In 1999, when the Cape Hatteras lighthouse was in danger of collapsing into the sea, it was determined that it needed to be moved inland. The community was outraged, lawsuits and votes followed, and the local community determined that they did not want the lighthouse moved. The Army Corps of Engineers declared that the community of Hatteras was not in a position to win a war against the ocean, asserted the Federal Government’s control over the lighthouse, and moved it anyway.
The move was a huge success. The lighthouse is now safe from collapsing into the ocean, despite the efforts of the local community.
I’m not saying submitting to a higher power (in this case a higher level of expertise) is always better… but sometimes it is.
A concentrated community of Right-wing libertarians/Anarcho-capitalists are destined to destroy themselves if they attain any sort of power, as they follow the Ayn Rand school of selfishness to the extreme. Grafton, NH isn’t far off from how Bioshock explored the same ideas and how it would lead to societal collapse.
left wing libertarainism/Anarchism, on the other hand, is mainly collectivist, and we have well documented examples of that political theory working extremely well when put into practice.
Libertarians aren’t the brightest bunch to begin with, but regardless, saying “look at this community that was wrong” in response to people wanting to remove central authority is not really an argument against the idea.
The entire point is that people are free to govern themselves. Governing well is up to the local communities. Some would do better than others, certainly. But with time, people would discover what works and what doesn’t. They would make mistakes like these and learn from the natural consequences of their actions. It’s imperfect because humans are imperfect.
But if in one community you don’t have anyone that has a sufficient level of expertise for some area or another, that might lead it to collapse into pseudoscience and bad decisions.
I don’t mean that you need a central authority, but you for sure need local authorities in X or Y question inside every cell of the federation.
That makes me wonder, is the pseudoscience that has infiltrated our central authority the inevitable result of a weak point, or merely someone fooling all of the people some of the time?
Uh huh. You didn’t answer the question. My town can’t even successfully vote to keep the water district, there is no way we’d ban CFCs (let alone have done the necessary research) or fossil fuels. Everything you hate about the people of this country is because of the people who live in every town. It’s the same people.
In 1999, when the Cape Hatteras lighthouse was in danger of collapsing into the sea, it was determined that it needed to be moved inland. The community was outraged, lawsuits and votes followed, and the local community determined that they did not want the lighthouse moved. The Army Corps of Engineers declared that the community of Hatteras was not in a position to win a war against the ocean, asserted the Federal Government’s control over the lighthouse, and moved it anyway.
The move was a huge success. The lighthouse is now safe from collapsing into the ocean, despite the efforts of the local community.
I’m not saying submitting to a higher power (in this case a higher level of expertise) is always better… but sometimes it is.
Local communities are so much better than higher power that you needed to stretch for anecdotal evidence from the 20th century.
More lighthouses are being destroyed by the climate change that the Army defends and creates directly.
Gee thanks for the government, without it one lighthouse might have collapsed eventually.
21st Century:
Grafton, NH, AKA the “and then the bears came” town.
Local community (demographically taken over by a bunch of libertarians) votes to slash town budget and regulations, including trash pickup.
And then the bears came.
A concentrated community of Right-wing libertarians/Anarcho-capitalists are destined to destroy themselves if they attain any sort of power, as they follow the Ayn Rand school of selfishness to the extreme. Grafton, NH isn’t far off from how Bioshock explored the same ideas and how it would lead to societal collapse.
left wing libertarainism/Anarchism, on the other hand, is mainly collectivist, and we have well documented examples of that political theory working extremely well when put into practice.
1936 Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War organized an Anarchist society with over 3 million participants, and they documented much of how exactly they ran it, right down to how they kept the electric trams for public transport going (there is a fantastic book embedded at the bottom of that article, Collectives in the Spanish Revolution by Gaston Leval, which offers more details on other aspects of how they operated that society).
It’s a fantastic historical event we can learn from and build upon.
I appreciate you providing sources.
Libertarians aren’t the brightest bunch to begin with, but regardless, saying “look at this community that was wrong” in response to people wanting to remove central authority is not really an argument against the idea.
The entire point is that people are free to govern themselves. Governing well is up to the local communities. Some would do better than others, certainly. But with time, people would discover what works and what doesn’t. They would make mistakes like these and learn from the natural consequences of their actions. It’s imperfect because humans are imperfect.
Next problem in the world right now: trash dumping.
But if in one community you don’t have anyone that has a sufficient level of expertise for some area or another, that might lead it to collapse into pseudoscience and bad decisions. I don’t mean that you need a central authority, but you for sure need local authorities in X or Y question inside every cell of the federation.
That makes me wonder, is the pseudoscience that has infiltrated our central authority the inevitable result of a weak point, or merely someone fooling all of the people some of the time?
Well, it might actually be both, tbh.
And a community would decide to prevent climate change more than a country would because…?
Uh huh. You didn’t answer the question. My town can’t even successfully vote to keep the water district, there is no way we’d ban CFCs (let alone have done the necessary research) or fossil fuels. Everything you hate about the people of this country is because of the people who live in every town. It’s the same people.
I did answer the question. Now you’re moving the goalposts from lighthouses destroyed, as per the meme.
You cannot seriously think the conversation is exclusively about lighthouses destroyed
It’s defending higher power with anecdotal evidence, while the thing in the anecdote is being made worse by that higher power.
Fuck authority.
Sure, specifically the authority of people dumb enough to reject physical reality and endanger others.
Working lighthouses don’t exist for the aesthetics.
Fuck reality.
Well at least you’re consistent
Fuck consistency.
There’s a lot to be said for consistency. And yeah yeah fucking saying anything. We get it, you’re edgy…
Fuck edgy.
You got me!