“That said, there are some lighting applications that have no useful purpose other than ambience and beauty. Architectural highlights, landscape elements, sculpture, etc. are all legitimate subjects for a good lighting designer.
I know this is probably sending you into a panic, living with the knowledge that people are spending their own hard earned money on nothing more than pretty lights around their own homes, but there you have it. It happens.”
Yes, it happens, but fortunately for most people outdoor lighting goes no further than installing a security light. This is fine if it is motion operated. Just because people are free to install all manner of crass decorative lighting does not make it right. Blatant energy wastage for whatever reason is not acceptable in the current climate of concern about climate change and environmental degradation, so unnecessary outdoor lighting should be discouraged. They should not be installing anything above and beyond what they need. And they don’t need decorative lighting. Furthermore though they might think it looks nice, their neighbours may actually think differently.
“As for your line of work as an academic, let me suggest that you’re laboring under a very skewed sense of reality. Sitting in a classroom is all fine and well for book knowledge, but real education and application takes place after the dismissal bell rings.”
Don’t think that because I’m an academic I don’t have any sense of reality. I’ve lived and worked in the real world so I know exactly what it’s like.
Holding that opinion is all fine and well, as long as you don't advocate that government enforce such measures. People making a free choice for their various reasons is wonderful. Using government force to control otherwise free people, which is where this kind of thinking ultimately leads, is evil.
If your arguments have merit, they will be supported and echoed in the court of public opinion and reflected in a free market. I welcome all opinions and ideas to that forum, devoid of government force.