17 ms·

I have these weird "future stories" I like to play in my head. One is where we end up in a situation that mystically some global policy comes into place that gi

by neom 4y ago

I have these weird "future stories" I like to play in my head. One is where we end up in a situation that mystically some global policy comes into place that gives each human a limit to fly 5,000 miles every year, and then a market for flight miles emerges. People sign into a website and trade their miles for their local currency, flight miles eventually become a pseudo currency. It's super weird, but I think about it often.

CalRobert 4y ago
We could just use money, of course.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  A global universal basic income in conjunction with a global cap on fossil fuel extraction would be the simplest, assuming politically possible.
  - psychlops 4y ago
    As long as we are willing to go to war to force other countries not to modernize, it's totally possible.
    - CalRobert 4y ago
      We're already killing their people through drought and famine, which isn't too far off an act of war, really.
- ben_w 4y ago
  "Just use money" is kinda part of why we've not already solved the problem. This is more like UBI denominated in rations of air-distance, that happens to be tradable for things people care about, and thus essentially funded by a tax on travelling more than that each year.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    It's not "money" thats at issue but rather prices. Markets work great generally speaking but they're notoriously bad at pricing in externalities - especially of fossil fuels. Money would work fine if the cost of air travel in dollars reflected its impact. It just needs to be more expensive.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    It's effectively a "cap and trade" program for flight miles. And cap and trade are, in the big picture functionally just taxes e.g. many opinions on carbon taxes and GHG cap and trade are affectively fungible. There's differences, but often not particularly big or fundamental ones e.g. you might say that individuals are getting the money for trading their miles, but it's easy to refund taxes to people as many carbon fee programs already do. https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/which-is-better-carbon-tax-or-cap-and-trade/ https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/which-is-...
YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
Time to open up orphanages in third-world countries and harvest children for flight miles.
momirlan 4y ago
don't forget to add social credits into the equation

by neom 4y ago

CalRobert 4y ago

We could just use money, of course.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
A global universal basic income in conjunction with a global cap on fossil fuel extraction would be the simplest, assuming politically possible.
- psychlops 4y ago
  As long as we are willing to go to war to force other countries not to modernize, it's totally possible.
  - CalRobert 4y ago
    We're already killing their people through drought and famine, which isn't too far off an act of war, really.
ben_w 4y ago
"Just use money" is kinda part of why we've not already solved the problem. This is more like UBI denominated in rations of air-distance, that happens to be tradable for things people care about, and thus essentially funded by a tax on travelling more than that each year.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  It's not "money" thats at issue but rather prices. Markets work great generally speaking but they're notoriously bad at pricing in externalities - especially of fossil fuels. Money would work fine if the cost of air travel in dollars reflected its impact. It just needs to be more expensive.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  It's effectively a "cap and trade" program for flight miles. And cap and trade are, in the big picture functionally just taxes e.g. many opinions on carbon taxes and GHG cap and trade are affectively fungible. There's differences, but often not particularly big or fundamental ones e.g. you might say that individuals are getting the money for trading their miles, but it's easy to refund taxes to people as many carbon fee programs already do. https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/which-is-better-carbon-tax-or-cap-and-trade/ https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/which-is-...

YurgenJurgensen 4y ago

Time to open up orphanages in third-world countries and harvest children for flight miles.

momirlan 4y ago

don't forget to add social credits into the equation