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And it's OK that this move is making the Mayor more than a few enemies. The job of elected officials is not to please everyone. The job of elected officials is

by grecy 7y ago

And it's OK that this move is making the Mayor more than a few enemies. The job of elected officials is not to please everyone. The job of elected officials is to improve stuff, and leave the region in a better state than when they came into office. In the coming years and decades we're going to need a lot of elected officials to "make enemies" as they work hard to improve the unsustainable world we've built.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Yes! Very true! But you have to be prepared when the knife comes for your back politically (ie voter support must continue). Otherwise you’re leaving these civil servants high and dry.
acdha 7y ago
… and 50 years from now the people being annoyed by green measures will be remembered only as at best misguided, like the people who claimed that smog prevention would devastate California’s economy.
- sitkack 7y ago
  Because of our pervasive rejection of logic/math/science/engineering we also cannot get rewarded for what did not happen. Even in supposed engineering driven businesses, the lack of rigor is astonishing. Use science, double check your work, map out the cognitive blind spots. Humans are drama addicted, short attention span, hairless chaos monkeys that like to look heroic fixing existing problem, and ignore impending ones.
  - acdha 7y ago
    This is a bit pessimistic — it especially ignores the role of highly-paid denial campaigns, which are far from inevitable – and in any case, any scenario where people are talking about it not happening is highly unlikely. We’ll be very lucky if the argument is that it wasn’t severe enough to warrant action because that’s basically halting along current levels.
- rodgerd 7y ago
  You mean... voted into power and determined to destroy them?
grumpydba 7y ago
> And it's OK that this move is making the Mayor more than a few enemies. This is basically a PR piece. The mayor has enemies because of the attrocities she inflict on parisian citizens ie: http://belairsud.blogspirit.com/archive/2016/04/03/du-style-haussmannien-au-style-ranch-3069932.html http://belairsud.blogspirit.com/archive/2016/04/03/du-style-... All of this while tripling the deficit and turning some districts into crackheads theme parks (you can google "la colline du crack"). Several other miscelanous issues: - rat problem - bad planing in street renovation projects causing huge jams (and thus polution spikes...) So she now plays the victim cards saying her vocal opponnents are nasty car addicts. And some people believe it.
rootusrootus 7y ago
The job of elected officials is to represent the people, no more, no less. "Improve stuff" is extremely subjective I don't think I want one guy to decide what it is.
- 11235813213455 7y ago
  There are some improvements, like planting trees, that can't be debated
  - nickpeterson 7y ago
    Too many trees attract pests and their roots break water pipes, I think we should cut them all down.
- arbol 7y ago
  Leaders are supposed to lead...
- acdha 7y ago
  What is that supposed to mean in practice? Unless you have pure direct democracy on every issue, someone is going to make a judgement call which not everyone is going agree with. This is especially true on issues like allocation of public spaces where there’s always going to be someone who gets less than they want, and a vested interest which wants to preserve their advantage — like the drivers who’ve benefited from heavy subsidies in most of the industrialized world.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > Unless you have pure direct democracy on every issue, someone is going to make a judgement call which not everyone is going agree with. This will still happen -- on every issue -- if you have pure direct democracy on every issue. It's not a problem that direct democracy improves or even addresses.
    - acdha 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

by grecy 7y ago

toomuchtodo 7y ago

Yes! Very true! But you have to be prepared when the knife comes for your back politically (ie voter support must continue). Otherwise you’re leaving these civil servants high and dry.

acdha 7y ago

… and 50 years from now the people being annoyed by green measures will be remembered only as at best misguided, like the people who claimed that smog prevention would devastate California’s economy.

sitkack 7y ago
Because of our pervasive rejection of logic/math/science/engineering we also cannot get rewarded for what did not happen. Even in supposed engineering driven businesses, the lack of rigor is astonishing. Use science, double check your work, map out the cognitive blind spots. Humans are drama addicted, short attention span, hairless chaos monkeys that like to look heroic fixing existing problem, and ignore impending ones.
- acdha 7y ago
  This is a bit pessimistic — it especially ignores the role of highly-paid denial campaigns, which are far from inevitable – and in any case, any scenario where people are talking about it not happening is highly unlikely. We’ll be very lucky if the argument is that it wasn’t severe enough to warrant action because that’s basically halting along current levels.
rodgerd 7y ago
You mean... voted into power and determined to destroy them?

grumpydba 7y ago

> And it's OK that this move is making the Mayor more than a few enemies. This is basically a PR piece. The mayor has enemies because of the attrocities she inflict on parisian citizens ie: http://belairsud.blogspirit.com/archive/2016/04/03/du-style-haussmannien-au-style-ranch-3069932.html http://belairsud.blogspirit.com/archive/2016/04/03/du-style-... All of this while tripling the deficit and turning some districts into crackheads theme parks (you can google "la colline du crack"). Several other miscelanous issues: - rat problem - bad planing in street renovation projects causing huge jams (and thus polution spikes...) So she now plays the victim cards saying her vocal opponnents are nasty car addicts. And some people believe it.

rootusrootus 7y ago

The job of elected officials is to represent the people, no more, no less. "Improve stuff" is extremely subjective I don't think I want one guy to decide what it is.

11235813213455 7y ago
There are some improvements, like planting trees, that can't be debated
- nickpeterson 7y ago
  Too many trees attract pests and their roots break water pipes, I think we should cut them all down.
arbol 7y ago
Leaders are supposed to lead...
acdha 7y ago
What is that supposed to mean in practice? Unless you have pure direct democracy on every issue, someone is going to make a judgement call which not everyone is going agree with. This is especially true on issues like allocation of public spaces where there’s always going to be someone who gets less than they want, and a vested interest which wants to preserve their advantage — like the drivers who’ve benefited from heavy subsidies in most of the industrialized world.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > Unless you have pure direct democracy on every issue, someone is going to make a judgement call which not everyone is going agree with. This will still happen -- on every issue -- if you have pure direct democracy on every issue. It's not a problem that direct democracy improves or even addresses.
  - acdha 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]