[throwaway894345]

The solution for unknown-unknowns is to make changes gradually and try to make them reversible (reversing should be cheap) to the extent possible (e.g., rather than destroying a bridge, you close it for some years first and if some need arises, you just reopen it).

> whether there should be a small community in that location at all

This isn't particularly actionable; we can't just forcibly uproot people. Moreover, liberals (including me) and progressives usually (and rightly) advocate for the state subsidizing public services for communities that can't afford them--e.g., quality schools and libraries and so on in low-income communities, but then when it comes to rural communities, there's often an attitude that rural communities are leeching resources that rightly belong to larger areas (especially urban centers) and that their problems are their own fault (despite that most rural people were born in their environments). This seems pretty philosophically inconsistent.

By the way, I don't mean to impute this sort of attitude on the parent, by the way--his "whether there should be a community in that location at all" remark made me think of it, but I don't think he intended it as urban chauvinism.

[Steltek]

There are limits though. The island in question is long obsoleted by modern fishing techniques. It's a teensy tiny Bethlehem Steel. The discussion should really be framed as "managed retreat".