That's only possible in countries with completely broken citizen IDs (like the US and the UK). Of course correlation is messy and broken and it's not used in other countries. It's also intentional because every attempt at fixing gets stopped or even backtracked.
In other countries citizens have IDs, and the ID can be sometimes wrong (ask me how I know, although that was back in the paper era) and that's the one thing that needs to be fixed. Once the ID is correct, everything works, because that's the single source of truth after that.
I have never been addicted to nicotine so can't compare but it's quite easy to quit caffeine, I'll get headaches for a few days and then it's gone. But then what? Caffeine makes it easy to concentrate and work, enables me to get anything done at all. Other drugs that do that are illegal. Maybe one day, when I'm no longer working, I'll quit it for good. Not yet.
This was exploited from the other side by sending billions of low-value packages, so now the EU adds €3 per article category (so 2 shirts = €3, 1 shirt and 1 spoon = €6) to every package that's under other customs thresholds (€150 usually). With the view this will be eventually replaced by automating the tariff calculation for every package in a few years.
As a result, the number of imported packages dropped anywhere from 30% to 80%, we'll have to wait for the full numbers, but there is a reason to expect something similar will happen in the US.
For what? Only 10 packages per person/year, less than one per month. Previously you made is sound like 10s of billions of packages were saturating the services.
Don't bend over backwards to defend utterly oppressive regulations, simply increasing the de-minimums would reduce or eliminate package splitting, limiting the number of packs per shipping address would help too - there are many ways to solve this self-inflicted problem which comes from Byzantine regulations that use protectionism as a Trojan horse to achieve other sneaky objectives.
There are also fleet emmission fines for ICEs so it's not so bad (and very expensive fuel too). Otoh you need buy-in from the population, so making domestic EVs more attractive than foreign ones is one of the better ways to do that.
It's not outside their control. The US can stop the conflict by giving Iran what they want, but it would admit defeat and lose face, so it will continue.
No one will care if you build 1000th replica of a nice building. It's just not interesting to anyone and actually becomes boring very fast. People may live in it but no one will come from afar to visit it because of its beauty. It will become another one in a row of the same.
If you build a striking, exceptional building, it can become a big success (like Gehry's in Bilbao which is a success story for the whole city), so people who commission buildings sometimes select for that.
And also there is a sizable group of people who actually enjoy interesting buildings, like people who enjoy haute couture or haute cuisine etc., so it's not like there is no market for that.
that one looks too Calatrava-ish (specifically Oceanografic), I'd prefer the Dongdaemun Design Plaza if we are talking Zaha Hadid - especially once you see it in person.
Currently russian war is eating close to 50% of their federal budget. That's WW2 levels of militarism for nearly zero gain (current battlefield status, not 2022-2025) and huge manpower and infrastructure losses.
> Germany is purposefully causing a war between the EU and Russia because
No, Germany does what it does because it has no strong or even good leaders and failed to adapt to current circumstances. There is no purpose.
In other countries citizens have IDs, and the ID can be sometimes wrong (ask me how I know, although that was back in the paper era) and that's the one thing that needs to be fixed. Once the ID is correct, everything works, because that's the single source of truth after that.
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