Yeah. This is like the most obvious question but the most difficult one. I have this theory that highly developed societies lose the frame of mind where we can just accept that kind of self-organizing rough and tumble. Not truly impossible, but sort of physiologically collectively impossible for us to bear when we have the choice not to. Which is a lot deeper and could apply to a lot of things.
Yeah. This is like the most obvious question but the most difficult one. I have this theory that highly developed societies lose the frame of mind where we can just accept that kind of self-organizing rough and tumble. Not truly impossible, but sort of physiologically collectively impossible for us to bear when we have the choice not to. Which is a lot deeper and could apply to a lot of things.
I think part of it is that everyone has come to expect a certain level of polish on everything produced, including our built environment.
A century ago, maybe slightly less, people knew that some buildings were ugly and some pretty, and generally wanted pretty buildings. They knew that streets needed traffic signals and crosswalks.
Today, people want the crosswalk to be THIS wide, with ADA-compliant curbs, beg buttons that make ADA-compliant beeps, and a dozen more features (not trying to single out the ADA!). And if they have a complaint, it goes onto some backlog that the city won’t get to for several months or even years, if ever. When the city DOES get around to it, some other NIMBY is gonna come along and lodge a new complaint, AND everyone’s going to complain about how it costs the taxpayers $700k for a freaking stoplight.
It’s no wonder that people want things built to a perfect, finished state. In some ways, this is reminiscent of our crisis with the filibuster: It’s so hard to go back and fix mistakes, everyone’s double afraid to change anything in the first place.
Yeah. This is like the most obvious question but the most difficult one. I have this theory that highly developed societies lose the frame of mind where we can just accept that kind of self-organizing rough and tumble. Not truly impossible, but sort of physiologically collectively impossible for us to bear when we have the choice not to. Which is a lot deeper and could apply to a lot of things.
I think part of it is that everyone has come to expect a certain level of polish on everything produced, including our built environment.
A century ago, maybe slightly less, people knew that some buildings were ugly and some pretty, and generally wanted pretty buildings. They knew that streets needed traffic signals and crosswalks.
Today, people want the crosswalk to be THIS wide, with ADA-compliant curbs, beg buttons that make ADA-compliant beeps, and a dozen more features (not trying to single out the ADA!). And if they have a complaint, it goes onto some backlog that the city won’t get to for several months or even years, if ever. When the city DOES get around to it, some other NIMBY is gonna come along and lodge a new complaint, AND everyone’s going to complain about how it costs the taxpayers $700k for a freaking stoplight.
It’s no wonder that people want things built to a perfect, finished state. In some ways, this is reminiscent of our crisis with the filibuster: It’s so hard to go back and fix mistakes, everyone’s double afraid to change anything in the first place.