Do you really need a car?

“The real problem is posed by those countrymen who are complete slaves to machines from a shockingly young age. All exceptions aside, it is impossible to make the average Finnish country dweller of over fifteen years of age ride a bicycle, ski or row — or even exercise in the fields. The spell of the car and its antecedent — the scooter — is unbelievable. A young man will travel a hundred metres to the sauna by car; as this involves backing the car, reversing and manoeuvring, opening and shutting garage doors, it is not a matter of saving time. In the case of farmers, moreover, the more technology advances — every sack of fertiliser now being lifted by a tractor, the spread and removal of manure being a mechanical feat — the more will their physical activities be limited to taking a few steps in the garden and climbing onto the benches of saunas. Lumberjacks have already been replaced by multi-tasking machines, while fishermen lever their trawl sacks with a winch, haul their nets with a lever, and gather their Baltic herrings with an aspirator from open fish traps.”-Pentti Linkola