> I hope I'm wrong, but in the absence of hardliner ideologues following the money is a very accurate predictor of how large sociopathic entities comprised of m

> I hope I'm wrong, but in the absence of hardliner ideologues following the money is a very accurate predictor of how large sociopathic entities comprised of many humans who are "just doing their jobs" (e.g. states) act. i was with you until the bit about “the state”. from what i understand of the situation, the government isn’t watering the rocky, dry, dusty chunks of land that are being used as farms. these are privately owned individuals and companies throwing water away. if the state (whether utah, or federal) declares that its absurd to waste water attempting to grow crops in _the desert_ then certain people will declare the government is unfairly throwing its weight around. the coming water wars are gonna be such a mess unless steps are taken now to mitigate. related sidenote: i vaguely remember reading a few years ago that oil barons were buying up land all over, separating the water rights and reselling the land minus the water rights. does anyone know of any good recent studies or reading on this?