The Apex of the Absurd

[hrothgar]

If you wish to voluntarily reduce your carbon footprint, that is your choice and I support your freedom to choose.

IMHO I continue to think that government policies to force nonmarket pressures to reduce our carbon footprint is exactly the wrong policy to pursue. I hope we use more, much more, carbon based energy not less in the future.

1) If we are consuming more energy I would take that as a  positive sign economies are strong, people have good jobs and have better lives.

2) I assume we will consume "very cheap" carbon energy first.

3) We will move on to "less cheap" carbon energy next.

4) Next we will move on to expensive carbon energy until

5) we are only left with "very expensive carbon" energy

Do you know anything about brewing?

 

I'm sure at the wee yeasties feel much the same way as they poison themselves on their own *****.

 

The world is full of examples of cultures (bacterial and human) that destroyed themselves because they weren't able to manage the problems associated with resource consumption.

 

Situations where individuals don't bear the full costs of their consumption patterns are one of the thorniest issues.

[mikeh]

If you wish to voluntarily reduce your carbon footprint, that is your choice and I support your freedom to choose.

IMHO I continue to think that government policies to force nonmarket pressures to reduce our carbon footprint is exactly the wrong policy to pursue. I hope we use more, much more, carbon based energy not less in the future.

1) If we are consuming more energy I would take that as a  positive sign economies are strong, people have good jobs and have better lives.

2) I assume we will consume "very cheap" carbon energy first.

3) We will move on to "less cheap" carbon energy next.

4) Next we will move on to expensive carbon energy until

5) we are only left with "very expensive carbon" energy

6) Companies and consumers based on the profit motive will move to alt energy sources based on the profit incentive and not price and supply artificially manipulated by government polices.

7) I am all for increased government spending on very basic research or funding of students in the hard science area.

8) I am strongly against government spending or tax breaks for their favorite flavor of alt energy. That is basically  government bureacrats telling us what the right choice is not the markets.

 

I understand this is not a fast solution to the energy crises.

 

Dingell from Michigan is pushing for a vote on a carbon tax. He thinks Democrats and Republicans will run away from this as fast as they can. He is calling their bluff.

If the issue was that we are running out of carbon-based energy sources, your market preference makes some sense.

 

The issue is that consumption of carbon-based energy sources leads, in the long-term, to destruction of the environment.

 

Now, go back 50 years, and the long-term was indeed a long way off.. to the point that those in a position to do something about it knew, if they ever thought of it, that they'd be dead before any problem surfaced.

 

Go back 25 years and 'environmentalists' were nut-bars moaning and whining about destruction of areas of the world (and the species living there) that no-one ever saw except on Nature television shows... any humans living there were foreigners, and impoverished, non-English speaking foreigners at that.

 

Now we are in the early years of yesteryear's long-term. And the environment that is being destroyed includes parts of Florida, Louisiana, the Tornado Alley etc.

 

Still, Exxon gets to earn all-time record profits. The coal companies seem to be doing very well. And so on.

 

Political leaders rarely look beyond the next election cycle.. so they don't care about long-term planning unless and until they think that the electorate does.. they follow when they should be leading.

 

Businessmen, with some exceptions, are driven by the bottom line.. in the US, in particular, with the egregious payments made to CEOs, it's all about share performance.. also, usually, relatively short-term... certainly short-term in the context of the magnitude of the environmental problems.

 

We, as humans, are poorly equipped to viscerally connect long-delayed, and (on our normal time scale) imperceptible consequences to our conduct, especially when our conduct generates short term gain even at enormous, destructive, long-term cost... look at tobacco for example.

 

So relying on the market is insane.

 

Unfortunately, relying on politicians is also insane UNLESS it can be made to look as tho global warming, and the urgent need to deal with it, was a key to being re-elected.

 

So Live Earth and other similar stunts MAY be the way to go... if only to create the right perception in the minds of the politicians who hold the fate of future generations in the balance.

 

BTW, I did read, quite some time ago, that even if we stopped polluting now, or drastically cut back, the warming trend would continue for decades... and I suspect that far too many think... oh... we'll have to do something eventually, but when we do, it'll solve the problem. I gather that this is not so.

[Al_U_Card]

So, will the carbon tax be individual or by country?

[mike777]

I agree stopping pollution is important. Why do people think the only choice is much much more government mandated, forced solution or we breathe and drink pollution and die? Why frame the debate; free market means we die or live in filth, government, more, much more government means saving us and we all live happily forever.

 

I can only assume this is some deep bias against the profit motive as an incentive, the best incentive for a better life for all. It seems to be a bias that government is the solution, profit is the problem.

 

Framing the debate this way is not moving forward. Even in my debate points I noted a role for government. Hopefully that moves that debate forward.

[hrothgar]

I can only assume this is some deep bias against the profit motive as an incentive, the best incentive for a better life for all. It seems to be a bias that government is the solution, profit is the problem.

 

Framing the debate this way is not moving forward. Even in my debate points I noted a role for government. Hopefully that moves that debate forward.

Fine Mike: Please explain the appropriate role of government in dealing with negative externalities...

 

As far as I can tell, you can't offer damn thing other than praying to Jesus and waiting around for your 40 virgins.

 

I still recall your posting when you stated that taxes are always wrong. You're the last person who should be talking about bias.

[jtfanclub]

I can only assume this is some deep bias against the profit motive as an incentive, the best incentive for a better life for all.

Where in the world did you get the idea that profit motive was an incentive for a better life?

 

A profit motive is a competition, how well you or your company does vs. everybody else. If you're making a million bucks a year but everybody else is making two million bucks a year, pretty soon it'll cost a thousand dollars to buy a loaf of bread...how else will the grocers etc. keep up?

 

If this were a true market driven economy, BP would be hiring terrorists to burn Royal Dutch oil fields, as that would drive the price up and increase profitibility for BP. I'm curious as to how you think the profit motive in any way has anything to do with keeping the earth livable fifty years from now.

[mike777]

I can only assume this is some deep bias against the profit motive as an incentive, the best incentive for a better life for all.

Where in the world did you get the idea that profit motive was an incentive for a better life?

 

A profit motive is a competition, how well you or your company does vs. everybody else. If you're making a million bucks a year but everybody else is making two million bucks a year, pretty soon it'll cost a thousand dollars to buy a loaf of bread...how else will the grocers etc. keep up?

 

If this were a true market driven economy, BP would be hiring terrorists to burn Royal Dutch oil fields, as that would drive the price up and increase profitibility for BP. I'm curious as to how you think the profit motive in any way has anything to do with keeping the earth livable fifty years from now.

PRODUCTION(Inovation)

 

btw free markets have evil and bad things in them just as too much freedom, may, it is just I prefer it over the alternatives.

[Al_U_Card]

That is the problem, not the solution.

[mike777]

That is the problem, not the solution.

As I said many see free markets and the profit motive as the problem not the solution. They seem to argue that government is the solution.

[Winstonm]

Regardless of whether one believes health care should remain private or be government sponsored, can anyone deny that the claim that national health care would increase terrorist threats to be the ultimate in absurd and ludicrous justifications for maintaining the status quo?

[mike777]

Regardless of whether one believes health care should remain private or be government sponsored, can anyone deny that the claim that national health care would increase terrorist threats to be the ultimate in absurd and ludicrous justifications for maintaining the status quo?

Winston I never saw the first show. The second one I saw, today, it was not in the form of a claim but a question. I hate to call any question absurd on the terrorist subject. Highly improbable, sure. I guess I am saying there are asymetric ideas, highly improbable, but still worth discussing on this subject. I do not think that makes one a racist, hate filled or evil person.

 

Alot of people think the idea of an AI having the intellegience level hundreds of millions of times the entire human race by 2050 is absurd yet I discuss that so, .....blame me.

[Winstonm]

Regardless of whether one believes health care should remain private or be government sponsored, can anyone deny that the claim that national health care would increase terrorist threats to be the ultimate in absurd and ludicrous justifications for maintaining the status quo?

Winston I never saw the first show. The second one I saw, today, it was not in the form of a claim but a question. I hate to call any question absurd on the terrorist subject. Highly improbable, sure. I guess I am saying there are asymetric ideas, highly improbable, but still worth discussing on this subject. I do not think that makes one a racist, hate filled or evil person.

 

Alot of people think the idea of an AI having the intellegience level hundreds of millions of times the entire human race by 2050 is absurd yet I discuss that so, .....blame me.

My understanding is that the transcript is from part of the show discussing "Sicko", the new Michael Moore documentary. The point seems clear in the transcript - that it is dangerous to have national health care because of the terror threat of bureaucries.

 

No matter how you slice and dice it, this is an absurd claim.

[helene_t]

In another thread we had a similar discussion about possible sources of terrorism:

Mutant Lemons in Europe....ugggggg :o

Better we bomb now just to be on the safe side and ask questions later.... ;)

That was a joke of course but the Fox-viewers don't need to know that. In fact I would say that the "mutant lemon" theory is slightly less absurd than the "public healthcare" theory. So just in case the cucumber time is comming, the journalists could find plenty of input for new shows in the Water Cooler.

[luke warm]

[quote i agree with you that many of the programs on fox are conservatively biased... do you agree that cbs, nbc, abc, and/or cnn are "...immersed in or surrounded by a whole lot of.." left-wing (and often factually challenged) spin? i also agree that the "actual 'news'" of fox's anchor show is relatively unbiased... can the same be said of, for example, katie couric?

Sorry Jimmy this is really funny. I would argue that all of those networks have a conservative bias.

hi ron... yeah, "conservative" and "liberal" are relative terms, and as mikeh pointed out their meanings differ depending on the perspective... but remember, i'm not speaking of the networks themselves or of any programs other than the evening news...