McIkye

Comment Threads

• Heteromeles commented on A game of consequences
  Another point on the LA/Vegas/Trump colonization model. I just finished reading Mark Reisner's Cadillac Desert, which I strongly recommend for anyone who wants to understand how American politics worked in the 20th Century, why the US has such an enormous debt, and what will hit world food supplies in the 21st Century. What the book is, actually, is a history of water development in the western US, with glances elsewhere, as told by a muckraking journalist. Here are some points that might be relevant: --Rivers "work" because stuff dissolves into them (we can simplify this to salts and sediments). If...
• Ludvig Holberg commented on A game of consequences
  @Heteromeles 301: APPLAUSE I'm wondering whether any other kind of economy has actually existed. We're plenty wet enough here, but I see the same politics with highways. Imagine a fjord with ten settlements around it, all reachable only by boat (I've known places like this). Clearly none of them are more remote or "cut off" than the others. Someone with pull gets a road built to one of them, which means that the other nine become remote and cut off overnight. Later, repeat, rinse. The local joke is that the only use of the new road is by the farmer...
• ilya187 commented on A game of consequences
  I tried canned cat food. If you are not a fan of salt (and I am decidedly not a fan of salt), it is perfectly edible....
• Jay commented on A game of consequences
  politics determines which part of the economy gets externalized, and which part gets counted. That turns out to be pretty critical. Very true, and relevant to the discussion a few posts up. Trade and immigration offer great benefits to residents of less developed countries, but impose considerable costs on the developed-country citizens with whom the foreign laborers most directly compete. The losers in this deal tend to be less well educated, less cosmopolitan in outlook, and are unlikely to live near major centers of finance or trade. We're currently in the middle of a struggle over whether and how their...
• dpb commented on A game of consequences
  I'm not much of a fan of salty food, but I will pass the message on next time I see him and see if he comes up with something worse :)...