This past Monday, a new bus service was launched herein Hamilton, liking the east and west sides of the city. Once the service is fully operational in October, the bus will run approximately every 15 minutes on weekdays, connecting the transport hub in the northwest part of Hamilton with Waikato University to the southeast, passing through the area I live, and the centre of Hamilton, among other parts of the city. This means that I could take the bus to get into the centre of the city rather than driving there, something that would probably mean I’d spend ages looking for a place to park. Other people will see different advantages related to their lives, of course.
In the comments to a Facebook ad promoting the launch, there were a lot of ordinary negative comments, similar to ones that can be seen on pretty much any public Facebook post. There were also a few railing about Hamilton City Council, and railing against one’s local government seems to be New Zealand’s leading indoor sport. However, there was also this:
“Hullo There’s that 15 minute brain tease again. Getting us ready for the 15 min city. No chnace. Vote them all out” [poor punctuation was in the original]I’ll admit, when I first saw the comment, I thought it must be someone making an incredibly lame attempt at humour, which is pretty common when an ordinary person encounters bizarre comments like that. So I looked at the individual’s profile, and it was filled with promotions of conspiracy theory (including some very unhinged ones), attacks on those the conspiracy fans think are part of some sort of evil global cabal plotting to control them—in this case, by making their lives easier.
Naturally, the conspiracy nuts don’t accept there’s no good whatsoever about “15 minute cities”, which has become one of the more recent obsessions for the fringe. Here in the real world, the actual fact-based truth is obnoxiously simple and easy to understand. ABC (Australia) Radio National explained it this way:
The 15-minute city is an urban planning concept where neighbourhoods provide residents with the basic things they need — shops, schools, parks, leisure options, health care — within a 15-minute radius by foot or bike.That’s it! The whole thing a framework for developing cities to make them more liveable and resilient, and far less dependent on using fossil fuels to handle the necessities of life. One of my biggest frustrations about where I live is that I have to drive everywhere to get anything I may need, and that includes healthcare and parks, but it’s the fact I have to drive to get a bottle of milk that really annoys me. Someday, there will be a commercial area just a few minutes’ walk form my house, and I’m really looking forward to that.
There’s nothing even remotely new about this idea—it’s as old as civilisation. People’s walking distance to basic necessities and amenities dramatics increased, or disappeared entirely, as private cars and their roads expanded (often with a fair but of corruption in the promotion of transport by car).
When Nigel and I visited the USA, he was shocked at how there were areas of ordinary cities in which it was impossible to to walk from one shopping centre to another. In fact, on our last trip there, we had to call a taxi to get us from one to another because there was absolutely no way to walk from one to the other.
And yet, being able to walk places is seen by some folks as just another “globalist conspiracy”, one that will, depending on the conspiracy fan, lead to government confiscating cars, forcing people to live in “ghettos” (an… interesting choice of words…), concentration camps (another interesting choice…), or open-air prisons that people won’t be allowed to leave without a permit. They say it would lead to fights for survival like out of the “Hunger Games”.
It seems to me that their obsession was fuelled by the fact the World Economic Forum promoted the urban planning framework, and to the conspiracy fans, the WEF is the embodiment and container for all the evil conspiracies the fans promote. Interestingly, the Left criticises the WEF, too, but for mostly entirely legitimate and rational reasons.
I have no idea how we as a society—as a civilisation—come back from this. How can we save the folks who are deeply the mired in obsession with imaginary conspiracies? How can we help them back toward being rational people who contribute to the body politic, and not exist entirely outside it? I have absolutely no idea, but as I’ve said many times, especially on my podcast, we must find a way, and if we fail to do so, it will be at our peril. [I talked about 15 minute cities in Episode 385 back in June, following a mob of conspiracy obsessives disrupted a simple public meeting in Hamilton].
One guy, so obsessed with conspiracy theories that he makes silly comments based on his bizarre beliefs on a public forum about a bus service may not seem like anything important or dangerous. However, we’ve seen time and time again how people who obsessively believe in bizarre conspiracy theories turn to violence when they grasp that no one outside their rabbit hole takes them seriously. The influence of the obsessives is growing, mostly because unscrupulous politicians pander to them in pursuit of power. We MUST find a way into our shared future that includes us all, and that means we must reject politicians who pander to the obsessives, and we must never ignore the fringe.
Personally, I’m glad for the busses every 15 minutes, and I look forward to the day when I can walk less than 15 minutes to buy a bottle of milk. There are far more people like me than there are folks who mutter darkly against those things, and that fact should give us all some hope.
The photo up top is of the brochure promoting the new bus service that I received last week. The cover of the brochure promotes the fact that weekday service will be approximately every 15 minutes. Maybe reading comprehension isn't necessary for conspiracy obsessives?
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