I grew up in late-80s Taipei, which is a different (but at the same time, recognizable) beast than modern Taipei. Back then there was no metro, there was a sea

I grew up in late-80s Taipei, which is a different (but at the same time, recognizable) beast than modern Taipei. Back then there was no metro, there was a sea of private jitneys and buses fighting each other for bus stops. Traffic safety was utter shit. The government had minimal involvement in food safety. Private "certifiers" sprung up to plug the gap, but piracy of food safety certification stamps was rampant, and the whole having to check the packaging to see if some product was certified safe by your preferred certification provider was a persistent stressor. Building codes technically existed but enforcement was non-existent. Partial building collapses were common. The skies were a tangle of wires running overhead from competing TV, phone, and other companies, each of which needed their own set of last-mile infrastructure. A lot of it was poorly installed, accidental electrocutions weren't uncommon. It was all kind of Blade Runner-esque in hindsight. The way I see it, I lived in the libertarian paradise some HNers dream of creating, and it wasn't really all it was cracked up to be.