• nobug-404@geddit.social
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    1 year ago

    Mass transit cannot be free.

    It should however be without toll. It can quite reasonably be funded with tax.

    But free? No. Someone somewhere has to pay for the infrastructure and operations.

    • T156@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This seems like needless nitpicking. The end result is the same, it’s still free at the point of use.

      • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Roads should be tolled. Every single one.

        Governments waste obscene amounts of money building car infrastructure, which loses money with no return.

        • Chewy@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          Building toll infrastructure also wastes money. It might make sense for highways, but even that is big undertaking.

          I do think most people (at least in Germany) take roads as a given, unlike other forms of transportation infrastructure (trains etc).

        • molave@reddthat.com
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          1 year ago

          Governments maintain such infrastructure likely to maintain their military logistics backbone. That it’s free for citizens to use is incidental.

    • nomadjoanne@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m curious how much of the budget is covered by fares. I think here in Europe it tends to be roughly 50%. But the trains are much better than NYC and the fares are cheaper.

    • x4740N@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Capitalism makes it not free just like it holds people’s lives hostages to pay a fee to live

      • IIIIII@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        But doesn’t life always come with a fee to pay? If we had no society you’d still have to work in terms of finding food

        • user75736572@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Exactly if you are a hunter and are too lazy to go hunt you die of starvation. They have no idea how economies and just want the government to do everything for them while they sit home all day and play video games

          • x4740N@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The person you are responding to took my comment out of context

            I was talking about money fees

            And your comment seems pretty ignorant of the issues of capitalism

            All capitalism does is make people wage slaves, they are not free to be them

            In the past humans worked together in tribes and used their strengths in each area to be effective

            Now people are stuck as wage slaves working their life away so corporate overlords can live in luxury

            • user75736572@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              What you don’t understand is money, money is an abstraction of the value you created through your labor, when you buy something you exchange your labour for someone else’s labour.

              What you are asking is for you to provide no labour but get free food from another person’s labour ( also known as slavery ).

              No matter the economic system the simple reality that things like food and housing aren’t free are true, so someone has to work.

              The free market simulates everyone using their strengths since people end up in the jobs they are best at and are actually needed by other people ( if you want to make art all day it better be good enough for another people to exchange their labour for it). In capitalism you are forced to be useful to others

              People’s lifes today are better than they have ever be, instead of being jealous that some people have it better because of their contributions to the economy ( other people valued their labour highly so they got paid more) maybe be grateful of the living conditions you are given. If you really want to live in a mansion work hard for it and maybe one day you’ll get it.

              I know it’s trendy to hate on capitalism but please study some economics before trying to demolish the very thing that enables you to have a phone and post here

        • x4740N@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’m talking in terms of money fees

          You’ve taken my comment out of context

          People should be free to live, not pay money to live to corporate overlords