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We haven't even studied what damaging side-effects could occur, yet already we're trying to talk ourselves into Drill Baby Drill. No time to understand its role

We haven't even studied what damaging side-effects could occur, yet already we're trying to talk ourselves into Drill Baby Drill. No time to understand its role in the global biogeochemical cycling of Earth... there's money to be made! This seems like transparently unwise behavior for people such as we — residents of a fragile spaceship — to engage in. >this can't happen if aquifer is already under the sea. Sure it can: a fresh[er]water spring venting into salt water is still a spring. These types of fresh/salt transitions are seen by divers all the time. These springs and "meetings of the waters" are often hot beds of life underwater, and shutting them down will have unknown hydrological and biological consequences. >in this case it will be seafloor subsidence, which will have much smaller impact than land subsidence has. How do we know that? Just because the impact is less obvious or "more distant" doesn't mean it's less costly. >also huge profits for the governments taxing these companies, and for people buying the resource cheaper. Taxes? Lower prices? Sounds like someone's not optimizing for Shareholder Value, citizen. :-\ [Un]fortunately, real businesses do. They use regulatory capture to dodge taxes or otherwise avoid contributing back to the public coffer (see the numerous stories of aquifers given away "for a song" to private companies) and they use anticompetitive monopolistic/oligopolistic practices to avoid lowering prices. These practices are economically inefficient (ie they make the society poorer overall, and by utilitarianism reduce the society's overall happiness), yet they are common. So I question your claim of automatic huge profits for governments and consumers. It could be that all the profits go to the companies, and any economic profits for third parties get cancelled out by the economic losses incurred by additional income inequality. Not all profit is profitable. If I give an extra dollar to the local warlord, have I made the society richer? Happier? Free-er? Does it make any difference if the local warlord calls itself "Nestle?" (actually that's not quite fair: Nestle has a body count most warlords would give their left arm for, but that's a separate issue)

nightwing 7y ago
If we do not talk about usefulness of a resource how would we know if it is worth to study what happens when it is removed? > Taxes? Lower prices? Sounds like someone's not optimizing for the almighty Shareholder Value, citizen Sure, sometimes people in governments take money and create anti-competitive regulations, but don't you agree that in such cases the problem is not "our desire to exploit resources" but the corrupt government. Even with that companies still pay lots of taxes, and there is often competition lowering the prices. Particularly in this case they have to make the price cheaper than the other methods of getting water. > If I give an extra dollar to the local warlord, have I made the society richer? Happier? Free-er? Does it make any difference if the local warlord calls itself "Nestle?" Do you argue against all taxes? As far as i can understand your arguments would apply equally against any human endeavor other than suicide. Whatever we do is going to change the environment somehow, of course the attitude of "dig up everything" is stupid, but "do not touch anything, it will have unknown consequences" is not better.
- schiffern 7y ago
  >don't you agree that in such cases the problem is not "our desire to exploit resources" but the corrupt government No I do not agree, but probably not for the reason you think. The all-too-human temptation to identify "the (singular) problem" (or the person/group 'to blame') isn't educational here. Regulatory capture is a whole-system problem, not a failure of a single component. If you remove all the people from the government and replace them with new people, that won't somehow fix it. The new people will be constrained to act in the same way as the old people, by the same economic and societal forces. >of course the attitude of "dig up everything" is stupid, but "do not touch anything, it will have unknown consequences" is not better. Indeed, who would disagree? No need to exclude the reasonable middle ground though. Precaution should not limitless ("do not touch anything"), but it should not be zero either. If we haven't studied the unknown consequences at all, maybe we should do that first.
  - nightwing 7y ago
    I agree that there is a systematic problem, as far as i could understand your previous comment was suggesting that the issue is entirely in existence of private companies, but judging by previous attempts of eliminating them i think changing the way government works is a more promising route. > Fortunately no-one's arguing that. You're excluding the (reasonable) middle. Your previous comment doesn't look like a reasonable middle to me. The reasonable attitude would be "yay, new resource, we need to find a way to use it without breaking anything".
    - schiffern 7y ago
      >Your previous comment doesn't look like a reasonable middle to me. The reasonable attitude would be "yay, new resource, we need to find a way to use it without breaking anything". "we need to... use it" -- so your idea of a 'reasonable attitude' is to beg the question? Conclusion first, evidence later? :-\ Again precaution should not limitless ("do not touch anything"), but it should not be zero either. If we haven't studied these "unknown consequences" at all, maybe we should do that first.

nightwing 7y ago

If we do not talk about usefulness of a resource how would we know if it is worth to study what happens when it is removed? > Taxes? Lower prices? Sounds like someone's not optimizing for the almighty Shareholder Value, citizen Sure, sometimes people in governments take money and create anti-competitive regulations, but don't you agree that in such cases the problem is not "our desire to exploit resources" but the corrupt government. Even with that companies still pay lots of taxes, and there is often competition lowering the prices. Particularly in this case they have to make the price cheaper than the other methods of getting water. > If I give an extra dollar to the local warlord, have I made the society richer? Happier? Free-er? Does it make any difference if the local warlord calls itself "Nestle?" Do you argue against all taxes? As far as i can understand your arguments would apply equally against any human endeavor other than suicide. Whatever we do is going to change the environment somehow, of course the attitude of "dig up everything" is stupid, but "do not touch anything, it will have unknown consequences" is not better.

schiffern 7y ago
>don't you agree that in such cases the problem is not "our desire to exploit resources" but the corrupt government No I do not agree, but probably not for the reason you think. The all-too-human temptation to identify "the (singular) problem" (or the person/group 'to blame') isn't educational here. Regulatory capture is a whole-system problem, not a failure of a single component. If you remove all the people from the government and replace them with new people, that won't somehow fix it. The new people will be constrained to act in the same way as the old people, by the same economic and societal forces. >of course the attitude of "dig up everything" is stupid, but "do not touch anything, it will have unknown consequences" is not better. Indeed, who would disagree? No need to exclude the reasonable middle ground though. Precaution should not limitless ("do not touch anything"), but it should not be zero either. If we haven't studied the unknown consequences at all, maybe we should do that first.
- nightwing 7y ago
  I agree that there is a systematic problem, as far as i could understand your previous comment was suggesting that the issue is entirely in existence of private companies, but judging by previous attempts of eliminating them i think changing the way government works is a more promising route. > Fortunately no-one's arguing that. You're excluding the (reasonable) middle. Your previous comment doesn't look like a reasonable middle to me. The reasonable attitude would be "yay, new resource, we need to find a way to use it without breaking anything".
  - schiffern 7y ago
    >Your previous comment doesn't look like a reasonable middle to me. The reasonable attitude would be "yay, new resource, we need to find a way to use it without breaking anything". "we need to... use it" -- so your idea of a 'reasonable attitude' is to beg the question? Conclusion first, evidence later? :-\ Again precaution should not limitless ("do not touch anything"), but it should not be zero either. If we haven't studied these "unknown consequences" at all, maybe we should do that first.