{"id":622,"date":"2005-09-12T15:55:37","date_gmt":"2005-09-12T19:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=622"},"modified":"2009-04-12T21:03:55","modified_gmt":"2009-04-13T01:03:55","slug":"myth-busting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/09\/12\/myth-busting\/","title":{"rendered":"Myth “busting”"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post<\/a> by Jane Galt<\/a> makes some very interesting arguments. To wit:<\/p>\n

You know, you would think that a large group of people who have all read Guns, Germs and Steel, and taken its message that “geography matters” to heart, would pay just a leetle bit of attention to it when they start chastising America for not being more like Europe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The following is also very true:<\/p>\n

Moreover, the lesson from America so far is that it is impossible to grow cities with the population densities necessary for successful mass transit from scratch. The only cities where mass transit is successful are the ones that grew around mass transit, notably New York and Chicago, and even in those cities, space constraints (the lake in Chicago, the small size of Manhattan) made a sizeable [sic<\/em>] contribution to supporting the necessary density. Europe has public transportation not because it made the tough moral choices about land-use, but because its cities were largely built up before the car was invented, and because during the fifties, when productivity boosts were putting mass-produced automobiles in the hands of American workers for the first time, Europe’s workers were busy recovering from the nasty war they decided to hold in the forties.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is also very true, and something that non-Americans should keep in mind:<\/p>\n

Y’all apparently don’t even need the “natural” part to produce the disaster. A heat wave that wouldn’t even make a New Yorker reach across the sofa to turn up the fan killed as many people in France as the worst-case scenario for American losses to Katrina. They were apparently not saved by Europe’s admirably high fuel prices, its finer moral sensibilities about the poor, its stronger committment [sic<\/em>] to taking care of its citizens, or [COUGH] its enlightened attitudes on matters of race and ethnicity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And finally, this gem still makes me laugh:<\/p>\n

…European leftists have apparently learned, to their vast dismay, that America is a cruel and gluttonous place, building our so-called economy on cheap oil and the shattered lives of workingmen, whom we kill when they become inconvenient.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Basically, just remember this: North America isn’t Europe. <\/p>\n

Boy, and people say Americans don’t know their geography!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“You know, you would think that a large group of people who have all read Guns, Germs and Steel, and taken its message that “geography matters” to heart, would pay just a leetle bit of attention to it when they start chastising America for not being more like Europe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-a2","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":26480,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2026\/01\/13\/america-is-a-fascist-state\/","url_meta":{"origin":622,"position":0},"title":"America is a Fascist State","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 13, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"I never thought I would see the day where I would have to say this, but here we are.","rel":"","context":"In "My Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1320,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/08\/29\/driving-freedom\/","url_meta":{"origin":622,"position":1},"title":"Driving = Freedom","author":"Keith Survell","date":"August 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Getting in the car, putting on some tunes, and just driving... nothing else makes me feel so \"free.\" Now, this might be something that's restricted to those of us that grew up in areas where there was no such thing as \"public transit\" and the only bus you could catch\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cars and Trucks"","block_context":{"text":"Cars and Trucks","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/cars-and-trucks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":655,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/09\/30\/email-forward\/","url_meta":{"origin":622,"position":2},"title":"Email Forward","author":"Keith Survell","date":"September 30, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I got this interesting email forward today.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4877,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2016\/05\/20\/its-time-to-let-go-of-american-individualism\/","url_meta":{"origin":622,"position":3},"title":"It’s Time to Let Go of American Individualism","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"America has long cherished the spirit of individualism, but these days we could stand to maybe loosen up a bit in regards to it.","rel":"","context":"In "My Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"law of self-reliance","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2016\/04\/law-of-self-reliance-800x758.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2016\/04\/law-of-self-reliance-800x758.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2016\/04\/law-of-self-reliance-800x758.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2016\/04\/law-of-self-reliance-800x758.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4602,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2014\/09\/24\/road-new-york-city\/","url_meta":{"origin":622,"position":4},"title":"On The Road: New York City","author":"Keith Survell","date":"September 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Having lived a mere 35 miles from New York City for just over 7 years now, I figure it's time to finally put down in words what driving in the City that Never Sleeps is like. When I first moved here, I flat out refused to drive in the city\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cars and Trucks"","block_context":{"text":"Cars and Trucks","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/cars-and-trucks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"New York City (Broadway)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2014\/09\/Cinematic_New_York_City_6033969880.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2014\/09\/Cinematic_New_York_City_6033969880.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2014\/09\/Cinematic_New_York_City_6033969880.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2014\/09\/Cinematic_New_York_City_6033969880.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1176,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/06\/16\/priorities\/","url_meta":{"origin":622,"position":5},"title":"Priorities","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Some very good points were made in response to my previous post that I didn't think of - basically, that things like \"copyright cops\" and so forth are wasting our limited energies. That things like \"copyright cops\" and other useless endeavors (I'd argue for \"war on drugs\" and probably the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "society"","block_context":{"text":"society","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/society\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}