The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime (Adam Ruins Everything)
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN uses it as shorthand for the argument that car dominance was manufactured by deliberate propaganda.
What it is
An Adam Ruins Everything segment claiming that jaywalking became a crime through campaigns by the auto industry. It is a short, comedic history of how streets were reclaimed for cars.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2019 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Recommends carapace · 2020-12 · on “Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime”
I rarely recommend videos but this one in re: Jaywalking is funny and informative: "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime (Adam Ruins Everything)" [this video] I was telling a coworker about this once and he didn't believe me, but it was basically a deliberate and successful attempt at mass social engineering through domestic propaganda. We went from vilifying reckless drivers as "speed demons" to vilifying pedestrians as "jays" (yokels or hicks.)
Recommends carapace · 2021-10 · on “Why Japan Looks the Way It Does: Zoning [video]”
FWIW this is my go to source for the story: "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime (Adam Ruins Everything)" [this video] It's brief and fairly entertaining.
Cites nickpsecurity · 2019-07 · on “Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives”
I too don't like the article presented that way. I should note that it was a conspiracy in this case. Automobile manufacturers ran media campaigns and lobbied to make walking across the street a crime. [this video] Most of these are also laws passed by groups of people deciding to control others for a mix of perceived altruistic and selfish reasons. It's not secret but there's people conspiring.
Cites carapace · 2020-01 · on “E-bikes could be the electric revolution cities need”
If you stop a moment and think carefully, you'll realize that normal car drivers should wear helmets, and passengers too. It's just that piloting multi-ton metal vehicles at bone-shattering velocities has been normalized. It's always been insane and deadly, but there was an actual concerted effort to normalize it and that worked. I'm not even joking. "Speed demons" were replaced by "Jay walkers" and people have been getting maimed and killed ever since. "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime" (Adam Ruins Everything) [this video]
Cites carapace · 2020-02 · on “A proactive approach to e-scooter safety”
> I am now convinced that the more appropriate question may be “Are our streets safe?” Ya think? It's insane to mix car traffic and people. It was deliberately normalized by a systematic campaign of propaganda. (This is true, it really happened: "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime" (Adam Ruins Everything) [this video] ) We went from "speed demons" to "jay walkers". Fast-forward several decades and more Americans have died from cars than from wars. (The rest of the world also has horrific death rates from cars but more time of war.) > These clips make the civil engineer in me cringe. As well they should. We're looking at a system that is, inadvertently but fundamentally, designed to kill people
Cites clankyclanker · 2020-12 · on “Sharrows, the bicycle infrastructure that doesn’t work and nobody wants”
So your suspicions are partially verifiable. The automobile industry did buy laws (and the LA subway-trolley system) to favor cars in America. [this video] [LINK] [LINK] Apparently LA's loss of underground subway was tied to its loss of overland subway, as well. They seem to have been the same system?
Cites carapace · 2021-01 · on “Why isn't differential dataflow more popular?”
I've heard that, I don't buy it. I think we are just stupid and crazy. Biodegradable plastic has been a thing for over half a century yet the whole planet is choking on discarded plastic. Where's the sane reason for that? Cars! Cars aren't sane, we had to convince ourselves that they were though a deliberate campaign of domestic propaganda![1] Cars kill hella people (I don't have stats for the rest of the world but more Americans have been killed by cars than have died in all the wars we've fought!) And that's just the people that get hit. There's air pollution (car exhaust is a deadly poison) and tires are constantly wearing down and giving off vulcanized rubber particles. I won't deny thei
Cites carapace · 2021-02 · on “Expanding our testing in San Francisco”
The grim joke among cyclists is, "If you want to get away with killing someone just be sure they are riding a bike and you're driving a car." Paraphrasing, if you want to get away with killing someone with your massive, high-velocity robots just be sure to make them look like cars (and maybe put a human "test driver" in there as a kind of moral "crumple zone" to deflect blame. They don't even have to be good at their job. In fact, it works out better if they're watching TV on their phone when your robot kills someone.) Automotive death and mayhem was normalized in the USA by a deliberate campaign of domestic propaganda: "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime" (Adam Ruins Everything) [this video]