Miami, the great world city, is drowning while the powers that be look away

[rlogan 2,036]

So what are you doing then? Am I supposed to be doing something rather than posting in an Internet forum?

Why do you feel the need to personalise the discussion? Is that the only way you can 'win'?

You didn't answer my question. It is a pretty important one too: why does the person professing to care about the problem of flooding in Bangladesh not even bother to look into the answers himself?

So instead of answering that question, you asked four questions in response. That's called "evade and divert". Also hoping for a thread lock, I see - no doubt you tried to report me.

When you say ridiculous things, don't play the victim when it is pointed out how ridiculous they are. It is a pretty important point that the people urging us to do some spectacularly dumb things have not spent any time at all looking into it.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

You didn't answer my question. It is a pretty important one too: why does the person professing to care about the problem of flooding in Bangladesh not even bother to look into the answers himself?

So instead of answering that question, you asked four questions in response. That's called "evade and divert". Also hoping for a thread lock, I see - no doubt you tried to report me.

When you say ridiculous things, don't play the victim when it is pointed out how ridiculous they are. It is a pretty important point that the people urging us to do some spectacularly dumb things have not spent any time at all looking into it.

I have no doubt that Bangladesh has some plans to deal with flooding. I'm not sure what you want me to say.

Can man defeat rising sea levels? In the short term, yes. What's your point?

[rlogan 2,036]

Google, the answer to everything

The one-line put-down attempt: not an answer to anything.

Actually it is pretty amazing how easily one can find information that points out how silly you are to say the people in South Florida are "drowning" and have done nothing about flood abatement. You are the one who wrote that thread title and then pretended you had nothing to do with it - calling elected officials who created the very commission recommending changes to their master plan "mad" for doing nothing.

[rlogan 2,036]

I have no doubt that Bangladesh has some plans to deal with flooding. I'm not sure what you want me to say.

Can man defeat rising sea levels? In the short term, yes. What's your point?

See how you are still avoiding my question? So far you have "answered" with six questions. Let's try again:

Why is it that you, the person who is pretending to care about flooding in Bangladesh, refuses to actually look for answers to that question instead of demanding that I do it for you?

This is not a difficult question at all.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I think you need to stop personalising the issue, then we can have a reasonable discussion.

You seem to have read that I don't believe anyone is doing anything about flood defence. I don't and have never believed it. My concern is sustainability.

If you don't think that reasonable I'm all ears as to why. Just don't expect me to feed your ego.

It's not all about you.

[TBoneTX 46,260]

Several more off-topic posts have been removed. Please confine yourself to discussing the topic (which has been rather interesting since the beginning of the thread, when adhered to). Further bickering or off-topic commentary risks that the thread will be closed. Thanks.

[DavenRoxy 1,073]

See how you are still avoiding my question? So far you have "answered" with six questions. Let's try again:

Why is it that you, the person who is pretending to care about flooding in Bangladesh, refuses to actually look for answers to that question instead of demanding that I do it for you?

This is not a difficult question at all.

I can assure you that you are DECIDEDLY wrong. Several people here resort to the one liners and face palms, hence NB's lettering system that some complain about.

Some here are expert in deflecting questions with misleading questions. No amount of logic nor education will work with some people. You'd be better off designing a screen door for a submarine.

[rlogan 2,036]

I think you need to stop personalising the issue, then we can have a reasonable discussion.

You seem to have read that I don't believe anyone is doing anything about flood defence. I don't and have never believed it. My concern is sustainability.

If you don't think that reasonable I'm all ears as to why. Just don't expect me to feed your ego.

It's not all about you.

lol. Playing the victim instead of answering an extremely simple question. Look how important it is to conceal why you feign concern for Bangladesh flooding when you haven't even spent a trifling few seconds looking into all the research on that. Playing the role of inquisitioner, as if other people are supposed to bring his highness the answers. Ironic that you would say it is all about feeding my ego when that's exactly what the cocktail party environmentalist is doing: managing perceptions.

Yes, yes - of course you are supposed to SAY that you are concerned about sustainability. But there is little doubt if you are called to answer what that actually means, we're going to get the same uber-defensive nonsense: Shame on you for "personalizing" this by asking me to define what I mean by sustainability. Well you just brought it up. So tell me what you think it means in concrete terms rather than nebulous PC word salad.

Generally flood control projects are 20 to 50 year horizons and there is a very easy-to-understand discounting of all future costs and benefits into a "present value". The benefits might be anything from electricity production in the case of dams to the values of crops and homes on the land in question, all weighed against costs of building the dam, dike, or whatever it is. Anything with a Benefit/Cost ratio above 1 is socially "profitable". It isn't worth going out more than 50 years not only because it is too far to speculate but because once we apply a discount rate to things that far out, they have almost no value to weigh against current costs of construction that are generally very high. I did more than fifty of these kinds of analyses for the state on various projects, and I'm pretty sure the word "sustainability" is not in any of my reports. Because it is a popular PC term without any actual meaning when it comes to building flood control projects or alternative energy projects or whatever it is.

I suppose that's what irks me: here is a nebulous politically correct term that has ZERO VALUE when it comes to actually doing anything about the problems it pretends to apply to. We show others how much we "know" by repeating a meme that doesn't actually mean anything except in terms of managing other people's impression of how politically correct we are.

Edited July 20, 2014 by rlogan

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Just curious but exactly how is it you think that I haven't researched it? From what I've posted, how have you arrived at a conclusion that you think you know what is or isn't in my head? Is there any factual basis for this claim? There's a term for this, it's called magical thinking.

The fact is you have been quite condescending in this thread, which seems to have little, if anything, to do with anything I have written here. I'm not sure what your deal is, but it doesn't particularly inspire me to want to continue.

No doubt you'll conclude that's proof of something but hey ho, horses for course. My ego isn't so fragile that I care overmuch what a random person on the Internet thinks of me.