What I like about MMM's discussion of cars is that he facepunches home the point that
you decide where you live. You therefore can not counter the 'you don't need a car' argument by pointing out that you live in an area where you need a car.
Well fuckin' move then! Like, what, are you an indentured servant tied to the land or something? Were you assigned to some collectivized farm by a soviet government?
Reminds me of the tongue-in-cheek joke by Sam Kinnison about sending foreign aid to people who live in the desert. 'Like, are we surprised that they keep needing foreign aid? They live in the fuckin' desert! Instead of sending them aid year after year, why don't we just spend the money to move them here?? I mean, we have deserts in America, we just don't fuckin' live in them!'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0q4o58pKwAAhem. My point being that the no-car thing is part of a bigger context that people often don't want to see so they insist on taking it out of context and laughing at how ridiculous it is. I had this whole conversation with the spouse about how you could decide to walk to work.
S: But let's say you work at a big chemical plant. The plant takes up so much room that there's no room for residences within miles.
Me: Then you can choose not work at one of the big plants.
S: But if you have a degree in chemistry, that's going to be where the highest-paying jobs are.
Me: But you aren't forced to take the highest-paying job. That's not, like, a rule that you have to take the highest-paying job you can get.
S:...
Me: And you don't have to get a degree in chemistry.
S:... okay, true.
So it's just funny that even with amenable, reasonable people, you have to remind them that we are in control of our lives and are rarely trapped. (I mean, I'm not talking about deeper stuff about how culture or the state or prejudices and all these larger forces shape our perception of reality--I'll leave that to Foucault.) But you all get that.
The OP in this particular reddit thread, though, and a couple contributors, seem to be touching on the stress of not having a car
because you can't afford one. Which I think we've had some interesting discussions here before about the difference between choosing not to have a thing and feeling deprived of a thing.