4 ms·

This is not how you get things done in a society - you can’t just say “they don’t agree with me already, they must be stupid”. You have to actually talk to them

• magduf 9y ago
  That works with some stuff, but the example given was so plainly obvious that if a significant number people disbelieve it, it's really a lot like the inhabitants of 1600s Salem believing in witchcraft: they're just so mired in stupid thinking that I don't think you're going to convince them. It's very simple: you can only fit so many people into a given space depending on the housing type (e.g., single-family houses vs. high-rise condos), and the laws of supply and demand apply: if more people want to live in a place, the prices are going to go up, so the only way to mitigate that is to build denser housing. If demand is increasing, there simply is no way to keep housing affordable if everyone demands to hang onto less-efficient types of housing. This isn't a difficult concept. I realize this isn't quite as simple as "water is wet", but still, it's pretty easy and if people don't accept it after a 2-minute explanation (which I assume they've heard, otherwise they wouldn't be expending so much energy trying to oppose new construction), then it seems hopeless they'll ever accept it.