A lot of people have a really shitty negotiating position. They're barely literate, living paycheck to paycheck and raising children. Are you really choosing your job when your options are super limited and you don't have the means to invest in yourself?
I live in revelstoke, if we do that Canada cant ship goods from coast to coast from december to april (the subsidy I have in mind is the Rogers pass avalanche control program) Those subsidies exist because they benefit people.
Look at the appalachian and pacific crest trails. Its really hard in occidental countries to be more than 50km from a city, so you always have places to buy food.
Lactobacillus is omnipresent in our bodies, from our stomach to our boogers, and is the main lactic acid bacteria used in sourdough bread and quickly brewed sour beers.
Most bacteria in boogers and sweat is pretty harmless stuff, and a lot of it can be used to metabolize some tasty compounds. Even some clostridiums (same category of bacteria as the disease c. difficile and an omnipresent type of bacteria in our stomachs) are used to produce esters in rum.
>A lot of people think that mass transit is for the poor
That's because it is. I had to take the metro in Montréal to get to work this week, hadn't taken it in months because I usually bike, it's such a shitty experience. It smells bad, it's hot, it's filled with tired people that don't feel like going to work (you feel it in the air), beggars harass you, it's slow (it can take 3x as much time as riding a bike to get where you want to) and it's operating past maximum capacity during rush hour. I haven't even gotten started on when service is interrupted and you show up over an hour late to work or class. Anybody who can afford a bit more for reliability and comfort will spend it without looking back.
Soundsystem/free tekno culture is certainly keeping the mentality alive. My friends that build speakers and play heavy drum and bass and tekno all used to play in punk, hardcore and ska bands in their teens.
Vans warped tour hasn't had much to do with punk culture for like 15 years, unless you consider using it as a marketing tool as what punk really is. I saw anti-flag and face to face at a free show in Montreal this summer and punk rock certainly felt alive. The US has punk in drublic fest going on which is probably quite authentic considering it's thrown by fat wreck chords.
Russia made gigantic leaps from 1917 to 1956. They went from absolute backwards shithole to contending world power in 39 years (even less considering ww2 was over 10 years before that).