I don't think you understand that Louis Rossmann's job and attitude used to be the norm. Owning and repairing things are core to industrial living, but modern economic forces want to make you think that its about licensing and disposability.
Ownership and agency are part of liberty, renting and dependence is not.
FYI Plastic Mulch is very different from the mulch one normally thinks of.
It's just a barrier to prevent light from reaching the soil, preventing weeds.
Even with cash, you can't buy a plane ticket without handing over all your info. Which is a good thing!
And, if I had to guess, the booking of hotel rooms probably has more to do with liability rather than tracking. There are plenty of ways of getting a roof over your head without using a credit card; though IMO they are likely a downgrade.
While your statements resonate with me, it's a bit hyperbolic to say that electronic payments/banking are the only way of exerting the control you're worried about. I think there are a lot of good points in this line of complaint about centralized private financial systems, but the ones you're raising are a bit fringe.
The universities seem to have forgotten that there role is to teach and educate, not overreach into their student's lives. College is about learning to cope and manage on your own, as well as learn. Having a different helicopter parent at the university (compared to home) won't help that development.
A lot of these high-end schools have been working to crack down on forms of risk, at the cost of a huge amount of fun and personal discovery. The issues is, this has happened for kids all the way down to when they are toddlers. People need to be able to be in risky, crazy, abnormal situations; it's part of growing up and figuring out who you are. This will only push it later in life, when the risks are far higher, and/or will just have even more uncreative drones.
One thing no one is mentioning is how China is the no.1 beneficiary of a pacified and monitored Australian populace. They are already completely dependent on the Aussie natural resource exports, and are deeply interested in Australia continuing to be friendly towards them, and could easily overwhelm them in a fight.
The thing is this "long run" is a hypothetical for investors and their finite lifetimes and finite windows of return.
Companies aren't accountable to some infinitely long running algorithm or timeless dynasty of shareholders, they are accountable to living breathing greedy humans who want to make a buck NOW, not when they are dead or for their heirs.
If I had to guess it would be something like Slack, Shopify, Squarespace or some other SaaS platform that needs to meet the needs of a hugely diverse customer base.
Reminds me of a Star Trek DS9 episode that takes place in an SF of the near future.
"By the 2020s, those without employment, as well as those with mental problems, were moved into the Sanctuary Districts, which would later become no better than slums."
People talk online. Whether that's equivalent is up for debate.
There might be an argument that our new online/text based discussions have changed the dynamics (some could argue hindered, but I don't) of face to face communication.
Yeah, clearly old things were fine, or in many case quite good.
I think comparing the advances in mechanical precision to changes in society shaping technological advances is not a fair comparison. I would argue that it's exactly that mechanical precision that started with gauge blocks that has facilitated all our advancements.
I think it's just a different "system of measures" when talking about societal/social impact on our human interactions. People's minds and feelings don't fit into technical descriptions.
But, to agree with you, just like basic technology changes slowly, human nature barely seems to change at all.
The unmentioned thing here is why? Why does the world with a smartphone and today's hyper-connectivity seem so different now compared to what it used to?
Did people feel the same way when the railroad and other forms of rapid transport showed up?
What makes things feel so different? Is it more competition, and for what? Is it that things are just faster, and the certainties have changed? Has it fundamentally changed how we experience relationships with people?
Are our standards now higher, and is that a good thing?
So a bookstore is just selling colored pieces of paper, even if those pieces of paper are images of child abuse?
Seriously what is wrong with you? I get that cryto-anarchist are hip and think they're so cool, but there is a real human cost here. Are you OK with that?
I'm assuming the one on the drone is optimized for the voltage/freqency of that transmission line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLS8pbDNHbk