Cars are the ultimate gateway drug to the obscene levels of status-driven consumption that have sent industrial society into economic collapse and the world into ecological overshoot, helping give us the debt crisis, oil wars and climate change. And that’s just for starters.

If there are cars, then business can crank up car dealers, repair shops, gas stations and places that sell fuzzy dice for your rear view mirror. Then, government must build city streets, rural roads and interstate highways while staffing DMVs, police forces and traffic courts. Not to mention turning the military into an oil protection force, as General Smedley Butler explained in the 1930s.

Meantime, as a car driver you can buy a heck of a lot more stuff than you can if you’re carrying bags on the subway or fitting a couple of panniers onto a bicycle. Of course, you can drive your Prius to IKEA. But first things first: just by driving at all, you can trade your tiny city apartment for a big house in the suburbs with plenty of space to fill with furniture, appliances and kids — who in turn, will want their own stuff and thus give you an excuse to take even more trips to IKEA.

The most dangerous machine ever built by Erik Curren