but I think vr at this point has become an expensive novelty
Always has been. I went to demonstrations of this tech in the nineties when I was in college. It was going to be the next big thing. That never happened. It seems to come back every few years and then fade out again.
Romania tried that already. Decree 770. There was a bump in number if children. After that, pregnant women and childbed mortality went up, kids were neglected or dumped in orphanages. In the end birth rate dropped anyway.
In happens in a lot more places. Regulations make sure goods and services are up to standards. Without those regulations, you have check yourself each time if things are acceptable, adding costs.
"The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters."
~Antonio Gramsci
I think this captures the state of the world pretty well. The traditional values, the leaders of the world order as we know it are decaying. Nobody has any idea where things are headed. In the meantime all kind of figures crawl from under their rock to party and grab whatever they can
And often it just costs more to get rid of the last freeloaders than accept there are a few in the grey area. You got to pay people to check and validate each claim for increasingly elaborate fraud and costs for that go to quickly, surpassing the savings you achieve.
Yes, as is already happening with police crime prediction AI. In goes data that says there is more violence in black areas, so they have a reason to police those areas more, tension rises and more violence happens. In the end it's an advanced excuse to harass the people there.
And they you have the real "I'm here to work" truck. Either that or they have a van. Sometimes you see a pickup truck here, but they're always used by the bosses and inspection.
Always has been. I went to demonstrations of this tech in the nineties when I was in college. It was going to be the next big thing. That never happened. It seems to come back every few years and then fade out again.