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Cities are pens for human cattle Cannoli Send a noteboard - 27/03/2017 01:51:05 AM

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But it sure is an interesting idea.

In results, yes, though the methods proposed are of dubious efficacy, and distasteful in principle.

SIDEBAR RANT
One of the things that I detest about the liberal mindset that goes beyond the difference of opinions, is the absolute refusal to acknowledge the underlying concerns principles and philosophies of the constrained political outlook. We are perfectly willing to concede their self-image of concerned and generous people who want to alleviate human misery in various ways, however impractical or restrictive we believe the methods or illusory, the goal, to be. But they absolutely will not credit our perception of, for example, abortion being about the life of a fetus. Their counter-arguments would be fine and dandy for almost any other issue (and note the absolute lack of conservative agendas to do ANYTHING else to your body, beyond preventing you from killing children that are temporarily attached to it), but the life of a human being simply trumps just about any moral argument. Change our minds about the fetus, argue about the real issue. Stop demonizing us as anti-women or prudes. And in the case relevant to the linked article, we have the usual illusory free-market appeal with "subsidies" and tax incentives. That is NOT free market, that is a manipulated market. The point of the free market is that the aggregate choices of people based on their own self-interest determines in a roughly democratic fashion what the optimal allocation of limited resources & production energies should be. Tilting the playing field by offering other people's money as bribes to get the outcome you want, is no more free than bribing voters in an election is a fair result, or tampering with the control group in an experiment is scientific. Breaking up cities by bribing people to live elsewhere is no better a solution than sending in demolitions troops.
/SIDEBAR RANT

The problem with cities is the same as with a degenerate population: you're not going to get a workable free society when it happens, and no amount legislating will make either issue go away. Cities are a symptom that exacerbate to the sickness, a self-sustaining cancer on the body politic, which are the reason why all societies eventually collapse and fail, and why all great civilizations fall from within. Cities are material lures to trap worker bees in easily managed hives for the convenience of a ruling class or plutocracy, to strip them of their self-sufficiency and anesthetize their slavery with convenience. They concentrate a population into a critical mass where it becomes a mob, easily led by simple emotional images and pandering to the least common denominator, and the ruling class harnesses mob-power to extort the sustenance of the rest of the country. The simple mechanism of this phenomenon is the bell curve, where the greater the population, the more diluted and diminished the effects of the extraordinary members thereof. It's Harrison Bergeron, but with the mediocrity being imposed by a general human wave, rather than individually targeted impediments. That's where you get the phenomena described by the article's author when he details the failures of cities to produce the desired liberal outcomes.

And there is really nothing you can do about it, other than wait for nature to take its course and burn the whole thing down to start over again, because the only cures are worse than the disease, or else depend on some sort of mass miracle sea change in the attitudes of the population. And there are too many people in a city, and it is too addictive to shake the hold the kyriarchy has on the general run of people.

Cannoli
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
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Here's something that has little or no chance of ever happening - 26/03/2017 11:32:39 PM 898 Views
Cities are pens for human cattle - 27/03/2017 01:51:05 AM 665 Views
Agreed that the cure is worse than the disease - 27/03/2017 03:52:55 PM 615 Views
Interesting how your article takes almost the opposite position from yours... - 27/03/2017 05:53:57 PM 549 Views
I think you missed my point - 27/03/2017 06:50:02 PM 457 Views
Or your point just didn't make any sense. - 27/03/2017 06:59:15 PM 497 Views
It's simple, really - 27/03/2017 07:14:14 PM 574 Views
Fine, we'll just have to agree to disagree then. *NM* - 27/03/2017 07:25:03 PM 283 Views
Nothing like animals - 27/03/2017 07:16:48 PM 583 Views
We are *very* close.... - 27/03/2017 10:16:06 PM 522 Views
One thing I really respect about the Catholic Church is.... - 04/04/2017 12:07:18 AM 628 Views
Didn't there use to be a 'edit" thingy? - 04/04/2017 12:12:28 AM 563 Views
Personally I actually see the US as a rather decentralized country already. - 27/03/2017 06:51:31 PM 508 Views
In my opinion - 27/03/2017 07:29:29 PM 497 Views
After the first dirty bomb goes off there will be some demographic shifts - 27/03/2017 07:35:23 PM 527 Views
do you think a dirty bomb event in a major city is inevitable? *NM* - 27/03/2017 07:45:24 PM 242 Views
I think an actual nuclear detonation in a major city is eventually inevitable - 28/03/2017 06:24:26 PM 504 Views
Didn't the Chechens build a dirty bomb that was never detonated? - 28/03/2017 06:48:01 PM 504 Views
If you were Iran.... - 28/03/2017 08:37:45 PM 579 Views
Because they have a lot more to lose than to gain? - 28/03/2017 09:39:19 PM 503 Views
Especially for schools and so forth - 27/03/2017 11:25:33 PM 548 Views
I'm sure they'd agree to that quickly! - 28/03/2017 04:46:44 PM 510 Views
I enjoy living in large city. - 28/03/2017 04:47:37 PM 512 Views
Holla - 28/03/2017 05:58:18 PM 472 Views
You don't live in a city. You live in a town masquerading as a city. *NM* - 28/03/2017 06:25:21 PM 244 Views
Shit, bitch, you dumb! *NM* - 28/03/2017 06:26:25 PM 253 Views
This article is for you - 29/03/2017 01:27:58 AM 609 Views
But, but . . . - 28/03/2017 05:59:01 PM 455 Views
Ma and Pa's Kountry Koffee Shoppe - 28/03/2017 06:53:59 PM 466 Views
And here's the big dichotemy about it.... - 28/03/2017 08:26:37 PM 553 Views
Mook - surely you've read the "Caves of Steel" ...? - 29/03/2017 02:27:28 AM 715 Views

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