This is a phrase I've been using fairly often recently, and I want to talk about it.
In this case, the property line is entirely in your head: What I mean by this phrase is to look beyond your own situation before you lecture someone or attempt to influence someone else.
It's
very, very easy to look at something, say "eh, works for me, not sure
why people care so much", and shrug off people who do care because you
can't put yourself in anyone else's shoes but your own, even for a
second.
This
could apply to an infinite amount of situations but I'm going to talk
about the ones that I've personally seen because I've been thinking a
lot about it and the thoughts won't leave my head.
Linux Evangelists
Figured I'd start out light.
The
amount of times I've seen Linux evangelists go after anyone using
Windows/macOS and utterly refusing to level with them when they say no
is far, far too many to count. It's the classic example of being
completely unable to see beyond the proverbial property line here:
Because they've reworked their computing life to fit Linux, because their setup works just fine with Linux, they think that's going to be the case for everyone.
They
make the mistaken assumption that everyone is just fine cracking open
the command line whenever something goes seriously wrong that the GUI
can't solve. They make the assumption that people can just give up critical
apps for work and replace them with open source alternatives. Or that
they can just give up things like Photoshop and relearn years of
knowledge in a fraction of the time. They make the assumption that
everyone has the very same set of supported hardware that Just Works and
that they'll have an easy time installing Linux. They assume that
everyone has the knowledge to spin up a VM and try Linux in it before
installing.
I got this firsthand when I did a
Linux experiment back in 2024: I wanted to try Linux from the POV of a
normal, regular user, and asked for advice as such. I wrote a big
article about it (that's backed up somewhere), but to sum it up, a lot
of the advice I got was:
- Don't install Ubuntu, that sucks
- Various distro recommendations, assuring me that "oh, you can just reinstall if you don't like the one you picked" (no regular user is going to want to do this.)
- Install it in a VM (again, no regular user is going to want to do this, they're going to bare metal it)
- Recommendations of hitting the command line if my display array doesn't work right
- Lots of RTFM
Y'all. If that's the Linux party line for new users, you really, really need
to sit down and learn how to put yourselves in other people's shoes.
You need to stop commenting "install Linux" on every reddit thread
talking about something Microsoft is doing because no user in their
right mind that lacks technical skill is going to get by on the bad
advice you're likely to give them.
Personally? I tried to
deal with Linux. I still use it on machines like old laptops that
aren't quite retro but aren't super new, either. I use it to manage
machine images for my retro fleet. It does great at that, but also
because I run it on a laptop that's a pretty well documented set of
hardware. Not a desktop PC that has a mishmash of various parts that
sing in Windows but not so much in Linux.
Case
in point: My audio setup is complicated. I have HDMI going out of my PC
into a 5.1 receiver. In order to do this I need to have that HDMI output
set up as a phantom display so the link is actually active. In Windows I
can easily do this without causing issues by having that phantom
display mirror one of my actual displays so there's no risk of a random
window just jumping over to a display I can't actually see nor interact
with.
Linux? Yeah, no. I have to have the
phantom display way off in a corner in hopes that I don't accidentally
mouse over to it. Trying to mirror it to an existing display never
works. Linux would also constantly forget the arrangements and fling
random windows over to that display, so that was fun to deal with.
I decided it wasn't worth the constant reconfiguring and just ran back to Windows after enough days of dealing with this.
Respectful
Linux folk will hear this and peacefully bounce off. The evangelists
will scream PEBKAC and whine that I'm a paid Microsoft shill (yes, this
actually happened).
By burying your head in the
sand and being a total dick to people because they can't make the same
tradeoffs you did, because their situation doesn't mirror yours? You
just encourage people to avoid you and your cause out of spite.
The "Ban Cars" Crowd
Now we're
getting into the heavier stuff and this crowd can be some of the worst
when it comes to being unable to see beyond their property lines. I've
had interactions with a handful of them in group chats. Some are
respectful. Some of the loud ones clearly aren't.
These folk believe that no one should own a car, and Odin forbid they do, they pay dearly for it. They see car ownership as a failure of society, and that we should only ever use public transit/bikes/our feet.
No taxis, no ridesharing, none of that. Trains, buses, and bikes. That's your lot.
I'm
going to make some broad strokes here, but this has been my experience:
Everyone I've personally interacted with/witnessed who has advocated
for this with approximately zero exceptions for disabled and the like
are:
- White/European
- Able-bodied and can walk/bike long distances
- Neurotypical or Neurodivergent in a way that doesn't manifest as social anxiety
- Lives in dense cities/suburbs with fleshed-out public transit
- Either doesn't work a job with a weird schedule, or works from home
Don't
get me wrong, here: I know full well there are sensible folk advocating
for less reliance on cars with the knowledge and acceptance that there
are some areas where this simply isn't possible at current, and they don't judge. But
at least from my own interactions those folks seem to be fewer than the
loud ones who will scream at you that you're carbrained if you tell
them that hey, I live in an area where a car is damn near required. Like rural areas. It's a classic example of someone hopping online to broadcast that all cars should be banned, no exceptions, not considering the people who would be utterly fucking hosed if that were to happen.
Before
I go further, I'm aware some may read this and--because some only think
in extremes--that because I'm calling out the extreme ban cars folks
that this means I must be pro-car and anti-public transit. Absolutely
not. Public transit is incredibly important and needs to be
fleshed out and funded heavily. I want it to expand such that more
people don't necessarily need to rely on their cars.
But
what I'm saying is that there are areas--mostly rural--that are so
remote that public transit in its current state cannot come close to
offering those areas good coverage, and I think a blanket ban on cars
regardless of situation (as some have advocated for) would screw over
anyone who doesn't choose to live in a dense city/suburb. That sucks.
We
haven't even made it onto the disability part of this yet! What if
someone is wheelchair-bound and needs transport to places that public
transit can't get them to? What if someone is disabled in such a way
that makes public transit incredibly hard if not impossible to take
(Like some on the autism spectrum, for good example)? In the cause of
the autistic, they could just mitigate this by taking ridesharing (to
hopefully cut down on the amount of people they potentially have to
interact with), but keep in mind the Ban Cars folks want things like
Uber/Lyft/etc covered in their ban.
None of
this is a consideration because again, that property line. They're not
neurodivergent (or they are but not in a way that affects their ability
to socialize). They're not missing any of their vital functions. They
don't live off in the sticks, and they lack the ability to fathom ever
living with any of these situations. They assume that everyone is as
typical and has the same living situations as they do.
Then there comes the subset of people who advocate for not banning cars outright, but rather making them incredibly expensive to own by taxing them heavily. Once again, there is no thought beyond their property lines as to who this will affect. They can effectively dodge the consequences of this.
But
not the poor person living on the outskirts of town who's barely
getting by and--again--doesn't live in a place where public transit is
reliable nor feasible for their work schedule at the job they're holding
onto for dear life.
For the disabled and neurodiverse folk I mentioned above, you've just pretty much asked for an existence tax for those folks. Because life clearly hasn't kicked them in the nads hard enough.
If
you're one of the people who goes onto social media to scream "ban/tax
cars" as loud as you can and to scream at and judge people who tell you
that such a thing would utterly fuck them over because they don't have
the luxury of living in an area with amazing public transit or have a
disability that prevents them from doing so, this entire post is for
you, and I really, seriously hope that you take a second and put
yourself in other peoples' shoes.
Not everyone has the same affordances as you. Please stop screaming at people as if they did.
