5 ms·

Not to pick one side or the other, but Tesla was made possible by artificial means, not market demand. The time will come when batteries are cheap and powerful

Not to pick one side or the other, but Tesla was made possible by artificial means, not market demand. The time will come when batteries are cheap and powerful enough that you could buy an electric car for $10k, but that time is not now and the government should not be an investor - historically it has both a bad record of managing budgets and delivering innovation per the dollar...And don't start with arguments about the internet - it was actually Xerox that largely made the internet possible: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444464304577539063008406518.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044446430457753... Edit: overall, I have to concede, it is kind of dumb to attribute the internet to a single entity or person - it was a pretty natural progression of technology - basically the digital evolution of phone lines. Could you imagine trying to patent the internet? If the government really wants to help out with energy, it should loosen environmental restrictions. I am as much a supporter of green tech and protecting the environment as the next guy, but there is something like 1000x the volume of natural gas under our soil as all the oil in the world combined. The sheer amount of wealth generated from tapping that resource could fund all kinds of green tech, and lessening foreign dependence creates jobs here and makes us stronger politically.

VikingCoder 14y ago
I disagree with much of what you wrote, but I rebuke you for giving credit to Xerox for the creation of the Internet. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/23/news/la-mo-who-invented-internet-20120723 http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/23/news/la-mo-who-inven... http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/07/23/yes-government-researchers-really-did-invent-the-internet/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/07/23/... http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=internet-pioneer-cerf http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=internet-pi... http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/wsj-mangles-history-to-argue-government-didnt-launch-the-internet/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/wsj-mangles-histo... And most importantly: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57479781-93/no-credit-for-uncle-sam-in-creating-net-vint-cerf-disagrees/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57479781-93/no-credit-for-u...
nodata 14y ago
> Not to pick one side or the other, but Tesla was made possible by artificial means, not market demand. But you did. > And don't start with arguments about the internet - it was actually Xerox that largely made the internet (sic.) possible: But you did: "Don't do X - X." NIST is government funded. Are they also magically excluded from having done good things?
- gavanwoolery 14y ago
  NIST, like many government agencies, has done good things. It's just that they have not done them cost-effectively. Real businesses have to operate responsibly, fear going bankrupt, meet market demands, and so forth. That said, I would actually gladly pour money into NIST over other government transactions (i.e. bank bailouts).
  - nodata 14y ago
    Anyone who has worked for a big business knows they are not cost effective. Also externalities don't magically make business profitable, they just move costs.
    - gavanwoolery 14y ago
      Many big businesses are even less cost-effective than govt. departments (I used to work at AOL, don't get me started...). The difference is that they must become cost-effective, or die (assuming they do not get a govt. bailout). Some businesses are very cost-effective (love them or hate them, Wallmart has an incredible track record; Valve, despite spending pretty liberally, makes more money per employee than most companies). The worst case scenario is when a government gets involved with a private business, particularly GSEs -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac being good examples: both reaped huge profits from their risks, but when they collapsed ended up costing US tax payers billions of dollars and destroying the economy. Long story short: the government has one job: to ensure the basic functionality required to run a country. It is not the govnernment's job to distribute tax payer money as venture capital. Leave businesses and other risks to entrepreneurs and investors.
rayiner 14y ago
> If the government really wants to help out with energy, it should loosen environmental restrictions. I am as much a supporter of green tech and protecting the environment... It's not about protecting the environment in the abstract. It's about who bears the costs of industrial activity. Loosening environmental reactions doesn't reduce costs, it shifts costs from polluters to the general public, particularly to the poorest people. Polluting the air you breathe is no different than any other injury--if the government has any function it is to protect your bodily integrity. It is a failure of organized society when a company can profit by physically hurting you, and it's economically inefficient to allow polluting industries to shift the inherent costs of their activity onto other people. It causes companies to pick the technologies that have the most costs that can be passed to other people, not the technologies that are the most absolutely efficient. The oil, coal, etc, industries were made possible by the intervention of government. Did you know that in the 1600s in American law pollution was basically illegal? E.g. if water ran through your property, it had to leave as clean as it went in. Allowing people to pollute during the industrial revolution was actually a tremendous government subsidy of industry.
- gavanwoolery 14y ago
  Basically, my argument is that we are going to continue to pollute the air for some time to come (the automobile will not disappear overnight). Natural gas is much cleaner, but even if it were crude oil under our soil, wouldn't it be better to use our own rather than another country's? The actual process of extracting any kind of oil/gas is not that environmentally hazardous, unless of course there is a spill.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    Your argument was for reducing environmental regulation.
- gavanwoolery 14y ago
  It is actually not the government's job to decide this - it is the voters. People vote with their mouths and dollars, and right now everyone just does not care enough to boycott coal power or stop driving SUVs. I'd like solar panels to become cheaper and electric vehicles to become more common, but the government cannot realistically control free markets like energy generation. That said our perception of air pollution may be a bit exaggerated. Atmospheric aeroforming is a very difficult task -- even if we tried actively for 500 years, I think we might have difficulty changing the composition of the earth's atmosphere significantly. Before air pollution is even a real threat, our technology will have probably progressed far enough naturally (i.e. sans government investment) to handle any problems. Keep in mind there are over 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 (5 Dectillion!) kilograms of atmosphere. Humans produce 2,500,000,000,000 kilograms of CO2 year roughly (2.5 trillion). However, each tree (on average consumes 33 kilos of CO2, and (by NASA estimate) there are roughly 400,000,000,000 trees on earth -- thus trees could consume up to 13,200,000,000,000 (13.2 trillion kilos of CO2), and CO2 is heavier than air so probably a fair amount of it reaches the ground. Even if only 1/5 of the trees processed CO2, we would still be not generating any significant amount of it. Anthropogenic global warming is mostly alarmist theory until we prove humans have a significant effect on the atmosphere (as one scientist pointed out, the earth has warmed and cooled dramatically before human existence, and it will continue to during it, despite our actions).
VikingCoder 14y ago
> The time will come when batteries are cheap and powerful enough that you could buy an electric car for $10k, but that time is not now... Don't tell these companies, because they sell $10k electric cars right now: http://www.getkurrent.com/ http://www.getkurrent.com/ http://www.flybo.cn/ http://www.flybo.cn/ http://www.polaris.com/en-us/gem-electric-car/Pages/Home.aspx?WT.mc_id=6EF20F84-A90F-E111-AB93-0050569A00BC&WT.mc_ev=Direct http://www.polaris.com/en-us/gem-electric-car/Pages/Home.asp... I wouldn't want to drive any of them. I wouldn't want to drive ANY $10k car. But you do not get to pretend "that time is not now."
- gavanwoolery 14y ago
  Electric golf carts have existed for a long time, sans government investment (I used to drive one in early 2000, when I worked as a gardener, before Tesla existed and green tech was a popular term). These are not really suitable cars, in that they do not provide the same mileage, safety, highway capability, etc. as a normal gas/diesel vehicle. A $10k, quality car could easily be possible in the future (manufacturing an electric engine is a much simpler process than a combustion engine). Keep in mind today's Kia's provide more luxury than a Mercedes from 1980.

VikingCoder 14y ago

I disagree with much of what you wrote, but I rebuke you for giving credit to Xerox for the creation of the Internet. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/23/news/la-mo-who-invented-internet-20120723 http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/23/news/la-mo-who-inven... http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/07/23/yes-government-researchers-really-did-invent-the-internet/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/07/23/... http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=internet-pioneer-cerf http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=internet-pi... http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/wsj-mangles-history-to-argue-government-didnt-launch-the-internet/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/wsj-mangles-histo... And most importantly: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57479781-93/no-credit-for-uncle-sam-in-creating-net-vint-cerf-disagrees/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57479781-93/no-credit-for-u...

nodata 14y ago

> Not to pick one side or the other, but Tesla was made possible by artificial means, not market demand. But you did. > And don't start with arguments about the internet - it was actually Xerox that largely made the internet (sic.) possible: But you did: "Don't do X - X." NIST is government funded. Are they also magically excluded from having done good things?

gavanwoolery 14y ago
NIST, like many government agencies, has done good things. It's just that they have not done them cost-effectively. Real businesses have to operate responsibly, fear going bankrupt, meet market demands, and so forth. That said, I would actually gladly pour money into NIST over other government transactions (i.e. bank bailouts).
- nodata 14y ago
  Anyone who has worked for a big business knows they are not cost effective. Also externalities don't magically make business profitable, they just move costs.
  - gavanwoolery 14y ago
    Many big businesses are even less cost-effective than govt. departments (I used to work at AOL, don't get me started...). The difference is that they must become cost-effective, or die (assuming they do not get a govt. bailout). Some businesses are very cost-effective (love them or hate them, Wallmart has an incredible track record; Valve, despite spending pretty liberally, makes more money per employee than most companies). The worst case scenario is when a government gets involved with a private business, particularly GSEs -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac being good examples: both reaped huge profits from their risks, but when they collapsed ended up costing US tax payers billions of dollars and destroying the economy. Long story short: the government has one job: to ensure the basic functionality required to run a country. It is not the govnernment's job to distribute tax payer money as venture capital. Leave businesses and other risks to entrepreneurs and investors.

rayiner 14y ago

> If the government really wants to help out with energy, it should loosen environmental restrictions. I am as much a supporter of green tech and protecting the environment... It's not about protecting the environment in the abstract. It's about who bears the costs of industrial activity. Loosening environmental reactions doesn't reduce costs, it shifts costs from polluters to the general public, particularly to the poorest people. Polluting the air you breathe is no different than any other injury--if the government has any function it is to protect your bodily integrity. It is a failure of organized society when a company can profit by physically hurting you, and it's economically inefficient to allow polluting industries to shift the inherent costs of their activity onto other people. It causes companies to pick the technologies that have the most costs that can be passed to other people, not the technologies that are the most absolutely efficient. The oil, coal, etc, industries were made possible by the intervention of government. Did you know that in the 1600s in American law pollution was basically illegal? E.g. if water ran through your property, it had to leave as clean as it went in. Allowing people to pollute during the industrial revolution was actually a tremendous government subsidy of industry.

gavanwoolery 14y ago
Basically, my argument is that we are going to continue to pollute the air for some time to come (the automobile will not disappear overnight). Natural gas is much cleaner, but even if it were crude oil under our soil, wouldn't it be better to use our own rather than another country's? The actual process of extracting any kind of oil/gas is not that environmentally hazardous, unless of course there is a spill.
- rayiner 14y ago
  Your argument was for reducing environmental regulation.
gavanwoolery 14y ago
It is actually not the government's job to decide this - it is the voters. People vote with their mouths and dollars, and right now everyone just does not care enough to boycott coal power or stop driving SUVs. I'd like solar panels to become cheaper and electric vehicles to become more common, but the government cannot realistically control free markets like energy generation. That said our perception of air pollution may be a bit exaggerated. Atmospheric aeroforming is a very difficult task -- even if we tried actively for 500 years, I think we might have difficulty changing the composition of the earth's atmosphere significantly. Before air pollution is even a real threat, our technology will have probably progressed far enough naturally (i.e. sans government investment) to handle any problems. Keep in mind there are over 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 (5 Dectillion!) kilograms of atmosphere. Humans produce 2,500,000,000,000 kilograms of CO2 year roughly (2.5 trillion). However, each tree (on average consumes 33 kilos of CO2, and (by NASA estimate) there are roughly 400,000,000,000 trees on earth -- thus trees could consume up to 13,200,000,000,000 (13.2 trillion kilos of CO2), and CO2 is heavier than air so probably a fair amount of it reaches the ground. Even if only 1/5 of the trees processed CO2, we would still be not generating any significant amount of it. Anthropogenic global warming is mostly alarmist theory until we prove humans have a significant effect on the atmosphere (as one scientist pointed out, the earth has warmed and cooled dramatically before human existence, and it will continue to during it, despite our actions).

VikingCoder 14y ago

> The time will come when batteries are cheap and powerful enough that you could buy an electric car for $10k, but that time is not now... Don't tell these companies, because they sell $10k electric cars right now: http://www.getkurrent.com/ http://www.getkurrent.com/ http://www.flybo.cn/ http://www.flybo.cn/ http://www.polaris.com/en-us/gem-electric-car/Pages/Home.aspx?WT.mc_id=6EF20F84-A90F-E111-AB93-0050569A00BC&WT.mc_ev=Direct http://www.polaris.com/en-us/gem-electric-car/Pages/Home.asp... I wouldn't want to drive any of them. I wouldn't want to drive ANY $10k car. But you do not get to pretend "that time is not now."

gavanwoolery 14y ago
Electric golf carts have existed for a long time, sans government investment (I used to drive one in early 2000, when I worked as a gardener, before Tesla existed and green tech was a popular term). These are not really suitable cars, in that they do not provide the same mileage, safety, highway capability, etc. as a normal gas/diesel vehicle. A $10k, quality car could easily be possible in the future (manufacturing an electric engine is a much simpler process than a combustion engine). Keep in mind today's Kia's provide more luxury than a Mercedes from 1980.