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Comment by 10729287 | Hacker News Reader

I like that some places are empty.

Would you be ok if instead of 97% of earth being empty 94% is empty and your rent is cut in half? Another plus point of the future: An electric autonomous bus is at your disposal every 5 minutes, bringing you to whatever nice lonely place you wish.

How will this 3% be selected?

Which of the few remaining wild creatures will be displaced?

https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/catastrophic-73...

I've got no idea what you're going on about, but 97% of the Earth isn't empty in any useful sense. For starters, almost 70% is ocean. There are also large parts which are otherwise uninhabitable, and large parts which have agricultural use. Buses don't go to uninhabited places, since that's costs too much. Every five minutes is a frequency which no form of public transport can afford.

The nature of technological progress is that it makes formerly uninhabitable areas inhabitable.

Costs of buses are mostly the driver. Which will go away. The rest is mostly building and maintaining them. Which will be done by robots. The rest is energy. The sun sends more energy to earth in an hour than humans use in a year.

I've done a quick check on the financial statement 2023 of the Amsterdam public transport company, and personnel (which is absolutely not just drivers) is 1/3 of the total.

And use of solar energy is absolutely unrelated to doubling the living areal. That can, and should, be done anyway.

Rents, or any living costs going down? But everything is based on "stocks only go up".

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