Even today there are people who clean up after horses. Its called life. At least now we have hoses and SELF PHONES to let them know on the spot where its at. Doody calls.

Strong as an ox, cunning like a serpent, sly like a fox. Nowadays its, YOU'RE LIKE A MACHINE. Awkward, as I AM that which the machinists are trying to create.

Someone owes me a drink.

Please do read the essay. I tried to make it free but amazon is a business.

I understand 100 yrs ago needing a car. But not anymore. So much more is known about societal and cultural options there's no reason to drive away anymore. Each small town can be its own little city. I dont reject highway travel. Its simply neglectful to isolate yourself in a small community. Its poor application of spontaneity and person to person commerce due to how much weight and how many obligations the automobile carries. A person needs to walk in off the street, not drive there. If you drive there, you dont know them. Not the way you know them if you sleep there.

The small town now has so much potential. Yoga, martial arts, different philosophical perspectives, cuisine from all over the world. As long as we have time and space through which to do these things.

Many people try to live off the state by paying more for cars and insurance instead of eating essential and having social and dietary needs met. Then they work 60 hrs a week to afford daycare for kids they dont raise. GREAT. — Sha'aniah

Do you like James Howard Kunstler? He's a proponent of downsized living. His novel is called, "A World Made By Hand." Good essayist. His main thesis is "the long emergency," meaning that the world's running out of oil and we're all going to have to make some new arrangements, of the downsizing variety.

I agree with your ideals, but the practicality is tricky. I live in a relatively small town but the grocery stores and other services are not within walking distance.

Someone owes me a drink. — Sha'aniah

No one OWES you a drink...but I would offer you a free one were you here, sitting in a rocking chair on my porch and sharing conversation: the trucks have long since stopped their offensive noise and fumes. The cicadas are chirping now, night has fallen...

...don’t become a machine. If you have become one already, fight against it with all your might...

...for the rest of your life.

With a voice like James Howard Kunstler, it is nice to know that social critics such as myself are not alone. I will definitely look further into his work so thanks a bunch for mentioning him.

I do agree that the practicality is tricky. As a philosopher who is a bit other-worldly and ascetic, I have to admit that this seems to call for an alternative which is going to ask of us a different response to the problems of the world. I actually consider my philosophy to be an alternative to religion and non-religion.

In working to establish this philosophy, it was necessary for me to create an alter-ego in order to express the idea. The reason is because it is very difficult to embrace the philosophy full-force and live up to the standards as a real person, owing to the fact that the current socio-economic climate is predicated upon the automobile and its use. An ideal can live up to the standards and everyone can collectively idealize, strive, and try, but it's difficult for a person to actually say NO, 100% all the time. SHA'ANIAH BACCOPHET can speak brazenly, because he isn't real. The flesh and blood man who types these words finds it difficult but do-able, and the battery in my van atrophied twice because I didn't start it for so long. Pardon any violation of civic duty as I strive towards this ideal. I am actually an Ohio State graduate and live in a small community, but with an alter-ego like SHA'ANIAH, people think I'm from somewhere else, which is the point.

It looks as though over the last 100 years there has been a kind of generational overlapping. First it was necessary for our great-grandfathers to have cars. Then our grandfathers had them necessarily as well. But this was in the days of Jim Crow, when a black person looked foreign to the local whites. Then when my father took the wheel, things really were changing. We saw the rise of hip hop and black culture in jazz music. The first Yogis came to the country. We started to see evolutionary theory quite popularized. Such was not the case in the 1920s.

Now at this point, the automobile and its use has been drawn out excessively to the point where it is detrimental to society, rather than beneficial. At this point Lebron James makes 20 million dollars a year when there are so many able-bodied young men who would be willing play ball at a local level for 60k dollars a year. The automobile allows them to drive away to attempt to make it into the NCAA and then hopefully the NBA. This is a false dilemma. Either make millions or play for nothing. I argue that it is due to excessive mobility and lack of taking advantage now of resources like the internet. I think that the driving age should be 21, because a person should be required to stay in the community for a few years after graduating high school in order to make the town better and learn to live independently of the automobile and contribute to the community and depend on others as well. That's to say nothing of the drinking age, which I think should be 16. No driving means drinking is safer and that's what high school kids want to do anyway, right? Let's get rid of the Wal Mart and install 5 small grocery outlets, and the grocery stores will pay people to deliver food all over town. These are real jobs.

But someone has to point these things out with conviction because we need to really make a strong change. Tupac Shakur pointed that out in 1996 when he said "its time for us as a people to start making some changes. Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live, and let's change the way we treat each other. You see the old way wasn't working so it's on US to do what we gotta do to survive." Now is the time for the fruition of such a calling. Without conscious intent, people continue to gravitate to their cars, and the automobile industry was bailed out in the first decade of the 2000s when all of that money should have went into the pockets of every American.

I have to be honest, it is necessary to meditate and excel the mind to higher states of consciousness. It's time we stop denying that reality is fundamentally MENTAL. Quantum Mechanics is proving the words of ancient sages like Buddha and Jesus: if you had faith the size of a mustard seed...Those who think that the world turns off of a material plane alone may simply not be able to live in the New World which is calling for us to make these changes. This alternative to religion and non-religion is a form of advanced civilianship, and may indeed be for the elite.

may indeed be for the elite — Sha'aniah

As opposed to the rest of us ignorant cattle. It's striking how often these kinds of lofty sentiments eventually come down to raw elitism. That's why we have the white liberal elites living in gated communities and calling for the abolition of police, while actual black residents of crime-ridden neighborhoods overwhelmingly want more police.

Let's get rid of the Wal Mart and install 5 small grocery outlets — Sha'aniah

In 2020 the US government wiped out local small businesses and drove record profits of Amazon and WalMart. An unprecedented transfer of wealth from the middle classes to the rich. Aided and abetted as usual by the liberal elite, who know so much better than the rest of us how the rest of us should live.

If you want to know why there's a resurgence of worldwide populism, this is why. The elite talk a good game while promoting massive inequality to further enrich themselves. The Obamas preach global warming and buy expensive beachfront property. Just look at the carbon footprint of the jet-sitting climatistas. Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck vacation aboard a 140 foot mega-yacht that uses more energy than some third-world nations. And so on.

Not attacking your idealism, which is commendable if naive. But far too often, if you look at the holier-than-thou rhetoric among the most greedy and rapacious members of society, you see that the more pious the social commentary, the uglier the soul.

If a person drives an automobile they are at risk of getting hit by another automobile.

If a person walks instead of driving an automobile, they are at risk for getting hit by an automobile. — Sha'aniah

Fantabulous!

Risk though is part of life. Everything involves some degree of risk and if one is completely risk-averse, one would be like this :point:

OK, so to respond to the comments about the elite. One must remember what I mean by this term in comparison to what other forms of elitism offer. When I say ELITE, I am referring more to a Spartan sense of independence of the material world with it's essentially gainless comforts. That is what I am suggesting. Some people flat out will not want to embrace this. There are those who simply are gluttonous for the sake of being so. There are those who will never relinquish their comforts no matter how detrimental they may be for society or the planet. That is what I meant by ELITE. It is more of a monastic type of elite, which depends upon physical sustenance, well being, exercise, appropriate nutrition, meditation in order to think way outside the box to solve problems, etc. None of those things require excessive use of anything worldly, and so the purpose is to embrace a new form of what I call ADVANCED CIVILIANSHIP.

Consider further. How would furniture evolve in a society where no one drove, or at least, where driving was reduced by 65 to 70 percent. I can see furniture evolving into something more COMPONENTIAL. That is, parts of furniture can be assembled together but made of light material to be carried by one person.

Also, sharing of resources. Can you imagine if everyone were told to empty their garages and put everything into the street so we can all see what we've got to work with? First, the streets need to be cleared of the automobile. Second, people need to not be afraid to share.

That is what I mean by ELITE. It is a higher state of consciousness through yoga, or UNION. That is why I say this is an alternative to religion and non religion. What non-religious person says you need to curb your greed and desire? Well if you believe in evolution and you care about the planet and the community, here is an opportunity to do so. But it requires conviction the likes of which is found in religious sentiment.

Finally, calling this class of citizens ELITE is to give a concluding remark concerning this point in history. What ELSE would we call it? HOW WILL YOU GO WITHOUT A CAR? Do you have any idea how many people are TERRIFIED of that? It's ridiculous. Without sacrifice we aren't going to make it. Look at 9/11. You mean to tell me those airplanes made it ALL THE WAY TO THE TRADE CENTERS? Talk about wanting to sit comfortably. That's what I'm talking about. Sacrifice is essential to solve this problem of global warming. I hear so much talk about how this is a problem and so many Americans keep starting those cars, as though they don't realize that they can stop it. Apparently it IS for the elite...

Good old Sheldon, the product of not enough philosophical discussion in the Republic due to not being able to convene in the street. Which is why he's so aloof and weird.

Risk can be had on the highway; we don't need it in town, bub. Keep your air pollution and weapons of mass destruction towards the borders, will ya?