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Being somewhat wealthy probably helps significantly.

So replace roads with tubes containing a fixed track that prevents animals, weather, and people from interfering. Then add tube outlets to areas that are frequented by most travelers. You could even put these tubes underground to save space, and instead of large individual cars you could optimize the vehicles for many passengers in a small amount of space.

Imagine if these were dogs in the photo. People would lose their minds.

No worries... I always react to this because I see a lot of people online parroting an "no really, I'm not a hippie" attitude without thinking about the origin of that feeling!

I sense some hippie shame (maybe I'm wrong)! IMO a lot of that feeling stems from the government and ruling class pushing back against counter-culture. They were more right about the environment (among other issues) than they even realized at the time.

Earthships are unconventional in appearance and implementation, but are great examples of the type of thinking we're going to need to overcome imminent climate issues. If we started doing more of that in the 60s and 70s we'd be in a better position today.

Yeah this is it in my experience. It looks like they're optimizing for age, but they're really optimizing for cost and ageism is a side-effect.

I've seen this happen at almost every job I've had: Senior engineer with 10+ years experience works 40-50 hours a week and gets laid off. Senior engineer is opinionated about how things are implemented and can come across as "difficult." Two junior engineers are hired for about the same cost and are pushed to 60+ hours a week. They'll do literally anything you tell them to. Non-engineer management sees a win but then eventually gets mad about codebase issues like it's unrelated, and end up churning through juniors trying to fix it.

Another alternative is outsourcing of course, in which you can end up with a small team for the short-term cost of one senior engineer... and a lot of the same problems with the junior route.

It feels like one of those risk problems where people are happy about the short-term gain but fail to look far enough ahead to see the long-term issues.

I pay $1200 a month for my family and don't even really get to use it for anything but routine checkups (which I still pay $30/ea for) until I hit my $5k deductible (and to another extent, the $8k out-of-pocket max).

A few times a year I spend an hour on the phone arguing about coverage or an incorrect billing code.

This is all for peace of mind that if I get hit by a car or fall off my roof that I won't instantly be ruined by debt.

In the event of one of those accidents I fully expect to have to fight the company I pay over $10k a year to actually provide that "I'm broke but at least I'm not bankrupt" coverage.

Oh also, we need a separate plan to insure our teeth for some reason and most plans only cover $1500 a year. I needed to get my wisdom teeth out and ended up splitting it over two years so I didn't have to pay the full uninsured price.

Our "liberal" presidential candidate is painted as "radical" by the current president, and said "radical liberal" has said on multiple occasions that "people love their insurance"

I've considered trying to move to another country simply because of healthcare. I am immediately skeptical of anyone who thinks this is a reasonable system.

> comes across as cheap and disposable

I think they get a bit of a bad rep because, yes you can get a $10 MDF nightstand that will probably last a couple years... but once you stop scraping the bottom of the barrel, their mid-range and up stuff does complete really well on quality and price, especially if mid-century style aesthetics appeal to you...

Have you ever considered that you might be the problem?

When I was younger I may have written a very similar comment about some places I've worked... and while I still agree that the environment wasn't my cup of tea... my intolerance of others was a bigger problem.

>if the driver drives in bad hours making their income not come up to minimum wage uber would be forced to pay the driver anyway

is this a California specific law? There are lots of variable hour workers out there that may skirt by below the hour threshold for a short amount of time, but generally the employer can set reasonable adjustment periods where they'd lose their benefits for continuing to do so.

>While you think you're giving full-time employment and benefits to all of these people what you're really doing is taking certain kinds of opportunities away.

This is some of the most phenomenal bullshit I've ever read.

There's nothing stopping Uber and Lyft from allowing people to work their own hours and also giving them benefits if they meet hourly qualifications.

You're talking about people making <$30k a year while shouldering most of the risk and using their own cars as if they're shopping around for the best FAANG salary.

Do you think people are really walking around thinking "I don't want health insurance because I prefer being destitute in the event of an injury"?

When's the last time you've worked a minimum wage contract job? At that level of employment you're not exactly shopping around for better offers.

Uber and Lyft can offer benefits to contract workers. Do you think they don't because they want to give people the right to choose?

The employer has dramatically more power in the free market. Especially when backed by endless piles of VC money.

Remember that the free market didn't end child labor, create weekends, or the minimum wage.

"personal risk"

This is kind of the state of the country really. Ridesharing is an OK gig until you get into an accident, you're fine without health insurance until you get injured, you don't really need a union until you start getting treated unfairly, you can pay for college as long as you consistently have a good salary... we're being statistically gaslit with the idea that most people can scrape by without higher wages and better general protections.