General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[dtkvictim]

I don't think it's really fair to expect the general public to be coherent when it comes to their opinions on new developments. The truth is that they either like it or they don't like it, and will develop the necessary arguments to support their position. This isn't intellectually rigorous, but opinions don't really need to be.

I do expect a higher standard from our decision-makers, though.

I mean, I agree with you completely. But like I said, we should stop listening to these people, we should start calling them on their bullshit.

Honestly, I think this is a fairly toxic situation in our society...people have never been faced with their bullshit. It's the same with the freedumb morons. They've been pandered to for years, every moronic thought that enters their brain was listened to, and now they're marching on the capital because being asked to wear a mask communism to them. Obviously that's an extreme example, but it comes from the same place.

I'm not suggesting that we don't speak to these people with compassion, but humouring their bullshit doesn't help anyone.

Bolding the first line of jamincan's post because it can be interpreted two different ways (not sure how he intended), but I read it a little differently than I think you did. The public doesn't collectively form a coherent opinion because such a collective opinion doesn't really exist, it's the sum of thousands of opinions each of which are far more valid than the sum of their parts.

Using language like "these people" to fully disregard the individuals you are referring to makes me think you are falling into the same trap as politicians who listen to the collective output. Take opposition to a development as an example (I'm being generously positive here just for the sake of example, I know it's actually worse): 100 people report 100 different minor, non-blocking gripes against a development. The perspective politicians incorrectly take is attributing the sum of all 100 issues to each of the 100 individuals, which makes them feel the public sentiment are far more negative than it may actually be. It causes them to skip right past determining which issues can and should be resolved, straight to denying the development.

On a personal level, this same issue colours my judgement of the public (and probably yours, using language like "these people"). I easily look at this example and think "Wow, I completely disagree with all 100 of these people", but in reality I'm in at least 99% agreement with all 100 individuals, and of the 100 possible issues I only disagree with each individual on at most 1 specific problem.

A lot of bullshit issues are going to be brought up, and those do need to be called out. But that needs to be done without calling the more reasonable concerns bullshit as well. It just really sucks to be addressing major change within our cities while undergoing multiple crises as it feels like we don't have time for the nuance these issues deserve.