Look at the political and social problems in the US. Trans people are being outlawed in different states, there is a huge wealth gap, a lot more police brutality than in Manny other countries, US democracy doesn't really serve the people anymore and there is a large growth in far right movements.

Vertical farming itself is very practical because it avoids land erosion, nutrient depletion of soils and limits harm to nature. Besides that vertical farming can increase yield, nutrient density and taste through a controled environment (I.e. nutrients, light, etc.). It also needs no pesticides because of that controlled environment. Vertical farms also require about ⅓ of the water needed for conventional farming and a lot less land.

It has already been tested on multiple different vegetables, beans (soy beans for example) and leafy greens and it works for all of them. Some require different versions of vertical farming.

The major problem with vertical farming is it's massive energy consumption and expensive construction and maintance. Everything has to work perfectly for it to have optimal results.

The fun part of vertical farming is, that we can also try ourself with GMO in a safe environment, without worrying that the new strand will spread.

Certain food, especially potatoes will be hard to farm in large quantities inside an urban environments and we will still need farm land for it. Just less.

We also need to get away from eating meat as one the largest uses of farmland is for animal feed production.

Why not call it exactly that: Mass produced individuality (or MPI for short)

Using VR to showcase projects is already going on. When it comes to planning blueprints in VR I am not sure. However planning them as 3D models is already common practice in a lot of industries.

When it comes to using VR in the future for blueprints etc. I am positive that it will find usage.

I never claimed that it would stop it. I claimed that it would reduce it, which it does. Something like induced demand on street just brings more people to take the car and does nothing against congestion etc. Giving a good rail system encourages people to take the train.

Also, in regard to your experience in China I did some digging and found this:

-2,1 billion rail passengers passengers (2013), growth of 5.5% per year between 2000 and 2013

-Bejing-Tianjin HSR: 16 million in first year (2008)

-Fares vary between 0.045$/passenger km for 200-250km/h and 0.77$/per passenger km for 300-350km/h (which actually is more expensive than Germany (0.34$/p.km) and France (0.24-0.31$/p.km) so the argument "it is only used by the poor kinda falls short)

-Rail passenger amount grew by 7.6% annually between 2008 & 2013

• The two busiest lines carried 100 million each in 2014 -rail trips are almost double the amount than air trips in 2013

-for short trips (<300km) cars or busses are competitive because HSR stations are a decent way away from the town centre

• Rail traffic grew by 39% between 2008 and 2014 while conventional traffic grew by 1.5%

-According to a survey from May 2013 the income range on the Changchun-Jilin line was at about 4,300$/m (70% reported an income of below 5,000$/m), Tianjin-Jinan between 6,700$ and 4,500$/m (50%reported an income of less than 5000$/m) so again.

• The most profitable route (Shanghai-Beijing) brought in 1 billion$ in revenue in 2015

-Most people are actually not able to afford HSR in China (at least were in 2015)

-for trips of 500km or less air companies were forced to lower Fares or cancel flights because of the HSR

• total income in 2021 was about 705 million USD (56.5% lower than 2019)

-Due to Covid 19 and strict lock downs profits plummeted 159% to a loss of 4.4 billion USD

-The HSR system has a total of 1.9 billion passengers annually.

For the sake of the argument I only focused myself on HSR and passenger travel in comparison.

References https://www.statista.com/topics/7534/high-speed-rail-in-china/#topicOverview

https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-high-speed-rail-development-worldwide

http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/EAP/China/high_speed-rail-%20in-china-en.pdf

Edit: When you said only poorer people use the HSR you were probably referring to the conventional rail (200-250km/h) and not 300-350km/h

What about the maglev technology? Yes it is a bit older but we are currently seeing a major improvement in the way that it is built. The big problem with hyperloop is that just a shift in tectonic plates or one lose screw could ruin the entire system. It also need unreal amounts of energy to function and we currently have that. Also, if the pod has just one flaw in design or a tiny hole, it can endanger everybody in the pod and maybe the few pods behind it.

That said, I like the idea of hyperloop itself and the fact that we are doing research into it. The thing is that right now we have more pressing issues and that research should not be our main priority. Our main priority should be to get down in our greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible and technologies like HSR and Maglev should be our focus + a large reduction in cars, etc. The hyperloop will be a fun project for after we have completed our most pressing issues.

Also, why not spend more money on Maglev research? It has the potential to rival air travel much sooner than hyperloop. Just purely the fact that Japan manged to reach 600km/h shows that. If we put more money into that we might reach even higher speeds.

Also, if you go up in the comments a bit, you will find that the idea of vac trains is quite old already so also nothing new.