Anyone can be fallible in the right circumstances. Maybe you're tired, unwell, in a rush, or otherwise distressed and not thinking straight. Maybe a malicious actor accidentally crafts a scam that coincides with specific details from your life. Perhaps the scam centres around some system you have less expertise in.
The point of not assigning blame isn't to absolve people of the need to have their guard up but to recognise that everyone is capable of mistakes.
Exactly. If you have plenty of community spaces spread around an urban area - cafes, pubs, small businesses, public parks - you both reduce the amount of travel required, and strengthen local communities
Urban planning has a term for this - the Downs Thomson paradox. Over time, traffic tends to increase up to a point at which equivalent journeys on transit/bike/foot are quicker.
What this means of course is that an effective way of reducing traffic is by speeding up the alternatives.
It's said that the most disruptive technologies are the ones that change the way we communicate.
I'll admit, a lot of the reason for me being reticent of jumping into the AI game is an increasing amount of distrust towards the current state of the tech industry. Social media giants rose up, made everybody excited about the opportunities to communicate with anyone (which are perfectly valid, I was on board too) and years later, we come to realise the addictions, the fractured information landscape and the surveillance. Now a bunch of companies from the same part of the world come along asking for billions to change the world again and I'm just exhausted by the whole conversation.
People who feel ostracised or underappreciated tend to make good marks for cults and extremist groups in general. Another commenter pointed out that changing an opinion is a more emotional process than we'd like to assume.
It's why I found platforms like Twitter tended to have such volatility because the platform structure itself takes every opportunity to remove that charitibility.
If you come across an argument, people are writing in a limited space, you're presented with the most engaged with replies first (i.e. either towing the party line best or the most inflammatory opposition), accounts are pseudonymous, and your performance is numerically displayed below the post.
I think you're getting cause and effect mixed up. Save for a few petrolheads and train enthusiasts, people use whatever happens to be the most convenient method to get around. In North America, most cities prioritise infrastructure for private cars to such an extent that any other mode is almost useless
Since private cars scale badly, you want to encourage people to take other modes, but in order to change behaviour, the alternatives need to be attractive - cycle layouts that are safe, buses and trains that are frequent and reliable, city layouts that don't involve a long drive to buy food. You can't convince people out of taking the rational choice. You have to build it
If you really don’t like cars, you’ll find a way to minimize use of them.
If you really don’t mind cars that much you’ll make up stories about how if buses and trains and bike lanes were more attractive then people would use them more.
I guarantee that if every American city had an ideal bus and train system, people would still find excuses and reasons to justify driving their cars.
There is literally an example of a city with great public transport and 90% of people there use it exclusively. So most people will not make excuses but just use the thing that is easy.
Maybe a better question is whether we even need a global town square. I've had Twitter and Bluesky and the difference between them and a real town square is that you're always performing publically to an audience you can't possibly know. I've found far more rewarding relationships posting on niche forums and even subreddits because you get a sense of the people who use and administrate them, and you're safe in the knowledge you can't easily find virality.
I agree, it's just that the town square will exist regardless because of the billions of people and the propensity of most of them to gravitate to the most mainstream option. It feels ideal that that's quarantined on Twitter so the more niche spaces stay high quality.
The point of not assigning blame isn't to absolve people of the need to have their guard up but to recognise that everyone is capable of mistakes.