Good article but, like a lot of stategic studies pieces, grossly underestimates what the American industrial base is capable of.
1. The US is second in the world, behind Ukraine, in military drone production.
2. The US is a close second to China in logistics + last mile drone production.
3. The US is still the only country with the proven ability to move mass anywhere in the world.
None of this means that the US will win a hot war against China. However, that has - always - been the case. The US fought against China in Korea and SE Asia/Vietnam and had the opportunity twice to move the conflict into Chinese territory. They didn't, for obvious reasons.
It's a very US-centric perspective to assume that density = cities.
Almost every town in the US, at one point, was dense enough to support a vibrant main street. Many (most?) of them even had tram lines and other forms of public transportation.
It's not an either or proposition. You can have cost-effective infrastructure through relative density without having to deal with all of the trappings - good and bad - that come from a city.
The Swiss public transport system is a century-plus old at this point. Compare pictures of the Zurich tram system in the early 20th century with today - squint your eyes and you won't notice any difference.
That said, I'm willing to bet that San Fransisco and the surrounding communities had comparable public transportation in the 19th and early 20th century. While I can't speak for the bay area, you can still find exposed tram tracks in many US cities - Philadelphia, for instance.
The US's move from having the best to arguably the worst public transportation system in the world among developed countries is a lesson in disastrous government policy.
East coast cities were built before modern building codes.
Something that, for some reason, people in the states don't want to accept is that - when given the choice - the vast majority of people prefer living in dense urban environments.
The same way people in every other country do it (rental vans)
Rail <-> Road isn't an either or issue. It wasn't in 1850 and it isn't today. The only difference, at least in the US, is that poorly designed government intervention/policies forced low population densities.
Rail and other forms of public transport simply don't work with suburban sprawl. Large roadways also don't work - compare the state of US infrastructure against pretty much every other country out there - it's just that the financial bill from an unbelievable amount of deferred maintenance hasn't come due yet.
Completely agree. I don’t see why people view this as an either or decision.
Also worth mentioning that some paid MCP providers offer an actual value added. Sure, I can use curl or a self hosted crawler for web searches, but is it really worth the pain?
> Do you want issues of Nature and cell to be replication studies? As a reader even from within the field, im not interested in browsing through negative studies.
Actually, yes, I do. The marginal cost for publishing a study online at this point is essentially nil.
Langstrasse is as close to a red-light district as you'll find in Zurich.
It's gotten a lot better over the last couple of years, but stating that you were offered drugs there is like being offended that you walked past a casino in Vegas.
