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Lower oil prices is great for everyone, you underestimate the great benefit of cheap energy if you think that way.
by conanbatt 7y ago
Lower oil prices is great for everyone, you underestimate the great benefit of cheap energy if you think that way.
- z2 7y agoThe market capitalization of the large oil companies have also been very closely correlated with oil prices, so cheap oil could in fact hurt their margins rather than help shareholders.
- conanbatt 7y agoAs logical as thinking that capping the velocity of cars only harms car companies. It's just not economic thinking.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoUsing the floorboards and rafters of the house as heating fuel is great for the householder... Until it it isn't. We built a system that depends on borrowing from the future, and it's abundantly clear it's running out of available credit.
- conanbatt 7y agoResources are meant to be consumed. What right do the future generations have over the right to consume those resources over us?
- jorge-d 7y agoWhat if we make future generations not needing to actually consume these resources ? Also if you consume all the available non-renewable energy that you have, at one point you will mathematically end up in a dire situation.
- malvosenior 7y ago> What if we make future generations not needing to actually consume these resources ? In all likelihood we'll need to consume the resources available to us to advance to the next level of technology where the existing resources are no longer needed. > Also if you consume all the available non-renewable energy that you have, at one point you will mathematically end up in a dire situation. Mathematically speaking, the resources will be consumed eventually. We just need to try to make as much progress as possible before that happens.
- conanbatt 7y ago> Mathematically speaking, the resources will be consumed eventually. We just need to try to make as much progress as possible before that happens. Economically speaking, oil is infinite. Thats why its price goes down over time!
- conanbatt 7y agoThere is a fantastic talk with Milton Friedman about this argument that I recommend looking up. A typical Engineering mindset conceptualizes the problem as if it were physics, where you see current output and stock and calculates the end result, but thats not how humans interact with each other: we are execute ingenuity at every step changing the basic formula again and again. If the former were true, you would have seen oil prices increase steadily over time, as oil absolutely runs out (no new one is produced), but you can see thats not what happens, it's even today way cheaper that it was decades ago. If it were starting to run out, the prices would shoot up and alternatives would become so appealing that they would be developed and used. Hopefully the concept is clear, the TLDR is don't use physics to explain economics.
- jorge-d 7y agoBecause technology advanced and new reserves were found. The main problem is not that we'll eventually run out of oil. It's just that by the time we finish all the reserves most people living on Earth will probably experience extreme weather conditions all year round.
- imtringued 7y agoWhy haven't we consumed everything yet?
- conanbatt 7y agoCertainly not due to heavy-handed rules imposed by governments, which I think is the proposed solution for those that appall at oil consumption.
- CalRobert 7y agoYou mean the rules that make it illegal to put your home walking distance from your job, or to build a granny unit, or to build a home without parking, or to build an apartment building, or to not have a lawn, or to repurpose parking to housing, or to opt out of subsidizing meat production?
- francisofascii 7y agoWhen you take much, much more than you need, it becomes immoral.
- conanbatt 7y agoThat's your opinion. I rather not have a moral system where someone decides how much you do of anything is immoral.
- antisthenes 7y agoI assume you're fine then with people inflicting as much violence on others as they want?
- conanbatt 7y agoI strictly mentioned I wouldn't depend on someone deciding how much (x/violence) is moral or immoral. Do you want to depend on someone to say how many beatings is moral to be inflicted upon yourself?
- antisthenes 7y ago> Do you want to depend on someone to say how many beatings is moral to be inflicted upon yourself? Regardless of what I want, we currently live in a society where the govt holds the monopoly on violence. You're free to have your opinion that an adolescent libertarian utopia is possible though.
- conanbatt 7y agoYou are also free to clap at internment camps and smile at your own moral and intelectual superiority.
- dang 7y agoWould you please stop doing flamewars on HN? We've asked you repeatedly and we ban accounts that keep doing this. Generic ideological flamewars are among the worst, because they're so repetitive. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- googoogaga 7y agoNot only this, he doesn't seem to understand fracking is not a new technology. Horizontal drilling is along with several others. It is these which make fracking ops viable. Most people want to improve the environment. They way to do that is not legislating in controls on production because then we just import from ME and pay to secure shipping routes in that region. Instead, legislate in incentives to reduce demand (electric car subsidies etc.).
- jorge-d 7y agoThe thing is that oil industry is actively lobbying the legislators to block any legislation that would reduce the demand.
- conanbatt 7y agoTesla also lobbies to get subsidies for his own industry. No clean participants in the energy market. It's on the state to fulfill its obligations with the citizenry
- hanniabu 7y agoParent never said it's a new technology