[ExI] "Up against the warming zealots"...hmmm

[Elaa Mohamad]

On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 08:43:30 Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> > > We certainly do have the money to burn on frivolous war-making.
> > > So if we want to make it happen, we can.

Eli replied:
> > Do you really believe that?

Eugen wrote:
> I certainly believe that if you can destroy value to the tune
> of more than a terabuck (and counting) that that value was
> expendable, by definition. (Whether there's considerably more
> where that came from is an open question).

Sorry I didn't make myself clear, or maybe I did not understand your point
completely. I was hung up on the word __we__. I have no doubt there are more
than enough resources in the world to "make it happen" (I assume we both
mean "a society based on sustainable development principles"). What I wanted
to say is that __we__ - you and I, individuals - do not have the power to
let's say stop worldwide frivolous war-making or burning dead dino remains.
We can only influence the decision makers through lobbying groups etc. But
the bottom line is that __we__ do not make the final decisions, hence __we__
cannot simply/directly make it happen.

> > If so, _how_ do we make it happen?
>
> A first good step would be stop spending terabucks on breaking
> things and start spending terabucks on making things.

I am not personally investing money in breaking things and I doubt you or
anyone on this list recently bought a WMD as a living room decoration. But
only recently my government made some weapon purchases/sales, with my hard
earned tax money, without my explicit approval. So, how do I stop my elected
officials in spending my money on things I do not want? (and I did not even
vote for them!!!)


> > I believe the right question to ask is: How do we ensure the
discontinuation of current practices will bring about more benefits for the
decision makers (resources, power, etc.) than simply continuing the dead
dino burning extravaganza.
>
> Too rational. People first have to want things, and that then things
> start to move, and only then do benefits materialize (or fail to).

Yes, I agree. And what do people ( __we__ ) want? Or better said - what do
the decision makers want? What I am saying is that perhaps they are
currently getting more benefits by burning readily available prehistoric cow
poo then what they think they would get by building a hydrogen economy.

> > Mind, the motivation doesn't have to be only positive reinforcement -
> > if the decision makers see they are losing on the polls or their
>
> A lot more accountability is in order. Unfortunately, currently people
> are politically apathetic, and that's one of the reasons some of them
> can get away with breaking things to the tune of more than a terabuck.

I completely agree.

Eli
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