And with the declining importance of oil, along with the lack of infrastructure and economic buildup because they didn't tax that oil revenue properly over the decades, if they really went independent on this, if anything, all retirees would be fucked over the next decade.
Honestly, I bet that the number they came up with was simply based on theoretical contributions according to the profits made on oil without actually looking at the contributions themselves.
You wouldn't believe how many times I've personally almost been run over while on bike because of that, but even worse, when crossing the street the after the light turns green. Most drivers don't look the way they're going, and instead solely pay attention to the colour of the pretty lights overhead like three month olds.
Pedestrians/wheelchairs should ALWAYS be separated from vehicles (and that's including bikes) with physical barriers, and bikes separated from cars with physical barriers anywhere the speed limit's greater than 20km/h. And speed limits shouldn't be enforced with simply signs, but actually physical barriers that prevent speeding, like regular turns or speed bumps.
Drivers are so entitled in this country that they complain about being ticketed by the police when they're the ones knowingly breaking the laws. Laws that exist because people kill each other due to carelessness if it wasn't for these laws! And people DO kill each other constantly despite these laws! I mean, if most statistics didn't lump in cars together with all other accidents, cars alone would be the 11th leading cause of death in the States!
The issue isn't growth. The issue is that we're deliberately choosing to grow in inefficient ways.
We wouldn't have ever had to pave over any of that greenspace if we simply gave up single family homes and build decent apartments and condos in their place. Especially if they're mixed use so businesses can occupy the first floor. An entire hectare of farmland converted to housing could be saved by a single low-rise apartment that takes up the space of a single city block. Make that a high-rise and you saved a dozen hacares. That's an entire farm, and not a minor family one, but a decent corporate one.
In addition, you're saving on electricity, water, and tons of other resources by not having to build infrastructure that goes out kilometers on end, and instead just extend it a dozen meters for a single large building. Heating and cooling gets easier and cheaper as it's far more efficient to heat/cool one building than it is to do the same to hundreds that are all separated and spewing hot air at each other.
Most of the modern problems are caused by choosing to be wasteful. We waste half of our produce because it's not pretty enough to be sold in grocery shelves. 80% of crops goes to feeding livestock. We bulldoze entire neighbourhoods just so we can make a six lane highway go through the middle of a city. Amazon owns a private garbage pit it just throws stuff into because they make more shit than they sell. And I'm talking about tens of millions of dollars worth of products a year.
We're insanely wasteful, and that's the real reason why things are so shit. It's not because there's too many people. It's because those in power would rather keep the status quo than actually make a positive difference. And any change they do make always has to be the quick and easy one, not something that actually fixes the problem.
Honestly, I never stopped wearing a mask. After having it for years, it just feels more comfortable wearing it than not nowadays. Not wearing it is like going shirtless or something.
That aside, it also feels like after COVID, a lot of people have lost their sense of smell. The issue of excessive perfumes and nasty odours has gotten worse and I feel like I'll choke on them if I'm not wearing a mask. I already feel like choking despite wearing a mask, so it's hard to imagine how much worse it'll be without it.
It's not just that, but the Saudis are trying to pivot hard towards new industries. They see their entire government collapsing if they can't find a new source of revenue before oil demand collapses and their savings disappear.
Saudi Arabia basically bribed their civilians to stay in power by subsidizing gas, electricity, and water to the point that all three are basically free in the country, while their migrant workers are basically slave labour. The moment any of this changes, there's going to be a coup, and they see the clock ticking with oil demands having peaked in much of the world already.
RealLifeLore has recently released a video talking about their situation, though not so much on the oil.
Just need speed bumps. Speed bumps every few blocks on every street where the limits are below 60km/h. There's no more sure way short of rebuilding the entire roads.
It's because most people don't actually like driving. They just do because they have to, and have become numb to the thought of it.
And being numb to it means that you only pay the bare minimum amount of attention. There's been stories about people accidentally hitting the gas when they meant to hit the brakes (Toyota's got actual records for that), and don't get me started how many times I started crossing the street, only to almost be run over by someone turning right and was only staring at the lights and not where he was going.
Driving safely requires patience, practice, and dedication. All things 95% of drivers don't want to bother with on something they see little more than as a chore.
This isn't the 60's where pleasure driving was a common thing.
Shit, when was such an exemption passed? That's literally a law that turns housing into a non-productive investment.
Making a necessity to live in the modern world an investment is the way to turn a portion of the population resentful and unproductive.
Doesn't even have to be a mansion. Some broke-ass bungalow is still worth keeping a death grip on unless if policies change significantly. Even if it burns down, the land alone will be worth a good million now, and will keep on rising.
Hold on to any property, even if you have to live in a tent on some barren soil until you can save up enough to have something half decent built.
Only real policy change can fix this, as no amount of money will be enough to fix this housing crisis. Even if the federal government puts in a trillion into new housing in Toronto alone, it won't fix this crisis until the laws themselves change.
The issue is that these sorts of fields are notorious for not liking to hire more than they have to. They'd rather overwork their existing staff than hire more.
I knew a guy who worked as a machinist, and basically everybody in his company worked 60+ hours every week all year, and the company compensated proper overtime the entire time. The company basically paid double wages for 50% extra labour, and that's presuming that the employees even did 50% extra work for being tired all the time. The guy quit the job because he couldn't take it after a few years, so in the end the company had to hire more help anyways.
It's an issue of culture as well as many other things, and few people want to go against tradition.
In Ontario, they're defunding public healthcare and redirecting those funds to subsidize private hospitals. I don't think there's any greater evidence of providing a solution to a problem that you created.
Yup. But it still has brand recognition and most people order something like a triple triple nowadays so it's little more than liquid coffee crisp. At that point, the quality of the coffee hardly matters, and Tim Horton's is way cheaper than Starbucks.