That makes sense. I can see the hesitation about replacing the lenses of an otherwise healthy eye

Beautiful

though where I grew up it’s very unlikely to see anything close to horizon-distance without being at a beach

It would be interesting to see if people who live im these sorts of areas have higher rates of myopia. I’m not aware of any data that’s been collected on this though

Probably even less people in the water than in Nunavut

You’d be surprised

Yeah the Windsor to Quebec City corridor alone is home to about half of Canada’s population. It’s only 1,150 km long.

At least more than 6

Okay so I guess we’re actually in agreement then

Other countries have done it. The size argument is bullshit, China is able to do it and has equivalent landmass. No excuses. The entire point of trains was to traverse these vast expanses. Trains are what drove the Westward expansion of American society. So arguing that trains can’t handle those distances is absurd.

China has good rail service, but China still uses cars / transport trucks to get to many rural places. Source: I’ve been to rural China. I’m not against trains I just don’t think we can make it the primary means of transportation between rural towns

People used horse and buggy to transport goods between towns.

This is what I’m talking about. How do we do this without cars? I was discussing this with someone else in this thread so I’ll just quote what I said there:

To put things in perspective, Denmark is 42,947km2, and Canada is 9,984,670 km2. That means that you could fit almost 232 and a half Denmarks in Canada. Despite this about half of the population of Canada in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor, which is only 1,150 km-long, and about 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border. That means that the vast majority of Canada is totally rural, and there are often vast distances between towns and First Nations. It is simply not economically feasible to build rail lines to connect all these places, let along sending out regular train services to these places.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for car free infrastructure within towns, but I just don’t see how we can transport goods between rural towns without cars. Willing to have my mind changed tho

Love the quote, not the context. It’s a legitimate question. We got ride of horses in rural areas due to cars. In North America and Canada in particular the distances are so vast that rural public transportation is not really feasible

I agree with you wholeheartedly that car centric urban design is a bad thing. Truly, I do. But in very rural places in North America, you either need a car or a horse and buggy, or something, and the car seems like an obvious upgrade. Just because they can do public transit in rural areas in Europe does not mean we can do it here. Because the size comparisons aren’t even close. European countries with good rural transportation are dealing with significantly less landmass than North American rural communities are.

To put things in perspective, Denmark is 42,947km², and Canada is 9,984,670 km². That means that you could fit almost 232 and a half Denmarks in Canada. Despite this about half of the population of Canada in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor, which is only 1,150 km-long, and about 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border. That means that the vast majority of Canada is totally rural, and there are often vast distances between towns and First Nations. It is simply not economically feasible to build rail lines to connect all these places, let along sending out regular train services to these places.

To really hammer the point home, consider Nunavut, a territory in Canada. It is 2,093,190 km². For perspective, Ukraine (the second-largest country in Europe after Russia) is 603,549km². That means you could almost put three and a half Ukraine’s in Nunavut (and again, Ukraine is the second-largest country in Europe!). And Nunavut is extremely rural, with a population of 36,858 (and Ukraine has 32283000 people, meaning that Nunavut has 875.87 times fewer people than Ukraine). The largest population centre in Nunavut is Iqaluit, which has only 7,429 people.

So putting aside, for a second, the extreme logistical challenges with creating railways in Nunavut (due to terrain, ice, etc), how can we possibly build public transit to connect the entire territory? When we are dealing with places this vast, and this rural, we simply not economically feasible to build rural public transit. Even reality wealthy countries like Canada cannot afford to fund megaprojects like that. And again, this is just Nunavut, 1 of 13 provinces / territories. When you look at the entirety of Canada, it is simply not realistic to have rural public transit servicing the entire country. I’m sure it’s possible in small countries like Denmark, but not here.

But that doesn’t change the fact that, within cities at least, we should of course do our best to get rid of car centric design.

The 80-90% claim seems to be repeated in various areas on the internet, including by the American Academy of Ophthalmology, which I assume to be reputable:

Over recent decades, the prevalence of myopia has skyrocketed, particularly in Asia. In countries like China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan, up to 80-90% of teenagers and young adults are now myopic.

Of course these local averages are still consistent with a lower global average

Unironically though snowmobiles are one of the main means of transport in Nunavut

Except for the thousands of years that humanity was able to exist in low population density towns and villages completely fine without the need for personal vehicles.

Should we go back to the horse and buggy?

This is true in many cases, but for very rural living (eg people living on farms) there’s not much you can do about car-centric design

It’s just not a great idea to do surgery for something that can still be corrected with glasses.

Well I generally agree, there are people who elect to get laser eye surgery. Is this procedure generally considered more risky than laser eye surgery?

Is this procedure ever performed on someone with healthy cataracts to improve their eyesight?

No. Interestingly once myopia does start developing this doesn’t seem to slow the progression. It seems to be good for prevention and that’s it

Considering that a fairly large percentage of children develop myopia (as high as 80-90% in some countries) a 45% reduction would be fairly significant, no? Or am I missing something

That’s fascinating. Is it typical for cataract surgery to cause near 20-20 vision or is this something that just happened to you because you have a unique eye shape?