Thanks, I read the Reddit comments and I thought I was the only one seeing that.
I mean it's hardly a thought experiment since it's already the basic idea behind Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Dispossessed", which I'm currently reading. The communities on Annarres are really much alike what is discribed by OP
I haven't worked a lot with geolocation yet. But I'm driven to it because of my geography background, and I would be mad if every service for that kind of work was closed and proprietary.
I was looking for a reference to housing co-ops in the comments, thanks.
To me it looks like a housing co-op scheme with more vendor lock-in, so to speak. But housing co-ops come in so many different shapes and form across the world so there might be some that have also some kind of lock-in disadvantage.
In any case it's refreshing to see that people want to question the home ownership model we rely on on an everyday basis.
From my european perspective, capital punishment is such a weird idea. Never I have came across strong evidence for a deterrent effect. And if you just quickly look at the Wikipedia article [1], it looks like it's really difficult to say whether it actually results in a more peaceful society or not (I mean Japan uses it extensively).
To me, it looks like something that has more to do with a country's culture than with actual scientific studies arguing for or against.
Full disclosure : I think we're better without capital punishment where I live. If only because it's easier to "fix" a mistrial when the convict is not dead meat.
But also because I think it's to powerful a tool for an autoritarian leader that would get elected and could use it right away. That does not mean that such a leader could not reinstate it in a country that does not have capital punishment anymore, but that would take more time and maybe some people could use this time to realize what kind of leader this person is.
Well that's my two cents. It is only my opinion, I'm not trying to offend or convince anyone else. And I don't presume any moral high ground for my point of view or anything. Just saying how I see this subject having been raised in a country that dropped death penalty since before I was born, is all.
(Trying to be extra careful here since it's a sensitive subject and the USA is not my country and English is not my mother tongue. Sorry if I offended someone).
Yes I've heard of that through the Paris experiment cited in this article. Although when I talked about it with Parisian friends :
* Cyclists have not heard of it and keep getting insulted daily for behaviors allowed by this experiment
* Motorist had the typical knee-jerk reaction along the lines of "This is crazy! Cyclists are madmen! Actual dangers to pedestrians and to themselves, ..." yadda yadda
Of course I don't assume that every cyclist I talked with is respectful of the actual crossroads where this is enforced so my little biased survey is worth nothing.
But I guess if it's not backed up with proper propaganda this kind of new road rules are doomed to create new tensions between cyclists and motorist.
Or just give cyclists proper protected bike lanes, like there have in the Netherlands. But I kind of have lost hope on the French Government and Community Governments for that.
I am a daily cyclist and I started strictly following the rules after being scared by an accident I had. I realized eventually that I don't feel safer by following the rules. In fact there are a lot of days when I feel even more in danger than before (namely: rain days and friday nights).
I used to think that was because of the shock from the accident.
I'd like some material on that if you happen to know about it.
Same here. Most of my ebooks are bought DRM-free. But some times I want a book from a publisher that does not do DRM-free publishing. And EVERY TIME, it's a hassle : I have to link my e-reader to a specific website account. This account itself has to be linked to my email address, since there is no way to register anywhere without email nowadays...
Anyway, that makes me REALLY annoyed, so I break the DRM protection every time, just to avoid another hassle next time I reset my ereader, my Calibre library, or any other event.
Granted that does not happen very often, but I'll do anything to avoid yet another 2FA voodoo ritual across multiple online platforms just to claim ownership on a 100 pages book. I mean, come on !
You're correct about payment in the developed world.
But the Libra website highlight potential usage in developing countries.
I may be wrong but in my opinion there is a huge market to take over in the countries where one has a Facebook account before having a bank account.
I can't find the link but I came across an article explaining that in Myanmar Facebook and "internet" are basically synonyms. That's because when most of the population began to have access to the internet it was only via Facebook services that are provided freely thanks to a commercial agreement between mobile providers and Facebook.
Now just imagine if Libra could pull something like that for payment services in all developing countries.
I mean it's hardly a thought experiment since it's already the basic idea behind Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Dispossessed", which I'm currently reading. The communities on Annarres are really much alike what is discribed by OP