Comments on: Since the beginning of time, right-leaning technophiles have yearned to blow up suns http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/ Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:25:27 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Cleve Blakemore http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/comment-page-3/#comment-61448 Cleve Blakemore Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:42:39 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2869#comment-61448 John Emerson : In analyzing your stance as regards possible exhaustion of metals versus rational limits on growth, I find the most exhausting limits may be imposed by your own incredibly highstrung gayness. In fact, if we could somehow harness your barely concealed effeminate repressed gayness, I feel that both solar and wind power might be eclipsed by the sheer potential energy output of your shrill, effete swayback ofay down-low brother nancy-boy gibberish generation. It's that kind of high octane cherry syrup sweetness that has to be considered before we talk about nuclear rods, if at all, in vaguely symbolic unconscious freudian slips. John Emerson : In analyzing your stance as regards possible exhaustion of metals versus rational limits on growth, I find the most exhausting limits may be imposed by your own incredibly highstrung gayness. In fact, if we could somehow harness your barely concealed effeminate repressed gayness, I feel that both solar and wind power might be eclipsed by the sheer potential energy output of your shrill, effete swayback ofay down-low brother nancy-boy gibberish generation. It’s that kind of high octane cherry syrup sweetness that has to be considered before we talk about nuclear rods, if at all, in vaguely symbolic unconscious freudian slips.

]]> By: Jonathan Burns http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/comment-page-3/#comment-61447 Jonathan Burns Fri, 18 Feb 2005 01:23:24 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2869#comment-61447 mw: <i>That is, for reasons quite apart from resource depletion, they would like to see us change our ways of living in the direction of 'simpler, lower-tech lifestyles' and 'very dense cities'</i>. <i>If there turned out to be a way to generate greater supplies of cheap energy that would allow the world to continue to evolve in the direction of U.S. levels of consumption (without environmental degradation) ? they would not regard this as a good thing. In fact, there is a hint of satisfaction that environmental limits are forcing us to do what we should be doing anyway.</i> <i>Is that a fair or unfair inference?</i> Fair question, and I'm on target. But I think the realistic answer is too equivocal to support a rhetorical advantage for laissez-faire. I would regard it as a good thing - a very good thing, since it would offer modern prosperity to the whole human race. It is what I hope for, over the next century, from space solar power. But SSP is a trillion-dollar, century-long project, and the alternatives - very large-scale fission, or fusion, or terrestrial photovoltaics - are comparable in cost. In fact, every energy option, deployed on a scale to replace oil, entails massive changes in employment and land and water use - indeed entails a new chapter in the Industrial Revolution. I have a lot of optimism for the rising generation, but the happiest I can imagine is that world development is going to slip backward, because developing economies will not be able to afford new energy options. Too many are already sunk in debt for the capital they've already installed. If someone could propose to me how the developing world is to muster such an economic advantage, over the oil decline period, that they can bid more-or-less as equals in the market for new energy supplies, then it would change my life. But sadly, I don't see that happening. I see the debt, I see the concentration of effort into primary production, and I see the best of their people joining in the world meritocracy while their compatriots muddle through on the margins. So I desperately want the low-fuel, low-tech, labour-intensive, dense cities to work. Insofar as they do, they work for everyone, not just the currently successful. If fuel prices rise to the point that a region cannot even afford to re-gear for low-fuel, that is when development slips backward, maybe even catastrophically. Rust belts and ghost towns. Failed economies, failed savings, failed tax bases, failed human talent pools. That's my Spectre, and I welcome any thought that can help me address it. If it comes out of a laissez-faire perspective, that's fine. But I cannot see that laissez-faire economics points elsewhere than unequal development. The alternative I see as possible requires planning for low-fuel. Now there is another side to all this: an argument that regions, maybe even villages, which are self-sufficient in energy constitute an economic basis with more opportunities than those dependent on external suppliers. That is what much of the '70s Whole Earth Catalog alternative energy exploration was about. "We don't have to be dependent on the System; we learn more and become stronger and escape the dependency culture by working out how to do this stuff with windmills and bicycles." We can debate that. But I assure you, and really quite urgently want to convince you, that the prior argument is genuine, sufficient in itself, and not a cloak for the latter. mw: That is, for reasons quite apart from resource depletion, they would like to see us change our ways of living in the direction of ‘simpler, lower-tech lifestyles’ and ‘very dense cities’. If there turned out to be a way to generate greater supplies of cheap energy that would allow the world to continue to evolve in the direction of U.S. levels of consumption (without environmental degradation) ? they would not regard this as a good thing. In fact, there is a hint of satisfaction that environmental limits are forcing us to do what we should be doing anyway. Is that a fair or unfair inference? Fair question, and I’m on target. But I think the realistic answer is too equivocal to support a rhetorical advantage for laissez-faire. I would regard it as a good thing – a very good thing, since it would offer modern prosperity to the whole human race. It is what I hope for, over the next century, from space solar power. But SSP is a trillion-dollar, century-long project, and the alternatives – very large-scale fission, or fusion, or terrestrial photovoltaics – are comparable in cost. In fact, every energy option, deployed on a scale to replace oil, entails massive changes in employment and land and water use – indeed entails a new chapter in the Industrial Revolution. I have a lot of optimism for the rising generation, but the happiest I can imagine is that world development is going to slip backward, because developing economies will not be able to afford new energy options. Too many are already sunk in debt for the capital they’ve already installed. If someone could propose to me how the developing world is to muster such an economic advantage, over the oil decline period, that they can bid more-or-less as equals in the market for new energy supplies, then it would change my life. But sadly, I don’t see that happening. I see the debt, I see the concentration of effort into primary production, and I see the best of their people joining in the world meritocracy while their compatriots muddle through on the margins. So I desperately want the low-fuel, low-tech, labour-intensive, dense cities to work. Insofar as they do, they work for everyone, not just the currently successful. If fuel prices rise to the point that a region cannot even afford to re-gear for low-fuel, that is when development slips backward, maybe even catastrophically. Rust belts and ghost towns. Failed economies, failed savings, failed tax bases, failed human talent pools. That’s my Spectre, and I welcome any thought that can help me address it. If it comes out of a laissez-faire perspective, that’s fine. But I cannot see that laissez-faire economics points elsewhere than unequal development. The alternative I see as possible requires planning for low-fuel. Now there is another side to all this: an argument that regions, maybe even villages, which are self-sufficient in energy constitute an economic basis with more opportunities than those dependent on external suppliers. That is what much of the ‘70s Whole Earth Catalog alternative energy exploration was about. “We don’t have to be dependent on the System; we learn more and become stronger and escape the dependency culture by working out how to do this stuff with windmills and bicycles.” We can debate that. But I assure you, and really quite urgently want to convince you, that the prior argument is genuine, sufficient in itself, and not a cloak for the latter.

]]> By: mw http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/comment-page-3/#comment-61446 mw Thu, 17 Feb 2005 18:42:08 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2869#comment-61446 <i>Remember that there are costs to doing it too early just as surely as there are to doing it too late. The very technology we need to create the viable alternative may well be retarded if we shackle the economy by taking premature steps.</i> Yes, and it's not just a question of 'early' vs 'late' but doing the right things vs doing the wrong things. There are a whole lot possible ways to attack the problems we face, but it's very hard to anticipate which will prove to be wise and which dead ends. Should we be investing billions in hybrid cars and mass-transit? Or will telecommunications advances (combined with cultural changes) render commuting into an anachronism? In 10 or 20 years will people look at pictures of the vast masses of commuters on jammed freeways as strange relics of the past? The market can devote resources to a vast number of possibilities--adjusting the investment constantly according to which show the most promise. Government can't (or at least doesn't) do that--it focuses on one (or a few possibilities), becomes invested in those (and generates a powerful constituency for further investments regardless of promise), and its investments are often politically influenced. Remember that there are costs to doing it too early just as surely as there are to doing it too late. The very technology we need to create the viable alternative may well be retarded if we shackle the economy by taking premature steps. Yes, and it’s not just a question of ‘early’ vs ‘late’ but doing the right things vs doing the wrong things. There are a whole lot possible ways to attack the problems we face, but it’s very hard to anticipate which will prove to be wise and which dead ends. Should we be investing billions in hybrid cars and mass-transit? Or will telecommunications advances (combined with cultural changes) render commuting into an anachronism? In 10 or 20 years will people look at pictures of the vast masses of commuters on jammed freeways as strange relics of the past? The market can devote resources to a vast number of possibilities—adjusting the investment constantly according to which show the most promise. Government can’t (or at least doesn’t) do that—it focuses on one (or a few possibilities), becomes invested in those (and generates a powerful constituency for further investments regardless of promise), and its investments are often politically influenced.

]]> By: CMN http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/comment-page-3/#comment-61445 CMN Thu, 17 Feb 2005 17:48:44 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2869#comment-61445 <i>This just boggles me. A firm or a family which used up its resources as thoughtlessly as this would be regarded as suicidally irrational. “Something will come up” is not a plan.</i> The mistake you're making here is assuming that because microeconomic decisions have to be made by deliberate rational choice, so do all macroeconomic decisions. A family has to decide how much milk to buy and what else to give up in order to do so. A dairy farmer has to decide how much milk to produce and what other production opportunities to forego in order to do so. But as long as those two groups of individuals are free to make choices and adjust to each other's choices based on the information they get from market prices, <i>nobody</i> has to decide how much milk should be produced or consumed by the society as a whole. Every time someone has tried make that kind of decision, it's been a disaster. It's precisely because families and firms are <i>not</i>, generally speaking, suicidally irrational, that my confidence in markets making the right allocation decisions is justified. As known reserves of fossil fuel diminish, its price will gradually go up, raising the prices of commodities that depend on it and increasing the relative desirability--hence profitability--of developing and using alternate energy sources. This will lead both to voluntary conservation and voluntary development of alternatives. Which, I suppose, are the same actions you think "thoughtful" actors <i>should</i> take. The same actions you want governments to impose now, to head off the future shortage. So the question isn't really about what we should do in response to the finitude of a given resource, but <i>when</i> we should do it, and by what degrees. Remember that there are costs to doing it too early just as surely as there are to doing it too late. The very technology we need to create the viable alternative may well be retarded if we shackle the economy by taking premature steps. The fact that my tank will eventually run out of gas does not make it rational for me to stop at each filling station I pass. And if I turn off the engine in order to avoid the possibility of ever reaching empty, I will never reach the next filling station. This just boggles me. A firm or a family which used up its resources as thoughtlessly as this would be regarded as suicidally irrational. “Something will come up” is not a plan. The mistake you’re making here is assuming that because microeconomic decisions have to be made by deliberate rational choice, so do all macroeconomic decisions. A family has to decide how much milk to buy and what else to give up in order to do so. A dairy farmer has to decide how much milk to produce and what other production opportunities to forego in order to do so. But as long as those two groups of individuals are free to make choices and adjust to each other’s choices based on the information they get from market prices, nobody has to decide how much milk should be produced or consumed by the society as a whole. Every time someone has tried make that kind of decision, it’s been a disaster. It’s precisely because families and firms are not, generally speaking, suicidally irrational, that my confidence in markets making the right allocation decisions is justified. As known reserves of fossil fuel diminish, its price will gradually go up, raising the prices of commodities that depend on it and increasing the relative desirability—hence profitability—of developing and using alternate energy sources. This will lead both to voluntary conservation and voluntary development of alternatives. Which, I suppose, are the same actions you think “thoughtful” actors should take. The same actions you want governments to impose now, to head off the future shortage. So the question isn’t really about what we should do in response to the finitude of a given resource, but when we should do it, and by what degrees. Remember that there are costs to doing it too early just as surely as there are to doing it too late. The very technology we need to create the viable alternative may well be retarded if we shackle the economy by taking premature steps. The fact that my tank will eventually run out of gas does not make it rational for me to stop at each filling station I pass. And if I turn off the engine in order to avoid the possibility of ever reaching empty, I will never reach the next filling station.

]]> By: mw http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/comment-page-3/#comment-61444 mw Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:15:18 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2869#comment-61444 <i>4. All high-tech fixes for overstressed planetary systems involve large amounts of high-quality energy, which we will not be able to get from fossil fuels indefinitely. I stress rather simpler, lower-tech solutions.</i> <i>5. Very dense cities are much more efficient at supporting large numbers of people than spread-out built landscapes. The 21st century is the urban century.</i> Those may be revealing comments. The main text of the discussion has been whether or not technical advances are possible and probable that will support our current trajectory--continuously improving living standards for increasingly greater percentage of the world's people. Those arguing in the negative claim that it is just not going to work--but what they don't say directly, but is suggested in the above 2 points is that they don't really WANT it to work. That is, for reasons quite apart from resource depletion, they would like to see us change our ways of living in the direction of 'simpler, lower-tech lifestyles' and 'very dense cities'. If there turned out to be a way to generate greater supplies of cheap energy that would allow the world to continue to evolve in the direction of U.S. levels of consumption (without environmental degradation) -- they would not regard this as a good thing. In fact, there is a hint of satisfaction that environmental limits are forcing us to do what we should be doing anyway. Is that a fair or unfair inference? 4. All high-tech fixes for overstressed planetary systems involve large amounts of high-quality energy, which we will not be able to get from fossil fuels indefinitely. I stress rather simpler, lower-tech solutions. 5. Very dense cities are much more efficient at supporting large numbers of people than spread-out built landscapes. The 21st century is the urban century. Those may be revealing comments. The main text of the discussion has been whether or not technical advances are possible and probable that will support our current trajectory—continuously improving living standards for increasingly greater percentage of the world’s people. Those arguing in the negative claim that it is just not going to work—but what they don’t say directly, but is suggested in the above 2 points is that they don’t really WANT it to work. That is, for reasons quite apart from resource depletion, they would like to see us change our ways of living in the direction of ‘simpler, lower-tech lifestyles’ and ‘very dense cities’. If there turned out to be a way to generate greater supplies of cheap energy that would allow the world to continue to evolve in the direction of U.S. levels of consumption (without environmental degradation)—they would not regard this as a good thing. In fact, there is a hint of satisfaction that environmental limits are forcing us to do what we should be doing anyway. Is that a fair or unfair inference?

]]> By: CMN http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/comment-page-3/#comment-61443 CMN Thu, 17 Feb 2005 07:32:30 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2869#comment-61443 John sez: <i>I think that Simon’s cornucopianism (which is actually Lomborg’s term) is an unassailable cargo-cult ideology. This particular type of free-market Utopianism combines several principles in thoughtless, dogmatic form: faith in technology and the market, mistrust of government and collective activities, admiration for individual economic rationality and planning,contempt for collective rationality and planning, and refusal to think of the long term except in terms of optimism and faith.</i> No doubt there are thoughtless dogmatists in every intellectual camp; I certainly tried to present my position with enough qualifiers to escape the latter charge. In any case, I think there's a conceptual disjunct between your characterization and the better thinkers in the free market camp. It's not about "collective" decisionmaking versus "individual" decisionmaking. <i>The market is a collective process</i>. The problem addressed by Hayek and company is precisely that the information needed to answer the hard questions about resource allocation is dispersed in such a way that <i>only a truly collective process</i> can make use of it. What you call "collective decisionmaking" is really giving some individual or individuals power to decide <i>on behalf of</i> a collective. Markets are about letting decisions <i>actually be made collectively</i> through the experience and decisions of all the knowledgeable individuals, no single one of whom knows what everyone else knows, and no single one of whom is capable, even in principle, of calculating how much of some resource should be made at the expense of all the others. A market is a continuous referendum on the issue of resource allocation, in which each voter is required literally to put his money where his mouth is. It does take the long term into account, because the value of any asset is equal to the sum of all the (discounted) future revenues the collective wisdom thinks it will yield. It has blind spots to the extent that the individual actors within it are shielded from negative consequences of their decisions, and rules that seek to recapture that information and make it play a role in the process can therefore be salutary. It's not a question of "faith"; it's a question of soberly evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of different processes of collective decisionmaking for different types of problems, and deciding which is likely to do a better systematic job. Who is putting more misplaced faith in the power of individuals to make wise decisions? The one who says that a few individuals who get elected and who are largely insulated from the direct consequences of their decisions should make them for the whole society, overriding the views of all who disagree? Or the one who says individuals should only have power to make decisions whose consequences they have to live with, and only within the constraints placed on them by the collective preferences of those around them? John sez: I think that Simon’s cornucopianism (which is actually Lomborg’s term) is an unassailable cargo-cult ideology. This particular type of free-market Utopianism combines several principles in thoughtless, dogmatic form: faith in technology and the market, mistrust of government and collective activities, admiration for individual economic rationality and planning,contempt for collective rationality and planning, and refusal to think of the long term except in terms of optimism and faith. No doubt there are thoughtless dogmatists in every intellectual camp; I certainly tried to present my position with enough qualifiers to escape the latter charge. In any case, I think there’s a conceptual disjunct between your characterization and the better thinkers in the free market camp. It’s not about “collective” decisionmaking versus “individual” decisionmaking. The market is a collective process. The problem addressed by Hayek and company is precisely that the information needed to answer the hard questions about resource allocation is dispersed in such a way that only a truly collective process can make use of it. What you call “collective decisionmaking” is really giving some individual or individuals power to decide on behalf of a collective. Markets are about letting decisions actually be made collectively through the experience and decisions of all the knowledgeable individuals, no single one of whom knows what everyone else knows, and no single one of whom is capable, even in principle, of calculating how much of some resource should be made at the expense of all the others. A market is a continuous referendum on the issue of resource allocation, in which each voter is required literally to put his money where his mouth is. It does take the long term into account, because the value of any asset is equal to the sum of all the (discounted) future revenues the collective wisdom thinks it will yield. It has blind spots to the extent that the individual actors within it are shielded from negative consequences of their decisions, and rules that seek to recapture that information and make it play a role in the process can therefore be salutary. It’s not a question of “faith”; it’s a question of soberly evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of different processes of collective decisionmaking for different types of problems, and deciding which is likely to do a better systematic job. Who is putting more misplaced faith in the power of individuals to make wise decisions? The one who says that a few individuals who get elected and who are largely insulated from the direct consequences of their decisions should make them for the whole society, overriding the views of all who disagree? Or the one who says individuals should only have power to make decisions whose consequences they have to live with, and only within the constraints placed on them by the collective preferences of those around them?

]]> By: John Emerson http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/comment-page-3/#comment-61442 John Emerson Thu, 17 Feb 2005 03:18:21 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2869#comment-61442 I am not a prophet of inevitable doom, I just say that the various environmental and demographic warnings deserve serious attention and perhaps action. I also say that we should pay attention to the concrete physical sciences of demography, oceanography, climatology, and economic geography, and not allow them to be overruled by economics, which is a idealistic, non-physical science which simply assumes that market forces will bring something into existence as soon as it's needed. (And much less, futurology, which is often simply voodoo.) And likewise the related conviction that technology will certainly be able to solve any problem that arises -- not a rational conviction, but wishful thinking. I am in favor of good things happening, but I don't think that they can just be assumed. And last, the difference between ecological and human political time scales is at the root of what we're talking about, and can't just be waved off. A succession of 20-year solutions does not necessarily lead to a 200-year solution. I am not a prophet of inevitable doom, I just say that the various environmental and demographic warnings deserve serious attention and perhaps action. I also say that we should pay attention to the concrete physical sciences of demography, oceanography, climatology, and economic geography, and not allow them to be overruled by economics, which is a idealistic, non-physical science which simply assumes that market forces will bring something into existence as soon as it’s needed. (And much less, futurology, which is often simply voodoo.) And likewise the related conviction that technology will certainly be able to solve any problem that arises—not a rational conviction, but wishful thinking. I am in favor of good things happening, but I don’t think that they can just be assumed. And last, the difference between ecological and human political time scales is at the root of what we’re talking about, and can’t just be waved off. A succession of 20-year solutions does not necessarily lead to a 200-year solution.

]]> By: John Emerson http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/comment-page-3/#comment-61441 John Emerson Thu, 17 Feb 2005 03:05:46 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2869#comment-61441 I am not a prophet of inevitable doom, I just say that the various environmental and demographic warnings deserve serious attention and perhaps action. I also say that we should pay attention to the concrete physical sciences of demography, oceanography, climatology, and economic geography, and not allow them to be overruled by economics, which is a idealistic, non-physical science which simply assumes that market forces will bring something into existence as soon as it's needed. (And much less, futurology, which is often simply voodoo.) And likewise the related conviction that technology will certainly be able to solve any problem that arises -- not a rational conviction, but wishful thinking. I am in favor of good things happening, but I don't think that they can just be assumed. And last, the difference between ecological and human political time scales is at the root of what we're talking about, and can't just be waved off. A succession of 20-year solutions does not necessarily lead to a 200-year solution. I am not a prophet of inevitable doom, I just say that the various environmental and demographic warnings deserve serious attention and perhaps action. I also say that we should pay attention to the concrete physical sciences of demography, oceanography, climatology, and economic geography, and not allow them to be overruled by economics, which is a idealistic, non-physical science which simply assumes that market forces will bring something into existence as soon as it’s needed. (And much less, futurology, which is often simply voodoo.) And likewise the related conviction that technology will certainly be able to solve any problem that arises—not a rational conviction, but wishful thinking. I am in favor of good things happening, but I don’t think that they can just be assumed. And last, the difference between ecological and human political time scales is at the root of what we’re talking about, and can’t just be waved off. A succession of 20-year solutions does not necessarily lead to a 200-year solution.

]]> By: jet http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/comment-page-3/#comment-61440 jet Thu, 17 Feb 2005 02:19:04 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2869#comment-61440 John Emerson "Why?...a family which used up its resources as thoughtlessly as this would be regarded as suicidally irrational." It isn't like there is no forecasting for oil reserves. We aren't just going to wake up one day and be out of oil. We will know decades in advance that we are really nearing the end. Untapped reserves will continue to shrink, at which point investment in alternative fuels will start looking like juicy deals with huge payoffs. And oil can only stay above $70/barrel a short time before other fuels, like shale oil, would be viable. For the same reason that the lack of whale oil is trivial and the very idea of whale oil as a problem is archaic, we're probably safe in assuming 100 years from now a similar accounting of fossil fuel. You been keeping up on solar energy research? We aren't far from commercial production being viable. John Emerson “Why?…a family which used up its resources as thoughtlessly as this would be regarded as suicidally irrational.” It isn’t like there is no forecasting for oil reserves. We aren’t just going to wake up one day and be out of oil. We will know decades in advance that we are really nearing the end. Untapped reserves will continue to shrink, at which point investment in alternative fuels will start looking like juicy deals with huge payoffs. And oil can only stay above $70/barrel a short time before other fuels, like shale oil, would be viable. For the same reason that the lack of whale oil is trivial and the very idea of whale oil as a problem is archaic, we’re probably safe in assuming 100 years from now a similar accounting of fossil fuel. You been keeping up on solar energy research? We aren’t far from commercial production being viable.

]]> By: John Emerson http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/comment-page-3/#comment-61439 John Emerson Thu, 17 Feb 2005 01:04:52 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2869#comment-61439 "I find it highly plausible to believe that, for example, once we get anywhere near the end of fossil fuel reserves (and my understanding is that we are nowhere near), it will become extremely profitable to invest in alternate energy sources, and unless we have strong reason to think such alternate sources are impossible in principle, we should trust that they will be developed when it becomes worth our while to do so." Why? This just boggles me. A firm or a family which used up its resources as thoughtlessly as this would be regarded as suicidally irrational. "Something will come up" is not a plan. I think that Simon's cornucopianism (which is actually Lomborg's term) is an unassailable cargo-cult ideology. This particular type of free-market Utopianism combines several principles in thoughtless, dogmatic form: faith in technology and the market, mistrust of government and collective activities, admiration for individual economic rationality and planning,contempt for collective rationality and planning, and refusal to think of the long term except in terms of optimism and faith. The divergent time scales between environmental history (100 years is a short time) and human history (100 years is a long time) are not reasons to forget about the long term. They're a problem to think about, or reasons why we're probably going to blindly screw up. I haven't read Diamond's book, but it sounds like one of the things he's talking about is blind lack of foresight, and a lot of people here seem to have made that into a positive principle or "feature". “I find it highly plausible to believe that, for example, once we get anywhere near the end of fossil fuel reserves (and my understanding is that we are nowhere near), it will become extremely profitable to invest in alternate energy sources, and unless we have strong reason to think such alternate sources are impossible in principle, we should trust that they will be developed when it becomes worth our while to do so.” Why? This just boggles me. A firm or a family which used up its resources as thoughtlessly as this would be regarded as suicidally irrational. “Something will come up” is not a plan. I think that Simon’s cornucopianism (which is actually Lomborg’s term) is an unassailable cargo-cult ideology. This particular type of free-market Utopianism combines several principles in thoughtless, dogmatic form: faith in technology and the market, mistrust of government and collective activities, admiration for individual economic rationality and planning,contempt for collective rationality and planning, and refusal to think of the long term except in terms of optimism and faith. The divergent time scales between environmental history (100 years is a short time) and human history (100 years is a long time) are not reasons to forget about the long term. They’re a problem to think about, or reasons why we’re probably going to blindly screw up. I haven’t read Diamond’s book, but it sounds like one of the things he’s talking about is blind lack of foresight, and a lot of people here seem to have made that into a positive principle or “feature”.

]]> By: CMN http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/comment-page-3/#comment-61438 CMN Wed, 16 Feb 2005 23:21:37 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2869#comment-61438 Interesting conversation. I'd like to try a tentative stab at responding to Dr. Slack's question posed a ways back, as to why the Manhattan Project worked out better than the Concorde. First of all, let's note that both cases were equally successful as far as the solving of the immediate technical problem was concerned. They got a working A-bomb, and they got a working supersonic plane. I don't think anyone really contends that government-funded research is incapable of solving problems in this sense. If you gather a bunch of good scientists and engineers, give them sufficient resources, and tell them to build an X, chances are that if X is possible, they will succeed in building it regardless of whether they are being funded by a government or a corporation. When we judge an enterprise like this as a success or failure in a broader sense, however, we're asking a different question. Not "did they get a working X," but "did X prove to be worth the resources and opportunities spent to create it?" In the case of the Manhattan Project, the view that it was a "success" is premised on the belief that Hitler would sooner or later have built such a bomb, and that the cost of letting him beat us to it would be catastrophically high. I don't claim to have any particular insight into this problem, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are historical arguments to be made that this premise was erroneous and that in fact the Manhattan Project did far more harm than good by jump starting an unnecessary arms race. In any event, the valuation of the Project as a "success" is based on the premise that we absolutely needed a bomb right then, and all that really mattered was that it worked and could be used against the enemy. If the Concorde was a failure (and again I don't claim to know anything about it other than what I've read above), it would seem to be because, while the technical problem was solvable, the solution wasn't worth the resources it cost. Nobody needed a supersonic plane badly enough to justify what it cost to create and maintain. Private investors are certainly capable of making similarly bad investments, but there seems to be good reason to think that the constraints and incentives under which they operate will cause them to make fewer of them, and to make much less costly ones, than will political decision makers. To tie this back to the original topic, the question is whether the need to conserve (or develop a substitute for) a particular resource is more of an A-bomb like question (we have to do it or else), or more of a Concorde like question (it seems like it would be nice to do it, but hard to know whether it's worth the effort). Whether or not we embrace Simon's unnecessarily broad claim that we will never run out of resources, it seems to me that he and his fellow travellers have offered a compelling set of reasons for thinking that, for most of the resources we commonly worry about, the decisions as to what steps are worth taking in response to their depletion can safely and efficiently be left to market processes. I find it highly plausible to believe that, for example, once we get anywhere near the end of fossil fuel reserves (and my understanding is that we are nowhere near), it will become extremely profitable to invest in alternate energy sources, and unless we have strong reason to think such alternate sources are impossible in principle, we should trust that they will be developed when it becomes worth our while to do so. Now I certainly don't assert that there can be no exceptions to this general rule of thumb. But it seems to me that the burden of persuasion should be on the part of anyone who wishes to identify a particular resource and show why it presents us with a bona fide A-bomb situation. Interesting conversation. I’d like to try a tentative stab at responding to Dr. Slack’s question posed a ways back, as to why the Manhattan Project worked out better than the Concorde. First of all, let’s note that both cases were equally successful as far as the solving of the immediate technical problem was concerned. They got a working A-bomb, and they got a working supersonic plane. I don’t think anyone really contends that government-funded research is incapable of solving problems in this sense. If you gather a bunch of good scientists and engineers, give them sufficient resources, and tell them to build an X, chances are that if X is possible, they will succeed in building it regardless of whether they are being funded by a government or a corporation. When we judge an enterprise like this as a success or failure in a broader sense, however, we’re asking a different question. Not “did they get a working X,” but “did X prove to be worth the resources and opportunities spent to create it?” In the case of the Manhattan Project, the view that it was a “success” is premised on the belief that Hitler would sooner or later have built such a bomb, and that the cost of letting him beat us to it would be catastrophically high. I don’t claim to have any particular insight into this problem, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are historical arguments to be made that this premise was erroneous and that in fact the Manhattan Project did far more harm than good by jump starting an unnecessary arms race. In any event, the valuation of the Project as a “success” is based on the premise that we absolutely needed a bomb right then, and all that really mattered was that it worked and could be used against the enemy. If the Concorde was a failure (and again I don’t claim to know anything about it other than what I’ve read above), it would seem to be because, while the technical problem was solvable, the solution wasn’t worth the resources it cost. Nobody needed a supersonic plane badly enough to justify what it cost to create and maintain. Private investors are certainly capable of making similarly bad investments, but there seems to be good reason to think that the constraints and incentives under which they operate will cause them to make fewer of them, and to make much less costly ones, than will political decision makers. To tie this back to the original topic, the question is whether the need to conserve (or develop a substitute for) a particular resource is more of an A-bomb like question (we have to do it or else), or more of a Concorde like question (it seems like it would be nice to do it, but hard to know whether it’s worth the effort). Whether or not we embrace Simon’s unnecessarily broad claim that we will never run out of resources, it seems to me that he and his fellow travellers have offered a compelling set of reasons for thinking that, for most of the resources we commonly worry about, the decisions as to what steps are worth taking in response to their depletion can safely and efficiently be left to market processes. I find it highly plausible to believe that, for example, once we get anywhere near the end of fossil fuel reserves (and my understanding is that we are nowhere near), it will become extremely profitable to invest in alternate energy sources, and unless we have strong reason to think such alternate sources are impossible in principle, we should trust that they will be developed when it becomes worth our while to do so. Now I certainly don’t assert that there can be no exceptions to this general rule of thumb. But it seems to me that the burden of persuasion should be on the part of anyone who wishes to identify a particular resource and show why it presents us with a bona fide A-bomb situation.

]]> By: abb1 http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/comment-page-3/#comment-61437 abb1 Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:15:40 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2869#comment-61437 From <a href="http://www.helencaldicott.com/">Helen Caldicott's</a> website: <blockquote> Of the 7,000 warheads in the U.S. arsenal, 2,500 are maintained on a 24-hour ready alert status, and can be launched within moments. And, the commander of the Strategic Air Command has only about three minutes to decide if a nuclear attack warning is real or not. Then he has 10 minutes to find the president and give him a 30-second attack briefing, including options. After that, the president has three minutes to decide whether or not to retaliate and if so, which targets will be hit. Once they were launched, U.S. missiles would reach their Russian targets in about 15 to 30 minutes. The situation is relatively similar in Russia, with the exception that Moscow's early warning system is rapidly aging. <b>According to the McNamara and Caldicott, the systems of both countries sound alarms daily, in response to wildfires, satellite launchings and solar reflections off clouds or oceans.</b> But as the Russian system continues to decay, it may be more difficult for Moscow to determine whether alerts are real or not. That's dangerous, argue experts, because it may mean in the future, <b>[dead-drunk?]</b> Russian commanders and leaders may have to rely more on human judgment—a concept much less reliable than computerized early warning systems that operate without emotion. </blockquote> From Helen Caldicott’s website:
Of the 7,000 warheads in the U.S. arsenal, 2,500 are maintained on a 24-hour ready alert status, and can be launched within moments. And, the commander of the Strategic Air Command has only about three minutes to decide if a nuclear attack warning is real or not. Then he has 10 minutes to find the president and give him a 30-second attack briefing, including options. After that, the president has three minutes to decide whether or not to retaliate and if so, which targets will be hit. Once they were launched, U.S. missiles would reach their Russian targets in about 15 to 30 minutes. The situation is relatively similar in Russia, with the exception that Moscow’s early warning system is rapidly aging. According to the McNamara and Caldicott, the systems of both countries sound alarms daily, in response to wildfires, satellite launchings and solar reflections off clouds or oceans. But as the Russian system continues to decay, it may be more difficult for Moscow to determine whether alerts are real or not. That’s dangerous, argue experts, because it may mean in the future, [dead-drunk?] Russian commanders and leaders may have to rely more on human judgment—a concept much less reliable than computerized early warning systems that operate without emotion.

]]> By: Randolph Fritz http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/comment-page-3/#comment-61436 Randolph Fritz Wed, 16 Feb 2005 08:09:34 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2869#comment-61436 1. One limit on plantary land use is not simple geography, but the space required to maintain the wild ecosystems that keep the planet's various large-scale chemical and climate balances going. 2. For a while we were substituting aluminum for copper in house wiring. We had to stop because the aluminum wiring turned out to be a fire hazard. 3. No amount of creativity is likely to make exponential population growth on the surface of the earth (or any planet) sustainable. 4. All high-tech fixes for overstressed planetary systems involve large amounts of high-quality energy, which we will not be able to get from fossil fuels indefinitely. I stress rather simpler, lower-tech solutions. 5. Very dense cities are much more efficient at supporting large numbers of people than spread-out built landscapes. The 21st century is the urban century. 1. One limit on plantary land use is not simple geography, but the space required to maintain the wild ecosystems that keep the planet’s various large-scale chemical and climate balances going. 2. For a while we were substituting aluminum for copper in house wiring. We had to stop because the aluminum wiring turned out to be a fire hazard. 3. No amount of creativity is likely to make exponential population growth on the surface of the earth (or any planet) sustainable. 4. All high-tech fixes for overstressed planetary systems involve large amounts of high-quality energy, which we will not be able to get from fossil fuels indefinitely. I stress rather simpler, lower-tech solutions. 5. Very dense cities are much more efficient at supporting large numbers of people than spread-out built landscapes. The 21st century is the urban century.

]]> By: jet http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/comment-page-3/#comment-61435 jet Wed, 16 Feb 2005 02:28:09 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2869#comment-61435 "Prices don’t tell you about food supply. Food supply is measured otherwise." But this does provide some light on why ag yield growth has gone down. If yield growth had gone down because of inability to meet demand, prices would have gone up. Since prices have remained steady, then yield growth went down because of a drop in demand. Which is all to make my point that fish, an important part of human diet, can continue to be supplied, at historic growth rates, with little or no effect on gross ag production. And given the incredible disparity between industrialized nations and developing nations in yields per hectre, this trend can continue for a long time. I would only get worried when world average yields approach industrialized nations top yields, ie when India's rice yields approach Japanese rice yields. "in environmental or demographic time (centuries)" we can barely fanthom the state of the world in 100 years, so setting that as our horizon on things to worry about certianly seems fair. As for water shortages, more efficient usage is the answer. Switching to more efficient forms of irrigation can cut ag water usage from 30-70%, while boosting production. Once again the problem is the resource was too cheap and overly used. Forcing improvements in efficiency BEFORE nature demands them is the answer. Also, irrigation quality water can be created from sea water for $.20 m3. And as time goes on and water becomes more scarce, who here would bet money that we don't find even better ways to improve efficiency? Water shortage is not a limit to growth, merely a challenge. “Prices don’t tell you about food supply. Food supply is measured otherwise.” But this does provide some light on why ag yield growth has gone down. If yield growth had gone down because of inability to meet demand, prices would have gone up. Since prices have remained steady, then yield growth went down because of a drop in demand. Which is all to make my point that fish, an important part of human diet, can continue to be supplied, at historic growth rates, with little or no effect on gross ag production. And given the incredible disparity between industrialized nations and developing nations in yields per hectre, this trend can continue for a long time. I would only get worried when world average yields approach industrialized nations top yields, ie when India’s rice yields approach Japanese rice yields. “in environmental or demographic time (centuries)” we can barely fanthom the state of the world in 100 years, so setting that as our horizon on things to worry about certianly seems fair. As for water shortages, more efficient usage is the answer. Switching to more efficient forms of irrigation can cut ag water usage from 30-70%, while boosting production. Once again the problem is the resource was too cheap and overly used. Forcing improvements in efficiency BEFORE nature demands them is the answer. Also, irrigation quality water can be created from sea water for $.20 m3. And as time goes on and water becomes more scarce, who here would bet money that we don’t find even better ways to improve efficiency? Water shortage is not a limit to growth, merely a challenge.

]]> By: Jake McGuire http://crookedtimber.org/2005/02/14/since-the-beginning-of-time-right-leaning-technophiles-have-yearned-to-blow-up-suns/comment-page-3/#comment-61434 Jake McGuire Wed, 16 Feb 2005 02:22:32 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2869#comment-61434 But there's not a shortage of food supply. There are people who are too poor to afford the food to survive, and there are governments who deliberately or accidentally create famines, but even without assuming complete adoption of current western farming techniques, the people who look at the numbers realize that we've got plenty of land to feed a lot more people than we currently have. If the population is not expected to increase without bound (which it isn't, fertility rates are declining everywhere), the question becomes one of at what standard can we support the expected maximum population. Oh, it looks like the high and low estimates are essentially worthless, being created by adding and subtracting an entirely arbitrary 0.5 children per woman, instead of trying to create optimistic and pessimistic assumptions for the input variables and propagating them through the model. But there’s not a shortage of food supply. There are people who are too poor to afford the food to survive, and there are governments who deliberately or accidentally create famines, but even without assuming complete adoption of current western farming techniques, the people who look at the numbers realize that we’ve got plenty of land to feed a lot more people than we currently have. If the population is not expected to increase without bound (which it isn’t, fertility rates are declining everywhere), the question becomes one of at what standard can we support the expected maximum population. Oh, it looks like the high and low estimates are essentially worthless, being created by adding and subtracting an entirely arbitrary 0.5 children per woman, instead of trying to create optimistic and pessimistic assumptions for the input variables and propagating them through the model.

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