> And those are? A single sentence is nice, but perhaps more is needed than that.

Computer vision exists already to track pedestrians and other objects in real time. Usain Bolt can move at approximately 10m per second, so you just need to project a 10m/sec surrounding bubble as the future space of each person. If it's a busy pedestrian intersection, fall back to the old system of pedestrian lights.

Non autonomous cars can be dealt with with traffic lights, same as always, only the equipped and verified AVs and semi-AVs can run the red light and go through the AV lane running the red light.

The technical issues are solvable. Yes a 100% AV world would be more efficient here, but there's an obvious map from here to there.

Funny how this pops up and most of the comments are immediately pointing out obvious problems that everyone would have thought about. It's a proof of concept, and as a concept this is a seriously good one. Yes there's issues with pedestrians, and with cars not enrolled, but there's ways to manage and work around those. Intersections like these are the way of the future, as are autonomous vehicles. Driving a car is going to go the same way as riding a horse - a hobby activity not an every-day thing.

Umm... so what? This is like saying don't build roads because inevitably people won't be able to get to the road.

Anyhow, simulations like this have been around for decades, I remember seeing one in the 90s I'm sure.

Welll... with that much inertia nothing this side of the big crunch is gonna stop that black hole.

That there's something sure big enough, and sure round enough, so your momma would have to be a planet too.

I'm not sure how the right of a transgender person to use a particular bathroom stands in the way of genetic engineering exactly....

TFA is just saying be careful. Umm... duh?

Go read about the horse named impressive. A prime example of not being careful.

https://xkcd.com/927/

I actually think emphysema is worse. It's even longer and more drawn out and you end up not being able to do *anything*, often for years (source: I am a family doctor)

Don't smoke kids! Just don't do it. It's a horrible thing

You can't solve a Malthusian crisis by flying people off-planet in rockets. They breed faster than you can launch the rockets, and the rockets require far too much resource / energy to fly off.

Maybe achievable with a space elevator, but you still need somewhere to go to. The resources creating those places to go to are immense.

The only realistic cure for a Malthusian crisis are either birth control, or mass population loss.

Not true, do some basic research. The pill is around 96%, implanted methods like implanon and IUDs are 99.5% odd.

Effectiveness of contraception is measured in number of women pregnant at the end of a year using only this method. It's like that because it's difficult to measure frequency of intercourse.

96% is pretty good, it's on par with the OCP, and way better than nothing at about 50%

The bulk of humanity will never leave the Earth, ever. Just the energy cost of getting all that mass to orbit is prohibitive, and even if you send up a good fraction, the remainder will just keep breeding ensuring you'll never catch up.

> we must protect them (in some cases, through force of law: i.e. child support) from those choices?

Yes, but this is clearly worse for the child involved. Child support is not about protecting the rights of women, it's about ensuring the best outcomes for the children.

Koalas have no reason to have much brain power.

Koalas aren't good eating - they're toxic because they're full of eucalyptus oil. So they don't need to avoid predators. They eat one thing, so all they need the brains for is to find the thing and eat it.

Having a large, metabolically active brain would be a bad thing for a koala because the food they eat is so low on nutrition they'd be wasting energy running it.

There's selective pressure *away* from having brain power.

For the first thousand years, contemplate the number one in complete fullness. For the next thousand, the number two, and so on.

Never run out of 'new and interesting things to think about'.