The humanities become more important not less as science progresses. The possibility space of action concomitantly increases with scientific knowledge and application, thus giving rise to more situations where humanities learning is needed to mediate between expanded choices, individual and societal.

Vancouver is a better city than most in North America. Amazing what not destroying your community and its environs with highways and the worship of cars can do. To be clear, Vancouver (the one in Canada, not the one in Washington) is still pretty auto-centric, but they just haven’t given absolutely everything over to them.

It’s not perfect — housing costs are utterly out of control, but that is true to some extent in nearly any major North American city. Homeowners and their interests have a near lock on all politics, local and national. Hard to see a way to change that.

Still, striking how different Vancover feels than most American cities. It’s a place at least partially for humans, rather than for machines.