Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
1-3 What's your point? Mine was that a good solution isn't myopic, and you didn't present any evidence to refute that claim.
The reason I mention Covid is to highlight the difference in personality that causes our differing opinions. There are those of us that have extremely high faith in the ability of experts to accurately understand extremely complex systems AND political machines to create effective solutions. Then there are those of us that have little faith in experts ability to predict, and political machines to efficiently solve problems.
Tangentially, I tend to believe I'm most able to affect outcomes given situations I encounter, whereas the opposite of my personality believes they are mostly helpless to affect outcomes, and highly dependent on systems to determine their future.
As an aside, Big Oil is big because it met the market requirements of consumers, not because we got duped into some inferior product that nobody would want.
In hindsight, Exxon was foolish to have wasted so much money on researching something which is outside their area of concern. They simply could say that they are in the business of extracting petroleum products and selling it, and if someone doesn't want their product, they'll sell it to someone else that does. I have no idea why they waste so much effort even stepping into politics because it's ultimately pointless.
4- That's not a plan, it's a somewhat arbitrary goal.
5- Similar to the scientific process, truth seeking isn't an endpoint, but a process of moving towards it.
6- Even if we assume all that is true, that some knew the cost and the imperative, do you think they could have significantly affected the outcome? How?
7- Nobody is going to wage war against pleasantly warming outdoor thermostat. That's why human motivation has to factor into the solution.
8- Sticks never work long-term. Only so many people go to Gulag until you run out of people.
Regarding your other comments, some of which are obvious, some of which I agree, and some of which are absurd. You cannot force innovation. If I tell someone to invent harder, it doesn't work. Innovation mostly depends on time, as every new development is built upon all prior achievement. Public education is already uber-liberal. There's no kids in the US that have gone K-12 without constantly being pressured to develop climate anxiety. We'll pay for that unhealthy anxiety.
As I'm always saying, the best way to facilitate innovation is to make the cost of the behavior you want to change become more expensive over time. Gradually increase the cost of fossil fuels, and people will figure out an infinite number of ways to make due with less of the stuff. All other schemes are idiotic by comparison.
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A) Which 1-3 do you want to discuss? One is 'apples', the other is 'oranges.'
B) Where does myopia enter the equation? ( climate change or COVID )
C) As to 'faith', which camp are you in. Time is precious, I don't want to waste it on ambiguity.
D) There's a presumption on your part that, consumers would have demonstrated the same demand for Exxon products, had they actually understood the ramifications for 'using' the products.
E) Until you read The Art of War, you'll be at a complete disadvantage as to understanding that Exxon would be compelled to do the research as a matter of business survival.
F) If carbon-dioxide were to be defined as 'toxic' ( as the crew of Apollo-13 would attest to ), the EPA would have a mandate to 'control' it.
G) If that were to happen, then it would be reflected on Wall Street, and on share values. Golden parachutes.
H) Carbon-dioxide might have taken on the charm of Tesch-und Stabenow's Zyklon-B gift gas.
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I) Considering the 1918 world population, Spanish Influenza, and net mortality rate, the CDC might have considered 4.5-million American deaths for the COVID pandemic, without mitigation intervention. Their charter mandate is to protect the public health, as their specialized knowledge might inform them. If that happened to tread on your under-informed sensibilities, I'd still go with whatever they recommended, and perhaps you'd survive to complain about the whole affair. We're pushing 1,000,000 dead Americans. Some who 'survived' COVID now have $3,300,000 medical bills, from months in ICU.
J) Yes siree! Those free tests, vaccinations, and boosters were a horrible idea! $ 3.3-million in debt is certainly the preferred path.
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4) The 'Green New Deal' is an actionable model for a beginning to a solution. And for soda-pop money. Ecological economist, Giorgos Kallis, of the Universtat Autonoma de Barcelona considers: 'The GND is the best proposal out there for moving us in the right direction.'
5) I maintain that 'truth' is culturally relative, whereas 'fact' is testable and quantifiable.
6) If it was agreed upon that, we faced an existential threat, the full force of the 'arsenal of freedom' could be activated in a war on climate change.
7) There's no such thing as a 'pleasantly warming outdoor thermostat. If you'd taken Sun Tsu's admonition to 'sleep with the enemy,' you'd know how asinine any soft-handling of the climate crisis would be taken. You're completely out of your depth on this one.
8) Carrots are preferred to sticks, but Machiavelli instructs us that there comes a point where a sovereign must pull out the sticks. ( President Woodrow Wilson's Sedition Act of 1918 for example ).
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Regarding...................
I would direct your attention to:
* Applied mathematics
* Applied physics
* Appropriability framework
* Avoidance of duplication
* Interventionist industrial policy
* Cost recovery
* DOE Office of Science
* DOE Office of Fossil Energy
* Economies of scale
* Education
* Government subsidization of research
* US President's Committee of Advisors on Science & Technology
* US Office of Technology Assessment
* Utilization of inventions
* MIT' Commission on Industrial Productivity
* R&D tax credits
* Indispensable high technology capability
* integration of R&D into planning and operations
* Investment tax credits
* Reduced capital gains tax
* Federal loan guarantees
* Long-term investment
* Materials technology
* Domestic equity purchases
* Tax exemptions to employer-provided subsidies
* Intergovernmental- university- industrial cooperation
* Anti-trust law revision
* The National Laboratories
* The Small Business Administration
* Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration ( DARPA )
* Rationalization of production
* JASON
* The Institute for Advanced Research, Princeton University
* RAND Corporation
* Mitre Corporation
* The Club of Rome
* Local land use policies
* Public subsidies
* Private subsidies
* Scientific mercanticism
* Socially valuable inventions
* Strategic technologies
* Training
* Zoning regulations
' the development of technology is the major source of economic growth.'
David C. Mowery & Nathan Rosenberg,' Technology and the Pursuit of Economic Growth,' 1989.