I’d suggest a nationwide road user charge. It would become progressively cheaper per kilometre travelled to discourage shorter trips. It would also be more expensive for inner cities and at peak hour to discourage congestion. Use in out suburban and country areas would be cheaper to be fairer.

We may not have much control over this transition either. And, yeah, who knows where it will lead. I think it interacts powerfully with individualism and our belief that we should have what we want.

I wouldn’t say that, I think the guy is right. We don’t get to decide if we are text/print society, it just happens, with all the benefits he describes, but with some losses in the transition from oral culture (which we can not now ever understand).

Yes, though I thing Walter Ong discussed the value of oral culture and it’s inability to survive in a literate world.

It’s a problem the US has successfully exported to this country (Australia) with the same lame logic

This is pretty sad! Though at speed your average EV isn’t really quieter than a petrol car.

If cars are cheaper to run, people are going to drive them more. EVs are going to make traffic worse and do nothing to mitigate the other bad effects of motorised traffic, such as the health impacts of sedentary lifestyles and road accidents, congestion, suburban sprawl and particulate pollution.