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The many billions of dollars invested in tar-sands in Canada were a market response to the increased price of Oil. They wouldn't have existed at $25/barrel Oil

The many billions of dollars invested in tar-sands in Canada were a market response to the increased price of Oil. They wouldn't have existed at $25/barrel Oil, but were inspire by $75/barrel Oil. I'm strongly arguing that if the price of Helium shifts from $100/1000 Cubic feet to $1000/1000 Cubic feet, that we'll likewise see similar market responses in terms of production of Helium. And we'll see radical moves towards recycling also.

acjohnson55 12y ago
And thank god for the mining of the tar sands, am I right?
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  Can you heat your house with righteous indignation?
  - deciplex 12y ago
    Will you need to heat your house in the first place, in 100 years?
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Do I want to heat my house that much if it means my children will die in poverty on a planet that went to hell? Maybe I'd want to at least switch to a different heat source?
    - baddox 12y ago
      > Do I want to heat my house that much if it means my children will die in poverty on a planet that went to hell? Yes, you probably would, because even if you don't heat your house, it's unlikely that your individual decision will have any measurable affect on the condition of the planet in the future.
  - akgerber 12y ago
    No, but you need to heat your house a lot less if there's an economic incentive to insulate it more because fuel is less subsidized, and to design new houses to take solar heating into consideration again.
- deciplex 12y ago
  This. It goes for fracking as well, where there are significant and real externalities wrought by these new methods of extracting resources from Earth. Companies largely aren't being made to pay them. It's true that the market does correct for the diminishing of supply somewhat with an increase in price, but this is not the only mechanism in play as the pureblood capitalists would have you believe. Rather, existing players are also using their political influence to weaken legislation that was originally designed to force companies to deal with these externalities, at least partly [1]. As a result, the true cost of these new resources is greater than it appears, and furthermore the external costs in our poorer health, the destruction of our environment, and the corruption of our political system, make up a greater portion of the total cost of the resource, than previous methods of extraction. There is no reason to believe this trend will reverse. [1] Complain all you want that this isn't "true" capitalism. I don't care. The fact is we've decided that pricing these externalities directly into the market is too hard or has too much overhead, and so we patched over it with laws. If you want to change that, go ahead and try, but don't advocate weakening legislation to force someone to deal with these externalities until after you're successful.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    I agree with you. Arguments about "true free-market capitalism" are funny, because we neither have it nor we'd really want to have it - exactly because of externalities and some other failure modes we do need laws to patch up.
    - deciplex 12y ago
      I'm replying to the part of your post that you edited out, after I edited out the part of my post that your edited-out part was addressing :) Yes, you're right. I overreacted, a lot. So I removed it. But, I stand by the sentiment. This place is downright hostile to productive discussion. Your account can have a dozen or so hexes capriciously placed on it by the mods - and you'll never know directly if this was done, to say nothing of why it was done. A single downvote will grey out your post, as if the community needs to be protected from your thoughts because one jerk decided he would downvote your post (in this case so quickly after I made the post that I wonder if he even bothered to read it all). HN members worry about 'becoming Reddit' without stopping to wonder if that would be an improvement. From a moderation and forum software standpoint, at least, it unequivocally would be an improvement. I don't want to be a part of this community anymore.

acjohnson55 12y ago

And thank god for the mining of the tar sands, am I right?

happyscrappy 12y ago
Can you heat your house with righteous indignation?
- deciplex 12y ago
  Will you need to heat your house in the first place, in 100 years?
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Do I want to heat my house that much if it means my children will die in poverty on a planet that went to hell? Maybe I'd want to at least switch to a different heat source?
  - baddox 12y ago
    > Do I want to heat my house that much if it means my children will die in poverty on a planet that went to hell? Yes, you probably would, because even if you don't heat your house, it's unlikely that your individual decision will have any measurable affect on the condition of the planet in the future.
- akgerber 12y ago
  No, but you need to heat your house a lot less if there's an economic incentive to insulate it more because fuel is less subsidized, and to design new houses to take solar heating into consideration again.
deciplex 12y ago
This. It goes for fracking as well, where there are significant and real externalities wrought by these new methods of extracting resources from Earth. Companies largely aren't being made to pay them. It's true that the market does correct for the diminishing of supply somewhat with an increase in price, but this is not the only mechanism in play as the pureblood capitalists would have you believe. Rather, existing players are also using their political influence to weaken legislation that was originally designed to force companies to deal with these externalities, at least partly [1]. As a result, the true cost of these new resources is greater than it appears, and furthermore the external costs in our poorer health, the destruction of our environment, and the corruption of our political system, make up a greater portion of the total cost of the resource, than previous methods of extraction. There is no reason to believe this trend will reverse. [1] Complain all you want that this isn't "true" capitalism. I don't care. The fact is we've decided that pricing these externalities directly into the market is too hard or has too much overhead, and so we patched over it with laws. If you want to change that, go ahead and try, but don't advocate weakening legislation to force someone to deal with these externalities until after you're successful.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  I agree with you. Arguments about "true free-market capitalism" are funny, because we neither have it nor we'd really want to have it - exactly because of externalities and some other failure modes we do need laws to patch up.
  - deciplex 12y ago
    I'm replying to the part of your post that you edited out, after I edited out the part of my post that your edited-out part was addressing :) Yes, you're right. I overreacted, a lot. So I removed it. But, I stand by the sentiment. This place is downright hostile to productive discussion. Your account can have a dozen or so hexes capriciously placed on it by the mods - and you'll never know directly if this was done, to say nothing of why it was done. A single downvote will grey out your post, as if the community needs to be protected from your thoughts because one jerk decided he would downvote your post (in this case so quickly after I made the post that I wonder if he even bothered to read it all). HN members worry about 'becoming Reddit' without stopping to wonder if that would be an improvement. From a moderation and forum software standpoint, at least, it unequivocally would be an improvement. I don't want to be a part of this community anymore.