sophiaserpentia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophiaserpentia) wrote2007-08-02 02:14 pm
sophiaserpentia) wrote2007-08-02 02:14 pm
tyranny of the quantitative
Boston's Big Dig. The NYC steam pipes. And now a freaking highway bridge in Minneapolis.
Forget terrorists. I'm afraid of our crumbling infrastructure. Each of us is far more likely to be killed by collapsing bridges, falling ceiling panels, or exploding steam pipes than any terrorist.
Let's go further back and include the Katrina response in this, because it, too, reflects a similar lack of focus.
And, let's expand outwards and include ethylene glycol in toothpaste and melamine in pet food. Because all of these things are connected by a central theme... which is, ironically, the lack of anything resembling a common focus or vision.
We don't have any kind of meaningful common focus in our decision-making as a society. So many of the quandaries we're in -- from global warming to the oceans dying to resource depletion -- happen because millions of developers, politicians, investors, and laborers are each doing our own thing, with little or no regard to anything resembling a big picture.
We're winging it, and we can't do that anymore. Luck runs out.
Part of this problem has been described in economic discourse as the Tragedy of the Commons. But beyond the obvious difficulties of overuse and depletion, these problems are a tangible result of the dearth of meaningful discourse regarding economic problems and solutions.
Politics has become an advertising-driven enterprise. Campaign consultants talk about their candidate's image as a "branding" concern, and they judge the success of their efforts by what kind of emotions people have when they think of their client. They focus-group test sound-bites and slogans and key phrases which are designed to worm their way into your brain and install an emotional pushbutton so you respond the proper way when they press it. Meaning is driven from the process because meaning is unpredictable. If any candidate comes along who says something really meaningful, it could throw the whole scheme off, and everyone's jobs in the campaign-industrial complex would be threatened. The consultants, whose job it is to win elections, not solve society's problems, distrust meaning. And the media, of course, plays right along, encouraging this trend and helpfully marginalizing any candidate who threatens to bring in too much meaningful discussion. Because for them, too, meaning is dangerous.
This sounds like an abstract problem, but it isn't because people are dying as a result of this, and those of us who haven't been killed by it are seeing our quality of life be affected.
"Boring" things like routine maintenance and food inspections and disaster preparation -- you know, the stuff that should be a no-brainer -- gets de-funded and de-prioritized because it's easier to get a photo op standing in front of something new, bigger, shinier. The result is mile after mile after mile of empty shopping centers, brownfields, urban blight, crappy schools, decaying neighborhoods.
This isn't a call for a political solution, BTW. This problem can develop in a Communist nation (cf. Chernobyl) just as easily as it can happen in a capitalist nation. The real issue is lack of involvement. Lack of discourse. Lack of contemplation and consideration.
Forget terrorists. I'm afraid of our crumbling infrastructure. Each of us is far more likely to be killed by collapsing bridges, falling ceiling panels, or exploding steam pipes than any terrorist.
Let's go further back and include the Katrina response in this, because it, too, reflects a similar lack of focus.
And, let's expand outwards and include ethylene glycol in toothpaste and melamine in pet food. Because all of these things are connected by a central theme... which is, ironically, the lack of anything resembling a common focus or vision.
We don't have any kind of meaningful common focus in our decision-making as a society. So many of the quandaries we're in -- from global warming to the oceans dying to resource depletion -- happen because millions of developers, politicians, investors, and laborers are each doing our own thing, with little or no regard to anything resembling a big picture.
We're winging it, and we can't do that anymore. Luck runs out.
Part of this problem has been described in economic discourse as the Tragedy of the Commons. But beyond the obvious difficulties of overuse and depletion, these problems are a tangible result of the dearth of meaningful discourse regarding economic problems and solutions.
Politics has become an advertising-driven enterprise. Campaign consultants talk about their candidate's image as a "branding" concern, and they judge the success of their efforts by what kind of emotions people have when they think of their client. They focus-group test sound-bites and slogans and key phrases which are designed to worm their way into your brain and install an emotional pushbutton so you respond the proper way when they press it. Meaning is driven from the process because meaning is unpredictable. If any candidate comes along who says something really meaningful, it could throw the whole scheme off, and everyone's jobs in the campaign-industrial complex would be threatened. The consultants, whose job it is to win elections, not solve society's problems, distrust meaning. And the media, of course, plays right along, encouraging this trend and helpfully marginalizing any candidate who threatens to bring in too much meaningful discussion. Because for them, too, meaning is dangerous.
This sounds like an abstract problem, but it isn't because people are dying as a result of this, and those of us who haven't been killed by it are seeing our quality of life be affected.
"Boring" things like routine maintenance and food inspections and disaster preparation -- you know, the stuff that should be a no-brainer -- gets de-funded and de-prioritized because it's easier to get a photo op standing in front of something new, bigger, shinier. The result is mile after mile after mile of empty shopping centers, brownfields, urban blight, crappy schools, decaying neighborhoods.
This isn't a call for a political solution, BTW. This problem can develop in a Communist nation (cf. Chernobyl) just as easily as it can happen in a capitalist nation. The real issue is lack of involvement. Lack of discourse. Lack of contemplation and consideration.
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What happens when the skyscrapers we have built start crumbling? How long will they last? How much warning will people have?
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I remember when a building collapsed in the NOLA CBD right before i moved up here, is that the event you're thinking of? There was a lot of development going on all around it, and basically, it collapsed because the buildings around it, which had been holding it up, were torn down. (I heard hints that it was subtly encouraged to collapse because the property owner was holding out against a redevelopment plan for the block, or some similar kind of intrigue.)
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With the recent youtube spectacle in the US about the candidates. What exactly was clarified by this media flirtation?
"Should Hillary show more cleavage and is Obama, too good, a snappy dresser?" (newspeak intended)
Personally, I think it could only get solved if people had to go thru a pre-requisite of community activism, before they could run.
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Yeah. It cuts right around the parts of the brain that slowly think about things and goes straight for the emotions.
Before they run? How about before anyone can get a driver's license?
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Brown gives me a small glimmer of hope, but i don't know a whole lot about him. The American media has chosen to say pretty much nothing about him.
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http://alobar.livejournal.com/2421648.html
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This isn't a call for a political solution, BTW. This problem can develop in a Communist nation (cf. Chernobyl) just as easily as it can happen in a capitalist nation. The real issue is lack of involvement. Lack of discourse. Lack of contemplation and consideration.
True enough. Fixing these problems demands that economic priorities favor the needs of the citizens over the needs of the rulers. Communism means never having to say you're sorry, but so does unfettered capitalism, and so at least part of the solution is political and economic.
A lot of infrastructure-related problems in the big cities are caused by the massive collapse of tax revenues due to the "White flight" phenomenon that began in the '60s and continues today. Which certainly ties into your observations, since the belief that one can take one's kids and "escape" to an all-white secure economic and social paradise while letting the economic hubs of commerce and industry collapse is short-sighted selfishness at best, and irrational psychosis at worst.
The "conservatives" in government and media have established the catchphrase "you can't solve a problem by throwing money at it" so deeply into the average Americans' psyches that they actually believe it. On the contrary, when it comes to fixing bridges, repairing sewers, making buildings more earthquake resistant, reinforcing levees, hiring qualified teachers, etc., the correct solution is to throw money at it! Granted, you need qualified contractors, transparency, and so on, but those too cost money. And there's certainly no lack of $$$ for war-waging, corporate bailouts, etc., so the "we can't afford it" argument is bogus on its face.
Perhaps we should abandon the entire idea of the nation-state, and go to eking out survival via subsistence farming and a barter economy between tiny isolated anarchist communes (which is the logical outcome of the entire Earth First!/Small is Beautiful/Inconvenient Truth movement). But I'm not so sure. To advocate that is to admit that the problems that exist are beyond repair and totally unworkable or unrepairable, and I suspect that's exactly the despairing view that certain classes of oligarchs would like the rest of us to accept as gospel. Consider that the Ford and Carnegie Foundations created and financed the nascent "ecology movement" in the first place, and one has to ask "cui bono?" What I do know is that either way, it's gonna take some sort of Stupidity Vaccine (RAW's term) to get us out of the messes we've made for ourselves (or that we've allowed to be made for us while we were watching Paris Hilton, etc.).
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Structurally, they are the same: a ruling oligarchy with the population that's enslaved either by force or by guile.
And there's certainly no lack of $$$ for war-waging, corporate bailouts, etc., so the "we can't afford it" argument is bogus on its face.
Yep. Sooner or later the Chinese will want back all the money they loaned the Bushleagers for the Iraq debacle.
... tiny isolated anarchist communes (which is the logical outcome of the entire Earth First!/Small is Beautiful/Inconvenient Truth movement).
But getting there will require a great deal of bloodletting, either by wars or famine or both. I seriously doubt the Earth Firsters have thought about that much. If they have, and are willing to accept the bloodshed as a necessary way to an end, then they are no better than the Dominionist rapture freaks.
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But getting there will require a great deal of bloodletting, either by wars or famine or both. I seriously doubt the Earth Firsters have thought about that much. If they have, and are willing to accept the bloodshed as a necessary way to an end, then they are no better than the Dominionist rapture freaks.
Oh yes. When I hear some Earth First! type smile and explain that we need to reduce the population of the entire planet by 4 billion next Tuesday after lunch, I realize just what a small-time monster ol' Adolf was.
Reminds me a bit of St. William Burroughs, who was commenting on white supremacists advocating the purging of the non-white races: "That's a whole lot of people you want to get rid of, some of whom might even resist!
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> by the massive collapse of tax revenues due to the "White flight"
> phenomenon that began in the '60s
Problem seems deeper than that to me. I grew up in New York City. Along the west side of Manhattan was an elevated highway which was a major artery for trucks. Lots of boats docked along Manhattan. Food and goods coming into the US. Food and goods being shipped out of the US. West side highway was a link between docks and the GW bridge to highways branching out all over the NE US. The west side highway was built because of the massive truck congestion on streets.
Well, the East side highway began colapsing. I remember a pic of a huge truck which just dropped thru the highway onto the street below.
Over the years, more sections of the West Side Highway were shut down and traffic shunted to the streets below.
Commercial trucking pays a lot of $$ for wear and tear on roads. But the West side highway was still not repaired back in the 1980s (the last time I drove on it).
This country just does not like allocating cash for infrastructure repair and upkeep. Politicians would much rather fund new public works projects to put $$ in the pockets of people who give them fat donations.
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It's how long until the election? 14 months? Expect at maximum precisely 14 months of talk about fixing bridges and pipes and tunnels and highway.
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Ironically, the I-35 bridge in Minnesota was built the same year that the Silver Bridge failed.
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There's no percentage in public service.
I read a great article recently...
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/0081594
It seems that if petroleum became too expensive then people would start moving back into central cities and keeping them up better. The cynic in me believes, however, that they'll keep improving fuel economy in automobiles just enough to keep everyone in them. It seems that our current system of planning simply encourages the abandonment of older settlements in favor of newer settlements rather that maintain the older ones, all enabled by the automobile.
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