Re: OT: NOT EVIL JUST WRONG

James Arthur <bogusabdsqy@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
mGnok.850$7N1.175@trnddc06:">news:mGnok.850$7N1.175@trnddc06:

Kris Krieger wrote:
James Arthur <bogusabdsqy@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
Zs8ok.649$EL2.246@trnddc01:">news:Zs8ok.649$EL2.246@trnddc01:

Kris Krieger wrote:
James Arthur wrote:

Kris Krieger wrote:
But in any event, that's a red herring. THe point is that, as
with insurance, you can pay something now, or risk losing
everything later on.
The numbers MATTER. Insurance against the wrong problem is
useless.
No, you said a number above, which referred in a very specific but
unconstructive and inapplicable way, to my analogy with insurance.

If you disagree with teh analogy, then say so
I disagree with your analogy.

OK. I'd be interested in a better one (mine aren't perfect). But
mainly, I was just trying to

- but red-herring numbers
pulled out of the air seem only to imply a nonexistent authority.
I made an analogy to insurance; you pulled out some number out of
your hat. If you have real numers that honestly and rationally
compare long-term cost comparisons between
(1) research, development, and pahsed implementation of pollutionn
controls andalternative energy,
with
(2) continuing on with things as they are, including things like
eventual health-care cost increases due to [pollution-related halth
effects, then offer the numbers. If you have none, don't pull
numbers out of the air that are not intended to inform, but rather
merely intended to denegrate an analogy/idea.
You're the one suggesting we should take <unnamed measures> as a
way of buying "insurance", against an unquantified, unknown
problem, that it's a good idea.

I mentioned measures elsewhere, so I thought I should skip a list for
the sake of brevity :o

But OK, In a nutshell:
1) continuing oil exploration and extraction, becasue current
infrastructure and suburbanization and so on cannot be changed
quickly; 2) realizing that "more drilling" is not a solution, and not
really a "quick fix" to either gas prices or teh increasing
difficulty of finding and recovering oil (i.e. the problems
associated with any non-renewable resource) - it's something that
only offers some "breathing room" while additional/alternative
technologies are researched, developed, made more efficient, have
infrastructure developed, and so on; 3) nix NIMBYism - people want to
have their energy-cake and eat it too, but that simply isn't
realistic; eventually, the time comes to pay the proverbial piper,
and people have to realize taht they can't get "cheap" energy by
saying that "someone" should "fix" it, but do so in a way that keeps
thoes nasty, ugly, un-stylish power-generating thingamadohickeyjigs
at least three states over from their Suburban back-yards;
4) nix "single-solution-ism" - there is not such thing as "The"
solution to energy needs; no, conservation will not "solve it all",
and no, wind will not "solve it all", etc and so on and so forth -
OTOH, oil doesn't "solve ti all" eitehr, and never has - that's why
there is "hydroelectric power" and "nuclear power". Arguing taht a
technology must be rejecte because "it can't meet all our needs" is
nonsensical - nothing ever has, and nothing ever will.

That's all very sensible stuff. We're doing it too, right?
We're still drilling, the debate to open up more is ongoing, etc.

Maybe it's a little slow for your tastes, but democracy's a big
ship (or a Hummer ;-); it don' spin on no dime.

As part of all that:
Educate epople. And I don't mean shout scary stuff at tehm. I mean,
present facts as facts, present probabilities as probabilites, and
present possibilities as possibilities.

Call me silly, but I thought we already did that, that
everyone knew this stuff.


You've analogized that it's cheap and easy, like buying house
insurance. You've made the proposal, so I'd expect you to have
answers about the costs vs. benefits.

Nope, I didn't say it would cheap and easy. (My insurance, at least,
ain't cheap! But it certainly isn't the $40K/year you suggested as
an analagous projection.) I just think that your number was
unnecessarily exaggerated.

It was an analogy, not a quote. Followed by lower number. Jeez.


You asked what could possibly be wrong with taking out insurance, so
I pointed out, by analogy, that until you can a) estimate the cost
of those <unnamed> measures, and show b) they actually help
protect against a c) credible problem, you haven't made your case.

I said we're already adapting; you deny. Fine. If you want
to be gloomy, be gloomy. Priced SUVs recently? Or their makers'
stock prices?

Individauls are coming up with ideas - what's needed is for teh gov.t
to get the bleep out of their way.

I disagree 1,000% that government is in any way hindering conservation
or alternative energy's progress. There was plenty of fuel-cell
activity in the 1999-2001 bubble.

The problem is that none of those make economic sense; if they did
people would flock to them.

In the past few years, there has been an
inordinate emphasis upon petroleum, at teh expense of other
technologies. Do I think tat people dfeveloping alternative
technologies should receive tax breaks? You bet. It's "insurance".

((Then too, IMO, the current attempt by Russia to repeat history and
again flex its IMperialistic muscles is also an obnject lesson
ilustrating the dnagers of being dependent upon a foreign power for
one's energy supplies - Russia has Europe bythe cahones becasue,
according to the various news reports, it supplies most of Europe's
petroleum and natural gas, so, if they vketch too much abotu Russia's
invasion of Georgia, all Russia has to do is turn off the tap. As
for making economic threats against Russia - look at history; Russia
will survive, evden if many Rissians lose their lives in the process.
THey're stubborn and resilient in that way.))

Let's put it this way. I'm pretty sure that some of Louisiana's
state tax money, and certainly soem of New Orleans' city taxes if
such exist, was put towards teh levees in New Orleans. Federal money
also goes to that, so people in Alaska are in part paying for New
Orleans as well. They were supposed to be the city's "insurance".
Because of governemntal (state and fed) screwing around and
iterferance and fund-diversion and who knows wat else, the people did
not get what they paid for, and the levees failed. Does that mean
that nobody should ever contribute to paying for the levees and the
city should be abandoned? There is debate about that, but the
overall view seems to be that no, the city should not just be
abandoned, but the levees need to be gotten right.

You're wrong on the New Orleans facts. I lived there.

??

Er, kind of beside the point; someone doesn't have to live in a place to
read reports/info, but anyhoo:


Gobs of money were spent on the levees, which were under *continuous*
improvement since 1964. They are among the largest works of man ever,
up there with the pyramids and The Great Wall.

Excessive expenditures have never correlated well with robust/quality
design and engineering. THe question isn't "how much money" as much as
it is "how effectively and efficiently was funding used".


Yes, some levee money was wasted, yes, dumb things were done, yes
it was hugely expensive.

IOW, what I said.


But all to no avail in the case of a direct hit, for which
there simply is no protection.

In essence, the gamble was taken that storms would not surpass a certain
level, so there was under-engineering. That gamble didn't work out too
well - not because there was no history of huge storms and flooding, but
because it's simply human nature to bet on the low probability of
something catastrophic happening, to figure that the statistics are in
their favor, and choose to save the resources (time, materiel, money) and
direct them elsewhere.


That's what I was cautioning w.r.t. global warming: reckless banning,
regulating, rationing, or taxing aren't guaranteed to do much except
raise a bunch of tax money. Tax money which, in New Orleans, just
encouraged corruption, not good works.

But money corrupts the corruptable regardless of whether it's tax money
or money from some other source. The answer isn't to simply cut all
funding, though - the answer, when something that important needs to be
done, is to (1) have rigorous oversight, (2) actually *punish* those who
ebmezzle and otherwise divert or steal funds, and (3) place a hihger
value on elected officials who try to take care of the people they
represent/lead, as opposed to merely pandering to them, reward long-term
thinking rather than myopia. Part of the reason to have elected
officials is supposed to be that, whereas average folks spend their days
working and raising families and so on, the elected officials are
*supposed* to be Professional in matters of state. If I was elected to
somethign, I would bring my Professional mindset to it and work very hard
at learning what I needed to learn, seeking advice, thinking, and so on -
the question is not only what an elected official would do,tho', the
question is also, Would the leectorate *want* that, or do they just want
someone who will pander to shrot-term (day to day) wishes and desires?
THere is a difference between what is desired, and what is needed, and
often, the electorate demands officials to deal with desires. OTOH, if
the electorate set aside quibbles, and decided as a Body Politic to
demand accountability, ethical action, hard work, and Professionalism in
general, politicians wouldn't be able to get away with questionable
shennanigans. So part of the matrix, in terms of solving problems, is
just human nature itself, and sociocultural values. Currently, for
example, those values favor the *appearance* of wealth, which is at the
root of a great many problems related to over-borrowing/over-spending,
and under-investing/under-saving.


So, yes, kaboodles of dollars went into teh NO levees; similarly,
kaboodles if dollars have into the Sacramento levees, but teh latter are
well-known to be under-engineered, with disaster unforcastable yet
nevertheless inevitable. None of that really negates my original
analogy. A risk is perceived, and peopel choose how to respond. Most of
the time, people choose to bet that the statistical rarity of some
catastrophe will continue to hold and operate in thair favor. My
analogies are onyl intended to show examples where that sort fo thinking
can, and does, fail. I extrapolated that to global warming, saying that,
even if GW/AGW have not been proven to everyone's satisfaction, the fact
also remains that nobody has adequately *disproven* GW/AGW, and in light
of that, there is a *risk* of certan things occurring.

Anti-GW people seem to be willing to bet on that risk not manifesting
itself. WHile that mgiuht work in most situations, and while risk
muightr be something they are comfortable living with, I still pose the
question: Do they have the right to impost their personal acceptance of
risk upon everyone else, given the magnitude of teh consequneces of that
gamble turns out to be wrong? I also maintain that it is valid to ask,
in conjunction with that, what would be the worst consequences of
actually lowering CO2 emissions (which would be done in large part by
lowering gaseous wastes in general).

In *either* event, yes, of course the danger of political corruption, and
other forms of idiocy, exsits, especially if We The People don't even
care enough about our own nation, or our own progeny, to start placing
more value on insight and intelligent consideration of *national* issues,
and reject mere flash and mere partisan bickering.

But the possibility (or in the current situation, probability) of
political assininity is a side issue to the above question of risk. The
penultimate, teh foundational, question is whether or not to gamble, take
the risk, that there "is no such thing" as any sort of global warming,
given the potential consequneces.

All else, including questions of politics, flows from how that question
is answered. If we choose to not take that gamble, then we have to
change not only technological matters such as energy sources, but we also
have to change teh nature of the political dialogue, and how we view what
it means to be a citizen of this nation, and a citizen of the world.

No amount of hair-splitting will alter the fact that we, as a people,
will either deal with these matters, or sit back and passivly watch
whatever unfolds; and no number of red herrings will alter the fact that
people, both as individuals and as nations, either
(1) choose to take charge of those things which are within their power to
control and try to create a better situtaion, a better world, or
(2) they just sit back and let things happen to them, and complain if the
result is unfavorable.

That is the big picture.


As for teh part of that picture tat includes regulations, taxes, and the
other things you'd mentioned:

In any endeavor, there are smart ways to do things and there are stupid
ways to do things. Regulations can be good things, or bad things,
depending upon whether or not they're formed smartly, *and enforced*.
Regulations exist, as least ideally, for the same reason that there are
laws against reckless driving. Businesses can and do have a particular
focus. I was reading about Shell and some of it's operations in the
early 200's, and its focus was upon saving itself money by scrupulously
avoiding environmental damage, because it is liabel, since it's a US
company, fro such damages. Other companies, which are not held
accountable (the examples were a couple non-US companies, tho' I can't
recall which they were), took the fast porfit and didn't care whether
they crapped up the environment and destroyed the livlihoods of a few
"primitive" people who depended upon that environment. IN that case,
regulation encouraged conservation, non-regulation destroyed natural
areas.

SO, yes, of course bans, regulations, and so on can be done
stupidly/recklessly, but errors in implementation do not negate the
entire concept of oversight and controls; for those concepts to function
properly, however, there has to be oversight, which itself only functions
if people have at least some minimla level of ethics. THE biggest
problem with gov/t isn't gov.t, but lack of ethics and lack of
transparency, both of which work to make oversight a pathetic joke.

You objected to having "everybody" pay for the development of non-
petroleum energy.


No I didn't.

But maybe I should. If it makes economic sense, government doesn't
need to fund it. If government funds it, they turn science
and economic issues into political issues.


Only in the absence of ethics. And, in the absence of ethics, science,
as well as all other human endeavors, will degenerate with or without
gov.t funding.


.