If there's cellphone signal enough for voice, there's enough to run an app that is designed to handle the low bandwidth.

But now you're shifting from Colorado to Canada. See what I mean by constant retreat?

Besides, like I said, I drove through the mountains of western Canada and always had enough cell signal. And caching is still a thing. GPS still works as long as one can see 3 satellites, and some can use the EU and RU versions to improve accuracy even more.

Worst case, Starlink is deploying cellphone technology, so we'll have signal from satellites soonish.

Most of it.

And yet, there's a long way yet to go.

Only if you treat them like shit.

Effects.

Treating women like shit makes them not want to pump out babies. Now they have a choice, so they are doing a lot less of it. Literally all it would take to get a large portion (a majority IMO) of them to do it without support from a decent partner would be to gracefully and quietly fund the programs that ensure they will be able to feed and provide medical care for their children even if their circumstances change, but there seems to be a problem even meeting that bar.

But then your entire fucking point becomes pointless about 8 seconds later, literally before I could read it and roll my eyes about it.

Except it doesn't. It's shit all day. It makes people upset all day. This means it's costing productivity all day. See, in the real world with real humans, these user pain points have real impacts on those real people.

HTH, HAND!

Same for if it is made in America. If it's not FOSS, then it's not trustworthy, and even then it's limited to e.g. devices you can build your own firmware for.

Man, it's just constant retreat with you, isn't it?
You're seriously saying Alma doesn't have cellphone signal? I've lived in a smaller town and still had signal.

Generally speaking, those installing EV charging stations want to be able to bill for it. Which means that the station itself needs connectivity, even if it doesn't need to be much. They need a big fat pipe of electricity as well.
Sounds like an excellent spot for a cell phone tower, if one isn't already in range.

Besides that, I managed to drive from Alaska to Florida, through Canada, without ever being out of cellphone signal.

Worst case, the app developers are aware that you might be out of signal occasionally. Therefore they cache information.

Working from home is an alternative, one that we should use more.

(Of course, I WFH full time and have for 20 of the last 30 years, so I have a bit of a bias.)

You do know that Musk doesn't actually have a trillion dollars in *money*, right? He doesn't have anywhere remotely close to that much money. His total liquid assets are extensive, sure, maybe as much as a few billion, but nearly all of his incredible net worth isn't money. You could probably call it "potential money".

And everyone should keep in mind that this is true for basically all of the billionaires. Not that there isn't real wealth there, but it's a lot fuzzier than the numbers appear. Basically everyone with astronomical wealth mostly owns shares in companies, and how much of that value is real in any near-term sense depends on a lot of factors.

Musk's wealth is more speculative and fuzzy than most because his companies' valuation is based not on the revenues the companies generate now but theories about what they might generate in the future. Tesla's high valuation is all about the promise of self-driving cars restructuring transportation. SpaceX's is a little bit about cheap access to space changing a lot of stuff and more about AI. In all cases the high valuations are bets on world-changing technology being becoming real, and on Musk's companies being able to capture a good chunk of the resulting revenues.

The US solved this problem 150 years ago. First with the observation that immigrants acculturate. Second with the acceptance that elements of their culture are going to get melded in to form a new culture. Culture is never static, anyway, it always drifts and morphs. Immigration just changes it a bit faster. But it's good! This ongoing immigrant-driven culture change is what made the US a superpower. Embrace it.

Indeed is USED to work this way....and if so, sure, cool.

The trouble is...it no longer works that way, there is no more 'melting pot'.

For various reasons, one being we've let WAY too many in at once....they do not come here to become Americans and assimilate, they are here to take over and make a Mini-whatever country they came from .

They segregate, they do NOT learn the language and in Muslim cases, they try to change our laws to fit their religion.

In the old days, you didn't see protests with migrants waving flags of their home land, but instead were waving the US flag....

So, no that old way isn't working....and if we don't stop the influx....we risk losing our country even more than we risk losing it right now.

Doing that in the Commonwealth of Virginia is just going to get you a bigger fine. Radar detectors are illegal (or at least used to be the last time I drove there).

Glad most of the US doesn't suck like the Commonwealth of Virginia.....where we are free to know when we are being observed and electronically surveyed by the police.

Fortunately in the UK we have average speed checks over long distances so arseholes find a hole in their bank account and maybe points on their driving license too.

Ah....well, while it is getting bad here in the US, at least we're not the dystopian hell the UK is at this point....

That analysis is utterly wrong. Far, far worse than the smartphone theory.

It is, in fact, the almost exact opposite of the truth. The truth is that wealth is what causes fertility decline. Wealth and female education, actually, which come hand-in-hand. This story is strikingly visible everywhere around the globe. As a population becomes wealthier and its women become better-educated, fertility falls. Without exception, and the effect is so powerful it overrides culture, religion, everything.

This is the primary driver in the US, too. In fact, wages have not stagnated, not when you look at the full picture including government transfers, and every generation is wealthier than the one before. Somewhat surprisingly, given the current housing price bubble, each generation even has higher home ownership rates than the previous generations at the same ages. Houses and apartments are also significantly bigger and more luxurious (which explains most of their higher prices, actually; do some comparisons on a per square foot basis over time, then adjust for the higher quality and greater amenities we have today).

But if you look at how Americans spend their money over the years, the biggest change you'll find is that we spend less on housing, food and clothing as a percentage of our income (in spite of bigger, nicer houses, far more restaurant and delivered food, and much larger wardrobes) and much more on entertainment -- and that in spite of the fact that entertainment has gotten dramatically cheaper.

The US solved this problem 150 years ago. First with the observation that immigrants acculturate. Second with the acceptance that elements of their culture are going to get melded in to form a new culture. Culture is never static, anyway, it always drifts and morphs. Immigration just changes it a bit faster. But it's good! This ongoing immigrant-driven culture change is what made the US a superpower. Embrace it.

However, immigration is only a stopgap solution to the problem of population decline, because fertility is declining everywhere on the globe, fast. The global fertility rate is basically at replacement now, but the decline is continuing, and accelerating. We'll drop below replacement as a species in just a few years. Even then population will keep growing for a while due to the "filling out" effect, but then it'll start dropping, fast. And it will quickly become top-heavy (more old than young).