The average person will always be able to afford water because if they can't they will soon cease to be a person. Watch out for statistical effects like that because they might mask the true horror of the situation.

How is that better lol, it’s a completely different line of thought.

Once this is available and affordable, I will never eat animal meat again.

I don't see it happening outside a reduced group of rich countries. They will probably license the method for a very high and unaffordable price.

I wish this were true, but frankly I don't buy it. In the last 50 years, thanks to automation and technology - productivity has nearly doubled, and yet people have to work more than ever to make ends meet or buy a home. Automation just means that the ultra rich can produce more with the same workforce. The global economy is built on the idea that GDP has to be constantly growing, and the more growth the better. Why let perfectly good workers sit idle when they could be making you more money?

Some industries get fully (or mostly) automated, sure and jobs dissapear from those industries, but new ones always pop up so that the folks at the top can continue profiting off the labor of those at the bottom. You think all the folks who used to have job titles like "Calculator" just retired at the age of 30 and enjoyed not having to work anymore? Nah, they were just forced to take new (often shittier, lower paying) jobs.

We have been hearing that for 35 years... production has gone up exponentially whilst labor requirements dropped yet we work more and longer than ever.

Everyone I know has to work multiple jobs and have roommates to be able to afford housing. What is this free time you speak of?

Wait, rich people are doing that already? Seriously?

Nothing? Not a single thing?

Outside of the US and Canada, electric bikes look to be the future instead of mainly electric cars. E-bikes are not just massively more environmentally friendly, they’re also radically reshaping city design to be more livable. I hope the future isn’t just a different kind of car. I hope, for the sake of the environment and society, it’s a world with fewer cars.

It's already past the point where only rich people have them. It's currently one of those things where it's actually more expensive to be poor.

I bought an EV because it's cheaper over a few years than getting the cheapest gasoline beater car. It's a bigger cost up front, but the total cost is smaller over few years.

If anything, only rich people will be able to afford keeping the gasoline cars. Similarly to todays vintage lead fueled classics.

Do you mean the solar panel or the home?

Gene editing/therapy could become cheap in the future.

It should be like that in more places. Too much of America is built around the requirement to own and operate an expensive piece of heavy machinery just to participate in society. American cities should all go back to how dense they were prewar, when they were walkable and don't have interstates bulldozed through their downtowns.

Singapore is definitely special in that regards (in a good way, imo). I can't think of any other place going quite as hard on reducing cars.

But today supra conductor aren't something just for the rich. It's used for some specific application like MRI which benefit to the people needing them rather than the rich.