[ExI] [tt] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine"

[Mirco Romanato]

Il 16/10/2013 23:20, Anders Sandberg ha scritto:
> 
>> "I'm worried about damage to an asset that we've carefully cultivated 
>> for 237 years [...] it would be asinine for the U.S. to risk its 
>> hard-won reputation for paying its bills on time.[...]

Well, the US defaulted when closed the Gold Window, so the last default
was just 42 years ago. Continentals and Greenbacks also were practical
defaults.

> Low-level brinkmanship upsetting bigger global collective goods doesn't 
> sound far-fetched, and might actually be a serious Achilles heel of 
> geoengineering. I have some colleauges who plan to model it in more 
> detail. In the meantime I hope that if we find ourselves in such a mess 
> some Warren Buffett might unilaterally solve the problem (in exchange 
> for all weather reports ending with a thank you note). Of course, the 
> unilateral possibility of geoengineering leads to other fun problems ( 
> http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/unilateralist.pdf )...

An example of this low level brinkmanship causing higher-level damage is
here, in Venice.
The local politicians are bickering about stopping cruisers from
entering the Lagoon of Venice for a bunch or ridiculous reasons.
The problem is not only for Venice tourism workers losing jobs and
revenues; a big problem is for all other major ports in the Adriatic Sea
where these ship dock during their travels, because nearly 99% of the
cruises dock in Venice. Venice close, all of them lose cruiser traffic.

Yesterday a delegation of these cities come to Venice to talk with the
Major and the message is "WTF are you doing/thinking?"

Mirco