Germany can easily borrow a lot of money, if it chooses too

And it does not and will not. Not because it makes sense, but because of politics.

I thought this was just an exaggeration and looked it up. Turns out, I vastly overestimated the Greek GDP per capita compared to other European nations and it’s indeed incredible low.

Would be definitely at fault if killed by being hit from a flying car dropping out of the sky because he’s wearing all black and no high-visibility jacket.

If 2 helicopters crash, then both will almost certainly plummet to their doom, as well as risking those below them.

So, it’s about time to discuss mandatory wearing of helmets for everybody outside of a house.

What I find really disturbing about this is the fact that so many people fall for this scam.

That sounds like incentivising the worst kind of cars - oversized trucks - even more.

Sounds like Elon Musk.

“We are building a wall and make them pay”

That’s at least an easy explanation, but it totally fails at answering the question as to why it became so much more beneficial to just own money instead of selling work for it in the recent decades. AirBnB has nothing to do with that.

Here’s why not: Because too much vacancies/transient inhabitants destroys communities.

But that’s precisely what I meant? If they are rented out for at least a couple of months, so that you can grow into a community. Why not?

That’s literally what populists want you to believe.

As if populism would adress rational thoughts.

I’m not even sure if AirBnb per se is a problem. Depends on the time frame, we’re talking about. If they are used for below two weeks they are just better hotels, but as a multiple months accommodation for nomads interested in being part of the city and making meaningful connections - why not?

Isn’t it everywhere? I think this is another strong indicator of how we need new cities that are fostered a little less to generating profit and instead to generating quality value for the people living there. If so, tourism would change automatically.

But how do I participate in the lottery as cyclist, pedestrian or as a resident?

Yaeh, in “China”.

Wow, that sounds like being the possibly best situation in which populists can find themselfes: having a free ticket for destructive criticism without accountability and at the same time bringing the country to fall with their shitty policies, which in turn fosters dissatisfaction and furhter improves their standing.

If you are not speeding, your license plate is read and entered into a lottery where you can win money from the pool of money collected by traffic violations.

That’s the most dystopian and borderline insane thing I’ve read for some time.

I agree on everything, but the conclusion that they are a pro and a con.

Under the constraint, that the same rules apply to bicycles and cars and they are enforced, then traffic lights are definitely an anti-pattern.

Under the assumption, that the alternative would be that pedestrians and cyclicsts would have always the right of way over cars in an urban environment, they would be neutral.

But are they ever a good thing? I see where you are coming from with this: Traffic lights make cars wait. But they are installed to optimise car-flow, in the first place. So, if they were not there, cars would wait longer, because they are inherently inefficient vehicles that would clogg up intersections immediatly and consequentially bring car-flow to a total halt. Hence, every traffic not participating in car-flow would drastically accelerate if traffic lights were abolished.

Yaeh ok, but what are the issues you were announcing before talking about the benefits?