[ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 75, Issue 2

[Mirco Romanato]

Il 02/12/2009 11.00, Eugen Leitl ha scritto:
> On Tue, Dec 01, 2009 at 03:25:21PM -0800, Keith Henson wrote:

> Not just you. I'm entirely unsurprised, because this is how
> people always address a crisis. See Jared Diamond's
> "Collapse" for plenty of examples.

> The only difference this time is that the crisis is global, not
> local.

It will be felt differently in different parts of the globe, as 
somewhere water is abundant and somewhere it is scarce and somewhere Sun 
is abundant and somewhere it is scarce.


>> What we have is people endlessly arguing about the ship rusting or not
>> and if this will sink it in 50 to 100 years in the future.  Meanwhile
>> there is a torpedo in the water headed for the ship.

> Good metaphor. We need to initiate a immediate change of course,
> at full machine power. Anything less won't bring us out of
> harm's way.

The metaphor broke when you advise for "full machine power".
There is no thinking that the ship could absorb the hit and repair the 
damage after. And there is no thinking that in the water there is more 
than a torpedo; there are rocks under the water and waves over it and if 
you change course in the wrong direction you sink the ship over them. 
Add that the ship could not be able to sustain the strain of a "full 
machine power change of course" without breaking.

But the difference that broke the torpedo metaphor is that a torpedo hit 
is an instantaneous thing, where ending of cheap energy is a long (as in 
years or decades) thing.
Enough time to react if we leave the market (the people) to react 
accordingly to their needs and wills.

>> Running out of cheap energy is a far more serious matter than climate
>> change and will happen sooner.  That has to be solved to avert famines
>> and resource wars.

> We're arguably in resource war regime already.

I don't see it.
What I see is a commodity bubble caused by cheap money and quantitative 
easing all around. Given the uncertain about the value of the $ (and 
partially of €) people with money (that don't give interests) buy hard 
stuff that last and keep a value whatever the Central Bankers do.


> It's just small scale
> mostly (with the exception of the US), but if it reaches China, India,
> Arabia, Africa, North America it's going to get arbitrarily ugly.

There is no something like an "arbitrary ugly" thing.

>> There are no long term solutions to this problem that involves
>> endlessly putting carbon in the air so any solution to the problem
>> must involve displacing fossil fuel with some less expensive source of
>> energy.

> D'accord. 1000%.

90% only.
Current CTL technologies (Coal to Liquid) are competitive with a oil at 
50$. The problem for investors is:
1) The log term price of oil.
2) The Carbon Trading and Carbon Taxes schemes that would put them out 
of the market with increased costs

Coal is cheap and abundant enough to supplant oil for a century and more.

Anyway, I'm a supporter of any and all power/energy sources and 
technologies related that don't need subsides. Nuclear plant (very cheap 
if the legal framework don't cause them to need 20 years to be built 
instead of 5).


> But it is so convenient to point fingers instead having to deal
> with problems.

It what skeptics said about warmists behavior.
Finger pointing to CO2, but only to the man made one. And never to the 
agriculture CO2 (20%) but only to the car emitted CO2 (10%) or the 
industrial CO2.

> You first deny that the problem exists, that somebody
> invented it. Then, when you no longer can deny it exists you start
> blaming somebody else causing it (it's never you, so much mutual
> finger pointing ensues).

Is this Mann made psychology?
I think that many people have different aims than the stated ones 
(always the same for what I con understand) and move from a reason to 
another to obtain them.

> Then when everybody realizes you're in
> a zero-sum game everybody starts fighting about what's left, until
> you terminate enough parties so there's enough. Except, in this
> stage you use nuclear and biological weapons, so there are quite
> few indeed left, and they're preoccupied with other things. Like
> staying alive, for instance.

I'm a huge fan of Mad Max, but the plot and the background is as 
credible as the plot of an Alien or Zombie comics (where people behave 
like moron continuously - how they were allowed out of an asylum and 
managed to stay alive is matter for a fantasy plot).

Liberal, market oriented society don't go in war against each other, nor 
they go in war against other if not heavily provoked and menaced.
Mobilizing an Army is too costly to be done for long. It divert 
productive young people from more useful jobs and clearly is a bad 
investment.

I think humans are irrational creature too, but they all are not moronic 
irrational creatures. Often they use their rational brain to something 
useful, also.

The way you are reasoning about humans is not far from justifying 
manipulating them to obtain some "good" outcome. Where "good" is of your 
choice.

Mirco

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