That's been done by Frank Herbert as well, in Destination: Void. Not a great book though.

Without social media being a meeting place for teens they will meet where they have meet and should meet. In the back seat of a 1959 Plymouth Fury or 1958 Chevy Impala. Ford Galaxy seats  would bust your butt.

I don't remember ads on "I lead three Lives" or "The Fat Man" or "Inner Sanctum".  Mebby grand-dad told stories during commercial breaks.

"The question will be who's left to determine if the work is done well and who will care."  Everyone actually cares. BUT! Poor work will be done systematically  by *.ai. AND: Our data-masters will try making sure *.ai is pushed into every nook and cranny of reality, so NO WORK WHATSOEVER  is done well. No comparison means no complaint. Think about store-bought ice-creame ... Can my fav Luddite guilds fight back effectively? Not until American citizens  really really believe  our 2nd Amendment calls for direct action not debate. 

"the social and historical circumstances of the people southwest of the Ural mountains in the 15th century", OTContrary.  Ace those courses ( + a language) and 3-letter-agencies will come knocking at your door.
My senior year ( many many decades ago ) I happened to grab a library copy of Herman Khans "On Thermonuclear War" --- the kind of book physics majors at a liberal arts college might find interesting. Three months later , bet you can't guess who wrote themselves into my list of  employment interviewers ! I chose grad school & academia instead, but  figure "they" watched.

You conflate schooling with learning. Of-course schooling ( MS/PhD ) might lead to learning ... but solving all the problems in J.D. Jacksons'  "Electrodynamics"  , Landau & Lifshitz "Statistical Physics"  &  Goldsteins "Classical Mechanics" while raising chickens and living in an off-grid cabin  will most-certainly shape your intellect ! Just scavenge a slide-rule and  leave the F*-A computer/internet turned off.

Your brute envy  of your betters shines emerald green.

So ... China allows the financials to define the culture, rather than having the culture define the financial structure.  Sound like "somebody" we know ? That's a deliberate choice with known consequences. I mean, consumerism is no more a natural/ synthetic a'priori  population  phenomena than heroin addiction or deer-horn cults.  Yet  Chinese leadership has come to prefer productivity over -- say -- emotional insight or brook-trout fishing. How Randish of them and how foolish to learn the worst of American vices. Yes yes I know Chinese leaders were decadent and greedy while Americans still ran around in Dire-Wolfskins.

When all spaces are full, you can't park there anyway, independent of the question if there are 9 or 10 occupied spaces.

Driving from Dublin to Donegal means that you take a short cut through Northern Ireland. Crossing the border is an everyday occurrence. And that border is one of the main reasons why a) Northern Ireland voted against Brexit and b) the Brexit negotiations were so complicated, as it is easier to levy tariffs on the ferries between Northern Ireland and Great Britain than between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

But that's where most border crossings happen from the UK. It's not the edge case. It's most of the cases. For all other border crossings, you would have to book a ferry.

Having a million separate taxes is a legacy from a distributed type of governance which has long stopped existing. All layers of government should get the vast majority from property, capital gains and estate taxes.

Some disencentivization taxes can be appropriate, but road transport in general is not something to disencentivize in my opinion, only a small part is luxury spending.

There is no passport control at the border of Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland. (And between most E.U. countries).

If the primordial dark matter is clumpy, then you don't necessarily need millisecond pulsars. The radiation could be clumpy because two clumps of dark matter are slowly passing through each other.

With so little evidence, you can make almost anything fit.

You can choose to reject much of the industrial revolution. Most Westerners are able to purchase human-crafted  personal goods. From 100% re-built autos to hand-woven suits and dresses, the items are available. The price?  Consumption of a  fewer number of "long term" purchases,  and great self-satisfaction in identifying master-craft products. As a rule,  let peons and sociopaths buy mass-produced items.