Featured New Toyotas Will Narc You Out.

Public transit in COVID era?... It may not fly.

With my work commute diminished to zero miles, if Walmart starts delivery service in our rural setting, I may not need a car.

 

The term "public transit" may conjure images of strangers seated together, but there's no requirement for that. Just public ownership and management of the apparatus applied to the task.

I've been putting a lot more miles on other peoples' delivery trucks than our own cars lately and I'm really okay with that. Still worth keeping the cars we have, but all of our ideas and plans for updating or upsizing our motor pool have vanished.

There should be plenty of time for "narc-out" and subscription based features to catch on or be abandoned by then. So maybe they'll be done right or not at all next time we look.

 

Good Luck with that



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Spying is the largest scourge on modern society.

Nothing useful is learned, no additional profits are made and it removes any chance of individuality by grouping and bombarding everyone with similar nonsense.
At best it protects a couple entrenched interests
at worst it protects criminals by distracting resources on shiny objects and normal people while being completely ignorant of actual threats

In many ways the deck is now stacked even higher against small businesses as we continue blowing money and resources on this fruitless endeavor in behavior modeling

 

That what my relatives in Iowa said then the wind blew and that was over

 

Yeah, I can't see Walmart nor any other grocery stores including Amazon starting delivery services in rural setting. It is just too wide of areas to cover for so little profit. Our closest grocery store is 10 miles drive. I started using Walmart Pick-up on weekly bases for most fresh produce along with Amazon Pantry for non-perishable groceries. I don't even know what inside of our local supermarket looks like now. In a mean time, people around here will continue to drive a full-size pickup to the nearest supermarket for their needs. No public transportation, no Uber or Lift, most rural America still relies on automobile for their transportation.

 

in my relatives case they were ordering things online
then the wind knocked out power and internet And the roads were impassable a few days, power is still out in many areas.

 

Oh, that drench. In that case, no transportation is useful. I hope they had plenty of non-perishable food in stock. We always have enough fuel for generator and food and water to last a 3-4 days especially during winter. But I may have to increase that stockpile to the real Prepper's level.

 

like frogs in boiling water, many of the younger generation are completely comfortable

 

Maybe it's just the really stupid frogs

Boiling frog - Wikipedia

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idk, not many under 40's who aren't on spacebook, et al

 

I guess I'm seeing spying as highly useful and profitable to the Big Data entities that have successfully monetized it. They flourish on the people's individuality by keeping track of it, so they better know just what items/ads/conspiracy-theories to serve up to each person to best exploit their individual personalities or weaknesses. Different people are being served with very different nonsense.

This has enabled not just greatly increased commercial marketing targeting and effectiveness, it has also greatly helped politicians and foreign actors to sway public opinions.

 

but it has not had net positives on GDP or fundamentals, (quite possibly the opposite)
there is only so much money that can be spent,
manipulating people in a massive scale
at the end of the day is a waste of time
like sand through your fingers
It might extend the lifespan of a failed system or group 10 years but always ends in total failure .

classic problem of escalation at work in the real world, those doing don’t get the result they expect and double down while everyone else does the same, no net positive and in the process lives and even entire countries might get lost

 

If you're worried about your car?
Don't.

Anybody who is interested can get everything they want......out of your PHONE.

I've LITERALLY had the same person I just helped connect their phone to their car tell me that they would not own my beloved GMC because it has On*Star and "they don't want people spying on them"

it's sorta like putting black tape over your web cam and then taking your cell phone into the bathroom with you.

 

not just marketing & opinions, it's now a big part of warfare. We all need to see the docu/movie "Zero-days" - a true story how governments planted a virus into deep underground centrifuges run by the radical 5% ... Muslim terrorists seeking to create weapons grade fuel. In order to make a truly undetectable virus, you had to have authentic Microsoft codes that could only be stolen through live retina scans - & then cover your identiry. That would require a deep undercover mole within the company. This kind of complexity is just the snowflake on the tip of the iceberg, and I don't want to spoil the rest of this fantastic/true 'who-done-it'. This tech is now years old, so you can only imagine how much more sophisticated it has become, where for example ... be able to take Air Force One - flying at 40,000 feet & pointed it straight down.
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I haven't seen the movie, but is it really a 'spoiler' to remind people of the Stuxnet attack on Iran's centrifuges at its uranium enrichment facility at Natanz a decade ago?

 

I certainly agree that it isn't a benefit for the overall society or world productivity.

But that doesn't change that fact that it can provide a Yuuge! benefit to certain power hungry entities more interesting in self serving.

 

Here in DC area we are wondering if mass transit will ever come back to normal? and the traffic problem is not an issue suddenly.

They say some trend to buy cars by former mass transit customers, signaling at least temporary (5 years?) retreat from Mass transit in the post-COVID society . All bets are off, but we have billion$ planned spending on mass transit/trains to reduce the mass transit bottlenecks over the Potomac River. Also our heavy new dependence on HOT lanes in Va., which seemed to be working somewhat (we are going hog wild with it) now the PPPs have no income.

One wonders if they should reassess and put more priority on the Potomac River traffic bottleneck on the I495 Beltway, which is already planned for revamp but I assume priority could be upped. Historically, and much to George Washington's dislike, Maryland owns the Potomac and in the past century has been aggressive in blocking access over the Potomac. Now the attitudes are different, but Maryland still owns the Potomac, and the access was cut off decades ago, but Virginia has been beating on Maryland/DC to get going. on expanding the existing roads/bridges over the Potomac, for both roads and rail.

 

My best attempt at a non political response in this thread.
Sorry all - the privacy minded individuals reading here, me included.
Much like fuzzy1 and Etc(SS) posts above, with the advent of cybernetic control systems and subliminal control systems, as they both advance into the quantum realm, it appears that any country, company or individual will seek out a way to use the available tools to further the objectives sought after. One example I'd use to help describe my statements above is how the Green Economy movement of the early part of this century has developed within the previous 20 years.
I hope most of the hybrid automobile early adopter set will remember the lofty goals we once had and keep track of the changes the Green Economy movement has experienced, while doing the best at realizing where the future might want to bring us along as the wheels of time (grind.
- however exceedingly slow or exceedingly small that may become ).

 

Poor poor George ..... he would be blown away at how wrong he was .... in scale - how much more Orwellian we have become, & how much worse we will get - than he ever imagined.
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