A scooter is great if you are taking transit for all long trips, but your walk from your front door to the transit stop is a little too long (or the walk from the transit stop to where you are going it too long.). A ebike is great if you are not taking transit it all, but I wouldn’t want to get them on transit (I have a very low opinion on those front of bus bike racks - they might be full when you want them). Those are very different trip modes. The scooter is for trips where you could walk but it is bit far, while the ebike is for trips you wouldn’t walk at all. Those are two different things and so we cannot give a correct answer.

Town and counry minivan.

where I like salt gets the body before the engine goes. I have 220k on one and it is starting to rust through.

Red Lobster was already dead, they just hadn’t held the funeral yet.

Right, I’m saying the big one isn’t coming - and even if it comes you won’t survive so what is the point.

They did - but it was a lot more work - (and often mistakes were made) and that means costs were higher. Or more likely they didn’t do the work as often and so it was a lot longer before they discovered problems.

Which is perfectly fine to do.

I can pay my bill online. That means there is a connection between the systems. They need to add up all the water everyone in my neighborhood uses compared to how much they pumped into my neighborhood - if there is a difference there is a leak someplace. While each link only needs to be connected to the next, eventually there is a system that is connected to the internet, and so the whole cannot be air gaped. Not to mention the internet is a really easy place to connect everything to.

Also, it is really nice if you work at the utility to be able to control the pumps and valved scattered all over the city without having to physically go to each one. Or better yet automatic control - which is only possible if all the systems are connected - see above about one of those systems leading to my bill and so must be connected.

Air gap is useful for a few military systems. Everything else (including most military systems) are better off networked. However we do need to protect the network better.

Society will not collapse. If it does odds are you won’t survive what caused the collapse in the first place. (if you are a prepper make sure your neighbors know how to access you stash - both so that it doesn’t go to waste if you can’t get to it and because even if you can get to it you will need whatever neighbors survive to rebuild society)

However there are a lot of disasters that are much more likely that society collapse that are worth being prepared for.

They cannot legally do that in most areas. So long as you pay your actually bills they have to serve you. If you contest the bills and then never pay when the real bill is given they can disconnect you, but so long as you pay up they have to serve you. Where I live even if they disconnect you they have to reconnect you every winter.

Note that if you contest bills that are correct they can sue you. It isn’t worth their time if it is just you (they would spend a million dollars in legal fees to get $1000), but if people start contesting legitimate bills they will start making examples of the loudest people. Pay your legitimate bills without complaint is the best advice here. Contest if they actually are wrong, this can happen, but it isn’t common.

If you cannot pay your utility bills contact your utility - they are programs in place for the poor and they will guide you to them (they want their money, they don’t care where it comes from)

Irrelevant. If you have a business that owns property you should have two divisions for accounting reasons, one that runs the business and one that leases the property to the business. Both sides should be making money. This should just be an accounting trick but you need to watch it, if you can’t make money with either side alone that means you don’t have a good business.

There are good reasons to own your own real estate, and good reasons to lease. However either way you need to make the accounting numbers work.

If you have ate vegetables as most have had them they are gross.

You are a slave and should opt out of those things.

Your proble is you know what is and cannot imangine what could be.

Because someone needs to be enslaved to provide universial health care. If even one person wants to opt out, no matter how wrong their reason you if you allow don’t allow it they are enslaved. (note that there have been many different systems of slavery, but even the best still remones choice from someone). as such I prefer other options if they exist.

There are other options and so I oppose universial health care. Do not confuse that with approving of the system we have.

It is stupid not to. It doesn’t cost much and makes transit so much nicer.

In this case the rails are already there but unused.

That is also several strike against this. Those rails exist but they are all in really bad shape as they were nearly universally used without maintenance until it was no longer feasible. They are also generally in bad areas where there isn’t much need for more transport - we already have roads in good shape (to run a bus on). The only thing this has over a bus is you can run them fully automated - which isn’t enough IMO.

While you are not wrong, you should always strive to perfection. Running train transit 24x7x365 is low hanging fruit (modern fully automated trains exist - note that the topic here is trains not buses). You do need to do something about maintenance, so I’ll let you get by with 30 minute headways overnight, while during the day you should be running every 5 minutes.

I know it is true almost everywhere, but that doesn’t make it acceptable. People need to get places, transit is just a tool.

Your local bike store should have a nice selection. I use my EV bike all the time and the car I keep for those few trips where the bike doesn’t work just sits… You should too. Don’t forget to check out the local transit options (and if - as is likely - they are bad demand better)

That isn’t acceptable. One person who for whatever reason is out late (emergency at work, or invited to a party) will be screwed when they can’t get back home and tell everyone else.