Nyaaah, when will people understand? No one in the rich and powerful and tech circles cares about people. We’re “human resource” and always have been, one more mineral to be strip-mined until exhaustion (cf. South Korea) or obsolence (cf. echbros’ AI wet dreams). Once gone or too hard to mine, the drilling ops move on to another quarry just like with minerals (offshoring).

High fertility in the West is bad because the American and European human mines are capital-intensive while the global South still has billions of units laying bare on the ground. “Pronatalism” is only about the top of pyramid and the narrow slice just below it - white, educated, well-mannered, elegant, artistically minded and creative societe who perpetuate the imaginary, self-proclaimed “western culture”. Shame they are also those who are too worried to have lots of kids in this economy and climate, but oh well.

Wait… It’s not “firm” as in “company that made the stuff”? FIRMware = the official software a firm pushes to patch things they make

Scooter. Not an electric one. I had a thought once “hey I did ride one in childhood, maybe it can be a bit of nostalgic fun from time to time”. Got myself the cheapest Chinese thing I could find, “no point investing too much into a fad”.

Turned out a scooter is absolute peak urban mobility. Short distances become much shorter. Mid-long distances become short. Granted, for a longer trip somehow the time gains diminish, probably because it’s not as efficient as a bike. But a scooter isn’t a long-hauler. It’s there to zip through an empty mall. It’s there to be folded up in a second and brought into a bus or a shop without being a hassle. It’s like 3-4 kg, not too fast for sidewalks but fast enough for bike roads, extremely easy to stop, doubles as a cart when carrying bags of groceries home.

The chinese one broke after 1 season because I was riding it everywhere. Then I got myself one from a better company, I chose it for small weight and portability. It’s technically children’s thing but I’m well below weight tolerance and also smol so it’s easy to handle. It’s already like a 5th year and whenever it’s not raining or too cold I ride it for shopping, errands, leisure walks, to work… Almost daily.