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Comment by typewithrhythm

2 days ago

People choose where they live, and should bear the cost relative to the amount of risk they chose to take. Government funding is not a magical blanket that somehow makes it moral to take from someone who made good decisions and give to another who made poor ones.

I get that we're on a tech forum but the vast, vast majority of people in this country don't have the financial ability to just move wherever they want. I'm not saying that means that Floridians shouldn't worry about this, but this bootstraps narrative is ridiculous. Everyone here makes substantially more money than the average Joe.

  • Agreed in general, but is it reasonable to say to people living in multi-million dollar houses on some of the world's most coveted real estate that they are should assume the risks of it? Or move?

The dutch aren't insured against a dike breaking (Which has its own history).

But the dikes have been collectively maintained through laws and regulation from a local semi-democratic system for 800 years (separate from government). It was a necessity as 1 delinquent could screw up everything.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_board_(Netherlands)

  • The point is that the costs (to build the dikes) are fully internalized by the people who live there, rather than being cross-subsidized by people far away.