Contactless payment systems are everywhere now, the big push being COVID.

Taiwan isn't China, any Taiwanese will tell you that. Taiwan did a lot of things right when it came to the COVID response, but it's easy to do when you have a population of 23 million on a tiny island. I have several friends who are living in Taiwan and I've been jealous of them throughout the pandemic because their government handled it correctly. However, the US vaccination response is the best in the world. Even I have been vaccinated.

Silicon Valley isn't dying. It's literally the biggest creator of wealth in the world, and it's so much that it's causing a horrible amount of income inequality, especially in the Bay Area itself. It's almost being a victim of its own success, as I already mentioned.