Bus stops here: Shanghai lets riders design their own routes

Chiming in from Los Angeles, USA to say wow, must be nice living in a modern society that prioritizes public transit and peoples' ease of movement. I know, I know, it comes with trade offs of living in an authoritarian state, but the absolute abysmal state of infrastructure in this country is maddening. Ever been on a train in Denmark or Japan or Switzerland?

There’s a lot of excuses but in the end America can’t live in the future because of its culture.

People will say stupid stuff like "oh it’s because we pay for their defense", or "oh it’s because we have freedom", or "but but this would never work here, because we’re really different than anyone else".

But actually? It’s because we’re used to this shit and change makes us uncomfortable. We also really only care about ourselves, not our broader community.

Have you ever wondered why we have vertical gaps in public bathroom stalls? Inertia. There’s no reason to have them, but nobody cares enough to improve it. A better design isn’t more expensive or more difficult, we just don’t want it enough to make it happen.

We’re stuck in a local maximum.