Unfortunately it’s more complex than that, because of the issue of the rendering engine. If Firefox-based browsers disappear, the W3C (which controls web standards, including questions of privacy) will be de-facto controlled by a cabal of corporations. The last voice that cares even slightly about our privacy will be gone.
Opt-out telemetry is bad, overpaid executives is bad. The alternative is worse.
I just copy paste commands from Arch wiki and it just magically works without me knowing anything about it.
Join the club.
Didn’t realize you were referring to the track infrastructure only. Yes, sure, that obviously has always made sense. It’s a natural monopoly.
Impressive. But I believe I can go one better. Mine has a 3-inch screen and no SIM card in it.
rail system managed by one public company
So, like the expensive nationalized airlines until they were deregulated and suddenly became 5 times cheaper? What you are advocating, assuming it’s serious, is literally the opposite of the solution.
Students, young people in general, part-time workers, unemployed, underemployed, I don’t have the statistics and obviously it depends on the country but these days there are a ton of people who have more time than money. Again, I am one of them.
It hardly needs sourcing to assert that people with limited financial means tend to be more flexible when it comes to saving money. Again, I’m one of them myself. And I’ve neither attacked you personally nor even downvoted you. Anyway, enough.
Fine, let’s stick with fixed fares then. Then poor passengers will have a choice of expensive packed trains or expensive empty trains, just like everyone else. Equality will be served.
PS. Yes, downvote away. Contrarianism and negativity do not actually produce solutions. Again: I myself could qualify as “poor”. I want more people to take the train instead of the plane, do you? The outdated fixed-fare system is stopping it from happening.
The fact that they tend to have more time than money.
Seems you’re being triggered by the word but I mean it in a neutral sense. I’m sort of one of them myself.
Conversely, it’s cheaper if you’re flexible. Which poorer people generally are. I have no problem with yield-management pricing, In Europe it’s been incredibly successful at boosting low-cost air travel (unfortunately) and in recent years it’s finally doing the same thing for rail travel. Fixed prices make no sense.
Great news. I have done the previous 10-hour version of this route several times. 8 hours is still far too slow and it’s due to Germany’s lack of high-speed infrastructure. Still, there are plenty of conscientious types in both France and Germany who will be ready to make the sacrifice. Personally I hate sleeper trains but have no problem sitting in comfort for a whole day so I would definitely use this service.
It’s easy to forget that in terms of one’s personal carbon footprint, flying is an absolute disaster. Basically for any distance: the exponentiality of wind resistance means that going really fast will always be extremely inefficient. This is why I find America’s situation sad. You guys have so few alternatives, yet every time you hop on a plane you are basically blowing your carbon quota for the whole year. Time to step up the fight for proper rail investment.
In a way it’s even scarier than that. Most younger Chinese do not even know those things happened. I can confirm this incredible fact from personal experience. At this point “Tiananmen Square 1989” has more meaning to the average educated Westerner than it does over there. It has been scrubbed from history.
Agreed. In theory that problem can be dealt with by properly regulated competition.
Fair point. I just looked into this and what I said was roughly correct: there are indeed somewhat open elections at the local level in China, but further up the pyramid everything is locked down by the Communist Party hierarchy, as you say.
Turns out to be a pretty complicated system in theory, and it must work to some degree because China just had 40 years of incredibly successful development.
Completely agree. Self-delusion is such a temptation and the danger is real.
Voting? Democratic elections are literally not a thing in China, at least not higher than the level of the village. There are no political parties other than the Communist Party. But for Western democracies I do agree. We have no excuses.
The energy density of batteries just keeps increasing, for cars at least it’s now good enough. I agree completely about the rest but this was meant to be a happy thread! I agree with OP that we need to talk about good news too sometimes.
Best ask in a more specialized forum. Personally I rent so I have to take what I’m given.
Yes sure but China has never been anything remotely like a Western democracy. It would be difficult to keep the lid on a billion people if they really wanted to live differently. Political culture runs deep.
Indeed, this is just the pragmatism-vs-idealism debate.
I am a pragmatist, you are an idealist. In my view, by asking for everything you are more likely to get nothing. It’s not worth it. It’s irresponsible.
Yes, and excellent arguments they were. What a different world we might live in today if just a handful of idealists had decided to suck it up and vote for the Democrat instead of the third-party purist who made their heart sing.
Because history shows that “radical solutions” are almost always a mirage. We already have an excellent browser made by a flawed but generally admirable company. If there are problems, the solution is to fix them, not to burn it all down.