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Comment by tristanj | Hacker News Reader

> Have you read the environmental impact - just the summary on the wikipedia article is fucking horrific.

I did read the article thank you, and I understood when I posted it there would be multiple comments highlighting the environmental issues. I could have chosen not to write a comment about NAWAPA, and nobody would have cared, but I simply wish for people to know this project exists. I have no intention of arguing with you or any of the other posters on this.

I think it's important to understand that we've known the American Southwest has had water problems since the 1800s, had a solution to fully resolve them, but for various reasons chose not to.

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> I think it's important to understand that we've known the American Southwest has had water problems since the 1800s, had a solution to full resolve them, but for various reasons chose not to.

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, that's like saying that I've understood that my Maserati payment is too much for me to afford and I've known that since the day I bought it and the solution proposed by my financial adviser was to crash it into a fuel depot at 150kph, but for various reasons I chose not to.

You can't just say "hey, we knew this would happen but our failure to sacrifice thousands of square kilometers of land, a whole lot of natural habitats, the livelihoods of the same number of people who live in Spokane, oh and the little thing of almost completely destroying a major fish species that is relied on by humans and animals alike...that's on us" and call it a day. Well, I suppose you can, but that's rather disingenuous of you for any future people who find this thread.

You're being disingenuous. The language in your original comment was quite noticeably biased in favour of the project.

You still could have written a comment about the NAWAPA but in much more neutral terms. Up to you, but with your choosing to write such a ‘ra-ra’ comment it is completely unsurprising that people responded to balance things up and point out the massive down-sides of the project which you had glossed over.

Since you're keen on giving advice, I'll bite, how would you describe NAWAPA to others?

The way I see it, no matter which way I described it, I knew there would be commenters who would have a visceral reaction when they learned about the project's externalities. There's a reason this project was killed before getting anywhere. Hence, I knew full on when writing the grandparent comment there would be that kind of reply, from people solely letting others know how much they disagree with the project.

I don't see much value arguing with these commenters, because they've already decided their opinion. And I gain no benefit convincing them otherwise.

Obviously, based on the votes on the grandparent comment, some people did find what I wrote interesting or insightful enough to upvote. But it did bring out many unhappy posters. How would you have handled it?

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