Raspberrypi with pivpn. Put it right next to the router. Can possibly be powered by the routers usb port as well. Connect with ssh to administer. Easy as pie.

For always staying on the vpn: Get a pfsense router and configure it to always connect to the vpn and route all traffic through it.

Enjoyable read!

Many of the things you mentioned are not “loosing”. They are chugging along. Slow and steady.

Holocene extinction

Very nicely put.

We are in a mass extinction event right now. As a result of overpopulation. If we can not do things sustainably right now; we are overpopulating. Yes, we can extract more resources. But we don’t know how to do it sustainably. We are on borrowed time.

Those luxury watches got to have huge margins. I imagine watch makers can probably eat the tariff and sell at the same consumer price in the US.