4 ms·

Agreed, which is hardly his/her fault, but rather California/LA politics' fault. Raise prices, or put a multi-tier pricing, or whatever; but harassment for soc

by irixusr 11y ago

Agreed, which is hardly his/her fault, but rather California/LA politics' fault. Raise prices, or put a multi-tier pricing, or whatever; but harassment for social engineering's sake is creepy.

chucknelson 11y ago
Agree that harassment isn't the way to go about this, but I think we can put a good amount of blame on the individual here - selfish water usage doesn't seem like a great idea in California.
- irixusr 11y ago
  See my post bellow estimating how large their lot should be assuming golf-course irrigation. I came with ~5 acres This individual is a jerk, no doubt, but 5 acres is small, so their overall usage compared to the total for LA county isn't very significant. LA county as a whole is abusing water. I'd suggest a tiered pricing scheme. Current rates for water usage bellow what 99.9% of what the LA uses (to make it politically expedient), and two orders of magnitude larger otherwise.
ergothus 11y ago
I'm a bit on the fence: On the one hand, no, being crazily abusive of the situation IS his/her fault. Legal does not imply moral or ethical, for good reasons. We legislate the minimum necessary because more restrictive legislation would harm people who have valid reasons/exceptions. Then we rely on social pressure to encourage people to not abuse that gray area. So we have someone blatantly abusing the system. (And while I tend to give people extreme benefit of the doubt, I have troubles believing that someone is ignorant of the drought and their relatively high water usage - if it's not the property owner, then it's someone maintaining the property that hasn't raided the issue) I am not at all a fan of mob justice - but at the same time to ignore the role of social pressure in maintaining a balance is to invite a society I don't want to be part of: where everything not explicitly illegal is therefore endorsed. Mob Justice can be a terrible thing: it's applied unequally, tends to ignore subtleties and justifications, and is hard to put back in to the bottle. At the same time, the law can not be the only determination of what is "right", "good", or "encouraged". We need to find some middle ground, where society can disapprove, and the disapproval has weight but not so much weight as to strangle or suffocate someone that doesn't conform.
s73v3r 11y ago
How is this not completely the fault of the person using such extraordinary amounts of water? Are they not an adult? Do they not have full control over their actions?
- irixusr 11y ago
  LA literally steals water from Mexico (see Colorado river and the fact that it doesn't flow into Mexico anymore). So this author's holier-than-thou attitude strikes me as a bit rich: Angelinos are water abusers[1] in general and without exception. They're just sour someone's better at wasting water then they are. That being said, I don't support this gentleman's water usage. But I would increase the water price high enough to hurt everyone into conservation. [1]A city abuses water when they use water beyond the capability of it being replenished. So it's much harder to waste water in T.O. than in LA.
JabavuAdams 11y ago
Actually, hiding behind the letter of the law when your actions are horribly antisocial is creepy.
- irixusr 11y ago
  Then change the law so that authorities within rule of the Law address the issue. Outing people, be they gun owners in NY state or water abusers in LA is harassment. This is not that different from J. Edgar Hoover threatening to "out" homosexuals who didn't do his bidding in the 50s; at the time homosexuality offended the sensibilities of people in the same way that water wastage offends some today. We might agree with the merits of limiting water use, and celebrate our advancement in the treatment of sexual minorities (I do for both), but harassment outside of the Law is abuse.

by irixusr 11y ago

Agreed, which is hardly his/her fault, but rather California/LA politics' fault. Raise prices, or put a multi-tier pricing, or whatever; but harassment for social engineering's sake is creepy.

chucknelson 11y ago

Agree that harassment isn't the way to go about this, but I think we can put a good amount of blame on the individual here - selfish water usage doesn't seem like a great idea in California.

irixusr 11y ago
See my post bellow estimating how large their lot should be assuming golf-course irrigation. I came with ~5 acres This individual is a jerk, no doubt, but 5 acres is small, so their overall usage compared to the total for LA county isn't very significant. LA county as a whole is abusing water. I'd suggest a tiered pricing scheme. Current rates for water usage bellow what 99.9% of what the LA uses (to make it politically expedient), and two orders of magnitude larger otherwise.

ergothus 11y ago

I'm a bit on the fence: On the one hand, no, being crazily abusive of the situation IS his/her fault. Legal does not imply moral or ethical, for good reasons. We legislate the minimum necessary because more restrictive legislation would harm people who have valid reasons/exceptions. Then we rely on social pressure to encourage people to not abuse that gray area. So we have someone blatantly abusing the system. (And while I tend to give people extreme benefit of the doubt, I have troubles believing that someone is ignorant of the drought and their relatively high water usage - if it's not the property owner, then it's someone maintaining the property that hasn't raided the issue) I am not at all a fan of mob justice - but at the same time to ignore the role of social pressure in maintaining a balance is to invite a society I don't want to be part of: where everything not explicitly illegal is therefore endorsed. Mob Justice can be a terrible thing: it's applied unequally, tends to ignore subtleties and justifications, and is hard to put back in to the bottle. At the same time, the law can not be the only determination of what is "right", "good", or "encouraged". We need to find some middle ground, where society can disapprove, and the disapproval has weight but not so much weight as to strangle or suffocate someone that doesn't conform.

s73v3r 11y ago

How is this not completely the fault of the person using such extraordinary amounts of water? Are they not an adult? Do they not have full control over their actions?

irixusr 11y ago
LA literally steals water from Mexico (see Colorado river and the fact that it doesn't flow into Mexico anymore). So this author's holier-than-thou attitude strikes me as a bit rich: Angelinos are water abusers[1] in general and without exception. They're just sour someone's better at wasting water then they are. That being said, I don't support this gentleman's water usage. But I would increase the water price high enough to hurt everyone into conservation. [1]A city abuses water when they use water beyond the capability of it being replenished. So it's much harder to waste water in T.O. than in LA.

JabavuAdams 11y ago

Actually, hiding behind the letter of the law when your actions are horribly antisocial is creepy.

irixusr 11y ago
Then change the law so that authorities within rule of the Law address the issue. Outing people, be they gun owners in NY state or water abusers in LA is harassment. This is not that different from J. Edgar Hoover threatening to "out" homosexuals who didn't do his bidding in the 50s; at the time homosexuality offended the sensibilities of people in the same way that water wastage offends some today. We might agree with the merits of limiting water use, and celebrate our advancement in the treatment of sexual minorities (I do for both), but harassment outside of the Law is abuse.