5 ms·

Or the people who don't like living in a remote area with high prices could choose to move somewhere else? The US is huge.

downrightmike 19d ago
But there are people there
walrus01 19d ago
Nome, Alaska is a majority indigenous community as are many fly-in towns in Alaska, so you're basically saying something as tone-deaf as "why don't the indigenous people just abandon the place they've lived for thousands of years just because "modern" settled life showed up in the form of the United States of America". Yeah, it's costly and difficult to live there, but that's their home.
- rahimnathwani 19d ago
  These teenagers aren't thousands of years old. Neither are their parents. The folks suggesting that other people should pay to improve things for people choosing to live in that area seem to simultaneously believe that these people: - have a right to the benefits of what you call '"modern" settled life', AND - cannot be inconvenienced by the things that make that life possible (like density)
  - walrus01 19d ago
    > The folks suggesting that other people should pay to improve things for people choosing to live in that area If the United States federal government wants to maintain a legitimate claim to sovereignty over much of rural Alaska, which is very sparsely populated, it needs to maintain an actual population there and provide basic services to it. It's a fairly well established geopolitical principle. Similarly there's something like 41,000 people in Nunavut, and the Canadian government spends a shitload every year subsidizing all their communities' existence. But the alternative is worse, if you remove the population there's a danger that other interested parties might try to lay claim to it for themselves. It seems we're already seeing that with the US trying to claim Greenland for itself based on the concept that nobody is doing anything useful with it.
    - rahimnathwani 19d ago
      "it needs to maintain an actual population there and provide basic services to it. It's a fairly well established geopolitical principle." I don't think that's true. See the middle paragraph of page 46 here: https://icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/permanent-court-of-international-justice/serie_AB/AB_53/01_Groenland_Oriental_Arret.pdf https://icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/permanent-court-of-i... The ICJ said that sovereignty over "thinly populated or unsettled countries" can be sustained with very little actual exercise of sovereign authority. It upheld sovereignty over unsettled portions of Greenland. They later used the same principle talking about islands that were "uninhabited or not permanently inhabited". You seem to be saying there's a general requirement that every part of sovereign territory must maintain a resident population AND that the government must provide certain 'basic services' there. But that doesn't seem to be true, at least according to the ICJ. If what you said were true, then no state could claim sovereignty over an unhabited place. But that's not true. The ICJ ruled that Malaysia had sovereignty over Ligitan, even though the island has a population of zero. https://www.icj-cij.org/node/103163 https://www.icj-cij.org/node/103163
      - walrus01 19d ago
        I somehow doubt that the major world powers that might have the capability or inclination to occupy a depopulated Alaska or Nunavut would put much credence in or be scared by a strongly worded opinion issued by the ICJ. One of them is busy trying to invade their European neighbor right now with bloody results. The other one is on a major island building project in the South China Sea turning sandbars and coral reefs into air bases to claim the oceanic territory.
        rahimnathwani 19d ago
        When you said "It's a fairly well established geopolitical principle." I assumed you were talking about the legal aspect. That's why I responded the way I did. Now I understand you're talking about not about the legality, but the practicality. That's even easier to refute I think: if a world power wanted to annex that part of Alaska, the ~4000 current residents of Nome wouldn't be much of a deterrent, even with their hunting rifles.

downrightmike 19d ago

But there are people there

walrus01 19d ago

Nome, Alaska is a majority indigenous community as are many fly-in towns in Alaska, so you're basically saying something as tone-deaf as "why don't the indigenous people just abandon the place they've lived for thousands of years just because "modern" settled life showed up in the form of the United States of America". Yeah, it's costly and difficult to live there, but that's their home.

rahimnathwani 19d ago
These teenagers aren't thousands of years old. Neither are their parents. The folks suggesting that other people should pay to improve things for people choosing to live in that area seem to simultaneously believe that these people: - have a right to the benefits of what you call '"modern" settled life', AND - cannot be inconvenienced by the things that make that life possible (like density)
- walrus01 19d ago
  > The folks suggesting that other people should pay to improve things for people choosing to live in that area If the United States federal government wants to maintain a legitimate claim to sovereignty over much of rural Alaska, which is very sparsely populated, it needs to maintain an actual population there and provide basic services to it. It's a fairly well established geopolitical principle. Similarly there's something like 41,000 people in Nunavut, and the Canadian government spends a shitload every year subsidizing all their communities' existence. But the alternative is worse, if you remove the population there's a danger that other interested parties might try to lay claim to it for themselves. It seems we're already seeing that with the US trying to claim Greenland for itself based on the concept that nobody is doing anything useful with it.
  - rahimnathwani 19d ago
    "it needs to maintain an actual population there and provide basic services to it. It's a fairly well established geopolitical principle." I don't think that's true. See the middle paragraph of page 46 here: https://icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/permanent-court-of-international-justice/serie_AB/AB_53/01_Groenland_Oriental_Arret.pdf https://icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/permanent-court-of-i... The ICJ said that sovereignty over "thinly populated or unsettled countries" can be sustained with very little actual exercise of sovereign authority. It upheld sovereignty over unsettled portions of Greenland. They later used the same principle talking about islands that were "uninhabited or not permanently inhabited". You seem to be saying there's a general requirement that every part of sovereign territory must maintain a resident population AND that the government must provide certain 'basic services' there. But that doesn't seem to be true, at least according to the ICJ. If what you said were true, then no state could claim sovereignty over an unhabited place. But that's not true. The ICJ ruled that Malaysia had sovereignty over Ligitan, even though the island has a population of zero. https://www.icj-cij.org/node/103163 https://www.icj-cij.org/node/103163
    - walrus01 19d ago
      I somehow doubt that the major world powers that might have the capability or inclination to occupy a depopulated Alaska or Nunavut would put much credence in or be scared by a strongly worded opinion issued by the ICJ. One of them is busy trying to invade their European neighbor right now with bloody results. The other one is on a major island building project in the South China Sea turning sandbars and coral reefs into air bases to claim the oceanic territory.
      - rahimnathwani 19d ago
        When you said "It's a fairly well established geopolitical principle." I assumed you were talking about the legal aspect. That's why I responded the way I did. Now I understand you're talking about not about the legality, but the practicality. That's even easier to refute I think: if a world power wanted to annex that part of Alaska, the ~4000 current residents of Nome wouldn't be much of a deterrent, even with their hunting rifles.