How do you define "real tasks"? Even small models that can be run on consumer CPU can produce a coherent summary of an email, as an example. Isn't that a real task?
If CCP really was "worse than Putin", they would have invaded Taiwan a long time ago already, and killed a couple of hundred thousand people in the process, as Putin is perfectly content to do in Ukraine. But they haven't, which shows that its leadership has at least some competence.
My country shares 1300km of border with Russia, and I would choose China over Russia as a neighbour any day. China might be an oppressive dictatorship, but its still more civilized than Russia, which frankly has never left the Middle Ages in terms of mentality. Apart from perhaps North Korea, there is no worse neighbor in the world than imperialist Russia.
Used corporate mini-pcs make excellent home servers if you don't need too much storage (typically they support two SSDs), and want low power consumption & noise and small form factor. Right now ones with 7th or 8th gen i5 are a pretty good deal, often around 50-120 USD on ebay, a bit more in the EU. Idle power cosumption is about 10W. If you want to play around with virtualization, a higher-end model with Intel NIC is recommended due to some Linux driver issues (at least with Proxmox).
Corporate thin clients with Pentium J5005 or similar also make decent raspberry pi replacements, usually just not as good price-power ratio as proper minipc. Certain models have pcie slot, which makes them ideal DIY routers when fitted with pcie NIC & pfsense/opnsense as OS. If you're using a consumer router, such project can make lots of sense.
For NAS, I recommend building your own. Personally I use Asrock J5040 mini-itx board with Node 304 case and Unraid as OS, houses 4x 3.5" drives, so far happy with it. For maximum reliability you might want a mothebroard that supports EEC memory though.
I hope more companies will follow. I hate rentable electric scooters with passion - they cause so many accidents, block the walkways and pollute the landscape. They aren't even particularly ecological, considering how they mainly replace walking, and have short lifespan.
Of course it's more of an user problem rather than tech problem. They could work well in a society where bad behavior is not tolerated, and eScooter use is regulated properly. Unfortunately I don't live in one, and thus eScooters really seem to attract lazy and irresponsible types.
Sometimes low-tech is just better. Here in Finland we got Sr1 electric trains from the Soviet Union in the 70's, and after some renovations the model is likely to stay in use at least until 2030.
The pipelines here have nothing to do with Germany, they go between Finland and Estonia, and aren't particularly critical. Finland just joined NATO, so there's your motivation - harassment.
Before Finland joined NATO Russian military planes would regularly violate our airspace, just to show that they can. Of course now under NATO they will try to annoy us even more. China is anti-NATO, so they are fine with this.
One lesson I've learned in life is to never fly when recovering from flu, even if you feel quite okay. I did that very painful mistake once a decade ago, and since then I've had permanent tinnitus in my left ear. It doesn't bother me much in daily life, but I would like to be be able to experience total silence in nature without that constant noise.
Nuclear, wind, solar. Besides, building a carless society isn't exactly emission free either. For that one would need higher housing density, which means more construction. Concrete production is a major source of carbon emissions.
Really cars are not any more of a problem than other forms of consumption.
To be honest all you need is a torrent client, HDMI cable and a laptop. Not much time required. With slightly more effort you can even intall Plex or Jellyfin on your laptop, and stream directly to your smart tv.