Its an interesting way to frame the problem compared to how it might be typically framed as "not enough jobs" or "wages aren't high enough" or the new favorite among Canadian politicians of a "productivity crisis"
Ok I think I get it now, it is basically the flaw behind resource allocation through capitalism. The cost of supplying these mining towns does not match their ability to pay for those supplies after the mine goes bust. Do I have that right?
Im a Canadian geologist so I obviously dont have any personal stake in this but I do want to share my thoughts.
I think anti-mining sentiment is understandable in most places but not always justifiable. Lithium mining is absolutely required to transition from fossil fuels. Unless the number of cars on the road is greatly reduced, replacing them with BEVs will require significant amounts of lithium or improvements to Na ion batteries. There is not enough lithium available to get by just on recycling.
The question then becomes: where should this lithium come from? If it is not mined in western countries like USA or Canada, it will be mined by China or developing countries. In this comparison, who has better environmental regulations? Which countries have more human rights abuse?
If we decide that we can mine these deposits in the west, there is still a question about where they are mined. Do we extract lithium from basinal brines? My understanding is that these are generally more environmentally risky than extraction from pegmatites (the deposit type in New England).
The final question becomes, which communities will have to accept this mining? In Canada, most of the time it is indigenous communities that suffer most of the negative impacts of mining. There are many benefits to the communities too (usually), but the indigenous communities do not have nearly as much political sway as say rich cottage owners might, so their preferences and desires often get steamrolled by government in the name of "progress".
The unfortunate reality is that if we want to get rid of fossil fuels, we need to do a lot more mining and extraction or come up with some serious technological and societal innovation. In a globalized economy, saying that you dont want mining near your home means that you want some other people to deal with the potentially negative consequences of it. I am not saying that we need to allow all mining everywhere, but these are important ethical considerations that we have to make when talking about how we want society to progress.
I dont think money spent on science is necessarily a bad metric for quantifying how much a government is prioritizing science. I do agree that more money spent on science != better science. I know from my own experience in geology that there are some things that China does well and a lot that they are really behind on and there's a lot of sub-par science that comes out of China. Does that matter when science is just a numbers game in the modern context? I couldn't say
I think any of those bikes would suit your needs. Unless you're extremely concerned about wind resistance or riding a fat bike, tire size wont make a big difference. The tread, material, and most importantly, air pressure of the tires are what you should be concerned with more than anything else. Personally, I ride a fully rigid 29" mountain bike that i primarily use for commuting. I find the wide tires are great for dealing with the shit road quality and I enjoy being able to take it off-roading without any hassle.
As for the bikes themselves, its hard to make a recommendation if you haven't biked in ten years because our bodies and preferences change over time. If you know the types of things you like then its easier (or maybe harder) to find a bike you'll like. In your position, I would honestly go for the cheapest bike available with fender/rack mounting points on the rear and the fork and just send it. Honestly, I might even go as far as suggesting you buy a secondhand bike and just seeing what you like and dislike about it before getting something new and shiny.
All that being said, I really love the overall vibe of the Marin Larkspur, good vibes and easy riding.
What is the limit of a "community"? I live in a city where it is certainly not practical to grow the food needed to feed the city inside thr city limits. On thr other hand, in my province there is tons of high quality land that would be more than sufficient to grow enough food for the whole province, especially if the food system shifted to a vegetarian-focused one. Thats a lot bigger than my "community" but it is a lot more practical and arguably more sustainable.
Its a myth in the sense that it isnt significant except in extreme scenarios (e.g. violent regime change, economic collapse). A modest wealth tax will not make that happen.
Capital flight is a myth. Not only that, but some capital is just challenging to move. Irving and Weston arent going to move their whole operations to other countries. Plus Canada has an exit tax.
One issue i had with typst that was never an issue with LaTeX is dealing with big documents. One of the reports I was putting together had a very big appendix with a lot of images. I run typst locally and it autocompiles as you write, but with more images, it uses more RAM and everything slows down. The problem I had was that the thing would crash every time I tried to write anything. I turned off automobile and do it manually now, but it still cant so the full document with the appendix. My work around was to compile the appendix separately and in ten page increments, then merge the pdfs afterwards. This sort of thing would never be an issue in LaTeX with the added convenience of draft mode for big documents with lots of figures.
In fairness, this behavior is definitely a result of some bug and compiling everything is still significantly faster than LaTeX.
Another thing that kind of bothers me is references. I am a big fan of the natbib way of writing \citet or \citep. In Typst, you normally type "@Doe2026" and it produces a normal citation like \citep, but if you want anything else, you have to use the far more cumbersome #cite command or define a custome function. Its not that big of a deal but still annoying for me.
Its an interesting way to frame the problem compared to how it might be typically framed as "not enough jobs" or "wages aren't high enough" or the new favorite among Canadian politicians of a "productivity crisis"