Interesting. Looking at it through this lens almost gives me the impression that in the US we see the current split in US politics as a proxy-fight between coastal enterprises, and central enterprises (and the same patterns elsewhere).
Microsoft putting money in nucleair energy reminds me of OpenAI's Sam Altman beging invested in both fission and fusion energy and his recent remark that he wants endless energy because that's what is needed if their large AI models are to grow further.
Anyway, I suspect the long period of 'government is not the solution but the problem' dogma/propaganda has resulted in a situation where we end being able to effectively act collectively. I do not see how we can get back fast enough (given ecological disasters happening), given that we now have effectively a single, more and more unchecked profit-driven world system that is spinning out of control. How do we get the people to change if they're being fed this 'less government and lower taxes is always better' all the time by those that now have the power to do that on a massive scale and that want to protect their profits? These people are not criminals, btw, they probably simply believe what they say about government, just like many in the US are convinced Trump is an 'Orange Jezus'.
I fear that as a species, we're not smart enough to collectively do the right thing. What will stop us is the disasters of our own making.
'Knife edge' is, I fear, too optimistic an assessment. And that is without taking into account that a large part US culture is training their children to 'accept beliefs' and not 'think'. The limited human capacity for analytical thought is as much the victim of an 'austerity' there. The US has a Speaker of the House of Representatives who apparently believes that the earth is in the order of thousands years old, for crying out loud. If I see that happening, if I see Saudi Arabia rebrand 'sustainability' as 'begin able to sustain the continuous selling of oil and gas' or I see the meat lobby active at COP, it becomes hard to think we're not going to let disastrous developments go much too far.
"two-thirds of what we need to do in climate change – e.g., building seawalls – has no obvious profit model" - I can absolutely believe this but did he give a source for it? Googling it just leads me back here.
Interesting. Looking at it through this lens almost gives me the impression that in the US we see the current split in US politics as a proxy-fight between coastal enterprises, and central enterprises (and the same patterns elsewhere).
Microsoft putting money in nucleair energy reminds me of OpenAI's Sam Altman beging invested in both fission and fusion energy and his recent remark that he wants endless energy because that's what is needed if their large AI models are to grow further.
Anyway, I suspect the long period of 'government is not the solution but the problem' dogma/propaganda has resulted in a situation where we end being able to effectively act collectively. I do not see how we can get back fast enough (given ecological disasters happening), given that we now have effectively a single, more and more unchecked profit-driven world system that is spinning out of control. How do we get the people to change if they're being fed this 'less government and lower taxes is always better' all the time by those that now have the power to do that on a massive scale and that want to protect their profits? These people are not criminals, btw, they probably simply believe what they say about government, just like many in the US are convinced Trump is an 'Orange Jezus'.
I fear that as a species, we're not smart enough to collectively do the right thing. What will stop us is the disasters of our own making.
'Knife edge' is, I fear, too optimistic an assessment. And that is without taking into account that a large part US culture is training their children to 'accept beliefs' and not 'think'. The limited human capacity for analytical thought is as much the victim of an 'austerity' there. The US has a Speaker of the House of Representatives who apparently believes that the earth is in the order of thousands years old, for crying out loud. If I see that happening, if I see Saudi Arabia rebrand 'sustainability' as 'begin able to sustain the continuous selling of oil and gas' or I see the meat lobby active at COP, it becomes hard to think we're not going to let disastrous developments go much too far.
"two-thirds of what we need to do in climate change – e.g., building seawalls – has no obvious profit model" - I can absolutely believe this but did he give a source for it? Googling it just leads me back here.