Enjoying the pod. I'm on board with the Abundance agenda, and I've just started reading Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's book. But I must admit that my ears pricked up when Joe's examples of Everythingism included the need for the proposal for a new nuclear power station on Ynys Môn to consider the impact on the Welsh language. We were invited to think this was a crazy thing to have to think about at all, which I must politely push back against since it's my first language and it means a lot to me. Also the site isn't that far away from me.
To be clear, I think we should build the new nuclear power station, and I'm enthusiastically pro-nuclear in general (a lot of people around here aren't, though; there's a significant split within Plaid Cymru about it). But a project of this size is obviously going to have an impact on the language, given that we're talking about one of its heartlands here (l think many people from outside Wales are still sincerely unaware of the extent to which there are still large swathes of Wales where the community language isn't English; I promise that Welsh is not just a hobby). Ignoring it completely is definitely not an option.
Like with everything else, NIMBYs do sometimes invoke the language as a way to oppose all development, which I find annoying (we can't both moan that young Welsh-speakers are priced out of their own communities while also opposing the building of houses), so it's not like I'm trying to carve out one special exception to the Abundance agenda where I get to retain veto power whenever something happens to touch on MY pet interest, honest!
This nuclear proposal has been an off-on-off-etc saga for years. I don't know the details about the language impact aspect of it, though I highly doubt it was anywhere near the main stumbling block. Either way, I'm ready to accept there are probably more sensible ways of doing this stuff. It just shouldn't be dismissed outright, that's all. There are complicated linguistic trade-offs, and we should at least try to have an idea what they are. Personally, I'm in favour of a new plant not just because nuclear is good in general (although that is the main reason, let's face it), but also because it could provide good jobs for local people in lieu of crap seasonal ones in the tourist sector.
You make an interesting point! I think Joe's point on "everythingism" is not that, say, protecting the Welsh language wouldn't be a laudible goal - its more about the mechanism. So, eg, it might be bad to tie welsh language provisions to the nuclear plant, because it would place a burden on the energy company etc, but it could be more sensible to run some other programme to support the welsh language as an end in itself, if you see what I mean.
I do, and I agree (it's interesting when the Welsh language pops up when I don't expect it to, so I had to comment!).
I think this idea of an independent project is exactly what I was trying to get at. Kind of like how, with the HS2 bat tunnel, the proper objection isn't that we shouldn't give a shit about bats. It's that the tunnel was a nonsensical way of spending £100m *even from the bats' perspective*. I'm fairly sure that even giving, say, 10% of that money to bat conservationists, with the freedom to use it pretty much as they see fit, ignoring the direct effects of HS2 completely, would have been a far greater net benefit for the bat community.
Obviously that would still involve some bureaucracy. But it's surely better than the current obsession with trying to directly cancel out the original externality, which is probably impossible anyway.
Enjoying the pod. I'm on board with the Abundance agenda, and I've just started reading Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's book. But I must admit that my ears pricked up when Joe's examples of Everythingism included the need for the proposal for a new nuclear power station on Ynys Môn to consider the impact on the Welsh language. We were invited to think this was a crazy thing to have to think about at all, which I must politely push back against since it's my first language and it means a lot to me. Also the site isn't that far away from me.
To be clear, I think we should build the new nuclear power station, and I'm enthusiastically pro-nuclear in general (a lot of people around here aren't, though; there's a significant split within Plaid Cymru about it). But a project of this size is obviously going to have an impact on the language, given that we're talking about one of its heartlands here (l think many people from outside Wales are still sincerely unaware of the extent to which there are still large swathes of Wales where the community language isn't English; I promise that Welsh is not just a hobby). Ignoring it completely is definitely not an option.
Like with everything else, NIMBYs do sometimes invoke the language as a way to oppose all development, which I find annoying (we can't both moan that young Welsh-speakers are priced out of their own communities while also opposing the building of houses), so it's not like I'm trying to carve out one special exception to the Abundance agenda where I get to retain veto power whenever something happens to touch on MY pet interest, honest!
This nuclear proposal has been an off-on-off-etc saga for years. I don't know the details about the language impact aspect of it, though I highly doubt it was anywhere near the main stumbling block. Either way, I'm ready to accept there are probably more sensible ways of doing this stuff. It just shouldn't be dismissed outright, that's all. There are complicated linguistic trade-offs, and we should at least try to have an idea what they are. Personally, I'm in favour of a new plant not just because nuclear is good in general (although that is the main reason, let's face it), but also because it could provide good jobs for local people in lieu of crap seasonal ones in the tourist sector.
You make an interesting point! I think Joe's point on "everythingism" is not that, say, protecting the Welsh language wouldn't be a laudible goal - its more about the mechanism. So, eg, it might be bad to tie welsh language provisions to the nuclear plant, because it would place a burden on the energy company etc, but it could be more sensible to run some other programme to support the welsh language as an end in itself, if you see what I mean.
I do, and I agree (it's interesting when the Welsh language pops up when I don't expect it to, so I had to comment!).
I think this idea of an independent project is exactly what I was trying to get at. Kind of like how, with the HS2 bat tunnel, the proper objection isn't that we shouldn't give a shit about bats. It's that the tunnel was a nonsensical way of spending £100m *even from the bats' perspective*. I'm fairly sure that even giving, say, 10% of that money to bat conservationists, with the freedom to use it pretty much as they see fit, ignoring the direct effects of HS2 completely, would have been a far greater net benefit for the bat community.
Obviously that would still involve some bureaucracy. But it's surely better than the current obsession with trying to directly cancel out the original externality, which is probably impossible anyway.