5 ms·

What if it's all a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?

by castis 9y ago

jerf 9y ago
Then trillions of dollars were extremely inefficiently allocated to the task of creating better worlds and a much better world could have been created with that money instead, costing lives in the process. Having noble goals doesn't immunize you from accounting.
- castis 9y ago
  And none of it means anything if we all die because the planet cant sustain us any longer.
  - nyolfen 9y ago
    quite a nice little set of rhetorical positions you've constructed for yourself
  - sadfsafaasdfsa 9y ago
    S/He's responding to "What if it's all a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?" therefore in this scope there is no GW
- alistproducer2 9y ago
  I recommend you read "Money: The Unauthorized Biography [0]" You'll never look at money the same way again. Money is not a commodity even though we treat it as such. It certainly is not a finite resource. Plenty of money gets created everyday for thing far more stupid than trying to save the world. Look at how much money has been created (and will be spent) for no good reason at all in the current cryptocoin bubble. The massive capital gains are going to be cashed out and spent somewhere, creating market distortions, making people who contribute nothing insanely wealthy. Money is not sacred. Better we use it to try and save the world than to treat it as if it (and the market) are some all-wise, ever-perfect allocator of human and natural resources. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F1W0DAO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F1W0DAO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
  - smokeyj 9y ago
    Actually.. Original money was just a highly marketable commodity. Salt, spices, gold, cigarettes in prison. I highly suggest a better biography of currency. Maybe something authored by one of those pesky Austrians.
    - jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago
      The book you want is David Graeber's, but it will not confirm austrian leanings, nor the history of money you present above.
      - smokeyj 9y ago
        It's not fair to just say go buy someone's book without a single supporting argument. Drop some wisdom on me, man.
        jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago
        The tl;dr is that the commonly told origin of money, right back to Adam Smith, is a-historical assumption that is contradicted by archeological evidence. The a-historical account is that money was developed to make barter more efficient. This is not what we see in the records from Sumer, and there is similar evidence in the other locations where we know writing arose. Before the neolithic revolution societies economic structure was largely based on social ties and a sense of reciprocal behavior: a sort of informal communism. As sedentary agriculture lead to the development of temple complexes and cities, debt and credit records replaced these. Money was not developed until nearly 2k years later. Barter was actually uncommon in the ancient world and was typically reserved for interactions between strangers such as traders that had traveled long distance and had no social ties to one another. Coinage in particular typically arose as part of a complex that involved raising armies and funding them via taxation. The commodity theory of money is a-historical, and not what "original money" was. It's a great book, though Graeber has little restraint in taking pot shots at economists, which might provoke some readers to defensiveness.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
I have heard this line several times before, and it is the environmental equivalent of "What if there is no God, and we are being good to each other for nothing." It completely ignores tradeoffs. General environmentalism has been very aggresively anti-nuclear. In a world of CO2 caused climate change, it has to rethink that opposition. Another example is with diesel engines. There is a tradeoff between NOX emmisions and efficiency (and thus CO2 emissions). What you decide the tradeoff to be, is influenced by how much you thing climate change is a problem. Another example is endangered species. If we really are going to have catastrophic global warming, then maybe we don't try as aggressively to protect all species from habitat destruction say from building hydroelectric, wind, solar power plants in Africa.
- specialist 9y ago
  There is no tradeoff. Reducing waste (CO2, methane, heat, whatever) increases profits. Not for the entrenched interests, obviously. Happily, everyone else who's been paying their externalized costs (taxpayers, consumers) benefits.
  - bluGill 9y ago
    There is only so much you can reduce waste though. The internal combustion engine is limited by thermodynamics to about 50% efficiency, we are already reaching >40% in production engines. There just isn't much more waste we can get rid of. (electric cars bring up a different sets of limits, though probably higher)
    - specialist 9y ago
      Fewer trips, fewer miles/km, lighter vehicals, vehical sharing, etc. Optimize the whole system. Localized optimization leads to decreased overall efficiency.
  - sadfsafaasdfsa 9y ago
    "Reducing waste (CO2, methane, heat, whatever) increases profits." That's a broad generalization and far simpler model than what the poster is referring to. Yes, riding a motorcycle instead of an SUV decreases all emissions. This is the simple base case. However driving a diesel SUV decreases CO2 but increases NOx wrt to a gasoline one. This is the higher-order effect.

What if it's all a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?

by castis 9y ago

What if it's all a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?

jerf 9y ago

Then trillions of dollars were extremely inefficiently allocated to the task of creating better worlds and a much better world could have been created with that money instead, costing lives in the process. Having noble goals doesn't immunize you from accounting.

castis 9y ago
And none of it means anything if we all die because the planet cant sustain us any longer.
- nyolfen 9y ago
  quite a nice little set of rhetorical positions you've constructed for yourself
- sadfsafaasdfsa 9y ago
  S/He's responding to "What if it's all a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?" therefore in this scope there is no GW
alistproducer2 9y ago
I recommend you read "Money: The Unauthorized Biography [0]" You'll never look at money the same way again. Money is not a commodity even though we treat it as such. It certainly is not a finite resource. Plenty of money gets created everyday for thing far more stupid than trying to save the world. Look at how much money has been created (and will be spent) for no good reason at all in the current cryptocoin bubble. The massive capital gains are going to be cashed out and spent somewhere, creating market distortions, making people who contribute nothing insanely wealthy. Money is not sacred. Better we use it to try and save the world than to treat it as if it (and the market) are some all-wise, ever-perfect allocator of human and natural resources. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F1W0DAO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F1W0DAO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
- smokeyj 9y ago
  Actually.. Original money was just a highly marketable commodity. Salt, spices, gold, cigarettes in prison. I highly suggest a better biography of currency. Maybe something authored by one of those pesky Austrians.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago
    The book you want is David Graeber's, but it will not confirm austrian leanings, nor the history of money you present above.
    - smokeyj 9y ago
      It's not fair to just say go buy someone's book without a single supporting argument. Drop some wisdom on me, man.
      - jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago
        The tl;dr is that the commonly told origin of money, right back to Adam Smith, is a-historical assumption that is contradicted by archeological evidence. The a-historical account is that money was developed to make barter more efficient. This is not what we see in the records from Sumer, and there is similar evidence in the other locations where we know writing arose. Before the neolithic revolution societies economic structure was largely based on social ties and a sense of reciprocal behavior: a sort of informal communism. As sedentary agriculture lead to the development of temple complexes and cities, debt and credit records replaced these. Money was not developed until nearly 2k years later. Barter was actually uncommon in the ancient world and was typically reserved for interactions between strangers such as traders that had traveled long distance and had no social ties to one another. Coinage in particular typically arose as part of a complex that involved raising armies and funding them via taxation. The commodity theory of money is a-historical, and not what "original money" was. It's a great book, though Graeber has little restraint in taking pot shots at economists, which might provoke some readers to defensiveness.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago

I have heard this line several times before, and it is the environmental equivalent of "What if there is no God, and we are being good to each other for nothing." It completely ignores tradeoffs. General environmentalism has been very aggresively anti-nuclear. In a world of CO2 caused climate change, it has to rethink that opposition. Another example is with diesel engines. There is a tradeoff between NOX emmisions and efficiency (and thus CO2 emissions). What you decide the tradeoff to be, is influenced by how much you thing climate change is a problem. Another example is endangered species. If we really are going to have catastrophic global warming, then maybe we don't try as aggressively to protect all species from habitat destruction say from building hydroelectric, wind, solar power plants in Africa.

specialist 9y ago
There is no tradeoff. Reducing waste (CO2, methane, heat, whatever) increases profits. Not for the entrenched interests, obviously. Happily, everyone else who's been paying their externalized costs (taxpayers, consumers) benefits.
- bluGill 9y ago
  There is only so much you can reduce waste though. The internal combustion engine is limited by thermodynamics to about 50% efficiency, we are already reaching >40% in production engines. There just isn't much more waste we can get rid of. (electric cars bring up a different sets of limits, though probably higher)
  - specialist 9y ago
    Fewer trips, fewer miles/km, lighter vehicals, vehical sharing, etc. Optimize the whole system. Localized optimization leads to decreased overall efficiency.
- sadfsafaasdfsa 9y ago
  "Reducing waste (CO2, methane, heat, whatever) increases profits." That's a broad generalization and far simpler model than what the poster is referring to. Yes, riding a motorcycle instead of an SUV decreases all emissions. This is the simple base case. However driving a diesel SUV decreases CO2 but increases NOx wrt to a gasoline one. This is the higher-order effect.