We have a lot of absolutely massive stores, as in around 4000 m^2 and then they have parking lots that are generally even larger so a single grocery store can take up 10,000 m^2 and then they are usually in the same lot as massive sporting goods or clothes stores of comparable sizes. So you end up with these giant clumps of stores but with the only way of getting there is to drive or walk along a highway

I lived in a town of around 5k that was all within 9 km2 and there it was great because you could walk/bike everywhere and there was a regular bus that took you to the next town over that was even smaller that was also walkable, really the only time you needed a car was going to do outdoor sports or if you needed to get any further than the other town because the next closest town was around 120km away

I also lived in a city of around 160k that was considered one of the most bikeable cities in the country and you could bike to the stores but even then you would end up having to bike around cars on roads going 75km/hr which isn’t super fun and there were busses but they generally didnt run frequently enough to rely on so even things like going to the gym or the grocery store usually involved a car

I grew up in the suburban hell which represents large chunks of America where it was around 5-10km to any store and your only real option was driving

Where I currently live there are busses but they don’t really run frequently to rely on and while the downtown area is decently walkable there aren’t any good sidewalks or bike lanes to get there so most people drive to the downtown. But there aren’t really any grocery stores in the down town area all the shops are more niche shops or bars/reastaurants so you still basically have to own a car

So of all those the first one was the only one you could comfortably live without a car

I’m in pretty much the same boat as you

0-20 minutes is usually walking or up to about 1mi/1.6km After that I usually consider biking up to around 5mi/8km If biking isn’t good due to terrain/parking/activity or any further I would generally rather take some form of public transit

Alas I live in the U.S. in a non pedestrian friendly area now and the majority of the time the only real option is driving

If you have even moderate housing density and don’t have giant parking lots and freeways everywhere you can fit most things within a 2 mile radius. Then with that higher density of people since you aren’t wasting a bunch of space on highways and parking you can build usable public transit

Maybe I am misinformed but what’s the difference if a shutdown happens or not for people being laid off?

A RIF is not the same as a furlough and he could ask at any time for those jobs to be cut and he ether does have the authority to fire those people or he doesn’t but the shutdown doesn’t really have any effect on that

I could be wrong but isn’t Ha-Satan just the title for “the accuser” and not the biblical satan who is the fallen angel

Doing household projects yourself can be a lot cheaper than paying someone else to do it

Are you deliberately misunderstanding what I am saying just to argue?

Personally still going to put the blame there on eraser eater, but the whole point of this post was to find something that actually works to curb the behavior

It can easily be a chocking hazard, it’s unsanitary, and it can cause the child to be ostracized by peers which can limit their social development.

If you didn’t have a bunch of those common phone numbers memorized then that is definitely a you thing. My whole friend group all knew each others phone numbers and it was actually important that you could memorize those phone numbers in case you had to call from someone elses house or a pay phone.

You even acknowledge that you use a gps for routine travel and think that is the same as developing a mental map?

Again literally the act of looking at a calendar to see future dates is more mentally demanding then relying on getting a reminder sent to you

Did you even read what I wrote? Do you have your entire oral history memorized? No because we have the ability to write it down that’s technology. Do you use password manager to autofill passwords? Do you get text message/app/email reminders of appointments? Do you neglect to memorize things because you can google them? You already said that you use gps for routine travel around town.

All of that involves using memory less, we don’t have enough tech to fully replace memory and probably never will. If you don’t believe me go 24 hours without using technology from the past 40 years for anything not explicitly required for work so no gps, no phone reminders, no google, no password managers then try and do normal things like go run a bunch of errands, cook a meal, pay bills, go shopping in person instead of online

And if you were out and about and needed to call someone for help would you have been able to call multiple people from a pay phone?

Do you still have a bunch of friends phone numbers from the last few years memorized? Do you have your local delivery place’s number memorized?

When you go on a road trip you still look at a map, route directions yourself, and develop a loose memory of it?

You can say off the top of your head which friends birthdays are on which days for the next 3 months?

It’s not an opinion that modern technology makes us not have to memorize information that’s just objective fact the debate is about whether relying on technology causes brain damage and that’s where research is still being done.

In the past 20 years really the only “new” thing we have to memorize are passwords which we still had before but they are at least more complicated now but even then many people repeat the same few passwords or use a password manager so they aren’t remembering 10 unique passwords

Using technology to remember things for us is literally one of the fundamental purposes of technology going back to the invention of the written word, manufacturable paper, printing press, computers, and now phones so I genuinely don’t see how you can say that since 1985 you don’t think people rely on technology for memory any more

The Rolodex was only for less common phone numbers and most people had 10+ phone numbers memorized

You can use the map as a reference but people didn’t use it for drives around town as it is much harder to constantly being referencing a map compared to a gps. Even when people did use Mapquest they would do things like read 2.8 miles make a right on X St and then make a left in 0.2 miles on Y st and look at their odometer and hold the thought in their head that they are looking for X st

And while people did put birthdays on a calendar it meant that they had a paper calendar that they were regularly checking to see what is happening in the future instead of relying on constantly being told that something is happening which while that may sound trivial is a huge distinction in terms of mental processing.

Memory is a very important thing and as time has progressed we have added more and more crutches which help prevent people from forgetting, help the differently abled, and expand our capacity by orders of magnitude but that comes at the expense of a lack of using one’s memory and critical thinking.

What the long term consequences of that are is still up in the air. some preliminary studies have shown “brain rot” but they have had pretty terrible methods and nothing that I would treat as any sort of fact. I however don’t personally see a scenario where it’s positive in anyway and countless studies with the elderly have shown that having a less active mind leads to mental degradation

Plenty of depressed kids with good parents… a child died and you are, with no knowledge, choosing to blame the grieving family. Like just stop reading for a moment and think about that.

It really is not that hard to make it so if a person asks the LLM if/how to kill themselves it just gives the generic break from immersion “suicide is wrong please speak with a mental health professional”