• DancingBear
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    6 months ago

    Why would you spend such a large amount of money for a new car? I don’t get it. If you are middle class it is like 50% or more of a whole year of income. If you are wealthy it’s still stupid to waste so much money on a thing that generally will depreciate in value. I don’t understand why so many of my co workers keep buying cars so they can go to work and buy more cars.

    • Hegar@kbin.social
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      6 months ago

      I share your frustration. Cars are dumb. New cars are shit and dumb. It’s also super bad for the environment - the manufacturing is a huge part of the total carbon emission of a car.

      Seems pretty clear to me that it’s a status thing - you’re displaying your access to resources by showing that you can waste them. That’s why I think it’s legitimately useful to insult people’s new or expensive cars to their face. Deny them the social reward they seek and it puts pressure to find a new status token. Maybe instead they can waste money on carbon fibre bikes or the latest overpriced micro-transportation.

    • QuarterSwede@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      We only leased a new car because it was literally cheaper to lease than to buy used last fall. The market was absolutely upside down. Plan on buying it at the end of the 33 mo lease.

      • DancingBear
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        6 months ago

        In the states I can see how having a car is a practical necessity, I just don’t have faith that buying new cars is the environmental answer we are told it is by car manufacturers

      • DancingBear
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        6 months ago

        Not trying to say we should never buy new cars, but I do have a feeling making tens of millions of new cars has a worse environmental impact than driving and repairing and old car,

        But I do see in places like big cities how smog can become an issue…. But we are ignoring the whole mountaintops and other environmental impacts from making the new metal and batteries in my opinion…