It seems like you are running out of housing and resources because the population has grown massively.

In 1980 the UK population was 50M, in 2024 it is 68M. That's 18M more people to house, food, water, educate, etc. A 36% increase!

Of that 9M were foreign born, so basically 1/2 of the growth was due to immigration. Probably a touch higher since it doesn't look at children of immigrants. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplep...

37% of London is foreign born. How would housing be in London with 1/3 less people?

Yes, or if their consumer products weren't hot garbage. All their domestic appliances are unreliable nightmares. they could DOMINATE that market for the upper mid end with just $5 worth of attention on not ripping off their customers.

Yes. I've build two houses in the last 6 years.

One was a 900SF ADU that I rent out. Construction cost of what I wanted to build was about 250K. I put another 200K into engineering (required by city) and 400K into site and environmental (required by city).

Second project 4000SF infill house that I'll sell. Construction cost of what I wnated to build 900K. Other construction required by city 500K) another 400k paying required engineers (required by city).

PS, each permit took 2.5 years from the time that I submitted a full packet that already included all of the engineering documents (geotech, civil, structural, environmental, etc). These are all basic stick built structures in a suburb.

with 10,000 cars, you could have the cars autodrive to key chokepoints, shut down, and paralyze the whole country

also, what happens if you're trying to break contact from a dangerous driver? Just pace each other at 80MPH while they take shots at you with no chance to get away?

This is a terrible idea. Just enforce the law against dangerous driving and if needed, also against speeding.

Yes, I feel like we should be focusing on stopping the crime and also let insurance companies charge what it takes to cover the losses.

The government doesn't need to be involved. Then, people who live in places where cars aren't stolen can still buy cars without the added expense of the immobilizer and the brutal cost of keys.

People who live places where cars are constantly taken can either pay a much higher insurance premium or buy a car with immobilizers.

I think it's fun. I have a weather station at my home and one at my Mom's. Both are internet connected and attached to weather undgeround. They both are in places where the microclimate is often quite different than the official stations 5 miles away, so I like to provide the service.

I think the villagers need skeet training and equipment

I wonder what percentage of the overage as well as the overall budget and timeline was due to legal and administrative challenges that ended up being big nothing burgers. In my experience, building anything anywhere nowadays is years of the jurisdiction asking for technical reports that don't don't change the outcome and that just waste a majority of the project costs and timeline, but don't improve safety.

And width is the worst. I'm tall, but shoulder room is the worst thing and leads to the terrible neck and back pain. There is no upgrade short of 1st on most airlines that gets you an extra 2" wide. I'll take small legroom, but let me pay 30% more for a little more elbow room

Big EV fan here. We found, since we live out west, that the EV was awesome for the daily commute and for most shorter trips. We make several 300 mile trips a year where there are big gaps in charging, just when you really need it, so we are looking at the 400+ mile cars for that eventuality (just having one car like that, not both). For the other car, a 250 mile battery is more than plenty.

Our last EV had an 80 mile battery, and that was too short for a day of running errands/etc, but a 200-250 would cover 95% of driving

Sure, or places with lots of small islands. In the Seattle area, there are big sections of the metro seperated by a 2 mile wide lake or inlet. being able to have a robo air taxi hop back and forth (running like an elevator) could move a lot of people at rush hour from an inconvenient place to take transit to a very convenient place in a couple of minutes.

When the nukes or even just EMP attack happens, it'd be nice to at least have a CHANCE of picking up an AM station during evacuation to get some info as the situation unfolds.

Boomers and Gen X had this experience. Many of us town and city kids spent some of our summers (maybe not every one) on grandparents' farm or very rural spot and saw some modest living and different perspectives. I'm not in touch enough with millenials to know if they had something like this, en masse. They certainly didn't get the greatest generation helping raise and influence them, which is sad.

My gen Z kids are intentionally getting significant time every summer out of our affluent suburb and into my poor hometown. Primarily so they can know their extended family, but also so they can understand what other people live like and the options they have in life vs others growing up in griding poverty.

I tend to agree with your end state (eventually, gas stations will be few, inconvenient, and expensive), but I disagree with the mid term. It won't be "chains" that will be decommissioned, it will be individual sites. Like most things, it'll start at the margins. The location on the wrong corner of a street that was barely enough volume to keep going will close while the one across the street on the more favorable side will stay in business. You'll also see it hit a point where "run it until it needs money" becomes the retirement decision. When the tanks need to be replaced, if it's a lower volume station, they'll just close up.

Societally, at least in the US, I think the bigger risk is that owners will close/abandon them and the taxpayer will be on the hook for cleaning up the soil and groundwater. We'd be smart to get ahead of this and start collecting enough fees now to be able to afford to help offset remediation costs for sites that get abandoned by bankrupt owners in 10-30 years. A small amount now (or a slowly building surety bond) could probably be imposed in a reasonable way now, without crippling the stations, but to build a reserve for remediation decades in the future.