It's also ridiculous how many products are just trucking water around from one place to another with a little big of active solution mixed in. We need more 'just add water' products available.

Definitely a valid critique of Mondragon in the modern era, its commitment to the 10% ratio has atrophied somewhat. It's still something that ebbs and flows, for example there is a current push to transfer 35,000 non-member workers in their retail coop into full members (from a total of 50,000 workers). From numbers I've seen, 85% of employees are still members, which is pretty good.

Who wouldve thought hosting COP in a petrostate would've led to a conflict of interest!?

Some bills republicans are spending their legislative energy on: Liberty in Laundry Act, Refrigerator Freedom Act, Stop Unaffordable Laundry Standards (SUDS) Act.

The atomization of decision-making allows entrenched interests to disrupt progress. If you've ever been to a city planning meeting, you can see how NIMBY homeowners block transit upgrades or affordable housing. Sometimes consensus is impossible

Also, lots of state and local governments in the US have strong renter protections.

For sure. I think trying to preserve these tools is a bit of a waste of time. But extending their lifespan is always a win in my book

That's a great point, I didn't consider the tech tree that leads to bikes also makes cars more likely :/

The only disease to be fully eradicated, 5 million people can live every year who otherwise would have died had we not defeated this disease

Unfortunately, I don't know if it would be possible for another species to reach our level of technology or civilization. We built up our society off of easily accessible energy resources (surface-level coal being our first source of industrial energy). This energy excess allowed us to develop other sources of energy, solar, wind, nuclear, etc. But if you tried starting from zero again, you could never get to this point, at least along the same path, as you need a high level of technology to access any available energy resources. Thus, if any new species took our place, they could only ever rise to the level of the pre-industrial revolution.

Exactly. I grew up on a farm and there's no way a regular bus route would efficiently service us. Cars are still necessary but their usage can be greatly reduced.

For instance, in Europe most suburban/rural households can get by with one car. And in urban areas no car lifestyle is very easy to pull off

If you ever find yourself with small logs or large branches, I recommend looking into Hugelkultur, which similarly involves building mounds of compostable organic material around large pieces of wood, which allows for the slow breakdown and release of nutrients over time