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> The experience in College Station has highlighted another challenge: NIMBYs—or people who push for developments to be “not in my backyard”—potentially curtail

by pyrale 2y ago

> The experience in College Station has highlighted another challenge: NIMBYs—or people who push for developments to be “not in my backyard”—potentially curtailing where Amazon operates. The term NIMBY seems to have been popularized to refer to people dogmatically refusing any change, doesn't seem to apply here, where the article describes a real nuisance: > His neighbors began calling the fleet flying chainsaws. Smith, a retired civil engineer, preferred a different comparison: “It was like your neighbor runs their leaf blower all day long,” he says. “It was just incessant.” > If Amazon had conducted the maximum number of flights outlined in its plans reviewed by the FAA, a drone might have buzzed by Smith’s house about every 58 seconds for 15 hours a day. > [After the end of the experiment,] Inside his house, with the double-paned windows shut and TV on, Smith could no longer hear the drones.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
“Some of the College Station residents who have complained about the noise say they still largely support the testing of drones. But many believe Amazon miscalculated by locating its depot close to so many residences.” I agree that it seems improper to characterise these complaints as NIMBYism. The criticism is thoughtful, targeted and rises as much from Amazon’s lack of communication as from its drones’ noise.
- bluGill 2y ago
  The real question is if Amazon developers low noise drones will the people than allow them, or are they completely anti-drone.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > real question is if Amazon developers low noise drones will the people than allow them, or are they completely anti-drone Who in the article seems anti-drone? They all seemed to go out of their way to hedge complaints. Amazon shouldn’t have located a depot, which necessitates low flying and presumably lots of noisy acceleration, in a residential neighbourhood. They ought to have done what they did in the other examples: base out of residential-adjacent industrial areas.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
      There's a reason that so many airports are outside of cities, or in areas where not-so-rich people live. Intermodals are similar. We had one that tried to set up in an area where the residents aren't so well-off, but they were able to shoot it down, anyway. People are getting better at organizing.
      - bombcar 2y ago
        Almost all airports start out outside the city, even the smaller ones. Cities grow around them. NIMBY is a reality that has to be taken into account; but often the problems associated with it are "small enough" that money solves it - who would complain about the Amazon drone-depot behind them if Amazon was paying their property tax to have it there?
    - Crosseye_Jack 2y ago
      > Who in the article seems anti-drone? They all seemed to go out of their way to hedge complaints. Dunno about them being completely anti-drone, but at least one person was worried about the drones camera:- > A parent said their teenage daughter feared using the swimming pool because of the drone’s camera. (Amazon says it faces forward, not down). But Amazon (and to be "fair" to Amazon, pretty much every large tech company) has had issues with data processed by their devices which the users of those devices wouldn't want handled by humans. Pretty much every smart speaker has had incidents with their reviewers being given access to voice recordings not intended for the speaker, in some cases it being recordings of kids. Tesla workers shared sensitive images recorded by customer cars. So yeah, I too would be wary of what imagery drones flying over my private space would be taking. Sure Amazon says the camera(s) only point forward, but at this point I'm not surprised people trust tech companies as far as they can throw them. EDIT: My follow up question to Amazon about the camera(s) on the drone would have been "If the camera only points forward, how does the drone determine that the drop off spot for any delivery is safe at the time of drop off without "looking" down?"
      - hiatus 2y ago
        Ring (an amazon-owned company) had to pay a fine for allowing employees unfettered access to people's footage. [1] No need to "be fair" to Amazon here by pointing out other tech companies. [1]: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/05/ftc-says-ring-employees-illegally-surveilled-customers-failed-stop-hackers-taking-control-users https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/05/...
  - lurk2 2y ago
    The prospect of having drones flying over my backyard for any reason is undesirable even if they are completely silent.
    - AlexandrB 2y ago
      For me it depends on altitude. If they're at the height of the average Cessna, then I'm cool with it. I don't want drones buzzing 100ft above my head though.
      - shreddit 2y ago
        Can either one of you elaborate why? Supposed they were absolutely silent, why would it bother you if they fly 100 feet over your backyard?
        s1artibartfast 2y ago
        I don't like seeing them in general as an aesthetic matter. I would be disappointed if I was under a drone highway. Same reason why I oppose mass billboards in the sky.
        Arainach 2y ago
        None of these things will ever be 100% safe, so a steady stream of one per minute as described in the article poses an actual safety risk. I'm also not a fan of corporations having what amounts to realtime surveillance video of me any time I'm outside of my house.
      - lurk2 2y ago
        The numbers I saw were about 400 feet. The bigger issue is that they aren't manned and are presumably flying at a greater frequency than conventional planes. My concern would be that they fail and fly into the side of my house at full speed. I also don't trust Amazon not to be using these drones for surveillance.
    - taeric 2y ago
      This is one of those things where knowledge makes it bad. As a personal example, having coyotes in my literal backyard on a daily basis is not something I would want. That it happens pretty much every day without me realizing it, though, shows it really shouldn't be a concern of mine. Other than making sure I have protection for any backyard chickens...
  - Timon3 2y ago
    I'd be fine with Amazon drones flying over my house, as long as Amazon pays a fair usage fee. Usually it'd be pay-per-use, but for companies of their size I'm thinking of introducing monthly enterprise subscriptions. Contact my sales team for further information! Oh, and SSO is obviously enterprise only.
- yesfitz 2y ago
  That quote shows that "NIMBY" is especially proper and fitting! They support the idea in theory, but don't want it to be close to them. Like it should be in someone else's backyard.
potato3732842 2y ago
The term NIMBY seems to have been popularized to refer to people dogmatically refusing any change, doesn't seem to apply here, where the article describes a real nuisance: This is textbook No True Scotsman. They're all NIMBYs to varying degrees. I'd rather have delivery drones overhead than government surveyors looking to fine people because their sheds aren't setback far enough or insurers looking to misclassify shadows on roofs as overhanging limbs and whatnot. At least I potentially get something out of it that way.
- throwway120385 2y ago
  So because people oppose some specific change that is causing documented problems for them, they're automatically anti-progress? It should be incumbent on Amazon to resolve the problems their neighbors are having with their drones. Also I don't understand what "government surveyors" have to do with anything. Do you realize that satellite images of your roofline and property are detailed enough and cheap enough that people use them for roofing estimates?
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    > Also I don't understand what "government surveyors" have to do with anything. There have been a few published examples of overzealous code enforcement bureaus using drones to identify otherwise out of sight violations. Which... I hate codes and ordinances as much as anyone, but if you're in violation you're in violation. Better to address the overzealous part of that by forcing a more relaxed policy on the bureau through their leadership (e.g. the mayor).
    - AyyEye 2y ago
      Everyone's in violation. A society where everyone obeys every law is a society of robots.
      - ethbr1 2y ago
        Or a society in which only just laws are on the books.
kragen 2y ago
Generally NIMBYs consider whatever they're opposing to be a real nuisance. If they don't find it a real nuisance, they don't bother. You're describing a caricature, not an actual group of people.
- vile_wretch 2y ago
  > You're describing a caricature, not an actual group of people. It's a term used to describe people who find everything a "real nuisance". There are NIMBYs in my town who spent months protesting sidewalks being built in a new residential subdivision. It's kind of inherently a caricature.
  - lurk2 2y ago
    The sorts of people you're describing do certainly exist, but that isn't how unemployed urban planners on YouTube have historically used the term, which is instead used to browbeat people who (quite reasonably) don't want their neighborhoods transformed by the construction of detox facilities, halfway houses, and mass transit infrastructure.
    - kstrauser 2y ago
      The first two, I’m sympathetic about. You’ve gotta put them somewhere, but I get not wanting them next door. Transit? It’s a city. Don’t live there if you don’t want people moving around nearby. And the ones protesting every single bit of housing development on grounds it mighty change their neighborhood? Yeah, you don’t have the eternal right to keep things exactly as they were the day you moved in.
      - lurk2 2y ago
        [flagged]
      - lurk2 2y ago
        Mass transit is a non-issue in a functional society which incarcerates criminals and institutionalizes the insane. This does not describe the vast majority of major cities in North America. This is why people move to the suburbs in the first place - the inaccessibility of every service except by car is a moat that keeps undesirables from settling there. In an ideal world I would prefer mass transit to driving a car, but not in a world where every train station has an addict using drugs in it, which describes the vast majority of mass transit systems in North America today. > And the ones protesting every single bit of housing development on grounds it mighty change their neighborhood? If they constitute an actual majority of residents, it's their right to dictate the development of the neighborhood as they see fit. > Yeah, you don’t have the eternal right to keep things exactly as they were the day you moved in. This is exactly the kind of hyperbolic dismissiveness that characterizes all of these arguments.
II2II 2y ago
There is nothing wrong with expressing one's concerns. Problems arise when governments allow the concerns of NIMBYs to override the greater social good, allow NIMBYs to stall the decision making process, or fail to cerify the legitimacy of the claims being made. In a case like this, yes it is NIMBYism. On the other hand, having high frequency flights over an existing residential are, for the primary benefit of one party (i.e. Amazon) would seem to support the groundings.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > In a case like this, yes it is NIMBYism College Station’s residents appear to fail your own test. They are prohibited by Texas law from being “allow[ed]…to override” or stall anything, and seem to have made a good case for why a drone buzzing by “every 58 seconds for 15 hours a day” is at least a legitimate grievance. I’d also add a necessary condition to NIMBYism: it’s not in my backyard. NIMBYs want the thing. Just not near them; implicitly: near someone else. The hypocrisy animates the exasperation inherent to the term. The complaints in this article seem to be closer to not in anyone’s backyard.
- brummm 2y ago
  I don't think this is NIMBYism. The complaints are kind of reasonable and also, allowing a private company like Amazon do this most certainly is not something for the greater good. It's just good for Amazon.
macNchz 2y ago
Funnily enough, the fact that these drones are being employed to deliver "toothpaste and batteries" is really kind of a perfect microcosm of the kind of American planning and zoning foundational to modern NIMBYism—in a different environment, daily necessities like that would be available at a corner store very close to where people live, but we've found it preferable to make such restrictive residential areas and require businesses to have large parking lots such that corner stores have disappeared in favor of strip malls and big box stores, and now we're trying to replace those with annoying drones.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  But there's also an efficiency argument there. If technology now allows us to JIT distribute from a single store / warehouse across a larger area, isn't that better? Imho, the real problem with American suburban design is (a) the elimination of spaces where community organically happens (read: corner store) without replacement with something else (e.g. a park) & (b) the centralization of corporate power enabled by monopolies (e.g. Amazon logistics). To (b), I'd much prefer if drone distribution centers like this were city-owned property, with the drone service provided by one or more drone operators, with adjacent warehouse space for any company that wanted to distribute.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Well, it's also possible that delivery drones at scale maybe just have an unavoidable noise pollution factor. Sure, roads do too but those are pretty much a given even in areas with density that supports good public transit--and maybe especially if--see e.g. Manhattan. (And it's not like trains don't cause noise pollution too.) Aside from the odd military helicopter from a nearby training area, I have pretty much zero audible air traffic at my house. I would very much object to large drones overhead on a regular basis.
    - wongarsu 2y ago
      Manhattan is pretty far on the other extreme. In the kind of medium density typical of European cities (dense rows of 3-6 story townhouses) you have enough density to support excellent public transit and multiple supermarkets in walking distance while having very moderate road noise outside of arterial roads. Delivery drones would absolutely increase noise pollution in such places
switch007 2y ago
The term has definitely been weaponised to a degree. Similar to "Karen" to shame people into not complaining about bad products/service
postexitus 2y ago
Definition of NIMBY does not involve dogmas or opposing any change - it's just opposing a change while supporting it to happen elsewhere. It has nothing to do with the change having real or perceived negative impact on the individual. In this specific case, yes there is a real nuisance to the people - but they are happy for the testing to commence elsewhere. This is textbook definition of NIMBYism. The examples here in UK are, "Oh I love renewable energy, but I don't want to see these ugly wind turbines from my window" or "Yes please more bicycle paths, but, no they can't pass through my street".
drivingmenuts 2y ago
If Amazon had bothered to engage with the Texas legislature during the process, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble by having it declared an essential business function and exempt from a large number of regulations. Our legislators are remarkably business-friendly.
ForTheKidz 2y ago
YIMBY orgs are almost entirely bankrolled by tech interests. It's absolutely in their interest to portray any opposition to any development as indistinguishable from the affluent people who don't want to improve anything (aka nimbys). EDIT: softened wording a bit
paulddraper 2y ago
The term NIMBY doesn't have a "reasonable" requirement. It's a complaint that something should not exist close to me, though I think it should exist somewhere. Prison, power plant, waste facility, low-income housing, paper mill, railroad, etc.
scoofy 2y ago
Yeah, NIMBY means "Not In My Backyard" implying that we want that thing, just elsewhere. I don't think anyone in this situation actually wants the drones whizzing around when there is little actual benefit in the first place, and a lot of noise.

by pyrale 2y ago

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

“Some of the College Station residents who have complained about the noise say they still largely support the testing of drones. But many believe Amazon miscalculated by locating its depot close to so many residences.” I agree that it seems improper to characterise these complaints as NIMBYism. The criticism is thoughtful, targeted and rises as much from Amazon’s lack of communication as from its drones’ noise.

bluGill 2y ago
The real question is if Amazon developers low noise drones will the people than allow them, or are they completely anti-drone.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > real question is if Amazon developers low noise drones will the people than allow them, or are they completely anti-drone Who in the article seems anti-drone? They all seemed to go out of their way to hedge complaints. Amazon shouldn’t have located a depot, which necessitates low flying and presumably lots of noisy acceleration, in a residential neighbourhood. They ought to have done what they did in the other examples: base out of residential-adjacent industrial areas.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
    There's a reason that so many airports are outside of cities, or in areas where not-so-rich people live. Intermodals are similar. We had one that tried to set up in an area where the residents aren't so well-off, but they were able to shoot it down, anyway. People are getting better at organizing.
    - bombcar 2y ago
      Almost all airports start out outside the city, even the smaller ones. Cities grow around them. NIMBY is a reality that has to be taken into account; but often the problems associated with it are "small enough" that money solves it - who would complain about the Amazon drone-depot behind them if Amazon was paying their property tax to have it there?
  - Crosseye_Jack 2y ago
    > Who in the article seems anti-drone? They all seemed to go out of their way to hedge complaints. Dunno about them being completely anti-drone, but at least one person was worried about the drones camera:- > A parent said their teenage daughter feared using the swimming pool because of the drone’s camera. (Amazon says it faces forward, not down). But Amazon (and to be "fair" to Amazon, pretty much every large tech company) has had issues with data processed by their devices which the users of those devices wouldn't want handled by humans. Pretty much every smart speaker has had incidents with their reviewers being given access to voice recordings not intended for the speaker, in some cases it being recordings of kids. Tesla workers shared sensitive images recorded by customer cars. So yeah, I too would be wary of what imagery drones flying over my private space would be taking. Sure Amazon says the camera(s) only point forward, but at this point I'm not surprised people trust tech companies as far as they can throw them. EDIT: My follow up question to Amazon about the camera(s) on the drone would have been "If the camera only points forward, how does the drone determine that the drop off spot for any delivery is safe at the time of drop off without "looking" down?"
    - hiatus 2y ago
      Ring (an amazon-owned company) had to pay a fine for allowing employees unfettered access to people's footage. [1] No need to "be fair" to Amazon here by pointing out other tech companies. [1]: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/05/ftc-says-ring-employees-illegally-surveilled-customers-failed-stop-hackers-taking-control-users https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/05/...
- lurk2 2y ago
  The prospect of having drones flying over my backyard for any reason is undesirable even if they are completely silent.
  - AlexandrB 2y ago
    For me it depends on altitude. If they're at the height of the average Cessna, then I'm cool with it. I don't want drones buzzing 100ft above my head though.
    - shreddit 2y ago
      Can either one of you elaborate why? Supposed they were absolutely silent, why would it bother you if they fly 100 feet over your backyard?
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        I don't like seeing them in general as an aesthetic matter. I would be disappointed if I was under a drone highway. Same reason why I oppose mass billboards in the sky.
      - Arainach 2y ago
        None of these things will ever be 100% safe, so a steady stream of one per minute as described in the article poses an actual safety risk. I'm also not a fan of corporations having what amounts to realtime surveillance video of me any time I'm outside of my house.
    - lurk2 2y ago
      The numbers I saw were about 400 feet. The bigger issue is that they aren't manned and are presumably flying at a greater frequency than conventional planes. My concern would be that they fail and fly into the side of my house at full speed. I also don't trust Amazon not to be using these drones for surveillance.
  - taeric 2y ago
    This is one of those things where knowledge makes it bad. As a personal example, having coyotes in my literal backyard on a daily basis is not something I would want. That it happens pretty much every day without me realizing it, though, shows it really shouldn't be a concern of mine. Other than making sure I have protection for any backyard chickens...
- Timon3 2y ago
  I'd be fine with Amazon drones flying over my house, as long as Amazon pays a fair usage fee. Usually it'd be pay-per-use, but for companies of their size I'm thinking of introducing monthly enterprise subscriptions. Contact my sales team for further information! Oh, and SSO is obviously enterprise only.
yesfitz 2y ago
That quote shows that "NIMBY" is especially proper and fitting! They support the idea in theory, but don't want it to be close to them. Like it should be in someone else's backyard.

potato3732842 2y ago

The term NIMBY seems to have been popularized to refer to people dogmatically refusing any change, doesn't seem to apply here, where the article describes a real nuisance: This is textbook No True Scotsman. They're all NIMBYs to varying degrees. I'd rather have delivery drones overhead than government surveyors looking to fine people because their sheds aren't setback far enough or insurers looking to misclassify shadows on roofs as overhanging limbs and whatnot. At least I potentially get something out of it that way.

throwway120385 2y ago
So because people oppose some specific change that is causing documented problems for them, they're automatically anti-progress? It should be incumbent on Amazon to resolve the problems their neighbors are having with their drones. Also I don't understand what "government surveyors" have to do with anything. Do you realize that satellite images of your roofline and property are detailed enough and cheap enough that people use them for roofing estimates?
- ethbr1 2y ago
  > Also I don't understand what "government surveyors" have to do with anything. There have been a few published examples of overzealous code enforcement bureaus using drones to identify otherwise out of sight violations. Which... I hate codes and ordinances as much as anyone, but if you're in violation you're in violation. Better to address the overzealous part of that by forcing a more relaxed policy on the bureau through their leadership (e.g. the mayor).
  - AyyEye 2y ago
    Everyone's in violation. A society where everyone obeys every law is a society of robots.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      Or a society in which only just laws are on the books.

kragen 2y ago

Generally NIMBYs consider whatever they're opposing to be a real nuisance. If they don't find it a real nuisance, they don't bother. You're describing a caricature, not an actual group of people.

vile_wretch 2y ago
> You're describing a caricature, not an actual group of people. It's a term used to describe people who find everything a "real nuisance". There are NIMBYs in my town who spent months protesting sidewalks being built in a new residential subdivision. It's kind of inherently a caricature.
- lurk2 2y ago
  The sorts of people you're describing do certainly exist, but that isn't how unemployed urban planners on YouTube have historically used the term, which is instead used to browbeat people who (quite reasonably) don't want their neighborhoods transformed by the construction of detox facilities, halfway houses, and mass transit infrastructure.
  - kstrauser 2y ago
    The first two, I’m sympathetic about. You’ve gotta put them somewhere, but I get not wanting them next door. Transit? It’s a city. Don’t live there if you don’t want people moving around nearby. And the ones protesting every single bit of housing development on grounds it mighty change their neighborhood? Yeah, you don’t have the eternal right to keep things exactly as they were the day you moved in.
    - lurk2 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - lurk2 2y ago
      Mass transit is a non-issue in a functional society which incarcerates criminals and institutionalizes the insane. This does not describe the vast majority of major cities in North America. This is why people move to the suburbs in the first place - the inaccessibility of every service except by car is a moat that keeps undesirables from settling there. In an ideal world I would prefer mass transit to driving a car, but not in a world where every train station has an addict using drugs in it, which describes the vast majority of mass transit systems in North America today. > And the ones protesting every single bit of housing development on grounds it mighty change their neighborhood? If they constitute an actual majority of residents, it's their right to dictate the development of the neighborhood as they see fit. > Yeah, you don’t have the eternal right to keep things exactly as they were the day you moved in. This is exactly the kind of hyperbolic dismissiveness that characterizes all of these arguments.

II2II 2y ago

There is nothing wrong with expressing one's concerns. Problems arise when governments allow the concerns of NIMBYs to override the greater social good, allow NIMBYs to stall the decision making process, or fail to cerify the legitimacy of the claims being made. In a case like this, yes it is NIMBYism. On the other hand, having high frequency flights over an existing residential are, for the primary benefit of one party (i.e. Amazon) would seem to support the groundings.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> In a case like this, yes it is NIMBYism College Station’s residents appear to fail your own test. They are prohibited by Texas law from being “allow[ed]…to override” or stall anything, and seem to have made a good case for why a drone buzzing by “every 58 seconds for 15 hours a day” is at least a legitimate grievance. I’d also add a necessary condition to NIMBYism: it’s not in my backyard. NIMBYs want the thing. Just not near them; implicitly: near someone else. The hypocrisy animates the exasperation inherent to the term. The complaints in this article seem to be closer to not in anyone’s backyard.
brummm 2y ago
I don't think this is NIMBYism. The complaints are kind of reasonable and also, allowing a private company like Amazon do this most certainly is not something for the greater good. It's just good for Amazon.

macNchz 2y ago

Funnily enough, the fact that these drones are being employed to deliver "toothpaste and batteries" is really kind of a perfect microcosm of the kind of American planning and zoning foundational to modern NIMBYism—in a different environment, daily necessities like that would be available at a corner store very close to where people live, but we've found it preferable to make such restrictive residential areas and require businesses to have large parking lots such that corner stores have disappeared in favor of strip malls and big box stores, and now we're trying to replace those with annoying drones.

ethbr1 2y ago
But there's also an efficiency argument there. If technology now allows us to JIT distribute from a single store / warehouse across a larger area, isn't that better? Imho, the real problem with American suburban design is (a) the elimination of spaces where community organically happens (read: corner store) without replacement with something else (e.g. a park) & (b) the centralization of corporate power enabled by monopolies (e.g. Amazon logistics). To (b), I'd much prefer if drone distribution centers like this were city-owned property, with the drone service provided by one or more drone operators, with adjacent warehouse space for any company that wanted to distribute.
- ghaff 2y ago
  Well, it's also possible that delivery drones at scale maybe just have an unavoidable noise pollution factor. Sure, roads do too but those are pretty much a given even in areas with density that supports good public transit--and maybe especially if--see e.g. Manhattan. (And it's not like trains don't cause noise pollution too.) Aside from the odd military helicopter from a nearby training area, I have pretty much zero audible air traffic at my house. I would very much object to large drones overhead on a regular basis.
  - wongarsu 2y ago
    Manhattan is pretty far on the other extreme. In the kind of medium density typical of European cities (dense rows of 3-6 story townhouses) you have enough density to support excellent public transit and multiple supermarkets in walking distance while having very moderate road noise outside of arterial roads. Delivery drones would absolutely increase noise pollution in such places

switch007 2y ago

The term has definitely been weaponised to a degree. Similar to "Karen" to shame people into not complaining about bad products/service

postexitus 2y ago

Definition of NIMBY does not involve dogmas or opposing any change - it's just opposing a change while supporting it to happen elsewhere. It has nothing to do with the change having real or perceived negative impact on the individual. In this specific case, yes there is a real nuisance to the people - but they are happy for the testing to commence elsewhere. This is textbook definition of NIMBYism. The examples here in UK are, "Oh I love renewable energy, but I don't want to see these ugly wind turbines from my window" or "Yes please more bicycle paths, but, no they can't pass through my street".

drivingmenuts 2y ago

If Amazon had bothered to engage with the Texas legislature during the process, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble by having it declared an essential business function and exempt from a large number of regulations. Our legislators are remarkably business-friendly.

ForTheKidz 2y ago

YIMBY orgs are almost entirely bankrolled by tech interests. It's absolutely in their interest to portray any opposition to any development as indistinguishable from the affluent people who don't want to improve anything (aka nimbys). EDIT: softened wording a bit

paulddraper 2y ago

The term NIMBY doesn't have a "reasonable" requirement. It's a complaint that something should not exist close to me, though I think it should exist somewhere. Prison, power plant, waste facility, low-income housing, paper mill, railroad, etc.

scoofy 2y ago

Yeah, NIMBY means "Not In My Backyard" implying that we want that thing, just elsewhere. I don't think anyone in this situation actually wants the drones whizzing around when there is little actual benefit in the first place, and a lot of noise.