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I really liked Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future as a guide to think through the effectiveness of various carrots and sticks in staving off the cli

I really liked Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future as a guide to think through the effectiveness of various carrots and sticks in staving off the climate catastrophe. It's a work of fiction set in the very near future. The carrots include a carbon coin that is paid out to those who sequester carbon emissions, for instance by leaving oil in the ground. I don't recall courts being one of the sticks, but notably targeted assassinations of the worst climate perps are.

wetpaws 5y ago
Targeted assassinations as a driver of progress is a very underrated idea, I wish it would become more mainstream.
- StavrosK 5y ago
  The problem there is that nobody especially likes being assassinated.
  - 0-_-0 5y ago
    Is that a feature or a bug?
- roflc0ptic 5y ago
  I used to think like this, but eventually I had the realization that 1. right now, we have norms against murdering people 2. if my team starts murdering people, we could probably get what we want 3. however, this breaks the norm against murdering people, and will encourage the other team to start murdering people to get what they want. All of a sudden, people are murdering each other left and right. This is sometimes called "war". It is very bad.
  - akudha 5y ago
    Aren't the killings already happening though? For example, the logging industry murdering tribal leaders and activists.
    - ben_w 5y ago
      Yes, and that’s bad. Normalisation of a bad thing is always worse than bad people getting away with it in specific conditions, for any specific condition short of “when they feel like it”.
      - akudha 5y ago
        Not defending killings on either side. That said, one side is already using all kinds of nasty tactics, including killings. Environmental destruction is a problem that needs massive, urgent action. We have seen over and over that nicely asking corporations to behave doesn't work. I don't know what the solution is, but I wouldn't be surprised if fed up people take up violence. It will probably just worsen the situation.
      - kaba0 5y ago
        It won’t necessarily make it normalized. But killing someone in some very special context can be morally right, I think. Euthanasia is a more common example, but I believe killing Hitler would be similarly non-controversial. But it is an age-old question of philosophy.
      - roflc0ptic 5y ago
        https://askell.io/posts/2020/12/bad-isnt-good-enough https://askell.io/posts/2020/12/bad-isnt-good-enough Per this article, risking normalizing a bad thing is a pro tanto reason not to do something, but it's not an "all things considered" reason not to do something. As the sibling comment says, there are circumstances in which killing is widely considered acceptable. I think the ethical considerations here are complicated and worth serious investigation, although I do firmly come down on the side of "let's not murder people."
    - snakeboy 5y ago
      Wow, I had never heard of the 2014 case in Peru[0]. from the article: > Global Witness has said 164 environmentalists were killed worldwide in 2018. About half were killed in Latin American countries including Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Guatemala. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/31/peru-logging-indigenous-activists-murders https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/31/peru-logging-i...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- barney54 5y ago
  Don’t ever create power you would not like your enemy to wield against you.
- OgAstorga 5y ago
  I won’t criticize you because your ideas. Still, I’d like you to know how a society would work if we were more aligned to think like that. There is a government philosophy called utilitarianism. It’s based on the premise that a policy is good if and only if it increases overall happiness in a society thus, ends justify the means. It’s totally valid to be an utilitarian. Nonetheless, you have to accept two premises. 1. There is no individual rights. 2. Measuring happiness is a trivialization of human experience (ex. How many people would need to be given an iPhone in order to justify the torturing an assassination of a child?). Try reading Justice by Michael Sandel if you want to learn more.
  - curryst 5y ago
    One of the more grave flaws of utilitarianism is that I've yet to hear anyone define utility in a quantifiable way. People often substitute 'happiness', but how does one measure happiness in a way that it can be calculated? Is it an absolute scale or is it relative to your own baseline? Happiness is also heavily subjective. People in the first world often feel like they're missing out if they don't feel like they have the latest and greatest iPhone, while someone in an extremely poor area would be happy to have running water. Is the utility of a new phone really the same as giving someone running water, or do we take into account that the need for a new phone is a somewhat self-inflicted societal standard? I like the concept of utilitarianism, but find that it's basis in statistics means that you can typically justify any position by tinkering with the parameters of how you measure utility.
- Nasrudith 5y ago
  It is a fucking stupid one. It hasn't worked on dictators and drug cartels. Hell it isn't even a guarantee against unarmed protestors. It is a sin Hollywood shares a good deal of blame for perpetuating, the bloodyminded stupid idea that you can just kill your way out of complex problems. You select for more ruthless, selfish, and paranoid targets that way. Hell it is terrible for your ideology's image as you marry the image of crazed gunman/bomber to cause. The anarchists trid that and the term is still synonymous with depraved lunatics with bombs two centuries later.

wetpaws 5y ago

Targeted assassinations as a driver of progress is a very underrated idea, I wish it would become more mainstream.

StavrosK 5y ago
The problem there is that nobody especially likes being assassinated.
- 0-_-0 5y ago
  Is that a feature or a bug?
roflc0ptic 5y ago
I used to think like this, but eventually I had the realization that 1. right now, we have norms against murdering people 2. if my team starts murdering people, we could probably get what we want 3. however, this breaks the norm against murdering people, and will encourage the other team to start murdering people to get what they want. All of a sudden, people are murdering each other left and right. This is sometimes called "war". It is very bad.
- akudha 5y ago
  Aren't the killings already happening though? For example, the logging industry murdering tribal leaders and activists.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Yes, and that’s bad. Normalisation of a bad thing is always worse than bad people getting away with it in specific conditions, for any specific condition short of “when they feel like it”.
    - akudha 5y ago
      Not defending killings on either side. That said, one side is already using all kinds of nasty tactics, including killings. Environmental destruction is a problem that needs massive, urgent action. We have seen over and over that nicely asking corporations to behave doesn't work. I don't know what the solution is, but I wouldn't be surprised if fed up people take up violence. It will probably just worsen the situation.
    - kaba0 5y ago
      It won’t necessarily make it normalized. But killing someone in some very special context can be morally right, I think. Euthanasia is a more common example, but I believe killing Hitler would be similarly non-controversial. But it is an age-old question of philosophy.
    - roflc0ptic 5y ago
      https://askell.io/posts/2020/12/bad-isnt-good-enough https://askell.io/posts/2020/12/bad-isnt-good-enough Per this article, risking normalizing a bad thing is a pro tanto reason not to do something, but it's not an "all things considered" reason not to do something. As the sibling comment says, there are circumstances in which killing is widely considered acceptable. I think the ethical considerations here are complicated and worth serious investigation, although I do firmly come down on the side of "let's not murder people."
  - snakeboy 5y ago
    Wow, I had never heard of the 2014 case in Peru[0]. from the article: > Global Witness has said 164 environmentalists were killed worldwide in 2018. About half were killed in Latin American countries including Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Guatemala. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/31/peru-logging-indigenous-activists-murders https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/31/peru-logging-i...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
barney54 5y ago
Don’t ever create power you would not like your enemy to wield against you.
OgAstorga 5y ago
I won’t criticize you because your ideas. Still, I’d like you to know how a society would work if we were more aligned to think like that. There is a government philosophy called utilitarianism. It’s based on the premise that a policy is good if and only if it increases overall happiness in a society thus, ends justify the means. It’s totally valid to be an utilitarian. Nonetheless, you have to accept two premises. 1. There is no individual rights. 2. Measuring happiness is a trivialization of human experience (ex. How many people would need to be given an iPhone in order to justify the torturing an assassination of a child?). Try reading Justice by Michael Sandel if you want to learn more.
- curryst 5y ago
  One of the more grave flaws of utilitarianism is that I've yet to hear anyone define utility in a quantifiable way. People often substitute 'happiness', but how does one measure happiness in a way that it can be calculated? Is it an absolute scale or is it relative to your own baseline? Happiness is also heavily subjective. People in the first world often feel like they're missing out if they don't feel like they have the latest and greatest iPhone, while someone in an extremely poor area would be happy to have running water. Is the utility of a new phone really the same as giving someone running water, or do we take into account that the need for a new phone is a somewhat self-inflicted societal standard? I like the concept of utilitarianism, but find that it's basis in statistics means that you can typically justify any position by tinkering with the parameters of how you measure utility.
Nasrudith 5y ago
It is a fucking stupid one. It hasn't worked on dictators and drug cartels. Hell it isn't even a guarantee against unarmed protestors. It is a sin Hollywood shares a good deal of blame for perpetuating, the bloodyminded stupid idea that you can just kill your way out of complex problems. You select for more ruthless, selfish, and paranoid targets that way. Hell it is terrible for your ideology's image as you marry the image of crazed gunman/bomber to cause. The anarchists trid that and the term is still synonymous with depraved lunatics with bombs two centuries later.