Peterkin

Adobe or some form of cob construction has been used in many parts of the world for millennia. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/why-these-west-african-architects-choose-mud-over-concrete https://regenerativeskills.com/articles-1-2016-5-24-cob-getting-to-know-one-of-constructions-most-ancient-and-versatile-materials/ https://thefifthestate.com.au/innovation/materials/new-meets-old-cob-houses-enter-the-twenty-first-century/ in hot and cold climates, as its insulating properties are equally effective against both extremes. It's a whole lot more cost-effective than drilling rock and allows for more configurations as well as more functional interior spaces. It's happening. Well, a big rock would be earthquake proof, so long as it wasn't a seaside cliff, but they are hard to move from inland, so the people would need super fast transport tunnels to get to a city. Unless their work space was in their home. You know there are already plenty of existing and abandoned mines where all the blasting has been done already. I wouldn't want to live in one - especially near the San Andreas Fault, but it's hot and growing hotter by the year in New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona, too, where people might not be very keen on having monumental rock formations destroyed.

Can you please demonstrate how bronze age technology works in modern elevators? I didn't realize the giant termite structure proposal was restricted to Southern California. But, of course, we don't actually know what climatic changes Southern California may be facing in the next two or three decades. What is the monetary and ecological cost of these various coating options on the required scale? Sorry. You hadn't mentioned hollowing out rocks. Who needs daylight anyway, right? And who wouldn't appreciate a 4x4' pillar in their bedroom? Are there lots of these big rocks in Southern California that nobody owns or will you bring them over from Africa? That's all right, it wasn't important. Just interesting, I thought, that people a long time ago faced similar problems and came up with solutions that can still be useful today. And yet you feel inclined to post. At length. How ironic. I could have gone on longer, but my interest flagged. Judge for yourself.

The idea is fairly old - no finance; just humanpower in a difficult climate. https://online.nmartmuseum.org/nmhistory/art-architecture/ancestral-pueblo-architecture/history-ancestral-pueblo-architecture.html The revived version is less interesting.

You have a couple of problems there. The energy required to lift everything - all the materials in construction and then all the occupants and their supplies. The power source has to be constant, which is very difficult to ensure under present climate conditions, let alone those yet to come. It would also require superlative insulation, with so much surface area exposed to sun and blizzard. And the usual high-rise problems: how to escape if it's hit by a hurricane or earthquake or bomb. The building materials themselves are a major consideration. Steel and concrete have ugly big ecological bootprints. I quite like this part. I have a notion of repurposing some existing office towers to human habitations, including community food and recreation gardens on every third or so floor. But that leaves the other problems - energy, lifts and insulation - unsolved. Much safer, and more efficient, though undesirable to claustrophobics, are underground cities. On the whole, I would prefer an Earthship house.

Lots more relatives across the sea.

I can't think of more than one reason: He looked it up and sent off the solution, without taking any of it seriously. My guess is he wasn't really engaged, maybe absorbed in something else but didn't want to let you down: Here's an answer, go away and stop bothering me.

Know what better than who does? I assume that I know some things better than some people, and that I know some things imperfectly or not at all, while some other people know those other things far better or a little better than I do. I've never met a god, and don't claim to know them at all, but I've read and heard quite a lot about many of them. I assume some people know more about them than I do and some people know less.

Yes, that's also a question. Nice to see God left out of it.

Yes. Therefore, the correct question is: What are the benefits of imagination?

I don't need top think a god will extract revenge or bestow rewards on my behalf, so that's a moot point. If there is a benefit to be had in imaginary justice, it's from the imagined application, not the imagined agency.

What's 'true justice'? A concept; something we imagine to be possible, but never bring about to everyone's satisfaction. Just as there might be some form of continued existence in the absence of deity, there is also no guarantee that a god or even God metes out justice in a conscious personal afterlife, or by what standards of right and wrong it operates. We only have the words of interpreters of old text - who have been mistaken and downright mendacious on many subjects. So, the benefits you're asking about are of faith - a castle in the clouds. Those benefits are real for many people - far too often at the detriment of many other people.

You're quite right. I shouldn't have taken the bait.

Yes. A uniform electoral system throughout a federation hardly translates to "all-powerful", but can be twisted to tell the voters that. Seems to me unending civil war is a bigger and more immediate concern. For some citizens, the disenfranchisement of large segments of the population is a concern. We all have different concerns.

To prevent a civil war? Not opposed to or compared to anybody; in terms of their own future. I was answering a question with an honest opinion, based on subsequent events, some of which should have been foreseeable. I'm sorry if this offends.

You mean the American ones? They made a right dog's breakfast of it, actually. They should not have excluded so many people They should have included more safeguards against fraud They should have restricted states rights So, the different states had different election rules, and levels of popular representation. And, of course, the splitting the country into slave / free halves was a horrendous blunder that not only led directly to the biggest slaughter in US history And even more of disease in the aftermath.(by comparison, 405, 400 were killed in WWII, when the population was ten times the what it was 1860. Meanwhile, the wretched existence of enslaved people resulted in immeasurable suffering, which continues today. Maybe so, but they seemed more interested in a strong, economically successful federation that could stand up to England and Spain than the welfare of the general populace. To that end, they made disastrous compromises. However, the amending formula did serve, over time, to mitigate many of the effects. (Which may be why some vested interests want to tear it up.)

I don't need to. I get plenty of external validation.

Is that why they include and amending formula? Everyone has a right to walk on public roads, too - yet I wouldn't let my three-year-old out by himself, even if he wanted to. I guess that's because of my know-better fascist tendencies.

Does that mean that you are in favour of reform, but see it as difficult, or that all attempts at reform are futile, or that reform is a bad idea?

Very magnanimous, I'm sure. I understood that's what a constitution was for, and supreme courts were set up to adjudicate whether a newly introduced law conforms to those principles. But maybe I was wrong about that, too, just as I underestimated the wisdom the crowd that has produced such stellar governance.

Not exactly. I would like to see democracy in name operate as democracy in action. You asked what reforms might accomplish that and I made some suggestions. I didn't realize reforming a long-abused, corrupted and deformed system would come across as fascist. So, never mind; just let things run their course.

Who said it was? If they were - and I don't see it demonstrated - it would be because the crowd submitted a hundred guesses of which the average was used, while the expert had only one guess. I'll wait for a court to assign that experiment as your sentence for some misdemeanour. I doubt the US citizenry will go along with that. Some of their factions work hard to disallow the votes of their fellow citizens.

A whole overhaul, I should think. I'd start with proportional representation. Then remove the money: prohibit lobbies and patronage; stop fundraising and give each candidate the same travel voucher. Liberate the judiciary from the ignominy of political election and appointment, determine heads of government departments and agencies by merit, not political favour. Disband the electoral college, take district delineation and voter registration away from the states, ban rallies and media advertising, reduce campaign events to 2 months prior to the election. Then we could review what else needs fixing.

Fine. Could you also figure out a way to stop those same hacks preventing people of African and Latin origin and people who live below the poverty line from voting? The thing is, the American political system - as well as many others, obviously - could benefit from some major reforms, because the way matters stand, these democracies are not living up to their name.

Yes, I'm familiar with that abuse of power. There are many - voter suppression, intimidation, redistricting, changing the eligibility requirements and registration without notice, placing the polling stations where poor people can't reach them, refusing employees time to vote, misinformation, etc., etc. Democracy is fragile and corruptible - especially when it runs on money. The answer to abuse is not simply to rely on public ignorance and gullibility. This is why I didn't just advocate a state-administered test for voter registration, but an elementary-school course in civics (thus, no great intellectual attainment is required, and all legal school-leavers would have had the same course.) Immigrants are often better informed than born citizens, because they have to take a test. This relegates naturalized citizens to second-class: they have to earn their voting right while a born citizen has it as an unquestioned prerogative. An informed electorate is all that can possibly prevent abuses becoming the norm for all governance. Voters need a better-founded knowledge of their system of government and more reliable - factual, rather than sensational - information. It's not impossible.

It's just my crazy, irrational notion that government isn't democratic unless the people understand what they're voting for.