I feel that “another thing coming” has mobster vibes, and a comeuppance is a deserved punishment.

Yeah, that’s what I’ve always figured, since the implied threat of violence/retribution seems like a very American attitude.

That one always gets me. The phrase means that the person is wrong about something, and circumstances will compel them to reconsider their position or opinion. The word “think” refers to a cognitive process, such as reconsidering their position or opinion. As for the alternative, what’s the “thing” that’s coming? Their latest Amazon order is out for delivery?

I’m with you on that last bit. The problem that we have with cars is the way that almost everybody is forced to use one for every trip to go anywhere, or at least forced to own a car for many trips. We can’t sustain that economically (I believe that car ownership is a financial burden for around 1/4 of Americans, and our infrastructure rates at D+ nationally), ecologically (climate change is only part of it, the direct ecological destruction is also enormous), and even psychologically (the loneliness epidemic). I’d be over-the-moon if everybody had a choice of a convenient alternative to a single-passenger car for any trip that they wanted to do, with cars as the luxury alternative.

Necessities? How did humans survive for 200,000 years before their invention?

Yes, but it’s a hair-splitting distinction that it’s not a law is not an individual mandate that each citizen own one. There are plenty of other laws that do literally require cars. For that matter, it’s required by law that we have Social Security Numbers, and that’s just a side note in a discussion about their role in our society.

I’m going to stipulate here that you don’t get to have it both ways, to say that a car is both essential to American life, but not required by law. See, it’s laws that shape the human environment to make one essential: Parking minimums, building codes, zoning, lending standards, driver’s licenses as default photo ID, and so on.

If it’s laws that make cars required to live, then they’re de facto required by law.

Those are fine examples to prove my point. Even the low-end, just-get-around cars have climate controls, entertainment systems, and plush seating. They’re about more than utility, just getting from one place to another. For the CRV, the web site for it really wants to sell the image of adventure, like driving one means you’re ready to head out on road trips, and listen to the Bose sound system while doing so. The base model is also 190hp. The Sentra is 149hp, and over $20,000 base price. Compare that to the Ford Model T, at around $6,000 (inflation adjusted). That was 20hp. Twenty horsepower, no air conditioning, no power steering, no Apple CarPlay, and people drove them across the continent.

Anyway, I just got home from some errands, and while out, I saw a guy driving a big, shiny, white Ford Model F truck, and wearing a cowboy hat. There are no cattle ranches in Wisconsin. Also, it’s January and he wasn’t wearing a coat; he doesn’t plan to go outside. The car one drives is totally a fashion statement. Driving a low-end car conveys a message about you, just like wearing off-the-rack versus bespoke clothes. Even Warren Buffett’s econobox is a statement.

And that’s leaving aside the assumption that getting from place to place has to involve a car.

That’s 100% due to government policy. Those places are highly desirable places to live as evidenced by the high prices, but they are limited in supply only because it’s illegal to build new ones. We used to build efficient places out of economical necessity, then for the usual reason (racism), we codified an extravagant, wasteful built environment as the default, or only, option.

Cars are still luxury toys, they’re just required by law.

Of course! The part that Americans don’t want to hear is that we are wealthy because of that theft of labor. It’s not just an immoral peccadillo of our ancestors.

As an American, I’m gonna barge in with my loud opinion, 'cuz that’s what we do. Here’s something which people living elsewhere might not know that Americans aren’t ready to hear:

Automobiles are luxury toys and fashion accessories, and we shouldn’t base our entire lives on them. No, the car industry didn’t make our economy strong; it took off after we already had a lot of extra wealth to burn after becoming a world economic powerhouse. We can’t afford to keep wasting all that wealth on them as the world starts to burn, and half of our citizens sink into poverty.

Yeah, in addition to having a super-endowment of natural resources, remember that we also stole the labor of about 20 generations of Africans to help turn that into wealth.

Fuel tax in the U.S. doesn’t even come close to paying for the road system. The federal fuel tax covers less than half of federal transportation spending. I don’t know about all of the states, but Wisconsin’s fuel tax covers only about 2/3 of the road spending. And, local streets get built with local property and income taxes.

Stereo vision isn’t very different. Human pupils are only 5-6cm apart, so the effect is only useful for objects less than 20-30 meters away, maybe 50 tops. It only works in the center of our visual field, not in the periphery (that only one eye can see). And then, only on the horizontal, left-right axis. Beyond that, we do depth perception the same way: mostly through experience, parallax, context clues, motion prediction, atmospheric distortion, and the like. It doesn’t change the imagery at all, it’s the same scene if I close one eye. I’m guessing that most people who woke up in a familiar environment (e.g. their bedroom) without stereo vision would take a while to notice.

I have this pet theory about how people who learn that their privilege lets them bend or ignore human laws subconsciously believe that they can bend or ignore any law. So I always enjoy it when rich assholes buy super-cars and wrap them around trees, a surprisingly common occurrence, because the laws of physics aren’t impressed by your financial portfolio.

I used to know a woman named April, and her two daughters are May and June. (Both still under age 12.)