I'm sure people will disagree on the significance, but I think it seems obvious that a society that encourages (and in some cases requires) its members to isolate themselves in mobile metal boxes is going to be more antisocial than one that doesn't.
I'm with you on this one, and I think my time living in a fairly walkable city vs. previously living in a non-walkable suburb really underscored this point for me personally.
I'm failing at finding it via google, but I also recall a study that showed drivers tended to view other drivers/cars on the road not as a person in control of a vehicle, but rather an inanimate object, which I think further supports your point. If anyone has a link to the study, I'd be grateful.
I feel like there is a political side that loves and thinks it clever to shame car ownership or blame everything on cars because because of sone socialist nonsense or something. People have been very social up until 2000 perhaps even later and so-called “metal boxes” have been a big part of American life for a long time. There have even been times when cars were an integral part of socializing in many circles. I get it “America sucks and ancient cities on the Continent are superior” or whatever , but isn’t this kind an f a cliche take at this point?
I think it’s a combination of things and car centric transportation makes our online addled communities worse.
One major issue is that affordability is down bad, many people cannot afford cars and they are stuck in environments where cars are required to do everything and as a result have turned to the internet for their social needs. Which as we know is a mirage for social interaction.
Dense areas where walking/public transit are enough to see friends are becoming more expensive as well.
As an individual I am more concerned about the spying that is effectively hostile to me personally. As a Westerner, I am fairly certain that this will be Western spying. I would expect a Chinese person to be more concerned with Chinese spying for the same reason.
cost of acquisition sets a floor on price. Value sets a ceiling on the price. Supply/demand sets the price you pay. (in economics we further talk about curves - there many oil wells and some costs more to run than others, there are also many buyers and some value oil more. Similar for water where it is often free from a nearby faucet but people will pay a lot of it in bottle form anyway.
> I can drive nearly 200km on any given weekend to visit friends
In a typical vehicle that's about 50kg of CO2. 100kg if it doesn't include the return leg.
Not having a dig at you, but this is a big part of our problem. We believe that because we can do something, we are entitled to do it. Not only that, but we've structured our society in such a way that it's actually necessary for people to do these harmful things just to get by like commuting distances that would have been considered absurd 100 years ago. They are still absurd.
When you boil it all down, the economy mostly is about ownership and use of resources, and those are naturally limited. So if we're talking about doing well in terms of having greater claims to the world's resources, then it essentially is zero sum.
The primary sector is only a very small part of the economy though. Prices for raw materials are low because it's easy to mine etc vast quantities nowadays and there is a lot of competition in global commodities. Most minerals are found in a LOT of places all over the world.
Land. Total value of it is about 25 trillion in the US alone I believe. If I'm not wrong, globally stock markets are around 100 trillion (and that will include a lot of assets in the form of land).
25 trillion is just 1 year worth of GDP. With interest rates of 5%, that's only further evidence for my point.
Edit: as an exercise, consider the land value of a typical office, and compare to the annual income of the part of the company based there, and the personal income of the employees who work there.
Related to this is the issue of imposing sanctions.
On the face of it it seems odd that South Africa is both pursuing a case of genocide against Israel while also supplying Israel with most of their coal.
What many people seem to be unaware of is that countries are not free to unilaterally impose sanctions. Yes, the US does this regularly and essentially with impunity, but, to quote Wikipedia:
> According to Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, only the UN Security Council has a mandate by the international community to apply sanctions (Article 41) that must be complied with by all UN member states (Article 2,2).
It seems you're misreading that quote. It doesn't say member countries aren't free to impose unilateral sanctions. Only that they have no power to compell other member countries to go along with them, unless they go through the Security Council.
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