“15-minute cities” concept sparks ‘climate lockdown’ conspiracy theories

Originally published at: "15-minute cities" concept sparks 'climate lockdown' conspiracy theories | Boing Boing

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To quote so many conservatives over the years “These people have too much time on their hands. Maybe they should get a job.”

Oh and “This is intellectually lazy. What a bunch of sheep.”

What else is in their pocket… “If you don’t like it, just move!”

Seriously though, if these people are really that worried about conspiracies… go off the grid, starting with deleting your social media. Get rid of your phone. Drop your cable subscription.

Oh yes, the other one I hear a lot from that crowd when aimed at kids… “Get off your electronics and go talk to a real person!”

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Well beyond out on a limb, this reasoning is way out on the skinny branches.

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I heard about this last week… from a conspiracy-minded co-worker. I opened the conversation discussing Cory Doctorow’s ideas on the enshittification of social media, and within five minutes we’d moved on to 15-minute cities being lockdowns, Klaus Schwab and the WEF being evil Nazis, the leaders (Trudeau especially, since we’re in Canada) who were Young Leaders of the WEF being especially evil Nazis, and how elephants at a game reserve in Africa prove that the ills of the Western world are mostly caused by single-mother families. Crazy.

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I haven’t listened to the podcast yet, but it is important to know that what Oxford City Council is proposing isn’t 15 minute cities.

The protest was also funded by these guys

I was getting their professionally printed Q bullshit through my letterbox for a few weeks, thankfully it has now stopped.

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If you don’t like the idea of 15 minute cities, move out to rural Texas and everything will be a half hour drive at 60mph.

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Protesters: WE DEMAND LONGER COMMUTES

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It honestly sounds like a way more convenient city layout.

I will say since my move, I do think there are more convenient things nearer to me. But it is, overall, a nice neighborhood, so that is partly why.

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“Keep your Satanic New World Order/Illuminati One World Government jackboots off my shit 2 hour commute” seems like a fairly weak pitch. (that said, I still remember that time in college when I met an authentic, grassroots PNAC groupie who insisted that cars were a foundational element of American freedom, so maybe I’m just not the audience…)

Back when this was still “Agenda 21” there was at least some fun stuff about mass depopulation schemes.

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This is truly the current own-goal of conspiracy theories. Incredibly stupid and self-defeating on an everyday basis.

Urban planners: “Hey, we have a proposal that will save you money, save you time, and get you some easy exercise opportunities without your having to change your lifestyle much. Plus it helps preserve the great outdoors.”

MAGAts and Qnuts: “Nope, stop tryin’ to control me and take away mah truck with yer Jewish plots and gay agenda.”

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Especially given how so many of these people seem to be of the opinion that the only “real” Americans are the ones who live in small-town America.

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In an age of impossibly dumb conspiracy theories, the one currently revolving around so-called “15-minute cities” might be the dumbest yet.

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I guess I shouldn’t be suprised surprised; but did we really need Jordan Peterson getting into urban planning?

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Somehow the right-wing pundits who decry this “(((globalist))) conspiracy” always live in 15-minute (or less) cities themselves.


[From Morgan C Ross at Twitter]

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Up yours, Woke Moralists. We’ll see who sets up a one-way road system down who’s road.

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In fairness, those sorts of pundits generally don’t claim that the people who matter having nice things is a socialist conspiracy; it’s just the idea of people generally having nice things that’d basically stalinist death camps with smirking liberals.

See? Intellectually consistent!

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It must be exhausting to live this way…

Of all people to go right wing/conspiracy theory… Right Said Fred?

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Improving life at the LOCAL level is a GLOBAL conspiracy?
This coming from people who are isolationist by nature and action is particularly ironic.

But I guess not so ironic for preppers who have gone hyper-local, with the nearest town 10 miles away from their bunker being “Global” in their eyes.

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True enough. “The people who matter” in their eyes have money, and the desirability of 15-minute cities is such that housing is generally unaffordable in most of the large ones (e.g NYC, SF, London, Paris, Toronto, etc).

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Well… The guy who say Queen Elizabeth II wasn’t a human being almost sided her sometime…

And let us not forget Clash and Rock the Casbah