4 ms·

Elect people who are willing to take science-supported reality in consideration when creating policy.

_andromeda_ 10y ago
I've come to firmly reject this idea lately. I have been asking myself this question of the validity of climate change science. I came to this conclusion: all the policy in the world wouldn't matter unless one thing happened - find more cost effective energy alternatives. Period. End of story. Now, whether you're a climate change denier or not, all this boils down to is, is it(energy source) cheaper? Not just cheaper in terms of a one to one comparison but also included is the cost of deployment. You've got to embrace a praxeological vantage point and ask, what will the majority of actors purposefully engage in in order to meet their energy demands? Will most humans choose clean energy because it is good for the environment even though it hurts them fiscally? The hurtful but pragmatic answer to this is a firm NO. Think about how hard government policy has tried to deal with something that's already illegal - drugs - and yet it has failed spectacularly. Will these same government actors all of a sudden become competent enough to deal with big oil (whom I believe are just being pragmatic about meeting the world energy demands)? Once you put it that way, it becomes very clear, policy is borderline nonsense and is just another excuse for government to infringe on private property rights. So, the solution? Intense research in finding energy alternatives that are truly cheaper in terms of BOTH large scale deployment as well as one to one comparison. Right now I'm not convinced we have anything that fits the bill.
anotherturn 10y ago
Votes only count if the people you vote for can be counted on. Those people are often very thin on the ground, hard to identify (it could be a political masquerade) or are unelectable because the voting majority don't like them.
- cornholio 10y ago
  Then, at least don't vote for candidate who makes a campaign point out of mocking science and promoting quacks in key public positions. That's something that most people could do.
wu-ikkyu 10y ago
Petroleum is a multi hundred billion dollar industry in the US alone. Attempting to vote our way out of this problem is in vain when considering the influence/ownership of the oil lobby on the political system.

I've come to firmly reject this idea lately. I have been asking myself this question of the validity of climate change science. I came to this conclusion: all the policy in the world wouldn't matter unless one thing happened - find more cost effective energy alternatives. Period. End of story. Now, whether you're a climate change denier or not, all this boils down to is, is it(energy source) cheaper? Not just cheaper in terms of a one to one comparison but also included is the cost of deployment. You've got to embrace a praxeological vantage point and ask, what will the majority of actors purposefully engage in in order to meet their energy demands? Will most humans choose clean energy because it is good for the environment even though it hurts them fiscally? The hurtful but pragmatic answer to this is a firm NO. Think about how hard government policy has tried to deal with something that's already illegal - drugs - and yet it has failed spectacularly. Will these same government actors all of a sudden become competent enough to deal with big oil (whom I believe are just being pragmatic about meeting the world energy demands)? Once you put it that way, it becomes very clear, policy is borderline nonsense and is just another excuse for government to infringe on private property rights. So, the solution? Intense research in finding energy alternatives that are truly cheaper in terms of BOTH large scale deployment as well as one to one comparison. Right now I'm not convinced we have anything that fits the bill.

anotherturn 10y ago

Votes only count if the people you vote for can be counted on. Those people are often very thin on the ground, hard to identify (it could be a political masquerade) or are unelectable because the voting majority don't like them.

cornholio 10y ago
Then, at least don't vote for candidate who makes a campaign point out of mocking science and promoting quacks in key public positions. That's something that most people could do.

wu-ikkyu 10y ago

Petroleum is a multi hundred billion dollar industry in the US alone. Attempting to vote our way out of this problem is in vain when considering the influence/ownership of the oil lobby on the political system.