What value does your very rural lifestyle in a forest provide to greater society, to such an extent that society and the environment should subsidize the infrastructure and fuel required to support your large truck?

By all means live your very rural lifestyle with a massive truck, jet skis, campers, and fishing houses, but you are a special snowflake in a blizzard of millions - if not billions - of people who can and want to live as part of a flourishing and sustainable society. You should pay the real costs of driving your big truck.

Thank you for your wisdom, Lord Farquaad.

The problem is realism. Sim City would teach you that a village of 150 people will absolutely grow into a thriving city because that's the simple premise of the game - it's a citybuilder - but that's not how real life works. They could play increasingly more complex simulation games like Democracy 3, and it would still fail to be a realistic look at the complexities of modern society.

I'd also argue the opposite lesson is usually learned from games, because most gamers don't play on "hardcore" mode - and those that do play hardcore can still always reroll or /ff to start another game or even just touch grass and stop playing the game. Playing God doesn't reinforce empathy.

Good policy needs to balance a clinical approach against empathetic concerns. My advice to policy makers would be reading books like "Cities and the Wealth of Nations" by Jane Jacobs and learning from modern experts and non-profit advocates like Strong Towns. They should be looking to peers for success stories to emulate and for failures to avoid.

Are ride-hail drivers better off when cars become astronomically more expensive and rare, and are cashiers better off when stores are closing?

Revolution is for those who think they have nothing to lose - or think that they cannot lose. Someone with a "bad" job is ironically still much further from supporting widespread upheaval than a mansion-dweller who thinks they're untouchable.

Just a fairly normal North American city, actually. So yeah - thunderdome.

Much appreciated, I'll check out both!

If you can't conceive of a situation where you need to slam the brakes due to external factors despite following the recommended 2-second following distance, you're ignorant of the depths of bad driving. Have you really never been cut off before?

I would go so far as to say that if you're not noticing at least a single example of dangerous driving nearly every time you leave the house, you're probably not aware enough to be a safe driver.

Broken glass, fire, impalement, road rash, and being thrown around like a rag doll... thinking highway death isn't violent is just a very fortunate lacking in imagination.

Being a pedestrian in proximity to a driver might be riskier, unfortunately. Most driving safety standards - including vehicle and infrastructure standards too - do not adequately protect people outside of vehicles.

I'm happy with my moccamaster. French press is not for me.

In terms of marketplaces, https://www.shopperplus.ca/ isn't perfect, but it's a Montreal-based company that offers a lot of (probably still Chinese-made) home/office alternatives to Amazon/Staples.

It's very difficult to find non-US coffee filters!

I'm planning to try out reusable cotton filters, at least that's a one-time purchase.