This doesn't solve humidity issue unfortunately. Most hot areas around the world are also very humid and that's where air conditioneers with all closed windows/doors will be preferred. Open rooftops also pose a lot of challenges like water and smell leaking, animal invaders start to get in etc.
There was an article on HN recently how ceilling fan improves air conditioner performance and I actually seen a major improvement in my own house - it's awesome! I wonder if some architectural features like the one in the article could be somehow used with air conditioning to produce a similar effect.
With energy recovery ventilation, incoming fresh air can be pre-treated using the cool, dryer exhaust air to reduce the energy required to cool it while still allowing fresh air in. That, combined with solar PV, good building design (shading, correct aspect etc.) and good insulation is probably the best balance of comfort and efficiency.
We spray foamed our entire house and the humidity shot through the roof in the late spring and summer months (65%+) and had to run a dehumidifier constantly negating any benefit from our solar panels. Fall and winter were great because we saw a major decrease (like 40%) in natural gas usage compared to that time frame the previous year. However, our home was built without a scuttle because they weren't code yet meaning that our home air got stale quickly and wasn't able to be exhausted through the now spray foamed air holes. We then installed an ERV and it made all the difference in the world.
I spent all the June September period at 30+ Celsius degrees day and 20+ night and no air-conditioner despite having two of them. I used standing fans. The disadvantages are that you must be in their wind tunnel whilst an air conditioner covers the whole room. The advantage is that they cost less and can be carried around the house. Rooms facing North with no sun hitting them also helps. South facing rooms would have required air conditioning.
What’s the humidity like? I’ve been in 100+ (37+) degree desert weather that doesn’t compare to 80+ (26+) degrees with 60% humidity. If I lived in a dry climate that could be an option. When I wake up in the summer it can be 90-100% humidity and opening windows causes all that water vapor to come inside worsening the heat problem.
This is what everyone seems to miss about air conditioning. It's convenient that one device lowers both the indoor temp. & the humidity. But in the case that I had to choose only one, I would lower the humidity. Any healthy adult can stay cool in a low humidity environment by sweating.
It is very easy to cool a city that is 1200 meters above sea level and with low humidity. I wouldn't be surprised if temperatures during the nights fall to 0C or below during the cold season. Any kind of evaporative cooling will work very well there.
Its hard to talk 'efficiency' as they work in different ways.
Some actively 'cool' the air (including through contact with ground or water, or evaporative cooling from plants), some don't further cool the air they cool people through airflow like an electric fan (effectively the human cools themself through evaporation).
Their function will of course also vary through the day and year depending on literally the way the wind blows.
Many also were designed to be attuned to local wind and climate conditions which would have changed over centuries since so its also hard to judge their original function.
Could we have an idea of the temperature change we can expect? For example, if it's 40 degrees celcius outside, can the mechanism go down to 30? 25? 20?
An aside: I'm struck how beautiful are the wind catchers. A form of beautiful architecture with a practical function, seamlessly rising up from many buildings.
Any guess as to why there are multiple poles sticking from the sides? Reinforcement? Method of adjustment? Place for someone to stand while working on the structure? An inside joke meant to confuse foreigners?
These people were traders (capitalists) and built an incredible city in the desert. This was enabled by extremely efficient water harvesting (like in Dune) and by being extremely difficult to get to, making armies starve and die of thirst en route. It could be defended with a small force.
Having been there, Petra is quite weird: we've all seen the facade of the Treasury in Indiana Jones, but there's nothing inside, just a tiny little hole. The working theory is that it was in fact just a mausoleum, and almost all the rock-carved structures are actually just tombs, with the city itself almost entirely lost to the mists of time.
Capitalism is not just about trading, this is an anachronism, maybe deepen your historical & concept research if you care about objectivity. Also see: equi-vocation: etymologically, calling things the same. Aka confusion. https://www.etymonline.com/word/equivocation
If your point is how horrible Islam is, and the British were protectionist, let's not forget that millions of Persians were starved to death by the British embargo when Persia refused to fight in Europe's war against the Osman empire. Persia's history is a bit more complex than "then Islam came and everything went downhill".
Most of Persia's territory was lost during its wars with the Russian empire by deeply incompetent, corrupt and massively uneducated Qajar kings which were basically a British client regime.
I remember a book that outlined it quite well, but I don't remember if it was the following one[1]
Fun bit to tempt you: "Even when the French were in occupation of Moscow, Russian forces in the south were not recalled but continued their offensive against Persia,"
And here I thought our modern world was strange. Can you imagine if they had our gadgets back then? The Russians would get demoralized and make a beeline to go defend Moscow and Iran would still have Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
> The Qajars were not clients of the colonial powers until towards until the tail end of 19th century
I disagree and in fact for a lot of what the colonial powers did there are in fact very little references. Most of it are trickles of information decades sometimes centuries later. They wrote their own history books after all. The embargo famine in the 20th century got published from the archives so late that its barely a footnote worth mentioning.
The British had a huge impact on the establishment of the modern Saudi kingdom as well as salafi islamism in the 18th century.
> And here I thought our modern world was strange. Can you imagine if they had our gadgets back then? The Russians would get demoralized and make a beeline to go defend Moscow and Iran would still have Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
That is really a quite interesting point. Although it is worth noting that it was the Ukrainians(I'm including Donbass and LPR militias in there) and the Chechens that were fighting out tiktok wars. The Russian army itself was only recorded by military reporters, and always covered their faces. It seems like when they join the war theatre they are in fact stripped of personal electronic gadgets for obvious SIGINT reasons.
One of the militia headquarters that was struck in western Ukraine was struck because western mercenaries were fiddling with their mobile phones[1].
My point being that while your comment is well received, I'm not sure it works on actual professional armies.
My point: The fiascos that lead to the loss of large chunks of Iran in the Caucus were not instigated by the British and Qajars were not clients of anyone at that time. We don't really require documentation to understand this. When, however, the British and Russian embassies (post defeat) de-facto setup a shadow government in Tehran, yes, at that point, the Qajars were basically an animated corpse and had lost all prestige internally. Which is why opportunistic (elite) traitors in Iran began to pick one of the two powers as patrons. The really embarrassing part about it all for me is that apparently the Brits didn't feel Iran was worth actually colonizing! :)
The Russians were using the pretext of local unrest to come and "liberate" the caucus. But I think there was a possibly British military expert that very poorly "advised" the Qajar shah.
What is really interesting, specially since ^ above should sound very familiar with the latest Russian liberation effort, is the thought that occurred after posting my OP. Qajar Iran was (if you squint) kinda like the Austro-Hungarian empire. Iran is, technically due to multi-ethnicity, an empire, though it sounds funny :)
So the thought was that these empires actually did serve some positive purpose. There are places in the world were we have quilts of mini countries. For example, when the Caucus were part of Persian or Russian empire (or USSR) you didn't have Armenians and Azerbaijanis and Georgians having fights over borders. And whenever the empire goes bye bye (just w/ Austro-Hungarian empire) those constituent states go at it with each other.
(Btw, to be perfectly clear, by above (and OP "Oh well") I most certainly do not mean that I do not understand or support the independent and successful existence of Armenia, or Georgia! Just analyzing, that's all and no offense is meant. I wouldn't want my country to be part of an empire either.)
> Persia's history is a bit more complex than "then Islam came and everything went downhill".
Yeah, right. Generic PC talk.
Just look at the state-of-affairs in the current uprising in Iran. What was the reason for it?
Or look at some economic progress graphs comparing pre and post 1979 revolution. Or how the constitution revolution failed in the 20th century (law should come from Allah not Man). Or the atrocities of the Saffavids in 1500s. Or the "Arab-vs-Ajam" racism of Abbasid and Ummayids dynasties.
Some names and hints for those willing to check for themselves: Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, Qutayba ibn Muslim [and his campaign in Transoxiana], the concept of "Mawali"
Basically Iran endured 3 catastrophic civilization-threatening level invasions. Alexander (Hellenistic), Arabs (Islamic) and Mongols. Though the latter didn't enforce Tengrism on the population. And the name of the country was always Iran. There are literally stone reliefs from 4th AD proving this.
Not to defend this government really, but the graphs tells us iran was in war and was sanctioned. The graphs still tell us it is sanctioned.
The economic progress in gdp measures or revolution capacity measures? The shah himself thought it was the US who caused his situation.
Atrocities of safavids were after iran was completely destroyed by mongols and timur. Safavid were not the most peaceful, but compared to their predecessors, they were very good. For example they did not cement men alive. Instead built mosques and reunified the land.
Ajam and arab is valid. But sassanid empire was a caste society. So which caste were the arabs? I actually don’t know. Sassanid in its last 20 years have extensive war campaigns, regicide and mutinies.
Mongols turning persian into main language seems like an anti-arab measure. But I am not sure.
>but the graphs tells us iran was in war and was sanctioned
Saddam initiated the attack but only because Khomeini weakened the Army and cleansed it from opposition to his ideology. They also wanted to export their Islamic revolution to the neighboring countries that scared the Arab monarchs into supporting Saddam. He destabilized the region and basically became the new Ummayids (shia-flavored).
Khomeini and friends executed and banished the entrepreneurs that funded factories and industries. They put islam above the nation of Iran (he literally mocked nationalists who were saying "we are Iranian first and Muslim second" on recording). Khomeini and friends were advocating that "devout Muslims should be preferred against non-practicing experts for job positions". How does this help progress?
>Atrocities of safavids were after iran was completely destroyed by mongols
So? They could like "not" force-convert all population? Did mongols enforce Tengrism by sword? Also by "reunified the land" you mean disbanding the local governments, mutilating local Shahs that were around like 1000 years? (Shirvan-shahis, Bavands, etc). How exactly do you think a state could be "reunified"? Have you ever asked why Armenians are in Iran mainland in Isfahan? Or why Georgians asked their christian brothers (Russians) in 18th century to come help them get free from Qajars?
>But sassanid empire was a caste society. So which caste were the arabs?
Aniranians. Did Sassanids enforce Zoroastrianism by sword? Was the Mesopotamia Persianized in ~600 years Iranians had control of it? How come basically all of MENA is Arabized after the 700 AD?
>Mongols turning persian into main language seems like an anti-arab measure
Thank Samanids and Saffarids for that. They created the bureaucracy of Khorasan based on Persian culture. Turks and Mongols just adopted it. If the region was arabized before 12th century, mongols would have just used Arabic.
> Have you ever asked why Armenians are in Iran mainland in Isfahan?
I've visited their church there some 7 years ago, quite an interesting experience. They, at least to outsiders, didn't seem anyhow oppressed on religious level.
Saffavids relocated Armenians from their homeland in Caucasus. Many died en-route. These kinds of attritions and second-class citizen status later imposed by Ottomans resulted in Armenians losing their homeland of eastern Anatolia and Caucasus to some degree. Look up the recent Azeri-Turkiye invasion of the region.
"""
Many Christians, and even Muslims who were adherents of the Ithna ashari form of Shicism (aka pro safavid iran) were carried into captivity during those years. [21] (by ottamans)
Simeon Tigranakertsi, contemporary source, wrote "no one can describe either through writing or through speech the difficulties of times.",[22] In 1586 one who tried to do just that, the scribe Arakel Sarkavag, attributed all the ill to the
of sin accumulated by those who received the wrath of the epidemic of death through the sword, and starvation was not the end, he wrote, because after that the wolves dug into the graves and ate the dead.
* These conditions, compounded by heavy taxation, resulted in the first wave of immigration of the Armenians from historical Armenia to Isfahan. According to Arakel Davrizhetsi, the contemporary historian, this first wave of immigration included both Armenian notables, other property owners, and peasants; they were:
Sarukhan beg and his brother Nazar Jalal beg and his cousins, Oghlan Keshish and Ghalabeg, Melik Sujum, Melik Pashik, Melik Haigazn, Melik Baben and the entire inhabitants of four Armenian villages emigrated to Persia, and asked for the Shah's pro- tection and settled in Isfahan.
At the time there were already individual Armenian merchants in Isfahan. One of these prominent merchants, Khwajah Nazar, had received a royal edict in 1586 granting him individual protection and freedom to trade widely within the realm of Safavid Persia [25].
Immigration from the war-torm borderlands of the Safavid empire to its secure interior was not confined to Armenians alone. It included Kurdish chieftains, such as Ghazi Kh&nand Hayat Beg Ulamayoghli, and various Georgian noblemen disaffected from the Ottoman camp. Others included poverty-stricken peasnats fleeing from the chro- nic wars, heavy taxation and religious persecution.26
The Armenian Catholicisate in Etchmiadzln, near Erevan, the center of the Armenian Apostolic Church, ini- tiated contacts with the new rule of Safavid Persia, shah cAbbas I (1587-1629). The Catholicisate, a bone of conten- tion between rival Catholicoses, heavily indebted and convinced that Shah CAbbas would surely attempt to regain territories lost as a result of the Ottoman-Persian treaty of 1590, established contact with Shah cAbbas. One of the Catholicoses, along with two Archibishops, went to Isfahan. They were well received by the shah who, motivated to
attract commercial and artisan classes to his realm and to forge an anti-Ottoman coalition of Shicite Muslim, Georgian and Armenian leaders of Transcaucasia in his
forthcoming campaigns against the Ottomans to recapture
the lost territories of Armenia, Georgia, Kurdistan, Azerbayjan and Tabriz, its center, encouraged and welcomed disaffected leaders and emigrees from the Ottoman empire. Sh&h cAbbas accepted various Armenians into his service and according to Sherley was impressed with their competence and abilities.28
Further:
Shah Abbas also demonstrated a friendly diplomacy on the personal front.
In an effort to win the affection of his new sugjects and to demonstrate to others the esteem in which he held these Armenians, he paid periodic visits to the homes of such notables of New Julfa as Khw&jah Safar, Khwajah Nazar, and their children, Malikagha, Sultanum and Sarfraz. He encouraged his ministers to follow his example. He even attended church services on the occasions of Easter and Christmas. In addition, the shah gave the kalantar of New Julfa one of his royal seals. This was particularly use-
ful as a means of facilitating travel, bypassing otherwise necessary red-tape, and especially in making transactions and guaranteeing them with the shah's own seal.
According to Armenian tradition, in cases of disputes pitting his Christian Armenian subjects against his Muslim ones, the shah sided most of the time with his new subjects. In thus siding with the Armenians, the shah would stress that they had left their fatherland, their riches and their homes, and had come to Persia; therefore, trivial disputes should not obscure the fact that they were valued guests. Furthermore it had cost the king one thousand Tumans to bring each Armenian to Isfahan. All these sacrifices, the shah used to say, he had done not in the interest of the Armenians but for that of Persia. Such was the freedom of Armenians enjoyed that when in the bazaar disputes arose between a Muslim and an Armenian, the Armenian had the equal right with the Muslim to curse and cuss in kind, without fear of retribution.50
"""
sounds true about Ottomans. Wonder what was their point though.
You might already know better, but looks like short story is it was war zone. they looked towards the persian king for protection, moved to persia, 15 years later scorched earth policy was carried out, to keep the ottaman army out, Which worked. Shortly before this Armenians were told to move to iran. And the king did right by them.
Quick google scholar search explicitly for deportation didn’t help. I did find citation free red template wikipedia pages with titles such as forced deportation of armenians to iran, seemingly waiting for biased history to be inserted.
Also trivia they can have wine at home Today in Iran, whereas those of a muslim family can’t.
Reference:
Vartan Gregorian, Minorities of Isfahan: The Armenian Community of Isfahan 1587-1722, Iranian Studies, Vol. 7, 1974
Under Mongol rule supposedly millions died as well. Those were pagans and Buddhists by the way.
If the Buddhists do it, the Christians do it, the pagans do it, the Muslims do it and supposed secular democracies do it, it leads me to the conclusion that the beast isn't the religion per se, it's humans as a whole.
As I said, they didn't enforce their ideology on the conquered people. They just extracted tax and moved on. Abrahamics on the other hand....
How many statues and relics did the Abrahamics demolish? We even see this in modern times (Bamiyan Budda statue destroyed by Taliban, Palmyra demolished by ISIS, Islamic Republic preventing people from visiting Cyrus grave on his day)
This seems disingenuous on most grounds. Are you serious? To me it tends to anti iranian than pro.
Pre-islam persian language continued in iran until 10th century at least, and it evolved into modern persian. Abbasid revolution was pro-iranian. Persians writing their work in arabic is no different than everyone writing in english today. Communicating in english is not bad, Is it? benefits obvious. English to a persian today, is what arabic was 1000 years ago. Both are taught in school.
Iran is not itself related to muslim expansion in india. Iran itself had been conquered by saljuks, and so was baghdad and a byzantine emperor (Check saljuk empire. read the account of their take over of middle east, you might get some perspective). India was conquered by Mahmud ghazni who is not persian and he also takes over some iranian cities.
Timur sack of delhi is decidedly not iranian, iran was revolting against timur itself. Mughal dynasty of india was supported initially by iran, via safavids, and it was probably an improvement over what was in delhi before which I think Timur had left. Taj mahal isn’t too bad. Some people of lower caste in india probably converted to islam, probably because it freed them. But I’m not familiar with india enough to know the extent.
Muslims did restrict zoroastrians and manichaeism. Zoroastrian was also state sanctioned. Extent of their religious prosecution seems less generally (although check Mani, and Mazdak), but muslims also legally accept christianity and judaism.
> Most of the Sasanian Empire was overthrown by the Arabs over the course of 16 years in the 7th century. Although the administration of the state was rapidly Islamicized and subsumed under the Umayyad Caliphate, in the beginning "there was little serious pressure" exerted on newly subjected people to adopt Islam
> Under Abbasid rule, Muslim Iranians (who by then were in the majority) in many instances showed severe disregard for and mistreated local Zoroastrians.
...
Islamic Invasion of Persia was as brutal ...
> However, Sir Thomas Walker Arnold doubts the entire narrative of the forced conversions of the Zoroastrians, citing many examples of tolerance that were shown by the Muslim overlords concluding that "in the face of such facts, it is surely impossible to attribute the decay of Zoroastrianism entirely to violent conversions made by the Muslim conquerors". Arnold suggests that some of the conversions of the former-Zoroastrians were actually sincere citing the similarities between the two religions as a motivation for the conversions. Stepaniants also (like Arnold) declares that some historians have said that some of the conversions to Islam were sincere citing the fact that Islam offered a broader door of brotherhood, unlike the restrictive criteria of Zoroastrianism.
...
Those are choice quotes, sure, but they counter the rather brazen tone of GP's comment. That's even disregarding the fact that the society, norms of war and conquest back then was very different from today.
>> However, Sir Thomas Walker Arnold doubts the entire narrative of the forced conversions of the Zoroastrians, citing many examples of tolerance that were shown by the Muslim overlords concluding that "in the face of such facts, it is surely impossible to attribute the decay of Zoroastrianism entirely to violent conversions made by the Muslim conquerors". Arnold suggests that some of the conversions of the former-Zoroastrians were actually sincere citing the similarities between the two religions as a motivation for the conversions. Stepaniants also (like Arnold) declares that some historians have said that some of the conversions to Islam were sincere citing the fact that Islam offered a broader door of brotherhood, unlike the restrictive criteria of Zoroastrianism.
Why not ask Iranians themselves about their history and how they were treated by the Muslim invaders 1400 years ago? They are currently opposing an __Islamic__ regime which prides itself in following the "true" Islam first introduced by Muhammed, while also killing children and civilians on the streets of Iran as we speak. Look at what the Iranian protesters are chanting these days; they are literally fed up with Islam and how it was forced on them ever since 1400 years ago (conquest of Persia). Most Iranians nowadays believe that their country is being held hostage by Muslim clerics and needs to be liberated. You wouldn't expect that from a nation who mostly accepted Islam for reasons other than force and brutality.
> Most Iranians nowadays believe that their country is being held hostage by Muslim clerics and needs to be liberated.
Thats a very strong statement. Most of the country, even half of the country would look very differently on the streets. I didn't notice 40+ millions protesting. Its probably some milder version of that - some protest, on top of that some are unhappy for X and Y (its enough to be pissed off about state of economy and freedom overall), some also for reasons you state and in population of 85 million even 1% is almost a million so easily visible if they gather in cities.
I would love to see Iranian regime change for the better since people there deserve it - I've met them, they are smart, cheerful, curious and on the ground its nothing like 24h news reels show. But if it ends up as another Syria, Lybia or any other arab spring then even current regime is a blessing in comparison and heaven compared to war torn hells of those places.
> But if it ends up as another Syria, Lybia or any other arab spring then even current regime is a blessing in comparison and heaven compared to war torn hells of those places.
This is a common argument that pro-regime propaganda spreads inside Iran. But what they don't mention is that the reason Syria got war torn is for the most part the Iran's Islamic regime's interference in Syria. The middle east used to be much more peaceful before the Islamic fanatics took power in Iran.
> The middle east used to be much more peaceful before the Islamic fanatics took power in Iran.
Certain Western influences have been more detrimental. Islamic is but a political tool. Just like *checks notes* other dominant religions anywhere else.
Fwiw, I believe the Muslims continued to build windcatching technology in Persia and elsewhere in the Middle East. Likewise, in India the adopted the jaali cooling screen just that their Hindu counterparts used.
one wonders where to start with so much revisionism here. but
> Zoarastrians were persecuted mercilessly
just as they mercilessly persecuted the Manichaeans and all but wiped them out, ensuring the elite ruling class remained Zoroastrian. This began with the imprisonment and execution of Mani who "...incurr[ed] the disapproval of the Zoroastrian clergy, Mani is reported to have died in prison awaiting execution by the Persian Emperor Bahram I." [1]
Plenty of others have already commented on Persian scholars and their contributions during the Golden Age of Islam.
Also worth noting that the current regime and it's Shi'ism is rooted in yet more persecution, this time at the hands of the Safavid dynasty seeking a clever way to create a sense of national identity despite their foreign root [2].
All forums eventually devolve discussions into political shots taken at non-existent enemies ala Reddit.. Seems like HackerNews is finally getting there.
The account of the exodus begins by describing how a group of devout Zoroastrians in Persia went into hiding in the mountains during a time of fierce Islamic persecution. After a hundred years they moved on to Hormuz, but still remained under threat of oppression. “At last a wise dastur, who was also an astrologer, read the stars and said: 'The time Fate had allotted us in this place is now coming to an end, we must go at once to India.’” ...
> (With conventional mechanical air conditioning already accounting for a fifth of total electricity consumption globally, ancient alternatives like the wind catcher are becoming an increasingly appealing option.
The descent into religion. Denial that better modern solutions work at all. Acceptance than an old (before the gaze of modern criticism can fatigue it) technology is better because it is older. The fantasy that a problem exists due to the existence of man, innate in his original sin of taking breath at all. The legions now employed to drive these new dogmas is astounding. Lastly, abandoning reason, to presume air flow by convection is the same as cooling.
Although I agree that a lot of the environmentalist movement is transforming into religion, I don't think this is a good example of it. In locations with cheap land and feasible climate, passive cooling achieves cooling whilst using no power.
It's not better because it's older, it's better because it is more efficient.
If you know anything of the religious extremists destroying our cities you know there are enough that they will take something like this, try and integrate it into a design, get some engineer from the same denomination to approve it and put it in a building to grease the moral self applauds of the planning committee desperate to please the gods.
There is a building in my city, fully built, which decided to put 3 wind turbines at the top of it. If you are familiar at all with wind turbines you know they create a lot of vibration and noise. They shouldn't be built in high density areas. Of course this meant those living in the building within 15 floors near the turbines experienced constant noise, and vibration. They are now permanently disabled.
It was allowed to be built where no tall building existed mainly because of these talismans.
> The turbines are of course not merely decorative but have a function which is directly related to the Elephant’s status as an energy action area and to the achievement of the zero carbon growth which is a key objective of the framework.”
Your city has it particularly bad, don't let that convince you that everywhere is like London. I live somewhere much more pragmatic, and passive cooling is used without the religious issues you predict.
There is definitely some weird pseudo religion around things which are old. Anyone who says "cavemen ate like this, that means it's good for you" don't know what they're talking about. That's not the case here.
Let me rewrite this as a modern invention: Someone invented a wind powered cooling system. No other fuel is necessary and it will work for years with minimal maintenance. The mechanism is simple enough that they can be built both in large metropolitan areas and smaller, struggling regions.
It's absurdly inefficient and cumbersome compared to other options. The reason people tolerate such ideas is the fear of the cost of electricity.
The cost of electricity in the west has been a matter of false scarcity imposed by religious economic terrorists who sacrificed our stability around the era of the Kyoto Protocol.
Simplicity. Simplicity prevails majority of the time. Simplicity and alignment with vs fight against.
You discount "the old" perhaps with the misguided assumption that we know better because we live now and not then. As if civilizations have not risen and fallen countless times, and as if humanity has not been forced to re-learn the forgotten lessons again and again.
Simplicity is the hardest to accomplish, because it requires thorough understanding, patience, and perspective -- something 90% of us don't have.
I will leave you with a modern example: a four-way traffic-light-controlled intersection vs a roundabout. The former leverages modern technology (maybe even ML with data from a larger traffic network!), and yet it is less safe and most of the time generates more traffic backup than the latter. The latter has no external dependencies, and instead shapes the space in such a way as to make dangerous collisions impossible.
If anything is a religion, it's the blind belief that "newer is better"
I discount this because it doesn't make sense in high population density cities. The age simply ads a mysticism that makes it attractive to weak minds.
And to your roundabout Vs traffic lights the space/geometry of the area available is often the difference in choosing which to build
There was an article on HN recently how ceilling fan improves air conditioner performance and I actually seen a major improvement in my own house - it's awesome! I wonder if some architectural features like the one in the article could be somehow used with air conditioning to produce a similar effect.