This saves a __lot__ of headaches, of which timestamp vs timestamptz is the tip of the iceberg.

as is often said with a sigh, "democracy is the worst form of government, except for every other."

to me, democracy is really about giving the masses enough feeling of agency, because the alternatives are either revolution and/or disengagement / low productivity / low creativity, and both are "bad for business" i.e. cannot compete with democracies.

China will be an interesting test of this theory. Notably, in China they have a terrific education system and the government is able to attract/retain smart ambitious people.

Another test will be the power of governments to thwart revolutions using digital and kinetic assymmetry. The masses have individual hackers and pea shooters and the government has digital armies and autonomous drone swarms. In turn, since revolution is off the table, governments don't need the overhead of democracy. In the US, we see this with the rise of Executive Orders for example.

it works because 99% of the time you don't need fast latency because you can accurately predict things.

that's why a standard recommendation is to drive 2+ seconds (time not distance) behind the car in front of you. also why experienced drivers instinctively move their hands/feet into position during tricky moments when they need to cut the latency.

fun exercise, try taking your foot off the gas and hitting the break - slower than you think!!

Iran has repeatedly called for "death to America," "death to Israel" and so on.

Israel's leaders do not generally call for the destruction of other countries.

US is also taking leadership in space, which has deep military implications, telecomm and (maybe?) natural resources.

Lastly, it's a big mistake to write-off the US labor force and consumers, who react very quickly to change.

realistically, this device would need to tiny to justify the extra weight, device-to-keep-charged, etc.

one idea: make it wifi-only and tether from your primary mobile device. This skips all the carrier nonsense, to focus entirely on the core use case(s).

This map pretty much proves it!

https://share.gemini.google/1yNVV19wUn46