Could be way worse, I remember reading about a guy who ended up oweing child support for a kid that wasn't his because he didn't show up at court. He didn't show up because they sent the summons to the wrong address. He appealed and the judge said it didn't matter, he still had to pay.
Hmmm, I think that one can be squared pretty easily if you accept disabilities exist, which is how they see their original body, it's just a genetic deformity.
I suspect it's just a fashion accessory though. They see hard working class men and bikers wear crosses in the movies so they have to too.
My online experience is already mostly like this, so nothing is likely to change.
If the bots actually do manage to make a good point I can't defeat I'll accept it, but I doubt they will. Most likely it'll just be them pretending to be aggro which hasn't worked so far so I doubt they'll be different.
They're not just stopping at nerfing cars, in the UK they're experimenting with a new thing where you have to pay a fine if you leave your "zone" more than a set number of times per year. A number of course which will only become lower if people accept it and which will start to be based on social credit.
Your "zone" is basically your house, work and the local shops. It's depressing as hell.
I think he deserves a boost because he's going through some awful times right now: He's a young man but his wife just died of cancer. So if you think you'd benefit from that kind of content consider subscribing and helping him stay afloat.
The only thing I can think of that might see a resurgence of seaplanes is if someone came up with a use-case for seriously huge superheavy aircraft, like bigger than an antonov. Eventually they'd get to a point where water runways would just be safer and more economic.
Another possibility is if spaceX's sea based rocket launches become common. It might be useful to have seaplanes capable of ferrying people and cargo out to their barges.
I'll take your word for it about their politburo, I don't really follow their high level politics.
As for isolationism... I think if that were practical it would already be working. The fact is their economy is tanking which suggests they do actually need that foreign trade to make things tick.
In particular chip production. They've been trying to decades to get a native chip fab operation going and haven't succeeded yet. They're still a few generations behind the others.
Which of course is another massive incentive to take taiwan.
1. Commie dictators are crazy enough to pick fights they can't possibly win.
2. Their economy is in serious trouble and there's a lot of social unrest over the banks and proprty companies tanking. A LOT of people lost everything they saved and young people have no real hope of a decent life. A war would help, they're already using lockdowns to try to curb dissent.
I think the US would because they're heavily dependent on a few SEA companies for chips. They can't afford to lose TSMC, Samsung or any of the japanese corps.
They'll absolutely maul the US navy in the south china sea, but I don't think the chinese have enough functional equipment to fight their way across the pacific. Currently they're limited to fucking with the flips and vietnamese.