4 ms·

The govt needs rural people settling remote areas Can you expand on this? Is there a general social benefit to people settling remote areas?

motohagiography 5y ago
Economic growth in diversified regions. They are the roots for growth, where in cities, the marginal value they contribute is a fraction of what they can contribute outside of one. There is a prevailing political worldview predicated on warehousing people in cities and making them dependent on public services, which values human life as managed livestock in service of an owner, and not as an engine of growth and development, but that is one I do not share.
- stinkytaco 5y ago
  > They are the roots for growth, where in cities, the marginal value they contribute is a fraction of what they can contribute outside of one. It sounds like you are ascribing some special virtue to rural living that I just don't see. When I think about work that adds social value, very little of it requires rural living (farming, mostly) and most of it can be done anywhere (computer programming, skilled trades, manufacturing, etc.). Why is a person's contribution bigger if they are rural? What special value is there in doing these things in a place no one lives? Why do we need to increase growth in some arbitrary rural location. > There is a prevailing political worldview predicated on warehousing people in cities and making them dependent on public services And ironically, you are arguing that we should be providing these people a public service, presumably because they are dependent on it. I fail to see where the cut off should be.
  - motohagiography 5y ago
    Their marginal contribution is greater because they literally bring human civilization from where it is, to where it is not yet, and where there is more opportunity for growth by virtue of nobody else being there, and return what they produce there back to the urban economies. A marginal chicken in a mass feeding factory is less valuable than a marginal chicken in a backyard. It's a question of numbers and impact. The life of a marginal person in a city is not as valuable or meaningful to their neighbours as a marginal person in the country, as there are more strong ties in rural areas, and more weak ones in urban ones. In this sense of marginal numbers, cities cheapen lives. Maybe that's the point, where humans should switch our r/K selection strategy from high investment in K-selected lives to low investment r-selected lives, and try to exist and spread more like bugs than mammals, but that's not something I'd advocate. If you want the necessary growth and evolution of a civilization for long term survival, you need to diversify it over geography. The cut off for public services is the persons relationship to them. When you pull hydro lines into rural areas, you facilitate growth from each marginal person out there. When you supply power to a new suburb, you are facilitating marginal growth there at a lower rate. The public service dependency occurs when growth is a zero-sum competition for the attention of a provider (see Ivan Illich's radical monopoly and related ideas), instead of exogenously sourced growth in a rural setting, merely facilitated by public services. The crux of the policy disagreement is in different axioms about the value of individual life (v. collective "good"), which I don't think we reconcile here, but we can see how our assessments of a policy are certainly artifacts of them.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
ipaddr 5y ago
The government of Canada paid/pays people to live in remote northern regions. Use it or lose it. It allows Canada to claim regions that could be up for dispute in the future. Canada and Greenland engage in events that visit remote places and leave symbols like flags to show usage and provide a historical record for the world court if it came to it.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  Disputed by who? Some scattered towns aren't going to significantly impact claims by indigenous peoples, and anybody else claiming big chunks of the top half of Canada is going to get laughed out of the room.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    Those towns are filled with indigenous people and Canada pays many to be part of a para military force in case of invasion or just to provide ground level information . Hans island is in dispute between Greenland and Canada and both countries visit every year to plant a flag. Having a settlement if possible year round would make the claim stronger. The northwest passage is seeing Russian / US subs crossing without permission. Having a population creates a stronger claim for situations like this.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      > Those towns are filled with indigenous people and Canada pays many to be part of a para military force in case of invasion or just to provide ground level information . Okay but that's not about claiming the territory. > Hans island is in dispute between Greenland and Canada and both countries visit every year to plant a flag. Having a settlement if possible year round would make the claim stronger. Okay, that's a tiny island. Far over 99% of the land is not in dispute, and doesn't need towns to stop it from being in dispute. And even there, they don't bother to have anyone live on it! I feel like this island supports the idea that these populations are disconnected from land claims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nares_strait_border_(Kennedy_channel).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nares_strait_border_(Kenn... Also wow it super does not matter who owns this island when the strait is already split right down the middle. > The northwest passage is seeing Russian / US subs crossing without permission. Having a population creates a stronger claim for situations like this. How so? I could see how an active port could physically get in the way of sneaking through, but I don't see at all how a town gives canada a better claim for keeping those subs away.

motohagiography 5y ago

Economic growth in diversified regions. They are the roots for growth, where in cities, the marginal value they contribute is a fraction of what they can contribute outside of one. There is a prevailing political worldview predicated on warehousing people in cities and making them dependent on public services, which values human life as managed livestock in service of an owner, and not as an engine of growth and development, but that is one I do not share.

stinkytaco 5y ago
> They are the roots for growth, where in cities, the marginal value they contribute is a fraction of what they can contribute outside of one. It sounds like you are ascribing some special virtue to rural living that I just don't see. When I think about work that adds social value, very little of it requires rural living (farming, mostly) and most of it can be done anywhere (computer programming, skilled trades, manufacturing, etc.). Why is a person's contribution bigger if they are rural? What special value is there in doing these things in a place no one lives? Why do we need to increase growth in some arbitrary rural location. > There is a prevailing political worldview predicated on warehousing people in cities and making them dependent on public services And ironically, you are arguing that we should be providing these people a public service, presumably because they are dependent on it. I fail to see where the cut off should be.
- motohagiography 5y ago
  Their marginal contribution is greater because they literally bring human civilization from where it is, to where it is not yet, and where there is more opportunity for growth by virtue of nobody else being there, and return what they produce there back to the urban economies. A marginal chicken in a mass feeding factory is less valuable than a marginal chicken in a backyard. It's a question of numbers and impact. The life of a marginal person in a city is not as valuable or meaningful to their neighbours as a marginal person in the country, as there are more strong ties in rural areas, and more weak ones in urban ones. In this sense of marginal numbers, cities cheapen lives. Maybe that's the point, where humans should switch our r/K selection strategy from high investment in K-selected lives to low investment r-selected lives, and try to exist and spread more like bugs than mammals, but that's not something I'd advocate. If you want the necessary growth and evolution of a civilization for long term survival, you need to diversify it over geography. The cut off for public services is the persons relationship to them. When you pull hydro lines into rural areas, you facilitate growth from each marginal person out there. When you supply power to a new suburb, you are facilitating marginal growth there at a lower rate. The public service dependency occurs when growth is a zero-sum competition for the attention of a provider (see Ivan Illich's radical monopoly and related ideas), instead of exogenously sourced growth in a rural setting, merely facilitated by public services. The crux of the policy disagreement is in different axioms about the value of individual life (v. collective "good"), which I don't think we reconcile here, but we can see how our assessments of a policy are certainly artifacts of them.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

ipaddr 5y ago

The government of Canada paid/pays people to live in remote northern regions. Use it or lose it. It allows Canada to claim regions that could be up for dispute in the future. Canada and Greenland engage in events that visit remote places and leave symbols like flags to show usage and provide a historical record for the world court if it came to it.

Dylan16807 5y ago
Disputed by who? Some scattered towns aren't going to significantly impact claims by indigenous peoples, and anybody else claiming big chunks of the top half of Canada is going to get laughed out of the room.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Those towns are filled with indigenous people and Canada pays many to be part of a para military force in case of invasion or just to provide ground level information . Hans island is in dispute between Greenland and Canada and both countries visit every year to plant a flag. Having a settlement if possible year round would make the claim stronger. The northwest passage is seeing Russian / US subs crossing without permission. Having a population creates a stronger claim for situations like this.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > Those towns are filled with indigenous people and Canada pays many to be part of a para military force in case of invasion or just to provide ground level information . Okay but that's not about claiming the territory. > Hans island is in dispute between Greenland and Canada and both countries visit every year to plant a flag. Having a settlement if possible year round would make the claim stronger. Okay, that's a tiny island. Far over 99% of the land is not in dispute, and doesn't need towns to stop it from being in dispute. And even there, they don't bother to have anyone live on it! I feel like this island supports the idea that these populations are disconnected from land claims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nares_strait_border_(Kennedy_channel).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nares_strait_border_(Kenn... Also wow it super does not matter who owns this island when the strait is already split right down the middle. > The northwest passage is seeing Russian / US subs crossing without permission. Having a population creates a stronger claim for situations like this. How so? I could see how an active port could physically get in the way of sneaking through, but I don't see at all how a town gives canada a better claim for keeping those subs away.