How do you kill a bad idea?

Originally posted on Making New Zealand.

Here's an interesting thought. Imagine what would happen if the global warming scaremonger machine discovered that they'd made a god-awful mistake, and that CO2 emissions were not a problem after all nor were ever realistically going to be. What would happen?

The answer is pretty much nothing. There would be a few detractors who would throw in their towels, because they can no longer support the cause of climate alarmism, but probably the greater body of people would simply put their heads in the sand and keep on keeping on. They have mortgages to pay and children to take care of. As for the detractors, they would be quickly replaced by more willing participants looking for a job, and before you know it we're back to business as usual (er, no blasphemers allowed).

My point is that money talks, even before truth. If your establishment is standing on a false premise, then that won't count for much if the premise is nonetheless being funded.

So this is the point. Once an idea becomes an establishment and it achieves a financial bloodline, some way or another, it will then NEVER fall on its sword. Even if in principle it should. The establishment wins and regardless of general human will.

Urban planning (yes, I was getting to that) as we know it today is indeed a bad idea. Yet it's funded, for and by plenty of pigs at the trough, and so here we have it. And for all the efforts of people like myself it hasn't gone away (though thankfully, times may be changing).

Modern planning ideology irrationally demonizes sprawl, even though only 1 part in 125 of New Zealand's land area is urbanized, and even though sprawl is often notably green in itself. They take the position that it's somehow the place of planners to dictate how people should live. In practice that means forcing people to live in small apartments and townhouses, for even if that's not their natural preference, because they believe that a city works better that way. Don't like it? You want to live in a detached home in a leafy suburb? Too bad. The planners know best.

This is philosophically perverse thinking. We should plan to accommodate demand - not dictate it. It's not the (rightful) place of planners to dictate our lifestyles, ahead of individual choice.

So how do we kill the planning poison, of which has devastated affordable housing and seriously undermined real economic development? We do it by going public - and driving direct political pressure. We kill it by making sure ever more people know the basics. The included video is one of my best efforts to that end.

And be assured, you're not listening to money because I have not been and will not be paid a dime. I can happily afford to be honest with myself, and likewise everyone else.

Link to my video: https://youtu.be/ay8wGdbQElU