this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025
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They will truly do anything not to admit the problem is cars
Exactly all this does is create more road capacity which will inevitably lead to more cars and then increased congestion.
This is the big data equivalent of “one more lane”.
China has more public transit of every type than the rest of the world combined at this point, and most of their cities are quite pedestrian centric.
Cars are a luxury outside the rural areas, and they're a problem, but this is unrelated to that.
It‘s even worse. You need mass surveillance and strip away human rights to do it the way China does it. And I am sorry, but that‘s not worth it. There are countless better ways to deal with climate change because in the end of the day it‘s still a self serving mission for the most part.
Which human right does this strip away?
Privacy obviously. They collect everything about their citizens and use it in every system. They‘re not some super advanced country that simply does tech better than everyone else, they just hoard more data than anyone and use it carelessly everywhere.
Your take is that changing traffic management is a violation of human rights?
Your bad faith argument aside, they absolutely do use technology that violates human rights and integrate it in this system. Think about why smart cities are controversial and amp it up to 11. That‘s China managing their population. Point systems that prevent you from air travel or entering other provinces because you dared criticize the almighty government do violate the basic human right of free speech and control traffic at the same time.
That's... just not real... Your understanding of Chinese policy comes from curated western sources with vested interests in putting a dystopian and totalitarian understanding of China and its government in our countries' people (we're both westerners). There are systems in place to prevent certain convicted criminals from freely moving around there country, but that has little to do with criticising the party.
Regardless, big data on traffic doesn't imply knowledge about the particular vehicles and drivers inside said vehicles. You're just going ahead and assuming "dystopian control of people" because it's China.
No they aren't. They're saying smarter traffic systems are an improvement over what we have now. I've looked in the article and nowhere do they say cars aren't a problem, or that emissions is down to traffic lights not cars.
I see so many examples on here and on Reddit of people letting perfect be the enemy of good.
Whether we like it or not, cars will be around for a while. It makes no sense to put zero effort into improving efficiency in the meantime. You don't have to be so all-or-nothing.