We had another line of fierce storms move through this afternoon, lots of rain and lightning. Two houses out in the burbs were struck by lightning and were on fire.
I was thinking about this: Why would people buy these really expensive houses – yet not invest $2500 or so in a lightning rod?
Because our educational system is structured as an interrogation of Q & A which has only to do with correct answers, not with contemplation, problem solving, connecting dots or any kind of imaginative creative thinking at all. It probably never even occurred to them until it happened. If someone in authority did not tell them to do it, they would never think to wonder and contemplate enough to imagine it could happen to them. Experience is an unforgiving teacher.
Same problem with 9-11.
It’s because they don’t have the working practical knowledge to maintain a house, no sense that they might also have to deal with basic the physical processes of nature, let alone what those processes are or how they operate. Darwin sorts these people out in the end.
Add to the above cogent commentary the fact that zoning boards routinely approve building in floodplains, draining “swampland” and other short-sighted, money driven decisions based on a worldview which leads directly to the collapse we’re now undergoing worldwide. The destruction of other species’ habitats (including the oceans), the non-stop pollution we pour into the atmosphere and biosphere thinking it’s all “disposed of” (when in fact it has HUGE consequences later) are never given any thought. For example the waste-water from fracking is being dumped directly into streams, rivers and watersheds, not to mention overloading the treatment plants which were not designed to handle such complicated chemicals.
To put it bluntly – humanity is by and large comprised of idiots bent on their own demise via ignorant, short-sighted, profit-driven motives and is not fit to live on the planet any longer.
Being old, I remember a time when people were told lightning rods only work to attract lightning, not to disperse it.
I’ve read that when they’re properly constructed and sited, they work.