the problem is overly high population metropolitan areas ... they are economically efficient, but they aren't nice to live in.

Eh... that's a matter of taste. I wouldn't want to live in central Amsterdam, but not because it's large... just because it's overrun with tourists.

On the other hand, my daughter lives in Toronto, a huge city in a conurbation whose population is comparable to the entire Randstad, and she loves it. And I live in Ottawa, a city whose population is roughly comparable to Amsterdam, and I like it a lot (because we are not overrun with tourists!)

You know, it is possible to shop at a big grocery store without driving to it.

OK, drink a glass of water and sit down because I know that came as a huge shock.

Automated driving will make cities absolutely suck. A car adds to traffic, whether it's driven by a human or not. And once autonomous cars are available, if you have an appointment but can't find parking, you'll just get your car to drive itself around until your appointment is over. What do you suppose that will do to traffic?

People who've grown up in car-dependent places and have been brainwashed by car advocates always bitterly oppose any sort of measure to reduce car dependence... until they see what it's actually like and how much better it makes things. Then support generally skyrockets.

Sure, but how many of those people would have shortly died anyway, in pain and with no dignity?

16 is still too young. In my opinion, Meta products, TikTok and the like should be banned for anyone under 375 years old.

s/Publishers/Humanity/

FTFY

Will kill tourism? It already has.

Canadians and Europeans are avoiding US tourism in droves. Here and here.

Russian state propaganda isn't in the USA. So because they're not on "US soil", the 1A doesn't apply.

And the fascists would rather you never knew about slavery in America or the fact that LGBT people exist.

Education is inimical to both extremes of the political spectrum.

Sure, most of what I learned in school I never used either.

But it's almost impossible to predict what some kids will end up using. Just because you were uninterested in (say) history, it doesn't mean learning it was a waste for every single kid.

Also, I'm of the strong belief that more knowledge is better, even if you think you'll never use it.

Well, normally I only search Amazon if I want "some kind of widget". If I know precisely the widget I want, I don't bother searching Amazon.

And it's usually fairly obvious which products are real and which are crappy knockoffs.

I never had Prime, and I deleted my Amazon account. Right now, I use Amazon as a catalog to search for things I'm interested in buying. When I find the specific thing, I know the exact make and model to search for to buy on non-Amazon sites... ideally from the manufacturer, but if not, then from some other reseller.

Thanks, Amazon! You make a great product search engine.

Absolutely. It would be called "constructive dismissal" and Amazon would be in for a world of pain. You can't unilaterally change the conditions of someone's work without offering mutually-acceptable compensation.

But the US is not a civilized country when it comes to workers' rights.

"When individuals fail to critically engage with a subject, their writing might become biased and superficial. This pattern reflects the accumulation of cognitive debt, a condition in which repeated reliance on external systems like LLMs replaces the effortful cognitive processes required for independent thinking."

Reducing the capacity for independent thinking sounds like a wet dream for repressive governments, oligarchs, and marketing people.