Cars also directly involve people in motor vehicle accidents, one of the leading causes of death in the developed world. Cars, and motor vehicles in general, also contribute to an increasingly alarming concentration of emissions into the atmosphere, with adverse effects to follow, most notably global warming. My point still stands.
A technology is only inherently good if it solves more problems than it causes, with each problem weighed by their impacts on the world.
Cars are net positive.
Edit: ignoring global warming because it's really hard to quantify. Just comparing deaths to global productivity increase because of cars. Cars are a net positive.
Edit 2:
Edit: ignoring global warming because it's really hard to quantify
Clarification - it's hard to quantify the direct relationship of cars to global warming. Duh there's a relationship, but I really don't want to have a debate here. Ignoring that factor for a moment, net value of productivity of cars vs productivity lost by some deaths. Yea. Let's compare that.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)
3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
4. Unflag the two options "Notify me of new top level comments on this article" and "