[jsrozner]

over the long term, this is solved with a wealth tax, but undoing what rich ppl have done to society (i.e. making lots of poor people) will unfortunately take many, many years; so many years that it will never actually happen

[scoofy]

My entire point is mostly not even about the money. It's about the system having to respond as a service to the fact that people don't want to use that service and are willing to pay a huge premium for alternatives like Waymo.

[jsrozner]

My entire point is that the failures you point out in public transportation are due at root to the wealth inequality: Wealth inequality produces a negative feedback loop that destroys public infrastructure.

Rich people want their own methods of highly convenient transportation; they don't want to share with everyone else. They don't pay taxes. Public infra gets worse and the average person taking public infra is poorer. Over time your city has people who don't have houses or jobs, or who do drugs. Inevitably they are relegated to public spaces since they own nothing. The rich people avoid interactions with the poorer members by building gated communities and private infrastructure--rich techies now have concierge physicians and monopolize high quality teaching at their absurdly expensive private schools. Each decision is rational. This is the social rot that is wrought by an oligarchic, and generally value-extracting rentier class.

Many problems today stem from wealth inequality.