Technology is made iteratively by repeated trial and then observed error in the physical structures we've created (i.e. we build machines and then watch them fail to work properly in a particular way).
Technology that works in a different universe without atoms, would require us to be able to experiment within that universe if we wanted to produce technology that works there with our current innovation techniques.
That is the point - after countless deaths we produced the principle of "carrying out a criminal order is a crime", yet we still see the people committing atrocities and going unpunished because they were just carrying out the orders. And that makes me think that we're still missing something important.
I do wonder how much the corporate culture of the time - of hiring people for life - affected Bell Labs, and the mindset of today prevents Bell Labs from being replicable. In particular, the mindset of employees needing to swap employers to get ahead, and of employers not wanting to train up employees when they could instead hire someone already trained for the position.
(I know it's more than just a "mindset" and is driven by real, rational financial incentives, but nonetheless it's a cultural phenomenon.)
Even if you set up Bell2 Labs, the people you're hiring are still the standard 21st century STEM workers/academics.
Perhaps Bell2 Labs would do better if set up in Japan?
Modern STEM workforce churn is actively causing damage. The “switch or stagnate” mindset makes it hard to hold on to a problem when you’re constantly thinking about switching jobs just to get a promotion or avoid a layoff.
Also, companies would rather spend money on acquisitions than retention, and that choice keeps reinforcing the cycle.
Well, I am not an expert in governance. I just offered an example to how security forces would be compensated when there is no currency. One could imagine multiple layers of security forces... or some resources under the direct control of Zuckerberg and his direct reports, etc.... Granted, it would be a more dangerous and less fun world for Zuckerberg to live in, but I answered a hypothetical question.
Billionaire bunkers are just billionaire tombs - the only reason billionaires are in charge is the very society they plan to hide from in their bunkers. They have plans for bomb collars, but someone has to maintain them and they could deactivate them, and if your bodyguards want you dead then you're dead.
It doesn't have to be literal bunkers. Just look at the structure of your average "third world" city -- glass towers and luxury condos ringed by miles of shanty towns and slums -- and then a barrier and villas and luxury estates out in the countryside.
This is, in fact, how the end of the western Roman empire looked. No bang, just a long series of whimpers as the elite retreated to armed estates with private armies, taxes stopped being collected, overall trade declined, cities declined, and the agrarian peasantry became bound to lords and estates out of need of protection, etc. etc.
When civic institutions and the taxes that support them are openly attacked and predated upon, weakened and then combined with environmental, disease, or security crisis, one needn't think hard to picture the kind of eventual world that results.
"Nobody drives in New York because there's too much traffic."
Building more housing does alleviate the problem. It both alleviates (for the newly housed) and exacerbates (makes more people want to move in). Even if the queue length stayed the same, the fact that the number of housed people goes up means that proportionally, more people are happy.
But, let's be realistic here: Tokyo has more affordable rent than LA, despite having ~4x the population. And Japan invented the concept of the intergenerational mortgage!
Buses are terrible because they get stuck in the traffic they're competing with. If the bus is the same speed as the cars, people are more likely to take a car.
This can be fixed - dedicated bus lanes mitigate this nicely - but doing so is politically unpopular. And frankly, if you have the political will then you should just build trains. They're more reliable, cheaper in the long run, and have higher capacity.
The main advantage of buses is that they're a great stopgap, and are good for niche/dynamic routes.
Los Angeles has been doing this and the BRT lines are a great way to get started since they’re so much cheaper to build. The last time I was visiting family they looked busy and outpaced the car traffic handily.
One game-changing technology is the way cameras are cheap now. You can put them on every bus and change drivers’ calculation of the risks of suffering consequences from blocking bus lanes or stops from “less likely than being struck by lightning” to “every time”. That requires political will but the technology makes the cost not only low but self-funding.
>What dense city with a thriving commercial and business/industrial base is cheaper to live in than a less-developed rural small town?
Um, any city whose residents want services? Does your rural small town need a plumber? That plumber can offer lower costs if there's a wider, more predictable userbase for him than in the small town.
This applies to any store selling specialist goods, too - if the small town only has a single store, which stocks something that's only bought once a decade, then the buyer pays the cost of the good plus an entire decade's worth of interest. If the city can have a specialist good that sells that stuff one a month, then it'll be cheaper.
If you aren’t buying something frequently, you drive to the big city when you need it, or you order it. Most specialist goods just aren’t available in a small town same day at any price.
Plumbers and other non niche service providers are also generally cheaper in small towns because cost of living is higher for the plumber too, all potential customers have less disposable income, and because the market isn’t perfectly efficient.
Housing and basic necessities like groceries are so much more expensive in thriving dense cities than in rural small towns, that they swamp out any costs for the vast majority of people.
Russia wouldn't have invaded Ukraine if Ukraine had nukes - just like the EU/US only refuses to invade Russia for fear of nukes.
If you show the world that having been a good citizen in the rules based order isn't enough to avoid being invaded, but nukes are, the consequences are quite predictable: everyone who can afford to do so will start a nuclear program.
I've been arguing that nations already concluded that nukes were the only defense against regime change. The major impetus was the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Technology that works in a different universe without atoms, would require us to be able to experiment within that universe if we wanted to produce technology that works there with our current innovation techniques.
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