It is an unfortunate reality of our existence that sometimes Chesterton actually did build that fence for a good reason, a good reason that's still here.

(One of my favorite TED talks was about a failed experiment in introducing traditional Western agriculture to a people in Zambia. It turns out when you concentrate too much food in one place, the hippos come and eat it all and people can't actually out-fight hippos in large numbers. In hindsight, the people running the program should have asked how likely it was that folks in a region that had exposure to other people's agriculture for thousands of years, hadn't ever, you know... tried it. https://www.ted.com/talks/ernesto_sirolli_want_to_help_someo...)

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bobson381 8 days ago | parent | next [-]

You sound like you'd like the book Seeing like a State.

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HDThoreaun 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why didnt they kill the hippos like we killed the buffalo?

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lesuorac 8 days ago | parent [-]

Hippos are more dangerous than emus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War

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HDThoreaun 8 days ago | parent [-]

My understanding of the emu war is that they werent dangerous so much as quick to multiply. The army couldnt whack the moles fast enough. Hippos dont strike me as animals that can go underground when threatened

	▲	mrguyorama 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Also, the Emu "war" was really "The emu invasion and a singular machine gun team". It was a good simulation of how effective Call Of Duty heros actually are. They aren't.

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im3w1l 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Shoot the hippos to death for even more food. If it doesn't seem to work it's just a matter of having more and bigger guns.

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ljlolel 8 days ago | parent | prev [-]

TEDx