Can you provide examples? The only example of a 'scientific' study I am aware of is the disgraced Wakefield stuff which has been disproven so many times it isn't even funny. That's before you add in the malpractice that happened and the conflict of interest he held.
That is also PII being used for the purpose it was collected for (identifying a contributor) and I believe falls under Art.6(1)(f) of the GDPR. You would likely have a hard time convincing anybody that you can apply the right to be forgotten to a git repo - especially as that particular processing can be argued to not be requiring consent once you have submitted your commits.
And what happens when a hurricane takes down the cell tower? Or the power is out for days and the cell tower's backup batteries run dry?
Decentralised radio is essentially ham radio. Individual units talking directly to each other, without relying on a single point of failure (the cell company). As others have said above, ham radio is a godsend in some situations. If you use the right bands, you can talk halfway around the world while running off batteries and using a wire thrown over a tree for an antenna.
You missed one of the really nice points of having a stage there. You use it to test your backups by restoring from live every night/week. By doing that, you discourage developing on staging and you know for sure you have working backups!
IIRC Chip and Pin uses a challenge-response type set up with public key crypto to authenticate your card with your bank. You cannot clone that, as processing is done on the card - not the reader, and the card never reveals it's secrets.
I'm in the UK and I forgot my credit card pin a few years back. Getting it sorted was as simple as phoning an automated phone number, entering my card details and they then posted a new pin to the address they had on file. I highly doubt there was a single human involved in the entire process, and it was probably just an add to their lost card procedures.