indirect way, even “green” electric vehicles could be considered as polluters.
We run on oil. We used to run on coal and wood. We were still “burning stuff” and polluting. The western world “decided” to run on oil because at one time it was seen as being cheap and plentiful. I suppose now, “we” are paying the piper?
But it seems that whenever a person wants to “take away” something from someone else, one of their first arguments is “prove you need it”. Many of us would say “We don’t have to”.
If we had to prove a need, for everything, there would be nothing left.
What do you mean by “thoughtless self-gratification”?
You are free to object and the OP is free not to care.
Everyone is someone elses “jerk”.
I do not own a car, so I am morally superior to all of you. As far as I am concerned, any of you who do own a car or don’t take public transportation are closer to the SUV driving in terms of evilness than you are to me and my superior car-free lifestyle. Yes, you are legally allowed to drive a car, and I am not one to pressure you into changing your lifestyle choice of fucking up the entire world. But all of you are worse than Hitler.
Now see how much of a douchebag I sound like? That’s how you anti-SUV people sound to me.
Amen and amen, Monsieur Smith.
However, I must inform you that I am morally superior to you because I bought a vehicle (thus stimulating the economy) but take public transportation to work (thus using the car only when I “need” to)an and the economic stimulation good clearly outweighs the occasional use evil).
You, therefore, are clearly a jerk. Now go buy something expensive.
I also, don’t own a car (right now) as a matter of simply deciding I didn’t need one vs cost of maintenace/insurance/etc. That was my choice. It was not the result of someone else deciding what I need or don’t need. I also use public transportation. So I too am talking from a “higher plain of existence”. 
Finally, just like you, am am “pro choice” when it comes to personal conveyance decisions.
Well, for those of us that say we have no right to judge the OP, I will point out *he asked us *to do so.
Now, I can say the OP is gullible for having been taken in by the salesman preying on his parents sense of responsibility, by the salesmans lying claims that a SUV is “safer”. (it’s not)
Does one child and attendant “stuff” mean you NEED a larger car? Well, if you were driving a two-seater before then sure. But a Honda Civic will hold a kid and all the gear. I know several parents who have two kids and their Civic or similar autos can hold it all.
As has been said, there are plenty of smaller SUVs, even Hybrids, who are not that bad in the carbon footprint/gas milage area. If you want the conveience, then one of those should fill the bill nicely. Honda CRV, Saturn Greenline, Subaru Forester, etc.
I might be confusing terms, I’m not exactly a car girl. They have a 4-cylinder Optra and a 6-cylinder Epica. And to answer the other question, the Optra (station wagon) is larger.
By that logic then, you’d be perfectly comfortable as a pedestrian/other driver with me driving around in my armored vehicle with rotating sawblades protruding from the sides, sharpened spikes bolted to the front bumper, and razor wire mounted on the roof, as long as it was street legal, correct? You’d be fine with my attitude of “If I ever get in a wreck, I want to make absolutely sure the other guy gets it worse than me”, right?
That would be pretty cool looking. Rand isn’t talking about being able to grind up pedestrians, he’s just talking about being able to drive the sort of car he wants to drive. There’s nothing sinister, evil, or murderous about that.
This is a fair question and talking about this sort of thing might even merit its own thread. We have lots of points of view represented here.
A “thoughtless” decision-making process is basically limited to evaluating whether or not you want something, whether it is in your power to acquire, and whether the consequences for acquiring it exceed the benefits to you. This works fine in formal economics when you abstract away all of the annoying details to model the decisions of the ith person or firm given payoffs and probabilities. But it is just that, an abstraction. I don’t think it is necessarily the best guideline to the decision-making of actual individuals because in my experience and observation, it does not make people happy and can lead to spectacular market failures.
The calculation is obvsiously not thoughtless insfar as the decisions are not completely random. I am happy to rename thoughtless to something less ambiguous or possibly normative, like “shmoughtless”. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that the decision-making process ignores the context of acquiring this thing, the potential harm to others, or even asking yourself if there may be other duties or obligations aside from utilitarian considerations that might be affected by your acquisition of this thing. There is an ethical dimension to every consumption decision which is, as it should be, ignored in considerations of utility. But I am very comfortable asserting that for the vast majority of the human race, utility is not the only consideration.
For some people, this is all they need or want out of life. It’s not exactly my ideal, but that’s fine. Happiness is hard enough to acquire as it is.
If that is how the “anti-SUV people” sound to you, then maybe you need to get your ears checked. Does your open-mindedness about the crap people consume extend to other areas, too?
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Nothing I said requires the conclusionm that I’d be “comfortable” as you suggested (whatever that means really). I’m just saying that anyone’s opinion that doing what you described is evil or morally wrong does not impose an obligation on you not to do it.
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If I saw you coming and I were a pedestrian, I would of course fire an RPG and demolish your vehicle if that were legal. In other words, your example is swallowed up and rendered rather feeble by the “if that were legal” bit.
Maeglin, just because I don’t consider your opinion about an action I take doesn’t mean that I don’t take anything other than my own self-gratification into account. You have set up a false dichotomy (ie, either do what Maeglin thinks is right or be all wrapped up in thoughtless self-gratification). A third option I’d that a person follows a different set of moral rules than yours.
I am in the position you now occupy on a great many issues. For example, I think that Obama causing Wagoner to step down was “evil” or “immoral” or just plain “bad” or whatever. I would bet Obama agrees with my post above that he doesn’t give a hoot what I think about his action. I don’t think that Obama is all about gratifying himself because he took that action. Rather, he has a different system than mine under which he decides whether actions are good or bad.
I’m not talking about being able to grind up pedestrians either. I just want to drive a cool looking car that has a lower fatality rate than every other automobile on the road. I want to “win” every accident I get in.
Ok, I was not suggesting that you were. Apologies for the unclarity. When I say “you”, I mean it generally.
Now this is not true. I have inferred (rightly or wrongly) from your posts that your moral calculus is grounded in rational self-interest. Almost by default this prioritizes personal considerations of utility and the categorical rules they flow from over pretty much anything else.
If this is wrong, sorry. I don’t know your mind. I just react to what you say and try to connect the dots as I see them.
Naturally I think this is deeply flawed, but if it makes you happy and does not cause unnecessary harm to others, then rock on with your bad self. I may not think it is ok from my point of view, but it is just that, my point of view. Talking about points of view is why I am here.
The fact that I believe consumption is ethical does not imply that I believe SUV owners are “evil”. I may not agree with their priorities, but it takes a lot more shit in my book to get the evil label.
This is entirely different. Policy always has an ethical component to it. What some people seem to be arguing here is that consumption, as long as it is within the law, pretty much doesn’t. That is what I object to.
Pretty much. What should I care about what people choose to consume? Go be a fat ass and eat McDonalds every day. Or be a vegetarian. What’s it to me? And regardless of what I think, people are free to buy whatever they want as long as it’s not illegal. Why should they care if I take issue with it?
Let’s face it, the guy who buys the red Hummer does not care if you think he’s a jerk. He buys it BECAUSE he knows people like you think he’s a jerk (and presumably to impress other A-holes).
SUVs do NOT have " lower fatality rate than every other automobile on the road" in fact they have an average or above average fatality rate.