And maybe also, wierdly, the possibility "I need to get up and having a wank seems like a good way to get the systems starting up."
Either way, they all fall in the category of, what I've come to call, the Keine Lust Fap, named so after the Rammstein song. You're fapping, not because you're horny, but because of other reasons.
Netherlands here. Same. Can't say I remember ever seeing a customer facing drinks fountain at any fast food chain place anywhere in the country. Hell, even anywhere in the EU. I was about to say anywhere in Schengen, but although I have been to Switzerland once, I haven't been to a Swiss Macca's.
That. And usually the stick is a very metaphoric one. As long as mechanisms of power exist, someone will have some kind of upper hand in any and all situations with other people.
For instance, if you're rich, you can throw more money at a situation and buy good results. If you have a big army, you can threaten someone into doing something for you and they know you have the manpower to back the threat up with actual force. And if you have a lot of connections, you can get stuff done via good will.
Ultimately, you need a government that, as a unit, has the authority to say "WE are the top dogs and there is nothing you can do about it." Ideally that system is malleable enough by its subjects to always act for the betterment of its subjects, and to hold its members to account.
In the absence of a formal government, that position is filled up by someone else. Either whomever shouts the loudest, has the most friend in the best places, has the biggest pile of money, has the biggest group of bullies, or some combination of those. In fact, that is how most kings' dynasties in history probably got established.
Just like nature abhors a vacuum, society abhors a power vacuum, and the moment you get rid of a king and do nothing to follow up on his removal, someone else is gonna take the throne and the crown and make himself king.
And before you start the republic spiel or the representative democracy spiel, a republic and a house of representatives are basically a royal court with more checks and balances, where the people on the outside as a whole get a say in who's in that court. It's basically regularly emptying and refilling thrones and having rules on how to do so.
Are the pills binary? Because I wouldn't want to rewind to far before either shacking up with, or maybe meeting, my girl. And all the fun things I would wish upon every iteration of myself that I'm doing now are things I'd started with in adulthood.
I'd only really be interested in taking about a third of a red pill, since that'd probably take me back to after I started most of these fun things.
If I'd be required to take whole pills, I'd take the blue one.
Or that being truly hideous or terrible is a redeeming quality. Like, the worst thing you can imagine is still memorable and/or educational in some way, even in a "don't do this" or "don't be that guy" sense. Meanwhile, the most forgettable thing is... Well... Just that. Forgettable. If it would fade from the history books, nobody would notice and nobody would care.
That's why the claim that mid = bad is not the worst.
The only car I can name that is fuelled like that is the Trabant, and that thing is old and long out of production. And also crude as all hell, but that's a story for another comment.
Anyway, the real answer is already elsewhere in the comments.
I'm with OP on the being had in the first half. Though I'd add, with a little bit of added effort, you can fix both. The fact that the US can do neither is, in my book, a failure of policy.
Look mate, if you're going to shove the "tHe stATeS arE ToO bIG, thus wE cANNot SOlvE The transIt ProbleM" rhetoric on us, please find another place to wallow in your lack of trains while assuming car industry rhetoric as undeniable fact.
Also, your claim has been debunked and reclarified so often that I'm not going to begin to explain just how wrong you are.
I'd call them less a solution, more an attempt at harm reduction.
And the only things they'll properly resolve are tailpipe emissions and idling noise. At least one of which is of no concern when dealing with the externalities of car traffic.
If you really want to solve the environmental impact of transportation, you minimise the need for transportation. Put homes and workplaces close together, offer mass alternatives for the pairs where you really do need motorised mobility solutions, and minimise the number of situations where it's more convenient to take a car. Ban on-street parking and heavily tax off-street parking. Need to park your car in the city? Hope you can afford to pay an arm and a leg. Oh, you can't? Looks the Park & Ride at the train station two towns over is the nearest alternative. Don't worry though, the trains go six times an hour and a day ticket is, like, four quid max.
And maybe also, wierdly, the possibility "I need to get up and having a wank seems like a good way to get the systems starting up."
Either way, they all fall in the category of, what I've come to call, the Keine Lust Fap, named so after the Rammstein song. You're fapping, not because you're horny, but because of other reasons.