FromHoiPolloi

I'm afraid that as a pedestrian I would never cross an intersection where cars zigzag through each other instead of stopping... My imagination says I would have to order a taxi to cross from one block to another changing a 5 minute walk into a 30 minute commute.

Oh, I agree that people don't pay for the external costs of their vehicles and that reducing the number of cars is what makes the cities great again.

My gripe with the autonomous cars is that they still need to park _somewhere_. They might park further away, but the company that parks their car closest to the pick up point will have an advantage over competition and thus the incentive would be to have the cars as close to customers as possible (lower cost of pickup, quicker turn around, potentially higher price for faster pickup).

How? The traffic is the movement of vehicles. Can you save traffic by increasing the volume of trafficked things? How would AI vehicle coordination work with non-AI participants (i.e. meatbags)

It should be doable with cooperation between the two, right?

If we add that FSF aims to provide free alternatives to some vendor blobs the landscape begins to look promising.[0]

One party to provide needed specs for hardware, one party to free the hardware from vendor blobs and another party to merge this into a working product.

[0] https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/librephone

Previous submissions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1776994

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4935064

Oh, I'm not familiar with his works unfortunately.

or 'Fake London'

Yes. My point was that it's easier(?) to get below freezing point above water than below. So while the cold air keeps the upper part of the iceberg (relatively) intact - it will slowly melt below the sea until the center of gravity changes enough to flip over.

My take would be that underwater temps cannot get below freezing. So the surrounding temperatures above water can be lower than under water.

Oh I fully agree. One thing that (I think) is being overlooked is that when some people switch from cars to public transit, the congestion eases. One doesn't have to make everyone switch to buses/light rails. Just enough for everyone to benefit.

Not quite. Communism is when the gov controls the means of production. The end result is indeed shitty stuff due to lack of competition. But you can achieve similar enshittification by failing to break monopolies etc.

All governments do stuff. Usually it's passing and enforcing laws. What set of principals stands (or lurks) behind these laws - that's where the meat of the matter is.

They still have to park somewhere... And the service (Waymo or a future competitor) that has it's cars closer will win more customers or can charge higher fees for faster service. The parking infrastructure might move a bit. But it won't disappear. I'd wager it'll even increase.

I know in some places taxis are considered public transport. But I do not agree with that. It's still a car with one or two passengers. The only similarity with public transport is that you can use it while under influence.

You don't have to nuke anything. Every street is fixed/rebuild from time to time (30-40 years). The steps to follow are: 1) Allow mixed use zones. 2) Update the specs how the roads/streets are supposed to look like.

After that, grab a pint and watch how your neighborhood transforms.

ok... Why the majority of people don't want to endure the hassle of riding the bus?

No, it's not. It's a car for hire. Problems created by car-dependency will not be solved by adding more/cheaper cars.

Inflation is a killer unless the paycheck is adjusted accordingly.

This, plus decent public transport.

What other tools are there available? I believe increasing minimum wage, punishing (through tax) rent seeking would also be viable.

That's not 100% true. At the beginning of industrial revolution workers have been working insane hours - often 12-16 hour shifts 6 days a week.

See the 1833 [1] bill that limits work-shift for children aged 9-13 to 8 hours a day. The fact that (most) developed countries settled for 40 hour work week was a huge progress. The fact that we did not shortened the workweek in the last 100 years is sad to say the least. The gains in productivity were shared with the employees right up until 1971 [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_Acts#Ashley's_Bill_(18... [2] https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

I'd argue it was a vassal state, not occupied (per se) at least from the 1950's onwards. Yes, the soviet troops did station in Poland, but the beatings were administered by other Polish citizens.

Also... why would USSR and Germany need a non-aggression pact when they did not share any border?

No. I mean the support USSR received from USA after the German attack. A third of trucks used by the Red Army where US made A third of soviet airforce was US made. US also sent a lot of high octane fuel needed for the airplanes. A significant amount of food.

It is very likely that the USSR would not win if not for the US material support.

The USSR was perfectly capable of wrecking havoc on itself without the fed. While the Soviet evacuation of it's industry to the east was impressive one must not forget the massive aid the USSR received from the western allies.

The vast majority of wars have been won by the party with stronger economy. There are of course exceptions. Especially when the theater of operation is on the other side of the globe (i.e. 1776)

How did you learn this lesson?

I'd say that the Western cities were barely touched. When compared to the destruction along the Eastern Front.

One book that took on the subject in a neutral way was Des hommes, des dieux et des extraterrestres: Ethnologie d'une croyance moderne by Stoczkowski, Wiktor (I'm not sure if it was published in english). Unfortunately I can't recall much of the book - I've read it ages ago. It was an anthropologist's study of groups who believed people originated in outer space.

I have used Excel's TEXTJOIN function for such cases.