Irrationality

[3278]

A Portland reservoir was recently drained of all 7.8 million gallons of water, at the expense of over $32,000, because a man had urinated into it. The reservoir was open, so ducks live in it and shit in it. Animals bathe in it. Animals die in it, pretty regularly, and they don't empty the reservoir for that. The water is chlorinated, and urine is largely harmless and sterile in any case. [And can you believe they have an open reservoir?]

What's your favorite example of poor decision-making on the basis of irrationality?

[Van Der Litreb]

It's open? That seems like a rather bad idea. I guess that's what the chlorine is for. But aren't bird leftovers particularly bad for drinking water? About 10 years ago a single pigeon found its way into the [closed] water reservoir in Copenhagen, and people started getting sick immediately.

[Raygun]

[And can you believe they have an open reservoir?]

Well, it looks like they actually have three of them in that same park. One of them is named 'City of Portland Reservoir #6", so I guess there's probably more, though I don't know if they're all so accessible. I have a feeling this story, which sounds pretty ridiculous at first, is meant to show Portland residents that some of their water storage systems are easy to tamper with. I assume the aim is to change that without addressing it directly in case the next dipshit decides to drop a deuce before they can put some fences up or remove the reservoirs from the municipal water supply.

Yes, I can believe it, though. The Missouri River is dammed here, as it passes right through the middle of the city. A reservoir that provides all of our drinking water sits behind it. I've seen dead cattle floating in it, and it really wouldn't surprise me if people piss in it on a fairly regular basis. Hell, I'm pretty sure I've been drinking most of Helena's piss for 10 years! Obviously, the water is treated pretty thoroughly before it is pumped up to several closed tanks around the city. I assume the same is true for Portland's Mt Tabor reservoirs.

What's your favorite example of poor decision-making on the basis of irrationality?

I guess mine would be the second invasion of Iraq, but that's a pretty big and obvious one.

[3278]

The thing I don't get about the open reservoir is that it's potable water. Like, storing lots of water in the open pre-treatment, okay, but why would you deliver something straight from an artificial lake to people's taps? I definitely think people can over-react to water quality - like, a cup of piss in 8 million gallons of water - but this seems like leaving a glass of water out for a couple of weeks and then just drinking off the top because all the bad stuff that fell into it must have settled to the bottom by now.

Why don't they just use water towers, or rooftop cisterns? If New York City doesn't have open reservoirs of treated water, then there must be a solution for high-density areas.

[Bonefish]

Well according to homeopathy, that little bit of piss is like, a million times stronger because it's diluted...

[Raygun]

The thing I don't get about the open reservoir is that it's potable water. Like, storing lots of water in the open pre-treatment, okay, but why would you deliver something straight from an artificial lake to people's taps?

If that's the case, I agree. It's really, really dumb (and kind of difficult to believe). If you're going to store water in the open in the middle of a big city, then you need to treat it afterwards.

I read in another article that the city approved building a new reservoir last month in order to take these offline and comply with federal regulations regarding water safety.

[Bonefish]

How about the cold War?

[Ancient History]

I see your Cold War and raise you the War on Drugs.

[Raygun]

I see your Cold War and raise you the War on Drugs.

That's a good one.

[3278]

Or, depending on your perspective, those can both be considered the very soul of rationality: people largely following the conclusions their rationality lead them to, with only difference in initial assumptions inspiring differing positions. But from that perspective, pretty much nothing could be considered irrational, except hypocrisy and clearly objective conditions.

[WillyGilligan]

I think Ted Nugent counts as a bit irrational.

While I'm not keen on letting a lot of violent thugs walk, I don't get how myopic people get when it comes to prisoner rights. You actually don't have to be a violent threat to society at large to end up in prison, and the overcrowding puts the lives of the staff at risk. If you can't even acknowledge those facts, I think you shouldn't talk about prison conditions in the first place.

[Salvation122]

Or, depending on your perspective, those can both be considered the very soul of rationality: people largely following the conclusions their rationality lead them to, with only difference in initial assumptions inspiring differing positions. But from that perspective, pretty much nothing could be considered irrational, except hypocrisy and clearly objective conditions.

Eh. The Cold War started largely because of Stalin's paranoia, his certainty that the west would invade and crush Russia - despite the fact that the US was the sole nuclear power on earth for five years, could have done so if they chose to, and did not.

[Bonefish]

Eh. The Cold War started largely because of Stalin's paranoia, his certainty that the west would invade and crush Russia - despite the fact that the US was the sole nuclear power on earth for five years, could have done so if they chose to, and did not.

I don't know. We could've used our nukes, I guess, but how many did we have? Did we have enough range on the 29s to get over the Urals and bomb the hell outta the russian tank factories?

Keep in mind, that the Berlin Victory parade, with hundreds of IS-3 tanks rolling through Berlin shook the western world thoroughly. There was no way in hell the US could've sent Shermans and Pershings up against the IS-3. The IS-3's 122mm cannon could more than penetrate the Pershings armor at 1500m, while the pershings 90mm would need to close within 500m to penetrate the IS-3. The T-34/85 also out performs the M4 sherman by considerable margins.

Soviet tank doctrine and experience was probably better as well, due to fighting the best of the German armor, and learning by fire. I seriously doubt that the US could have rolled the USSR in 1945 without going nuclear. And even that's risky, because we'd have to completely annihilate some pretty long range targets in central asia to cripple Russian military power back then.

Hell, Russia is still the only state in the world that I think could give the US a run for it's money: they are right on our tails as far as technology goes, and I'm still not sure if our M1s outperform their T-90s. The T-80s would be different, but even then... It's a crap shoot.

[3278]

The Cold War started largely because of Stalin's paranoia, his certainty that the west would invade and crush Russia...

While I would agree it continued because of Stalin's paranoia - a charge which then must also be levied on a host of American leaders - I would argue that its origins lie with Lenin and his American contemporaries, who possessed radically differing worldviews but a clear comprehension that no one could tolerate open warfare on the scale that would be required to settle the conflict in martial terms.

But you can always push back the "origin" of any movement or event: what caused the Cold War was thousands of years of history, so quibbling about 20 or 30 seems trivial.