> My one hope for AI, robotics, self driving cars, is that they can enable people in cities to migrate back to rural places.

Why? Honest question.

A kid in a town/city has access to a billion opportunities many of which exist only because there are enough people interested.

▲ aurareturn 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

  Why? Honest question.

I don't necessarily think everyone should move out of cities to go back to living in rural areas and villages. I want it so that living outside of the city more viable than it is today because there are very real benefits to living there.

In a village, everyone knows everyone. Kids play with each other and run around freely. Every house protects all the kids and help each other. Everyone trusts everyone. You never feel lonely. Life is slower, much less stressful.

I feel sorry when I see kids today depressed, lonely, and distrusts society. This just didn't happen when I was growing up in a village. There is a joke that Asian parents don't think depression exists. I think part of that mindset is rooted in how many of them grew up - depression was just not really a thing in a village.

I sometimes hear of people who try to move to the country side, only to hate it and want to move back to cities. I get it. It's not for everyone. But I think it can be aided with technology such as AI+robots helping with your farms or house work, self driving cars taking your kids to school a bit far away, AI doctors who can do most of the basic healthcare work, etc. And if you can build a business with 1 or 2 people + AI, then it also makes remote work more viable. Basically, I think tech can bring a lot of the city quality of life to the country side.

If kids want to move to a town/city for more opportunities or networking, they'd be free to do so when they're older. Most do. But right now, the cities seem like the only path to having a decent quality of life.

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ncruces 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> In a village, everyone knows everyone. Kids play with each other and run around freely. Every house protects all the kids and help each other. Everyone trusts everyone. You never feel lonely. Life is slower, much less stressful.

That just means we need to structure cities differently.

I live in a 1 sq km neighbourhood (literally, 1 km square) that houses 10k people.

It has almost everything I could wish for at walkable distance, schools for all ages, parks, a gym, a pool, sports campgrounds, medics, pharmacies, stores, markets, etc.

What doesn't exist (e.g. a movie theater, a library) I can reach by public transit in half an hour. The city has 2M people, there's plenty of stuff to do.

I've lived here all my life, my kids go to school with the kids of my school mates. They walk to school from at least 10yo, they visit each other's houses. During school breaks and weekends, they play in the park with their school friends while their parents grab a beer in a nearby kiosk.

You can build communities like this within cities.

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lmm 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> In a village, everyone knows everyone. Kids play with each other and run around freely. Every house protects all the kids and help each other. Everyone trusts everyone. You never feel lonely.

In Japan that's true in a lot of city neighbourhoods as well. The high trust is extremely valuable but villages are not the only way to achieve it.

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ekjhgkejhgk 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> In a village, everyone knows everyone. Kids play with each other and run around freely. Every house protects all the kids and help each other. Everyone trusts everyone.

Seems like a recipe for rampant child abuse.

	▲	aurareturn 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I never felt unsafe as a kid or abused in any way although my mom would make me memorize our village's name and location in case I get abducted while playing with my friends. We'd often go over to neighboring villages to play because some of our friends from school lived in a different village. We played until dawn and then went home to have dinner.
	▲	sudo_cowsay 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Doesn't happen that much. Possibly the environment in which people grow up in is so free and kind. Sort of like Hawaii's aloha spirit (search it up).

▲ lukan 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"A kid in a town/city has access to a billion opportunities many of which exist only because there are enough people interested."

Most of those opportunities involve getting hit by a car.

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adrianN 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Cars in rural settings are generally faster and more indispensable for their owners. It is much easier to enact policy that reduces car traffic in cities than in villages.

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lukan 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I see. Have you lived with kids in a village and also in cities to see the difference in reality?

I did and am moving back to the village now.

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adrianN 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I grew up in a city and my wife grew up in a village. We now live in a city and don’t own a car.

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lukan 2 hours ago | parent [-]

But you don't have kids yet?

It makes a pretty big difference. Yes, the opportunities in the city are bigger for everything, but so are the dangers. The amount of crazy people. The effort involved in getting to a nice and safe place where the kids can just run around without you having to watch them every second. Those places also exist in some cities, but way too few. So great that you don't have a car, (I mean it) car free places in cities I do enjoy, there are just not many of them.

	▲	adrianN 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I have two three year olds. Parks where they can run around with relaxed supervision are not far. A big park is close enough that they can walk the distance and in less than half an hour by bike we can reach a forest and four or five other parks.