Where I live the council members are all pretty polarized and from safe districts. You might be able to sway them on trivial issues such as getting a traffic light put in or having a school zone enforced but for the most part they have their positions decided by what flavor of kool-aid their party tells them is delicious.

I think it'll be interesting to see how things shake out. Will shootings go up or down in places where any lunatic can get a concealed carry permit? Will cities that allow legal pot stores have better or worse economies than cities that ban them outright? I don't think anyone knows for sure, but it's pretty cool that we get to see for ourselves and move if we like the deal better in the other part of the city.

You can speak with your wallet. Move!

The area I live has different cities in a metro area. Some of the cities are law-and-order types that have banned pot dispensaries and give concealed carry permits without many rules, others are hippie free-for-all zones. You can decide where to live based on what you like, and write letters to your sheriff or city council etc. to try to influence them.

I think it is exciting, maybe one approach will turn out to be more popular and at a minimum you can be in an area that you like best.

You misunderstood my comment. Our definitions of "literally everyone" are safely in agreement.

I said that life threatening scarcity is an issue up to the present day.
I said if and when it happens [meaning the end of scarcity] there is no doubt that it will change [future tense] many things.

Reality is quite different from what you propose. Human populations become markedly less fertile when they become more wealthy. You can chart fertility rate vs inverse wealth and find very few outliers.

The poorest countries have the highest fertility rates. You really should think about things before you post.

Humans have been faced with life threatening scarcity for all of history up to present day. I don't think anyone knows what will happen when literally everyone can trivially have plenty of food, clean water, and energy very cheaply. If and when it happens, there is no doubt that it will change many things.

I have the opposite impression. 90% of ERs are staffed with idiots who treat pneumonia or an infection with strong antibiotics picked at random or by bribery without doing a culture first. They're causing resistance and feeding the misconception that everyone should get strong antibiotics immediately whenever they're sick.

If you put on gloves with dirty hands, you have dirty gloves. Gloves without handwashing provide all the inconvenience of doing something without achieving anything.

It's way more than $3B. Figure all the costs pushed onto others such as court, prison, police, lost productivity, etc.

It's staggering to think how much a single life ruined costs. Instead of somebody paying taxes and contributing their whole life they rot in jail, vastly increasing the chances their offspring does the same.

I see this at left turn signals. The sensor doesn't detect any motion so it only stays green for a second or two. If cars keep moving it'll stay green for 30 seconds, but one texter causes everyone behind them to miss the light. I've considered pre-emtive honking 1-2 seconds before the light changes, although texters often hit the gas without looking when they hear a horn.

You've just described pretty much any economic transaction. Just price your rideshare above the amortized cost of maintaining a vehicle and you're good. IRS calls that fifty-some cents a mile, but my cars cost a lot less to operate. Price the rented room above the cost of maintaining it and increased utilities and ka-ching!

Just like starbuckses has to price their latte above the cost of ingredients, labor, property costs, advertising, etc.

That's a good way to get rid of a pile of change. I've seen those at other self checkouts, such as home improvement stores and so forth. I've always wondered if the machines reuse coins/bills inserted or if they go through once and get processed at the end of the day.

I bought a house last month and made it a game with my lender and realtor to avoid using faxes. We did everything electronically with an e-signing application and made it all the way to the closing without using a single fax. Of course everything there is paper but we accepted that. One of the darn sellers forgot his ID and had to have it faxed to the closing.

Oh well, I'll try again next time.

This whole poll is bogus. Anyone that has used about 50% of credit card machines has used a modem recently. Anyone who has sent or received a fax. I'd guess that the average person uses modems several times a day.

Polling sensor data via modem is cool, I've had to do that myself. If I have to drive hours to fix something I'd pick a modem over anything else I've used for low bandwidth applications.

In case anyone else is confused about this, those ripoff boxes give full value for gift cards or various other non-cash items. Whenever I see someone using one I think they're retarded, but just now I looked it up and there are no cost options.

My credit union offers free coin counting and you don't have to be a member. Or you could just carry a few coins and use them to fend off new coins as much as possible. Any that make it through your defenses are added to your arsenal making you more coin resistant to your next cash transaction. You can guess my favorite method.

I work at a manufacturing plant doing IT work and make good money. Our operators make $12 to start, I think it goes up to $20 if they are a shift lead. That's pretty good money for somebody with no education, and comes with benefits. I think manufacturing is a good line of work to be in, whether you have an education or not.

All the manufacturing plants I've worked with have a focus on safety, and their workers are far more likely to be injured or killed commuting than working.