They wouldn’t be able to finish stealing that car before a thousand hungry lawyers ate them alive. Why do we let media companies do that?

They would probably actually have a decent shot at getting away with it, at least at first.

And to answer your question, it’s because the anger that companies generate by doing this shit ends up turning into piracy. Why would you try to punish a corp for doing this (likely wasting your time) when a cheap VPN and basic tech literacy gets you what you want?

The effort ratios are way out of wack when it comes to digital products. It’s easy to get around digital bullshitery, not so much in the real world where we are all car dependant.

One day I’ll have more to do and you people will be rid of me.

And that day will be a sad one.

The current situation with trains is shit because we as a country have allowed it to deteriorate.

Waiting 3 hours for a freight train is one such example. The majority of rail lines are owned by freight companies, so they give their own trails priority over passenger trains. That shit is unacceptable.

That’s not something that really works with industries that are zero sum games. You can’t have a dozen competing rail companies in a given state because there is only so many paths that a rail system can take, and you need to clear out continuous stretches of land through eminent domain.

If a company provides a vital services and fails, it should be nationalized. If a company does not provide a vital service and fails, it shouldbe allowed to fail and the employees themselves bailed out.

It may not be much in comparison to others, but that doesn’t make absolve me of my debt. Practically every other developed nation has this figured out, it’s long past time we caught up.

I’ve got about $25,000 reasons why it is not in fact better.

Scholarships that only exist in the first place because we have privatized higher education, which is privatized because of greed.

Greed

*bribe

It’s legalized bribery.

It’s only going to be a matter of time before they start requiring contracts, forcing you to stick with a service for long periods or face fees for dropping them.

They are capitalists, and so they must always profit more and more, never ending, for all of time. One of the things they will eventually do to hit that unsustainable proift motive is contracts. It’s what the cable companies did, and it’s only a matter of time.

Even uncontacted tribes in the middle of nowhere islands probably have microplastics in their blood too. After all, they likely are eating animals that have microplastics. Stuff like this always gets worse the higher up the food chain you get, and humans are pretty high up.

/s

And for those unaware, the cost of homelessness does exist, and it is quite high. We pay for it through emergency services (police, doctors, ambulance, hospital beds), waste removal services, etc.

The problem needs fixed, and part of the solution is commie blocks unironically.

Things aren’t tough yet. Wait until the effects if climate change absolutely destroy our shore lines, food and water supply, etc.

While the technology of star trek definitely plays a role in terms of it being anti capitalist, it’s not just the tech. If today somebody invented a replicator, it wouldn’t be a full decade before its use would be locked behind a dozen different tiered paywalls on top of the instalation cost, and then eventually it going through enshitification.

The societal values and culture in star trek values life, far, far above weath and profit to the point that such concepts are basically alien. And that has to be the first step for post scarcity tech to actually be used for the purpose of post scarcity.

Freedom is inherently dangerous

Only to a degree. Letting your child run free on a playground is significantly less dangerous than letting them run free in a hazardous waste landfill. We can absolutely design safe and free places. We just need to stop designing our cities for the sole use of hazardous waste (cars).

We need to allow more mixed zoning so that we don’t have to travel 20 minutes by bike to get to the store, alleviating the drive to ride as fast as possible.

Not only would that eliminate the need for speed, but it would also reduce the overall number of trips taken by bike. Less trips means less crashes. Same goes for cars.

Add it to the never ending list of benefits to mixed use zoning.

In addition to RiderExMachina’s point, an e-bike will get you to your destination quicker, and with less effort. With how hot things are getting, it’s much more preferable to not arrive sweaty as hell due to how much work it can take, plus it’s better to spend less time in the heat.

I don’t think safety courses and licensing are a huge barrier to entry though, unless we let them be.

Training and licenses generally aren’t free, and e-bikes are already pretty expensive. It would add quite enough of a barrier to entry to dissuade more people from switching to them, which is something the environment cannot afford. We honestly need to be doing everything in our power as quickly as possible.

And yes, training and a license would indeed make a difference with how riders conduct themselves. Including wearing a helmet or paying attention.

I’ve seen plenty of car drivers on the road who presumably have a license, yet they don’t wear seat-belts, don’t pay attention, turn in places they shouldn’t, speed, etc. The first step should be infrastructure changes to increase the number of protected/dedicated bike trails (which in turn allow accidents to happen safely), built in speed limiters, rules on helmets and speed, mixed use zoning to reduce trip count/speed/cars, etc. Such changes don’t have an impact on barrier to entry or and only a negligible effect on our freedom.

Traveling by bike is one of the few ways you can travel without having the government involved in some way, or at least minimally involved. I’d like it to stay that way.

And like I said earlier, most of these injuries are to the rider themselves, which means they were probably doing something stupid in the first place. People are going to be stupid even with a license and training, so we may as well design around it as a first step.

I have a cat. It likes to get into things I don’t want it to. I could theoretically teach it not to do so, but the far simpler option is to keep the layout of my house and my things such that it can’t get into things in the first place. If I keep the closet doors shut, it isn’t getting in. People are stupid, and similarly, we should design our infrastructure to account for that. It’s why speed bumps exist after all.

We are at a point in time in which we can’t afford to wait any longer to switch away from fossil fuels, and e-bikes are one of the ways to do so. The barriers to entry should be minimal.

The majority of e-bike injuries are to the rider themselves, and due to inattention/falling off. That’s not something that training or a license will really help with. Speeding and not wearing a helmet on the other hand, those are things easier to catch/deal with.

Hey, give them some credit. They did a bunch of other horrible shit aside from treason to earn people’s hate.