This is our world right now. My wifes father was a plumber. She said as actual plumber, you know someone who provides water and ensures your shity is sanitarily drained away he didn't make really good money. He got a job working for the auto industry running pipes for hydraulics to the machines on the factory floor and made way more money. How is that worth more to our society?
These startups aren't even making pipes in a factory. They're building absolutely dumb stuff that offer marginal life improvements ("15-minute delivery") or no improvements at all (crypto).
Literally tens of billions have flowed into startups in just the above two categories. If both were to disappear from the face of the Earth tomorrow, you'd miss them for about 5 seconds.
Am amazing example I saw recently was a startup whose app supposedly helped you break your monthly rent payment into two smaller biweekly payments, except all it did was hold on to part of your midmonth paycheck until the end of the month so you couldn't spend it.
The best part is that was positioned as a way to help low-income people who suck at budgeting, but you had to pay $20/mo for the privilege of using it.
Because poor sanitation is a disease vector that can kill people and ruin communities. A working toilet is an unmitigated good. Cars on the other hand have a much more questionable value proposition. They turn cities into parking lots shrouded in smog and significantly contribute to climate change. Even if cars only contributed in positive ways, they're still not necessary to a functioning society the way that sanitation is.
Well considering all UN countries explicitly authorize auto purchasing, ownership, resale, etc., and that the governments of all the major countries actively help their own auto industries, I would say your a bit outvoted on this opinion.
Most of what I said was not opinion, and your point here refutes none of mine. Appeal to authority fallacy, with maybe a bit of appeal to tradition mixed in.
> Most of what I said was not opinion, and your point here refutes none of mine. Appeal to authority fallacy, with maybe a bit of appeal to tradition mixed in.
Huh?
> A working toilet is an unmitigated good.
Seems like an opinion, since 'unmitigated good' seems like an impossible thing to prove. Only one counterexample of plausible harm is needed.
> Cars on the other hand have a much more questionable value proposition.
It's even phrased as an opinion.
> Even if cars only contributed in positive ways, they're still not necessary to a functioning society the way that sanitation is.
Sounds like an opinion too.
If none of these are opinions, then can you clarify what you intended them to be?
>Only one counterexample of plausible harm is needed.
Ok, where's your example of plausible harm for a working sanitation system?
>It's even phrased as an opinion.
That sentence is, sure. Weird how you left out the supporting examples.
>Sounds like an opinion too.
Why? Because of phrasing? Consider the repercussions of a city having transportation issues vs a city having sanitation issues. Nobody who knows anything on these subjects would say transportation is more important than sanitation.
It boggles the mind you think it's just an opinion that cars are as important as a working sanitation system.
How many cities have car free districts? How many cities have sanitation free districts?
One plausible example of toilets causing harm is if it's a very poor rural area.
The existing outhouse works fine, spending money on getting a toilet and connecting it to running water would not be the wise choice as that money would have been better spent on other things first, such as sending the kids to school, buying them a uniform so they don't get bullied by the other kids, buying a solar panel plus a battery so they have some semi-stable electricity, etc...
i.e. it's impossible for it to be an unmitigated good in the real world, where there's resource scarcity and many uses of said resources.
So unless you have some credible proof otherwise, the default assumption for me and passing readers will be that they are opinions.
Also, a Zen monk will have a different perspective about value. There are people who value the entertainment from TikTok while others prefer to read a book.
