Drive a Gas Guzzler? Think about this.

Ok people, think about this realistically... sure it would be nice to have a hydrogen based economy, but are all of those big oil companies out there really going to let this happen? The oil industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. With a hydrogen based economy, all of those big oil companies will go out of business. With all the power that these huge companies have, I hardly see a hydrogen based economy in the near future.

At least we are on the right track, developing Hybrid, Electric, and Hydrogen vehicles. Many of these new fuel savers are already available, and if you are wealthy enough, and sick of paying for gas, then you have the option to own an alternative. Giving people the choice is the first step. Supporting these new technologies should go hand in hand with the first step, but unfortunatly its the second step. I dont see any hydrogen stations, as opposed to gas stations anywhere. I dont see any Hybrid stations that provide a charge for the electric vehicles...

Dont get me wrong, I would love to see affordable, reliable fuel alternatives, but realistically i dont see that happening.

Originally posted by Gazrok
Until they make the alternatives cheaper and more practical....

VROOM! VROOM!

I'm constanly needing the ability to carry more than 5 passengers and lots of "gear", so had to get a van...

Your situation is fair but people on their commute using a SUV with only one person in it and the people who leave their cars running while they go in Wal-Mart so it will be cold/warm when they come back. Anyway aren't cars cheaper like a Camry but why people want big SUV's that pollute the atmosphere and guzzle gas just astound me while I could drive any car and I could care less about my car as long as it gets from point A to point B safely and efficiently.

It astounds you that people want to look cool?

They have the money, so they do it. It's simple.

Not that I condone it, I'm driving my old 87 accord until it falls apart.

Originally posted by shbaz
It astounds you that people want to look cool?

SUVs look cool? Give me a break. These are the ugliest forms of the automotive art since the Stanley Steamer. Most look like cartoon cars. They're too big to share the road with. They are top heavy and tip too easily. If one hits you, you're hamburger. You can't see around them or over them.

The SUV is the most ridiculous trend in the history of mankind and at some future time, someone will recognize their advent as the beginning of the end of civilization.


[edit on 04/10/1 by GradyPhilpott]

I'd just like to report that today I had two SUVs almost run in to me, and a host of SUVs and Trucks tailgate me. I assume almost all of the SUVs/Trucks today were not used for their intended purpose at any time due to my observations.

I agree Grady, they are a big nuisance, and a waste of everything, they serve no purpose for most people.

[edit on 1-10-2004 by Jamuhn]

I agree, but people with a superiority complex wouldn't. I live in a place where everyone seems to like to have a truck 10 feet and equally wide.. they'll readily admit that they like having a bigger, better truck that will cream anyone if they happen to have an accident. Often people will ride practically on my bumper because they feel that little cars have no right to be on the road in front of them.

A lot of people legitimately need them here to haul cattle, hay, and drive off-road though. Mostly that's not the case.

[edit on 10/1/2004 by shbaz]

Originally posted by Jamuhn
I agree Grady

Originally posted by shbaz
I agree,

It's nice to be agreed with from time to time.

Originally posted by TreyFlipAWS
Ok people, think about this realistically... sure it would be nice to have a hydrogen based economy, but are all of those big oil companies out there really going to let this happen? The oil industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. With a hydrogen based economy, all of those big oil companies will go out of business. With all the power that these huge companies have, I hardly see a hydrogen based economy in the near future.

I dont think this is going to be the case. Big Oil is going to become Big Hydrogen. To create a Hydrogen infrastucture will require a huge investment. I think this huge investment will come from Big Oil soon to be Big Hydrogen. You are correct about Big Oil not wanting to give up their power and they wont. When there is more money to be made in Hydrogen you will see Big Oil change over.

Originally posted by Jamuhn
I agree Grady, they are a big nuisance, and a waste of everything, they serve no purpose for most people.

Well, that "my dick is bigger than yours" might have something to do with it.
Or basing from world events they use those to substitute lack of brains.

I agree there are people who need big cars for hauling things or people but for most people they're completely groundless.

Originally posted by E_T
Well, that "my dick is bigger than yours" might have something to do with it. Or basing from world events they use those to substitute lack of brains.

I agree there are people who need big cars for hauling things or people but for most people they're completely groundless.

Thorstein Veblen concept of conspicuous consumption, I think, addresses to some degree the mysterious appeal of the SUV:

Conspicuous consumption is a term introduced by Thorstein Veblen, the American economist. Conspicuous consumption or pathological purchasing is a symptom observed in individuals in any society where over-consumption has become a social norm or expectation. The term is not used to describe such personal disorders as eating disorders, but is generally reserved for those forms of consumption that seem to be fully motivated by social factors.

It has been discussed widely since the 1960s, including most often as a form of addiction arising from consumerism but also from productivism where this encourages the production of excess unwanted goods, which must be consumed to justify continued production. More recently it has been implicated as a cause of obesity, and of some mental illness especially bulimia. Some consider it to be a world health problem, especially in developed nations. Political movements, e.g. the Greens, have specifically criticized waste-promoting policies (e.g. the dirty subsidy) that encourage over-consumption.

More scientifically, those who use this term often believe that consumer behavior can be analyzed using models developed in clinics funded to treat other substance dependencies. Best practices used in behavioral modification clinics, in this view, can yield new approaches for treating such pathological consumer behavior.

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Group behaviors subvert reward relationships developed over longer terms through a process of meme-contagion, whereby excitement passes among individuals by the exchange of artifacts, symbols and language related to loosely directed, often purposeless hedonic excitement - a "frenzy" as observed in many animal species.
en.wikipedia.org...

In the concept of Conspicuous Consumption, Veblen identified Conspicuous Expenditure and Conspicuous Waste, which seem to address this modern phenomenon of the SUV:

Thorstein Veblen:

Conspicuous Consumption, 1902

It is obviously not necessary that a given object of expenditure should be exclusively wasteful in order to come in under the category of conspicuous waste. An article may be useful and wasteful both, and its utility to the consumer may be made up of use and waste in the most varying proportions. Consumable goods, and even productive goods generally show the two elements in combination, as constituents of their utility; although, in a general way, the element of waste tends to predominate in articles of consumption, while the contrary is true of articles designed for productive use. Even in articles which appear at first glance to serve for pure ostentation only, it is always possible to detect the presence of some, at least ostensible, useful purpose; and on the other hand, even in special machinery and tools contrived for some particular industrial process, as well as in the rudest appliances of human industry, the traces of conspicuous waste, or at least of the habit of ostentation, usually become evident on a close scrutiny. It would be hazardous to assert that a useful purpose is ever absent from the utility of any article or of any service, however obviously its prime purpose and chief element is conspicuous waste; and it would be only less hazardous to assert of any primarily useful product that the element of waste is in no way concerned in its value, immediately or remotely.
www.fordham.edu...