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In some ways, we are poorer than our parents. Sure, we can buy TVs that are a ten times bigger for a fraction of the inflation adjusted price.. But we’re talki
by audunw 5y ago
In some ways, we are poorer than our parents. Sure, we can buy TVs that are a ten times bigger for a fraction of the inflation adjusted price..
But we’re talking roads here, and roads are built with bitumen. The fact is that bitumen is getting scarcer and more expensive. Our cars are getting more fuel efficient and EVs don’t use fuel at all. But the cars still require the same amount of road, the same amount of bitumen, or maybe even more since cars are heavier and faster now.
We can’t extract oil just to make bitumen. That’s not economical. We primarily extract oil to get the fuel we need, and we get a certain amount of bitumen as a by-product.
Our parents generation was lucky that oil was practically pouring out of the ground..
- TheOtherHobbes 5y agoSchrodinger's Market Economy. This is the most prosperous, generous, and advanced civilisation ever, with the largest number of billionaires. But most people who are younger than Boomers are poorer than their parents, and public infrastructure and public services have somehow become unaffordable.
- bryanlarsen 5y agoBitumen is such an insignificant portion of the price of a road that it can increase in price an order of magnitude with no noticable effect on the road price. It would have an even smaller effect on road maintenance costs.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoLet's use Carbocrete, made of co² sucked out of the air, powered by advanced high temperature fission or fusion. Mixed with remolten desert sand if need be, which is otherwise unusable.