Surprisingly melancholy comic.
It made me feel like I was reading a book in the library in 89 Brooklyn
FYI: theres a good documentary about this artist called Crumb (1995) 95% on rotten tomatoes.
What radarr has to say about it:
This movie chronicles the life and times of R. Crumb. Robert Crumb is the cartoonist/artist who drew Keep On Truckin’, Fritz the Cat, and played a major pioneering role in the genesis of underground comix
It’s like we paved paradise to put up a parking lot.
Oooh bop bop bop
Trying to put a little positive twist on this: dense population centers with extensive public transportation are a less resource straining lifestyle per person than living rural on a big property and being reliant on individual transportation.
The last few frames are the real tragedy, when the clean and efficient public transit gets replaced with loud pollution machines.
A long time ago came a man on a track
Walking thirty miles with a sack on his back
And he put down his load where he thought it was the best
He made a home in the wildernessHe built a cabin and a winter store
And he ploughed up the ground by the cold lake shore
And the other travellers came walking down the track
And they never went further, no, they never went backThen came the churches, then came the schools
Then came the lawyers, then came the rules
Then came the trains and the trucks with their loads
And the dirty old track was the Telegraph RoadSeen this before, but the music just stared plsying in may head
A long time ago came a man on a track
Walking thirty miles with a sack on his back
And he put down his load
Where he thought it was the best
He made a home in the wilderness
🎵then came the churches then came the schools then came the lawyers then came the rules then came the trains and the trucks with their load and that dirty old track, was the telegraph road
Robert Crumb is a tortured genius.
If you haven’t seen the 1994 biography, you should.
I’d suggest also American Splendor about Harvey Pekar and For Madmen Only about Del Close, but you’d need to remove all razorblades from your house if you were to watch all three.
I’m curious what panel resonates with people the most, if you had to live in one (left to right, top to bottom)
4/5
6
6
If I can park my RV, panel 1.
4
We should bury those power lines. Have too many of those in my neighborhood and it looks terrible.
Trying to put a little positive twist on this: dense population centers with extensive public transportation are a less resource straining lifestyle per person than living rural on a big property and being reliant on individual transportation.
The external powerlines really does it.
Have them underground and add more nature… it would be more bearable
Controversial opinion: The world’s problem is too many humans. We should impose a global 1 child policy for 2-3 generations to give us time to figure out a sustainable way to expand as a race.
Thoughts?
It’s not that. We can already feed everyone in the world, it’s just not profitable to do so.
And the above comic doesn’t show overpopulation. It shows a terrible urbanization and surburbanization scheme. There’s a lot of things we could mandate to make it better.
- Underground telephone and power lines. Also prevents outages during storms. Gets rid of a lot of the upper noise.
- Better lights. Prevents light pollution by having most light go downward.
- Structure cities and town centers around walking. This means fewer roads and parking lots and more restaurants and stores.
- Increase public transport. #3 means everyone will drive TO the city then walk. This will prevent the driving to.
- More green spaces. Within cities and towns there should be a lot more vegetation. Corner green spaces, rooftop gardens, parks, etc.
- Denser housing in cities. This means people can go up instead of out. Prevents urban sprawl and keeps city neighborhoods walkable.
There’s probably a lot more but a big problem with American design is that it was almost all co-opted by the automobile industry 100-150 years ago. We used to have public transport within and to cities. But their lobbying created mostly sprawling suburban hellscapes like you see above. And all the rich people live in beautifully manicured neighborhoods so they care nothing for how it looks.
How do you practically impose this policy?
Why not invest in education? There is a pretty strong correlation between birth rates and education
Morally unproblematic and way easier to implement
Also birth control. It should be free and accessible world wide, and people should be taught how to use it.
Yes, good point!
Well you don’t have to do anything, the population is going to crash in coming decades. The “survivors” will rebuild
Post-industrial civilzations are already at negative population growth, they still produce a great deal of pollution and urban bloat.
There’s no magic bullet to fix the issues we face, it takes a lot of smaller solutions in addition to some bigger fixes to tie it all together. And most of all it needs to be adaptable, to allow for new fixes to be folded into the plan as a whole as it goes along.
Most importantly: it takes time. Like, lots of time. No real, effective, solution is going to make everything better immediately.
I agree, but that is sadly not viable. Developed countries already have declining natality without those measures, due to the increase of quality of life: most women and men work, they prioritize jobs, they don’t have time for kids and often don’t like the sacrifices that come with having them, etc. The main increase in population is in developing countries, where it would be impossible to apply those measures.
Off-world colonies are the only viable option in the long run, imo.
