bombcar

12 ms·

391.
by bombcar 5mo ago
This is oft repeated, though examining the small town budget (though perhaps I'm not in a "small" town at 10k residents) shows that the vast majority of the property tax goes to the schools, roads et al are a rounding error.
392.
by bombcar 5mo ago
Yes, depending on what you consider "buying" and perhaps what you consider "owns", and it varies by country. The practicalities are that the places you can use the "tricks" (like homesteading still being valid,
393.
by bombcar 5mo ago
We're also very likely to get a "technology flyover" situation - in the past, if Caesar wanted to send something (even just a message) fast to the edge of the Empire, he needed a road the entire way. If Lincoln wanted troops
394.
by bombcar 5mo ago
Does Starlink pay SpaceX for launches?
395.
by bombcar 5mo ago
If I were the DJI I would have proposed the change, simply so that we could get some outrage flowing and shut it down. Without the proposal, you'd have outrage out the other side that it wasn't included (especially if it shoots
396.
by bombcar 5mo ago
There's also this insane (or amazing) drive towards productivity that we don't notice - we build roads that not only support 80+ MPH 18 wheelers, but do so durably and safely! You can build a road an 18 wheeler can transit with ma
397.
by bombcar 5mo ago
I was hoping for chess moves, myself.
398.
by bombcar 5mo ago
It’s important to draw it out explicitly- I didn’t even look at the commentators name until it was mentioned. (If I see pelicans …)
399.
by bombcar 5mo ago
Usually it boils down to "future humans won't agree with me".
400.
by bombcar 5mo ago
This whole line of argument has been incredibly entertaining to me, given those I know who could build a functional plow out of the ruins of damn near anything made of metal - even freeway signs can be made to service. That's not eve
401.
by bombcar 5mo ago
They don't need to reinvent it - the Amish are doing it right now to some variation of "Amish on a tractor" if you want. Insisting that negative population growth necessarily means extinction is as silly as saying that po
402.
by bombcar 5mo ago
You can see this in a microcosm at churches - the ones full of families and exploding children will continue to have such; and the ones that are newly wed or nearly dead will chase families with children away even if entirely unintentional
403.
by bombcar 5mo ago
Road wear (including potholes) is almost entirely proportional to the number of large trucks.
404.
by bombcar 5mo ago
We can make topsoil; we know how, we just don't have the will.
405.
by bombcar 5mo ago
There existed ways to build a family/home/retire before the financialization of everything - those ways still exist and still work, even if disadvantaged.
406.
by bombcar 5mo ago
Seems somewhat better than Detroit. The question really is - how does an abandoned town hurt us? Sure, there may be some sympathy and loss for "what once was" (same as the pictures of the abandoned classrooms in Prypiat). The US
407.
by bombcar 5mo ago
During COVID we saw all sorts of insanity (semi trucks dumping tens of thousands of gallons of milk into the drains because they couldn't travel to the closed packaging plants). Food distribution will still continue until the raw resou
408.
by bombcar 5mo ago
It seems a natural consequence of the pill is going to be that in a few generations, most of the people will be of the kind for whom babies are a goal if not the main goal. Thinking of the Amish, or Orthodox Jews, or Trad Caths, Quiverful
409.
by bombcar 5mo ago
Yes, because you can let your kids use the machines at ages that would scandalize the urbanites (check the laws for your state, you find things like "twelve year olds can operate farm machinery incidentally on a road or highway").
410.
by bombcar 5mo ago
That's not true! Sometimes you get to spend time with grandparents of same-aged children!
411.
by bombcar 5mo ago
If you're at a certain income, additional kids is additional income as more and more gets taken care of. And that certain income can be surprisingly high, as it's often a multiple of the poverty level which is calculated based
412.
by bombcar 5mo ago
Small towns survived for millennia before industrialization; and they could likely survive again, if anyone wanted that life.
413.
by bombcar 5mo ago
Also if you're 22 and chasing after a toddler, having more kids is going to be much more reasonable-sounding than if you're 32 or 42 doing the same. Kids is fast .
414.
by bombcar 5mo ago
I think the real interesting question isn't "why don't people have children" but more "why do those who have one or two kids not have more?" It seems everyone around came from a family of 6+ or knew those who
415.
by bombcar 5mo ago
Get poorer, or get in a better location. Preschool is covered free here, with a pittance for after-school care (which is covered if your income is below something like 3x the poverty line). Having kids is wildly subsidized for the poor -
416.
by bombcar 5mo ago
The grandchildren of today's Amish children will herd their sheep through the abandoned urban cores.
417.
by bombcar 5mo ago
But ... who was phone?! E.g, what was it? Don't leave us hanging!
418.
by bombcar 5mo ago
The only way to "win" as a small is to be pro se and be extremely diligent in understanding what is happening. Then, it costs you nothing but time.
419.
by bombcar 5mo ago
I presume something like this: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/06/22/perfectly-reas...
420.
by bombcar 5mo ago
The joke used to be “be nice or I’ll replace you with a small shell script” - Claude lets you actually get those scripts written which often aren’t replacing anyone but are automating away part of the daily hassles.

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