5 ms·

Man interferes with Natural Course of River via engineering. Decides this was a bad idea. Solution? More engineering. The West screws with water ways and goes

Man interferes with Natural Course of River via engineering. Decides this was a bad idea. Solution? More engineering. The West screws with water ways and goes dry. Solution? Screw with the Mississippi to send water out there where they screwed with water.

ziddoap 4y ago
While the context is wildly different, this type of incremental band-aid fixes of <insert thing> always reminds me of the 2004 movie The Butterfly Effect. The cycle of trying to fix something, making it worse (or other unintended/bad side effects appearing), try to fix the fix, repeat ad nauseum until everything breaks. I know there's a million (probably better) depictions of this pattern, but something about the bathtub scene in that movie will forever haunt me.
- njarboe 4y ago
  This is how life was evolved. How you exist. 4 billion years of band-aid fixes, dead ends, cycle after cycle of living, trying, reproducing and dying. Beautiful, amazing, tragic, and full of terror. It's how the world works. Humans are just part of it.
- majormajor 4y ago
  Someone gets seriously injured. Has surgery, lives! Years later has complications. Needs more extensive treatment. Lives! Years later later has even more complications, dies. Is the moral of that story "never interfere" to you? Nothing lasts forever. Maintenance is needed. [edit to add timeline, per response comment]
  - ziddoap 4y ago
    I wasn't trying to state a moral. Just reminded of an older movie with a similar theme as parent comment, and thought I'd make a comment about it. That alright?
  - pixl97 4y ago
    Someone finds a marginal place to live, very few people live there. Improves the land somewhat. Later had complications and needs more treatment to ensure it's safe to live there. Dam breaks, a million people die. Moral of the story, "Oops, this particular set of choices was a terrible idea, maybe we don't do that again".
    - majormajor 4y ago
      "By a waterway" isn't a marginal place to live, historically. It comes with risk, but avoids a more immediate "oh shit there's no water here" risk. But more generally, this sort of "just don't be stupid" mindset assumes a static world. How many places would we be able to pick if we wanted to avoid any possibility of hundred year disasters? Five-hundred-year disasters? Thousand-year disasters? And when it comes to decisions made hundreds of years ago, how would you unwind those so simply? Just up and move millions of people from a major city? Is that better than trying to mitigate risk?
      - thaumasiotes 4y ago
        > "By a waterway" isn't a marginal place to live, historically. Exactly; living by the water has always been the best choice. The water doesn't even need to be drinkable. GP's style of argument misses the important point that avoiding injuries is not a goal. The tribe that settles by the river and grows to a population of five million, but experiences flood-related losses of a million people once a decade or so, is better off than the tribe that stays in the desert and grows to a population of fifty. Over time, as the bottom of the channel gradually rose, the river overflowed its banks. Dikes were built ever higher to prevent flooding, and in some places the river started to flow above the surrounding countryside. Today, in a stretch of about 1,100 miles, the Yellow River moves along 11 yards above the plain. But dikes do not control silting, and floods continue to occur on an ever larger scale. On more than 1,500 occasions during the [roughly 2100-year] history of imperial China the Yellow River burst its dikes, destroying farmland, killing villagers, and earning its description as "China's sorrow". (The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han, https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674057341/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674057341/ ) Saying you shouldn't live near the river because it occasionally drowns everyone nearby is saying you shouldn't own stocks because sometimes they go down. It's an argument that is completely insane.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > Someone gets seriously injured. Has surgery, lives! Later has complications. Needs more extensive treatment. Lives! Later later has even more complications, dies. > Is the moral of that story "never interfere" to you? That is the moral most doctors tend to take from it, yes. You want to consider what you're gaining from the first surgery. If you're 20 years old, steps two and three are unlikely to occur (not in any way related to the initial surgery), and you're gaining a lot. If you're 80 years old and in poor health, you just described a way of making your own life worse while pissing away most of your savings.
    - majormajor 4y ago
      I intended to imply there were years in between those incidents, apologies, I realize it wasn't clear.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      There's a lot of middle ground, though. If you're 45 years old, and that surgery extends and improves your quality of life until you're 60 or 65, and then you need more surgery to keep things going for another 15-20 years, that's probably worth it, no? Sure, there are plenty of cases where post-surgery life may not be worth it (but then that's entirely in the eyes of the beholder to decide), but that's not all there is.
- buscoquadnary 4y ago
  You just described half the software development jobs I've had.
csdvrx 4y ago
> Man interferes with Natural Course of River via engineering. Decides this was a bad idea. Solution? More engineering. Wow, an ad hominem attack on engineering? That's a very special take to have on a site calles HACKER news! Would you prefer we'd suffer nature and never attempt anything? That's not very hackish :) Whether we like it or not, the Mississippi is sending a lot of clearwater down the gulf of Mexico, water that is needed elsewhere. The plan makes sense- and not just for the most visible parts like the Hoover dam. Nothing is without risk: the risk of doing nothing may be more to your liking, but there will also be consequences, and some people will suffer. Of course, by doing nothing you may try to avoid personal blame - but it's akin to a trolley problem, and inaction can be morally guilty if you believe in utilitarianism. IMHO the most important thing to do is to honestly study all the alternatives (including inaction) then choosing the one that makes the more sense - yes, even if it's action, and even if there may be some prejudice against engineering, or a bad precedent (that can and should be taken into account in the honest study)
- sakopov 4y ago
  > IMHO the most important thing to do is to honestly study all the alternatives Like not farming in deserts? It's ironic to me that progressive states like California refuse to change their incoherent farming practices that have obliterated their water supply yet they're totally open to diverting rivers all over the country outside of California. I think this is what OP was eluding to. The water crisis doesn't need engineering. It needs a change in mentality first and foremost.
  - balentio 4y ago
    If I had any gold doubloons, I'd give you one for this answer.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    These arid Californian climates are very good for agriculture, that's why we need massive geoengineering projects to redirect rivers thousands of miles away to make it work. *scratches head*
deanCommie 4y ago
I don't even know where to begin. First, all of humanity has screwed with waterways for our entire existence. The West, The East, The North, The South. Hell, Beavers do it. But the earliest human civilization was borne on rivers, and grew out of screwing with water ways. For irrigation, for navigation. Every major river in the world that hosts civilization has been MASSIVELY screwed with for that civilization's survival - consistency and predictability is important for us to not DIE, never mind, thrive. That means managing seasonal flooding. That means maintaining a navigatable depth for shipping. That means (eventually, once we woke up) controlling waste flow and filtration, etc. The Mississippi supports tens of millions of people and tens of billions of dollars of economic activity. OF COURSE, humanity was going to make it reliable. There were externalities. Now they're going to deal with those EXACTLY the same way as they did before - yes - with more engineering. "Man decides to cure disease with medicine. The medicine doesn't work. Solution? More medicine! Lunacy!" Well, yes, but DIFFERENT medicine. Just cuz they're both medicine (engineering) doesn't mean that this medicine (adjusting levee routing) is the same as this other medicine (originally having built the levees in the first place.
roywiggins 4y ago
The cost of throwing up our hands and allowing the Mississippi to revert to its natural course would probably be in the trillions of dollars.
- Kon-Peki 4y ago
  The only truly viable solution is a managed transition over the course of 50 years or more. We will fight that inevitability for as long as possible, and God help us if the ORCS fails.
- at-fates-hands 4y ago
  Agree. However, I remember being in Landscape Architecture in college and one of my professors was from Colorado and took every opportunity to go after the US Army Corps of Engineers and repeatedly related their failures as a case study in what not to do. Ironically, a few later in 2005 (while I still in college) Hurricane Katrina blew through all of the US ACOE flood protections. Their plans failed catastrophically with levee breaches in over 50 places. So yeah, we shouldn't throw our hands up, but the US ACOE doesn't have a great track record for making issues like this better.
  - bilbo0s 4y ago
    but the US ACOE doesn't have a great track record for making issues like this better Neither does anyone else. When I survey the landscape for organizations with the experience and equipment to solve water problems in the US, ACOE is right at the top of the list. What organizations do you feel are better suited to these tasks up and down the Mississippi? Of out west in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico? Or down in Georgia-Florida? And so on. These are all diverse and complex engineering challenges that impact wide geographic areas. Failure is to be expected. It's one of the maintenance conditions on infrastructure.
    - labster 4y ago
      Maybe NOAA? Perhaps civilian oversight directing military construction would improve things. At least science and commerce are the core missions at NOAA, not just a side job. I remember hearing about how screwed New Orleans was going to be in a meteorology class, eventually. It didn’t take too long. We all knew for decades in the earth sciences.
adamsmith143 4y ago
The idea that manipulating river flow is the reason for the current drought conditions is ridiculous.
kelnos 4y ago
I mean, if the alternative is people slowly die of dehydration (and all western-US farms lose all their crops), or we have to fast-track depopulation of many western states, ruining peoples lives and wrecking economic output (that will ripple outward to affect the whole country, and then some)... yeah, let's absolutely definitely do something. Water engineering is something that's been done for millennia. Sure, there are bad things that can happen, but modern civilization just doesn't work without water engineering. And I suspect you would not like the kind of civilization we'd have to stick with, if we weren't allowed to touch waterways. Even if you were ok with that, the vast majority of people would not be, and them's the breaks.

ziddoap 4y ago

While the context is wildly different, this type of incremental band-aid fixes of <insert thing> always reminds me of the 2004 movie The Butterfly Effect. The cycle of trying to fix something, making it worse (or other unintended/bad side effects appearing), try to fix the fix, repeat ad nauseum until everything breaks. I know there's a million (probably better) depictions of this pattern, but something about the bathtub scene in that movie will forever haunt me.

njarboe 4y ago
This is how life was evolved. How you exist. 4 billion years of band-aid fixes, dead ends, cycle after cycle of living, trying, reproducing and dying. Beautiful, amazing, tragic, and full of terror. It's how the world works. Humans are just part of it.
majormajor 4y ago
Someone gets seriously injured. Has surgery, lives! Years later has complications. Needs more extensive treatment. Lives! Years later later has even more complications, dies. Is the moral of that story "never interfere" to you? Nothing lasts forever. Maintenance is needed. [edit to add timeline, per response comment]
- ziddoap 4y ago
  I wasn't trying to state a moral. Just reminded of an older movie with a similar theme as parent comment, and thought I'd make a comment about it. That alright?
- pixl97 4y ago
  Someone finds a marginal place to live, very few people live there. Improves the land somewhat. Later had complications and needs more treatment to ensure it's safe to live there. Dam breaks, a million people die. Moral of the story, "Oops, this particular set of choices was a terrible idea, maybe we don't do that again".
  - majormajor 4y ago
    "By a waterway" isn't a marginal place to live, historically. It comes with risk, but avoids a more immediate "oh shit there's no water here" risk. But more generally, this sort of "just don't be stupid" mindset assumes a static world. How many places would we be able to pick if we wanted to avoid any possibility of hundred year disasters? Five-hundred-year disasters? Thousand-year disasters? And when it comes to decisions made hundreds of years ago, how would you unwind those so simply? Just up and move millions of people from a major city? Is that better than trying to mitigate risk?
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      > "By a waterway" isn't a marginal place to live, historically. Exactly; living by the water has always been the best choice. The water doesn't even need to be drinkable. GP's style of argument misses the important point that avoiding injuries is not a goal. The tribe that settles by the river and grows to a population of five million, but experiences flood-related losses of a million people once a decade or so, is better off than the tribe that stays in the desert and grows to a population of fifty. Over time, as the bottom of the channel gradually rose, the river overflowed its banks. Dikes were built ever higher to prevent flooding, and in some places the river started to flow above the surrounding countryside. Today, in a stretch of about 1,100 miles, the Yellow River moves along 11 yards above the plain. But dikes do not control silting, and floods continue to occur on an ever larger scale. On more than 1,500 occasions during the [roughly 2100-year] history of imperial China the Yellow River burst its dikes, destroying farmland, killing villagers, and earning its description as "China's sorrow". (The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han, https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674057341/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674057341/ ) Saying you shouldn't live near the river because it occasionally drowns everyone nearby is saying you shouldn't own stocks because sometimes they go down. It's an argument that is completely insane.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > Someone gets seriously injured. Has surgery, lives! Later has complications. Needs more extensive treatment. Lives! Later later has even more complications, dies. > Is the moral of that story "never interfere" to you? That is the moral most doctors tend to take from it, yes. You want to consider what you're gaining from the first surgery. If you're 20 years old, steps two and three are unlikely to occur (not in any way related to the initial surgery), and you're gaining a lot. If you're 80 years old and in poor health, you just described a way of making your own life worse while pissing away most of your savings.
  - majormajor 4y ago
    I intended to imply there were years in between those incidents, apologies, I realize it wasn't clear.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    There's a lot of middle ground, though. If you're 45 years old, and that surgery extends and improves your quality of life until you're 60 or 65, and then you need more surgery to keep things going for another 15-20 years, that's probably worth it, no? Sure, there are plenty of cases where post-surgery life may not be worth it (but then that's entirely in the eyes of the beholder to decide), but that's not all there is.
buscoquadnary 4y ago
You just described half the software development jobs I've had.

csdvrx 4y ago

> Man interferes with Natural Course of River via engineering. Decides this was a bad idea. Solution? More engineering. Wow, an ad hominem attack on engineering? That's a very special take to have on a site calles HACKER news! Would you prefer we'd suffer nature and never attempt anything? That's not very hackish :) Whether we like it or not, the Mississippi is sending a lot of clearwater down the gulf of Mexico, water that is needed elsewhere. The plan makes sense- and not just for the most visible parts like the Hoover dam. Nothing is without risk: the risk of doing nothing may be more to your liking, but there will also be consequences, and some people will suffer. Of course, by doing nothing you may try to avoid personal blame - but it's akin to a trolley problem, and inaction can be morally guilty if you believe in utilitarianism. IMHO the most important thing to do is to honestly study all the alternatives (including inaction) then choosing the one that makes the more sense - yes, even if it's action, and even if there may be some prejudice against engineering, or a bad precedent (that can and should be taken into account in the honest study)

sakopov 4y ago
> IMHO the most important thing to do is to honestly study all the alternatives Like not farming in deserts? It's ironic to me that progressive states like California refuse to change their incoherent farming practices that have obliterated their water supply yet they're totally open to diverting rivers all over the country outside of California. I think this is what OP was eluding to. The water crisis doesn't need engineering. It needs a change in mentality first and foremost.
- balentio 4y ago
  If I had any gold doubloons, I'd give you one for this answer.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  These arid Californian climates are very good for agriculture, that's why we need massive geoengineering projects to redirect rivers thousands of miles away to make it work. *scratches head*

deanCommie 4y ago

I don't even know where to begin. First, all of humanity has screwed with waterways for our entire existence. The West, The East, The North, The South. Hell, Beavers do it. But the earliest human civilization was borne on rivers, and grew out of screwing with water ways. For irrigation, for navigation. Every major river in the world that hosts civilization has been MASSIVELY screwed with for that civilization's survival - consistency and predictability is important for us to not DIE, never mind, thrive. That means managing seasonal flooding. That means maintaining a navigatable depth for shipping. That means (eventually, once we woke up) controlling waste flow and filtration, etc. The Mississippi supports tens of millions of people and tens of billions of dollars of economic activity. OF COURSE, humanity was going to make it reliable. There were externalities. Now they're going to deal with those EXACTLY the same way as they did before - yes - with more engineering. "Man decides to cure disease with medicine. The medicine doesn't work. Solution? More medicine! Lunacy!" Well, yes, but DIFFERENT medicine. Just cuz they're both medicine (engineering) doesn't mean that this medicine (adjusting levee routing) is the same as this other medicine (originally having built the levees in the first place.

roywiggins 4y ago

The cost of throwing up our hands and allowing the Mississippi to revert to its natural course would probably be in the trillions of dollars.

Kon-Peki 4y ago
The only truly viable solution is a managed transition over the course of 50 years or more. We will fight that inevitability for as long as possible, and God help us if the ORCS fails.
at-fates-hands 4y ago
Agree. However, I remember being in Landscape Architecture in college and one of my professors was from Colorado and took every opportunity to go after the US Army Corps of Engineers and repeatedly related their failures as a case study in what not to do. Ironically, a few later in 2005 (while I still in college) Hurricane Katrina blew through all of the US ACOE flood protections. Their plans failed catastrophically with levee breaches in over 50 places. So yeah, we shouldn't throw our hands up, but the US ACOE doesn't have a great track record for making issues like this better.
- bilbo0s 4y ago
  but the US ACOE doesn't have a great track record for making issues like this better Neither does anyone else. When I survey the landscape for organizations with the experience and equipment to solve water problems in the US, ACOE is right at the top of the list. What organizations do you feel are better suited to these tasks up and down the Mississippi? Of out west in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico? Or down in Georgia-Florida? And so on. These are all diverse and complex engineering challenges that impact wide geographic areas. Failure is to be expected. It's one of the maintenance conditions on infrastructure.
  - labster 4y ago
    Maybe NOAA? Perhaps civilian oversight directing military construction would improve things. At least science and commerce are the core missions at NOAA, not just a side job. I remember hearing about how screwed New Orleans was going to be in a meteorology class, eventually. It didn’t take too long. We all knew for decades in the earth sciences.

adamsmith143 4y ago

The idea that manipulating river flow is the reason for the current drought conditions is ridiculous.

kelnos 4y ago

I mean, if the alternative is people slowly die of dehydration (and all western-US farms lose all their crops), or we have to fast-track depopulation of many western states, ruining peoples lives and wrecking economic output (that will ripple outward to affect the whole country, and then some)... yeah, let's absolutely definitely do something. Water engineering is something that's been done for millennia. Sure, there are bad things that can happen, but modern civilization just doesn't work without water engineering. And I suspect you would not like the kind of civilization we'd have to stick with, if we weren't allowed to touch waterways. Even if you were ok with that, the vast majority of people would not be, and them's the breaks.