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Re:Crystalline nets harvest water from desert air, turn CO2 ... by abdullahkhalids on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @03:10AM (#20874703)
Statement 1: People living in the "wrong" place must be moved to the "right" place.

Statement 2: I refuse to provide additional financial accommodations to people living in the "wrong" place compared to those living in the "right" place.

The two are very different statements. Statement 1 is much less defensible position than statement 2, even though even 2 can be problematic. You seemed to hold statement 1 as your position in the first comment and sort of acknowledged statement 2 in your second. Please don't espouse statement 1, is all I am saying.

Re:Crystalline nets harvest water from desert air, turn CO2 ... by liability on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @03:24AM (#20874783)
> "You seemed to hold statement 1 as your position in the first comment"

That may have been your read of it, but that was not my intention. If somebody wants to stay behind, as some in Centralia did, that's their perogative. Society has an obligation to help people meet their basic requirements, but the form that assistance comes in is another matter. The assistance may very well be in the form of "we can't afford to support your lifestyle in that location, so we'll pay you to move."

If moon men figure out a way to pull water out of rocks, that's wonderful for them. But if they want me to give them water, I'll be glad to give them all they need as soon as they come back to earth. They're entitled to clean water, but not clean water on the moon.

Re:Crystalline nets harvest water from desert air, turn CO2 ... by magduf on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @04:59PM (#20881352)
>Statement 1: People living in the "wrong" place must be moved to the "right" place. >Statement 1 is much less defensible position than statement 2

How is this not defensible at all? It's perfectly reasonable. Let's go back to Centralia PA: how exactly do you propose the government make that town safe to live in when there's a coal fire underneath it which has been burning for 50 years? It that doesn't qualify as "the wrong place", I don't know what does. You can cry about moral problems all you want, but the laws of physics (which govern coal fires) really don't care about human morals and ethics.

Let's come up with an even more extreme example: NASA determines a space rock is going to strike your town (of ~10,000) next year and wipe it out. Let's assume that somehow their accuracy is excellent. There's nowhere near enough time to come up with a way of rerouting this killer asteroid (after all, we've never done that before and don't really have the technology), and luckily it's only big enough to wipe out your town, instead of causing planetary-level destruction. The government wants to relocate everyone to safety. Are you saying this is wrong somehow, and that the government should somehow make this town safe from asteroid impacts? That's truly insane.