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"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 ge

"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.
- pasttense01 4y ago
  The alternative to not living near the river is to live on higher ground (and use the land near the river for agriculture, parks etc.). Given that there is vastly more land on the higher ground than near the river, I don't see the problem with doing so.

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.

pasttense01 4y ago
The alternative to not living near the river is to live on higher ground (and use the land near the river for agriculture, parks etc.). Given that there is vastly more land on the higher ground than near the river, I don't see the problem with doing so.