5 ms·

If you have the ability to raise trillions why do this. Why not get that money into tech to reduce global warming which is more of a threat than not having GPT

If you have the ability to raise trillions why do this. Why not get that money into tech to reduce global warming which is more of a threat than not having GPT 6 quadrillion parameter model or whatever.

justrealist 3y ago
> If you have the ability to raise trillions why do this. I mean this should be obvious but the "ability to raise trillions" is because those people think they will get X returns on the money. Your "ability to raise trillions" will quickly evaporate if you offer to throw the money into a pit and set it on fire. If national governments offered a $10T bounty for solving global warming, then sure, you could raise $1T to moonshot it... but there needs to be an incentive.
- sham1 3y ago
  You'd think that "preventing a large chunk of the biosphere, especially the part with humans in it, from going FUBAR" would have enough financial incentives behind it as-is (after all, the human-part of the biosphere going FUBAR would just wreck the economy which in turn would lead to no profits to be had), especially with the promise of all the possible clean-tech stuff and innovation that would get birthed from the process of trying to solve climate change. I suppose a big part of this is that the problem doesn't seem urgent enough that it would inspire this sort of ability to raise money.
  - justrealist 3y ago
    That sounds like a valuable thing for a coalition of governments to put an enormous bounty on! But it's a collective action problem and you're not going to accomplish anything by guilting investors into burning cash singlehandedly solving a tragedy of the commons.
  - spencerflem 3y ago
    it's a coordination problem. it's better for everyone if we do, but not any individual company, which is why the free market will never solve it
  - blackoil 3y ago
    World GDP is >100T/year. US ~28T/year If it was so important and urgent in people's mind. They would have stop wasting electricity, eating so much beef, wearing fast fashion, driving gas guzzlers and in general consuming so much shit.
    - spencerflem 3y ago
      People would drive less if we didn't keep building everything to be only accessible via roads, would eat less beef if we didn't subsidize it, and would waste less electricity if carbon taxes made it cost the true amount. And it would feel less like a burden because everyone would be doing it too, so you don't have to put up with the unjustice of other people getting richer off your sacrifices. While I'm all for trying to lower your individual consumption, asking everyone nicely to use less WILL NOT solve the problem, the same way asking companies to use less won't either. This is a coordination problem and can only be solved by governmental action.
      - sham1 3y ago
        And the fun part is that there are many folks out there, that still argue that there's no need for climate regulation for example, because left to its own devices, the free market will do the "right thing." But clearly because of the tragedy of the commons and things such as the climate often being seen as an externality, you need something external like governmental regulation to make sure that the right thing is done. Of course it doesn't help that governments tend to also be annoyingly inept at this, but at least they have more of a chance to get something done for this.
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      Tragedy of the commons.
- hcfman 3y ago
  Global warming does indeed use a lot of money. But our glorious leaders have decided that they would rather use the money needed to save the planet for war. Sorry all, that's a vast sum of money, there's none left over to save humanity.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Sometimes incentives are aligned. Energy is big business. Free energy from the sun makes a lot of financial sense. The kink is storage. Everyone says Tesla is s battery company and in any case it is a very successful company. This ain’t pure hippie stuff.

justrealist 3y ago

> If you have the ability to raise trillions why do this. I mean this should be obvious but the "ability to raise trillions" is because those people think they will get X returns on the money. Your "ability to raise trillions" will quickly evaporate if you offer to throw the money into a pit and set it on fire. If national governments offered a $10T bounty for solving global warming, then sure, you could raise $1T to moonshot it... but there needs to be an incentive.

sham1 3y ago
You'd think that "preventing a large chunk of the biosphere, especially the part with humans in it, from going FUBAR" would have enough financial incentives behind it as-is (after all, the human-part of the biosphere going FUBAR would just wreck the economy which in turn would lead to no profits to be had), especially with the promise of all the possible clean-tech stuff and innovation that would get birthed from the process of trying to solve climate change. I suppose a big part of this is that the problem doesn't seem urgent enough that it would inspire this sort of ability to raise money.
- justrealist 3y ago
  That sounds like a valuable thing for a coalition of governments to put an enormous bounty on! But it's a collective action problem and you're not going to accomplish anything by guilting investors into burning cash singlehandedly solving a tragedy of the commons.
- spencerflem 3y ago
  it's a coordination problem. it's better for everyone if we do, but not any individual company, which is why the free market will never solve it
- blackoil 3y ago
  World GDP is >100T/year. US ~28T/year If it was so important and urgent in people's mind. They would have stop wasting electricity, eating so much beef, wearing fast fashion, driving gas guzzlers and in general consuming so much shit.
  - spencerflem 3y ago
    People would drive less if we didn't keep building everything to be only accessible via roads, would eat less beef if we didn't subsidize it, and would waste less electricity if carbon taxes made it cost the true amount. And it would feel less like a burden because everyone would be doing it too, so you don't have to put up with the unjustice of other people getting richer off your sacrifices. While I'm all for trying to lower your individual consumption, asking everyone nicely to use less WILL NOT solve the problem, the same way asking companies to use less won't either. This is a coordination problem and can only be solved by governmental action.
    - sham1 3y ago
      And the fun part is that there are many folks out there, that still argue that there's no need for climate regulation for example, because left to its own devices, the free market will do the "right thing." But clearly because of the tragedy of the commons and things such as the climate often being seen as an externality, you need something external like governmental regulation to make sure that the right thing is done. Of course it doesn't help that governments tend to also be annoyingly inept at this, but at least they have more of a chance to get something done for this.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    Tragedy of the commons.
hcfman 3y ago
Global warming does indeed use a lot of money. But our glorious leaders have decided that they would rather use the money needed to save the planet for war. Sorry all, that's a vast sum of money, there's none left over to save humanity.
quickthrower2 3y ago
Sometimes incentives are aligned. Energy is big business. Free energy from the sun makes a lot of financial sense. The kink is storage. Everyone says Tesla is s battery company and in any case it is a very successful company. This ain’t pure hippie stuff.