You can't destroy the city.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Was I deep enough for Starbucks™?

I have no idea, my city doesn't have one.

In America you all live in Starbucks?
I see why you don't like people talking about different cities.

You said a City was an idea.  You then said you have no idea.

So where do you live?

[Aufenthatt]

Not in a city?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Not in a city?

Everything is a City.  You said there was no difference, for example between a small City and a large town.  We can logically infer that there is thus no difference between a city--->town--->village--->hamlet--->single dwelling--->Belgium.

[Aufenthatt]

Not in a city?

I'm not playing along anymore.
I thought you might have a good point worth hearing to start with.


Everything is a City.  You said there was no difference, for example between a small City and a large town.  We can logically infer that there is thus no difference between a city--->town--->village--->hamlet--->single dwelling--->Belgium.

Not in a city?

Everything is a City.  You said there was no difference, for example between a small City and a large town.  We can logically infer that there is thus no difference between a city--->town--->village--->hamlet--->single dwelling--->Belgium.

Yeah, i'm not playing along anymore.
I thought you might have a good point to start with.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Not in a city?

I'm not playing along anymore.
I thought you might have a good point worth hearing to start with.


Everything is a City.  You said there was no difference, for example between a small City and a large town.  We can logically infer that there is thus no difference between a city--->town--->village--->hamlet--->single dwelling--->Belgium.

Not in a city?

Everything is a City.  You said there was no difference, for example between a small City and a large town.  We can logically infer that there is thus no difference between a city--->town--->village--->hamlet--->single dwelling--->Belgium.

Yeah, i'm not playing along anymore.
I thought you might have a good point to start with.

Liberate yourself from the vice-like grip of my spurious logic!

[Aufenthatt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_David%27s

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_David%27s

Wales is just an idea.

A hairy, filthy idea.

[Aufenthatt]

Actually I think you are at Starbucks level now.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Actually I think you are at Starbucks level now.

We've been at Starbucks level since your first post in this thread.  Which is just an idea on an idea of a board on an idea of an interbutts.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Solopsism always brings out my dickish side.

[Aufenthatt]

Actually I think you are at Starbucks level now.

We've been at Starbucks level since your first post in this thread.  Which is just an idea on an idea of a board on an idea of an interbutts.

Not really. This thread is about not being able to destroy a city, so a city being a vague concept is fine to talk about. Of all the threads to push "semantic integrity OR NOTHING" this is one of the worst. I understand what urks you so much, but here it actually is one of the reasons you can't kill a city easily.

[Aufenthatt]

Solopsism always brings out my dickish side.

Watch out, there are grammar nazi snipers.

[Scribbly]

The OP inspired me to try writing something again... I don't know if it is worth a damn or in the right spirit at all, but I figured I'd try anyway. If this would be better on its own or something, lemme know and I can delete it and move it.



A city is a collection of buildings; how to destroy a city has been covered extensively. New buildings may be erected, but they are not the same city, no matter how much people may cling to the old name. A city is a physical thing, like any physical thing, eventually, left untended, it will be rendered into nothingness.

The City is far more resilient. It doesn't care what you do to the city. The bricks and buildings are really just a host, for a far more insidious parasite. You can do what you want to the city, and The City will keep calling people back there, to rebuild it, to keep it going.

There are cities where the heart has been ripped out. Hideous, half-dead half-alive abominations that continue to exist despite the mind-numbing despair of the inhabitants. When the purpose for the settlement has long since passed, when the mines have run dry or the factories have closed, The City is still there, even as the city crumbles all around it. Buildings stop being maintained, crime and desperation- ever present in all cities, of course- become even more rampant and obvious.

This was more common in the old days, back when Gold Fever meant that new cities might spring up and dissolve in a matter of weeks. Some poor souls would be left behind, due to illness, or tiredness, or simply because they were sure that they could Make Something here. This was the kind of fever which led to men tearing the ground bloody with their fingernails. Certain that if they could find just one scrap more of gold, then all the good times would come rolling back again. Then they could clothe their city in the latest styles, and they wouldn't need to fear any more.

Oh yes, killing a city is as easy as hitting the jobs of the people who live there. Destroy the purpose and the ability for the city to live up to what it used to be, and it will wither and rot. The City will live on inside it, throbbing wetly away as healthy as ever. But as the city is peeled away by recession and need, The City's face becomes clearer underneath the layers of grime.

I don't think it is possible to even scratch The City. All I know is, when it's eyes, bloodshot and insane, are forced to focus enough on anything that it takes notice, stripped out of its comfortable shell, I wouldn't want to be the one looking up at it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Actually I think you are at Starbucks level now.

We've been at Starbucks level since your first post in this thread.  Which is just an idea on an idea of a board on an idea of an interbutts.

Not really. This thread is about not being able to destroy a city, so a city being a vague concept is fine to talk about. Of all the threads to push "semantic integrity OR NOTHING" this is one of the worst. I understand what urks you so much, but here it actually is one of the reasons you can't kill a city easily.

Tell it to Timgad.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The OP inspired me to try writing something again... I don't know if it is worth a damn or in the right spirit at all, but I figured I'd try anyway. If this would be better on its own or something, lemme know and I can delete it and move it.



A city is a collection of buildings; how to destroy a city has been covered extensively. New buildings may be erected, but they are not the same city, no matter how much people may cling to the old name. A city is a physical thing, like any physical thing, eventually, left untended, it will be rendered into nothingness.

The City is far more resilient. It doesn't care what you do to the city. The bricks and buildings are really just a host, for a far more insidious parasite. You can do what you want to the city, and The City will keep calling people back there, to rebuild it, to keep it going.

There are cities where the heart has been ripped out. Hideous, half-dead half-alive abominations that continue to exist despite the mind-numbing despair of the inhabitants. When the purpose for the settlement has long since passed, when the mines have run dry or the factories have closed, The City is still there, even as the city crumbles all around it. Buildings stop being maintained, crime and desperation- ever present in all cities, of course- become even more rampant and obvious.

This was more common in the old days, back when Gold Fever meant that new cities might spring up and dissolve in a matter of weeks. Some poor souls would be left behind, due to illness, or tiredness, or simply because they were sure that they could Make Something here. This was the kind of fever which led to men tearing the ground bloody with their fingernails. Certain that if they could find just one scrap more of gold, then all the good times would come rolling back again. Then they could clothe their city in the latest styles, and they wouldn't need to fear any more.

Oh yes, killing a city is as easy as hitting the jobs of the people who live there. Destroy the purpose and the ability for the city to live up to what it used to be, and it will wither and rot. The City will live on inside it, throbbing wetly away as healthy as ever. But as the city is peeled away by recession and need, The City's face becomes clearer underneath the layers of grime.

I don't think it is possible to even scratch The City. All I know is, when it's eyes, bloodshot and insane, are forced to focus enough on anything that it takes notice, stripped out of its comfortable shell, I wouldn't want to be the one looking up at it.

There is only one City, and we all live there (and nobody lives anywhere else), so you can't destroy it without destroying all the humans on Earth.