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Sanya12364 Posts
On November 23 2009 14:39 L wrote:Show nested quote +As you can see, there is no incentive for companies to do things like that generally speaking. And yet, here's what generally happens. Company A will enter Country B. Company A will receive logging rights or buy up land and clear cut the area that they have been assigned despite any stipulations against doing so. Parent Company X will then buy the assets of Company A, and A will be left to undergo bankruptcy and litigation as an empty shell corporation. The directors of A will then form Company C and go to Country D and repeat the same process. This doesn't work in the first world because governments have far more resources to track down the X-A and X-C links, but in countries that are desperate for employers to come what's the big deal if a little bit of forest is cut down.
So in this case, Country B is either selling the harvest rights for trees on the land or selling some other use rights to the land but not the harvest rights. In the former case, they are giving permission to cut so the fault lies with Country B, and in the latter case, they have sold partial rights to a land with no way of enforcing the limits of those partial rights. In both cases, some of the fault lies with Country B.
But the last sentence is most telling. In countries that are desperate for employers, what is the big deal if a bit of forest is cut down? Giving people gainful work to do and food to eat is far more humane than forcing them to be idle and look at a bunch of trees that they don't care for.
Environmental groups can exploit the situation by buying up property rights and then hire the locals to plant trees. A tree farm for logging or for environmental reasons will provide a sustainable source of work. It will also create a population that will actively oversee the protection of the trees.
This is a far more equitable solution than just waltzing in there and ordering the locals around as to what they should do. The clear cutting of forests in foreign countries can be decried for the environmental disaster it is, but aside from venting some anger against capitalism, there is no viable alternative being offered to the people living in those countries. We are in essence demanding favors without compensation from the poorest peoples in the world, and appealing to their sense of self-sacrifice. If we keep doing that, we are just going to be ignored.
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On November 23 2009 21:32 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2009 14:39 L wrote:As you can see, there is no incentive for companies to do things like that generally speaking. And yet, here's what generally happens. Company A will enter Country B. Company A will receive logging rights or buy up land and clear cut the area that they have been assigned despite any stipulations against doing so. Parent Company X will then buy the assets of Company A, and A will be left to undergo bankruptcy and litigation as an empty shell corporation. The directors of A will then form Company C and go to Country D and repeat the same process. This doesn't work in the first world because governments have far more resources to track down the X-A and X-C links, but in countries that are desperate for employers to come what's the big deal if a little bit of forest is cut down. So in this case, Country B is either selling the harvest rights for trees on the land or selling some other use rights to the land but not the harvest rights. In the former case, they are giving permission to cut so the fault lies with Country B, and in the latter case, they have sold partial rights to a land with no way of enforcing the limits of those partial rights. In both cases, some of the fault lies with Country B. But the last sentence is most telling. In countries that are desperate for employers, what is the big deal if a bit of forest is cut down? Giving people gainful work to do and food to eat is far more humane than forcing them to be idle and look at a bunch of trees that they don't care for. Environmental groups can exploit the situation by buying up property rights and then hire the locals to plant trees. A tree farm for logging or for environmental reasons will provide a sustainable source of work. It will also create a population that will actively oversee the protection of the trees. This is a far more equitable solution than just waltzing in there and ordering the locals around as to what they should do. The clear cutting of forests in foreign countries can be decried for the environmental disaster it is, but aside from venting some anger against capitalism, there is no viable alternative being offered to the people living in those countries. We are in essence demanding favors without compensation from the poorest peoples in the world, and appealing to their sense of self-sacrifice. If we keep doing that, we are just going to be ignored.
Yes, clearly an impoverished country is gaining something when its only recourse to try and feed its citizens is to doom future generations to even more abject poverty because of the self-imposed ecological impoverishment.
Clearly the fault lies with country B, and not the corporate organization for breaking the laws in the first place, for not being able to enforce its laws against transnational corporations (and their host countries) who have more assets the than country itself.
Let me point you to iceland, haiti and easter island. The fact that iceland has deserts is a direct consequence of previous deforestation. Haiti's extreme poverty is also largely a result of their extreme deforestation. The near complete extinction of the societies on easter island are also a result of complete deforestation. There have been many civilizations that have gone under because of this type of nearsighted perspective in the past.
Who cares who's 'fault' it is. The fact that substantial damage has been done and is being done is far more important than figuring out who's to 'blame'. Any of your moral suasion attempts aren't going to translate into liability anyways, so its not like they have a prophylactic quality to them.
Given the above, it strikes me as interesting that you try to apply fault, when its completely, completely irrelevant. This isn't about who's fault it is. Its about the economic incentive existing in the first place. It exists, contrary to caller's assertion that it doesn't.
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On November 24 2009 02:46 L wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2009 21:32 TanGeng wrote:On November 23 2009 14:39 L wrote:As you can see, there is no incentive for companies to do things like that generally speaking. And yet, here's what generally happens. Company A will enter Country B. Company A will receive logging rights or buy up land and clear cut the area that they have been assigned despite any stipulations against doing so. Parent Company X will then buy the assets of Company A, and A will be left to undergo bankruptcy and litigation as an empty shell corporation. The directors of A will then form Company C and go to Country D and repeat the same process. This doesn't work in the first world because governments have far more resources to track down the X-A and X-C links, but in countries that are desperate for employers to come what's the big deal if a little bit of forest is cut down. So in this case, Country B is either selling the harvest rights for trees on the land or selling some other use rights to the land but not the harvest rights. In the former case, they are giving permission to cut so the fault lies with Country B, and in the latter case, they have sold partial rights to a land with no way of enforcing the limits of those partial rights. In both cases, some of the fault lies with Country B. But the last sentence is most telling. In countries that are desperate for employers, what is the big deal if a bit of forest is cut down? Giving people gainful work to do and food to eat is far more humane than forcing them to be idle and look at a bunch of trees that they don't care for. Environmental groups can exploit the situation by buying up property rights and then hire the locals to plant trees. A tree farm for logging or for environmental reasons will provide a sustainable source of work. It will also create a population that will actively oversee the protection of the trees. This is a far more equitable solution than just waltzing in there and ordering the locals around as to what they should do. The clear cutting of forests in foreign countries can be decried for the environmental disaster it is, but aside from venting some anger against capitalism, there is no viable alternative being offered to the people living in those countries. We are in essence demanding favors without compensation from the poorest peoples in the world, and appealing to their sense of self-sacrifice. If we keep doing that, we are just going to be ignored. Yes, clearly an impoverished country is gaining something when its only recourse to try and feed its citizens is to doom future generations to even more abject poverty because of the self-imposed ecological impoverishment. Clearly the fault lies with country B, and not the corporate organization for breaking the laws in the first place, for not being able to enforce its laws against transnational corporations (and their host countries) who have more assets the than country itself. Let me point you to iceland, haiti and easter island. The fact that iceland has deserts is a direct consequence of previous deforestation. Haiti's extreme poverty is also largely a result of their extreme deforestation. The near complete extinction of the societies on easter island are also a result of complete deforestation. There have been many civilizations that have gone under because of this type of nearsighted perspective in the past. Who cares who's 'fault' it is. The fact that substantial damage has been done and is being done is far more important than figuring out who's to 'blame'. Any of your moral suasion attempts aren't going to translate into liability anyways, so its not like they have a prophylactic quality to them. Given the above, it strikes me as interesting that you try to apply fault, when its completely, completely irrelevant. This isn't about who's fault it is. Its about the economic incentive existing in the first place. It exists, contrary to caller's assertion that it doesn't.
I didn't assert that it didn't exist. Stop twisting my argument.
I said that
a) there are many incentives against doing so
b) the fact that they do it anyways suggests that there are stronger incentives that are operating in reverse
c) some may be profit but I seriously doubt that much of this "neo-imperialism" can be performed without government support of one sort or another.
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radio host Alan Jones of Australia. One of the most popular news radio shows in australia.
Heres the interview with a leading scientist a person who worked for the IPCC talking about what is happening:
Richard Siegmund Lindzen (born February 8, 1940, Webster, Massachusetts) is an American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen is known for his work in the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides and ozone photochemistry. He has published more than 200 books and scientific papers.[1] He was the lead author of Chapter 7, 'Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks,' of the IPCC Third Assessment Report on climate change. He has been a critic of some global warming theories and the alleged political pressures on climate scientists
its short interview so listen
http://www.2gb.com/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=5043
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On November 24 2009 03:07 Caller wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2009 02:46 L wrote:On November 23 2009 21:32 TanGeng wrote:On November 23 2009 14:39 L wrote:As you can see, there is no incentive for companies to do things like that generally speaking. And yet, here's what generally happens. Company A will enter Country B. Company A will receive logging rights or buy up land and clear cut the area that they have been assigned despite any stipulations against doing so. Parent Company X will then buy the assets of Company A, and A will be left to undergo bankruptcy and litigation as an empty shell corporation. The directors of A will then form Company C and go to Country D and repeat the same process. This doesn't work in the first world because governments have far more resources to track down the X-A and X-C links, but in countries that are desperate for employers to come what's the big deal if a little bit of forest is cut down. So in this case, Country B is either selling the harvest rights for trees on the land or selling some other use rights to the land but not the harvest rights. In the former case, they are giving permission to cut so the fault lies with Country B, and in the latter case, they have sold partial rights to a land with no way of enforcing the limits of those partial rights. In both cases, some of the fault lies with Country B. But the last sentence is most telling. In countries that are desperate for employers, what is the big deal if a bit of forest is cut down? Giving people gainful work to do and food to eat is far more humane than forcing them to be idle and look at a bunch of trees that they don't care for. Environmental groups can exploit the situation by buying up property rights and then hire the locals to plant trees. A tree farm for logging or for environmental reasons will provide a sustainable source of work. It will also create a population that will actively oversee the protection of the trees. This is a far more equitable solution than just waltzing in there and ordering the locals around as to what they should do. The clear cutting of forests in foreign countries can be decried for the environmental disaster it is, but aside from venting some anger against capitalism, there is no viable alternative being offered to the people living in those countries. We are in essence demanding favors without compensation from the poorest peoples in the world, and appealing to their sense of self-sacrifice. If we keep doing that, we are just going to be ignored. Yes, clearly an impoverished country is gaining something when its only recourse to try and feed its citizens is to doom future generations to even more abject poverty because of the self-imposed ecological impoverishment. Clearly the fault lies with country B, and not the corporate organization for breaking the laws in the first place, for not being able to enforce its laws against transnational corporations (and their host countries) who have more assets the than country itself. Let me point you to iceland, haiti and easter island. The fact that iceland has deserts is a direct consequence of previous deforestation. Haiti's extreme poverty is also largely a result of their extreme deforestation. The near complete extinction of the societies on easter island are also a result of complete deforestation. There have been many civilizations that have gone under because of this type of nearsighted perspective in the past. Who cares who's 'fault' it is. The fact that substantial damage has been done and is being done is far more important than figuring out who's to 'blame'. Any of your moral suasion attempts aren't going to translate into liability anyways, so its not like they have a prophylactic quality to them. Given the above, it strikes me as interesting that you try to apply fault, when its completely, completely irrelevant. This isn't about who's fault it is. Its about the economic incentive existing in the first place. It exists, contrary to caller's assertion that it doesn't. I didn't assert that it didn't exist. Stop twisting my argument. I said that a) there are many incentives against doing so b) the fact that they do it anyways suggests that there are stronger incentives that are operating in reverse c) some may be profit but I seriously doubt that much of this "neo-imperialism" can be performed without government support of one sort or another.
I quoted you saying there is 'no' incentive. Not an incentive working in reverse or an overall incentive if performing under ideal conditions. Your statement was pretty clear.
There ARE many incentives against doing so, but they're rather inferior to the incentive of getting rather rich, rather quickly with very little liability attached. Commodity production in most first world nations have taken a plunge (see montana mining industry, for instance) because once the costs attached to resource extraction are fully internalized (cleanup and detox in the case of mining), most companies simply can't turn a profit. Even in cases where companies can turn a profit, they can turn larger profits by skipping out on any liabilities they have.
Commodities prices could swing upwards if regulation was uniform worldwide, but that's not going to happen.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On November 24 2009 02:46 L wrote:
Yes, clearly an impoverished country is gaining something when its only recourse to try and feed its citizens is to doom future generations to even more abject poverty because of the self-imposed ecological impoverishment.
Clearly the fault lies with country B, and not the corporate organization for breaking the laws in the first place, for not being able to enforce its laws against transnational corporations (and their host countries) who have more assets the than country itself.
Let me point you to iceland, haiti and easter island. The fact that iceland has deserts is a direct consequence of previous deforestation. Haiti's extreme poverty is also largely a result of their extreme deforestation. The near complete extinction of the societies on easter island are also a result of complete deforestation. There have been many civilizations that have gone under because of this type of nearsighted perspective in the past.
Who cares who's 'fault' it is. The fact that substantial damage has been done and is being done is far more important than figuring out who's to 'blame'. Any of your moral suasion attempts aren't going to translate into liability anyways, so its not like they have a prophylactic quality to them.
Given the above, it strikes me as interesting that you try to apply fault, when its completely, completely irrelevant. This isn't about who's fault it is. Its about the economic incentive existing in the first place. It exists, contrary to caller's assertion that it doesn't.
To recognize a fault is not to blame. A fault means a flaw. In this case, I'm pointing out that the government is flawed in selling partial rights when it has no way of enforcing it. When assigning blame, none should go to the people of Country B, but should lay at the feet of the government officials that authorized the sale. Clearly Company A is operating immorally by not honoring its contracts with Country B.
The latter half is not an argument for deforestation or despoiling of natural resources. It is merely pointing out that approach of the environmental movement is highly flawed and unappealing because it offers the natives no viable alternate to make a living. It is not to argue that these people should cut down their trees and ignore warnings of environmentalists, but rather that environmentalists should be making the poor and undeveloped regions of the world a proposition that works on an economic level.
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On November 24 2009 11:19 spets1 wrote:radio host Alan Jones of Australia. One of the most popular news radio shows in australia. Heres the interview with a leading scientist a person who worked for the IPCC talking about what is happening: Richard Siegmund Lindzen (born February 8, 1940, Webster, Massachusetts) is an American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen is known for his work in the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides and ozone photochemistry. He has published more than 200 books and scientific papers.[1] He was the lead author of Chapter 7, 'Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks,' of the IPCC Third Assessment Report on climate change. He has been a critic of some global warming theories and the alleged political pressures on climate scientists its short interview so listen http://www.2gb.com/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=5043
Alan jones is only popular with over 50's. He's your classic sensationalist and misrepresents most issues.
I'm quite sceptical of Lindzen's credentials. In terms of actual peer reviewed published material from him I was only able to find one paper he co-authored with Goody which was published in the Journal of Atmospheric sciences. Everything else I could find has just been pihilosophical rants more than anything else.
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On November 22 2009 10:07 Vedic wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2009 09:52 WhiteNights wrote:On November 22 2009 09:51 gchan wrote:
In the years since then, with more scientists raising doubts about the accuracy of the data, whether there really is global warming, etc., the media hardly gave it any coverage. That's because it's not fear or sensationalism. It took something this drastic to stir the media enough to actually cover the topic. The number of climate scientists who believe there isn't global warming is in the single digits out of thousands. It's not newsworthy because there aren't any. 31,000+ scientists have signed a petition against man-made global warming theories. Did you not even watch the senate debate?
And how many of those scientists are doctorates? How many of those have fields that are even remotely relative to climate change? How many are actually publishing still? How many scientist are there total in the world? Those are small potatoes sir.
Never trust always question, if one never does thing he will be nothing but to fool to those who do. Always get to know a process and understand anything that is presented as evidence from start to finish else you'll just be playing the fool.
Just take a look at a bunch of petition signed by only "scientist" as that is very board area and sounds so professional.
For Flying Spaghetti monster, invisible pink unicorn, intelligent falling etc. etc. Just because you can come up with numbers does not put it in context.
Just because you vote on something does not make it true it's not a matter of what the group of people believe science is about facts and what is true.
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On November 24 2009 13:34 Ludrik wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2009 11:19 spets1 wrote:radio host Alan Jones of Australia. One of the most popular news radio shows in australia. Heres the interview with a leading scientist a person who worked for the IPCC talking about what is happening: Richard Siegmund Lindzen (born February 8, 1940, Webster, Massachusetts) is an American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen is known for his work in the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides and ozone photochemistry. He has published more than 200 books and scientific papers.[1] He was the lead author of Chapter 7, 'Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks,' of the IPCC Third Assessment Report on climate change. He has been a critic of some global warming theories and the alleged political pressures on climate scientists its short interview so listen http://www.2gb.com/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=5043 Alan jones is only popular with over 50's. He's your classic sensationalist and misrepresents most issues. I'm quite sceptical of Lindzen's credentials. In terms of actual peer reviewed published material from him I was only able to find one paper he co-authored with Goody which was published in the Journal of Atmospheric sciences. Everything else I could find has just been pihilosophical rants more than anything else.
Richard Lindzen's publication list
Lindzen is basically the only climate skeptic around who has a reasonably solid record of peer-reviewed publications relating to atmosphere and climate.
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On November 24 2009 13:38 WhiteNights wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2009 13:34 Ludrik wrote:On November 24 2009 11:19 spets1 wrote:radio host Alan Jones of Australia. One of the most popular news radio shows in australia. Heres the interview with a leading scientist a person who worked for the IPCC talking about what is happening: Richard Siegmund Lindzen (born February 8, 1940, Webster, Massachusetts) is an American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen is known for his work in the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides and ozone photochemistry. He has published more than 200 books and scientific papers.[1] He was the lead author of Chapter 7, 'Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks,' of the IPCC Third Assessment Report on climate change. He has been a critic of some global warming theories and the alleged political pressures on climate scientists its short interview so listen http://www.2gb.com/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=5043 Alan jones is only popular with over 50's. He's your classic sensationalist and misrepresents most issues. I'm quite sceptical of Lindzen's credentials. In terms of actual peer reviewed published material from him I was only able to find one paper he co-authored with Goody which was published in the Journal of Atmospheric sciences. Everything else I could find has just been pihilosophical rants more than anything else. Richard Lindzen's publication listLindzen is basically the only climate skeptic around who has a reasonably solid record of peer-reviewed publications relating to atmosphere and climate.
Thanks for the link. It appears my uni's database might be a bit lacking in some respects.
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To recognize a fault is not to blame.
Fault, as a legal term, refers to legal blameworthiness and responsibility. An entity can have a fault in the sense of a flaw, but you said someone was 'at fault', which is invokes the legal usage of the word.
I'm pointing out that the government is flawed in selling partial rights when it has no way of enforcing it. Selling complete land rights ends in the same problem with the added problem of having no legal recourse, where selling logging rights preserves the claim. How is it a flaw to take the best out of a number of terrible choices? Isn't the 'flaw' not in the relative strength of the governments, but rather in the legal tools that allow people to evade contractual liabilities that they have entered into of their own free will?
It is merely pointing out that approach of the environmental movement is highly flawed and unappealing because it offers the natives no viable alternate to make a living. But it does. In this instance, holding people to their commitment to not clearcut and replant saplings would be a very pro-environment move. How would sustaining the forest for future generations, and sustaining the income flow from the lumber coming out of that forest give 'the natives no viable alternate to make a living'? That's EXACTLY what it does.
In terms of your question, however, it betrays that typical 6 month outlook. A more suitable question would be: Is the society running over its carrying capacity? If so, then short term 'aid' in the form of money that substantially reduces the carrying capacity of the land that the society is on does the exact opposite of what you suggest: it will provide immediate sustenance with the inevitable side effect of abject poverty and mass emigration later: See Haiti. Aid in that respect only allows the problem to make itself worse before the symptoms reappear in a far more menacing fashion. See forest fires in the US as an example.
Compare that to post-unification japan which enacted draconian lumber control rules, sometimes at the expense of local farmers that wanted to chop wood for their own usage; Japan currently ranks highest among first world nations in terms of the proportion of land which is forested, despite being a country with extreme resource consumption and only a tiny landmass.
Proper stewardship of resources does not provide no 'viable' alternatives; it provides the best alternatives. The problem, however, is that there is a very strong tendency to maximize immediate profit over eventual profit. Its actually mandated by law in certain respects in the US, regarding the responsibility of company officers towards shareholders.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On November 24 2009 14:53 L wrote:
But it does. In this instance, holding people to their commitment to not clearcut and replant saplings would be a very pro-environment move. How would sustaining the forest for future generations, and sustaining the income flow from the lumber coming out of that forest give 'the natives no viable alternate to make a living'? That's EXACTLY what it does.
SO DO IT. Better environmentalists act as responsible businessmen and stewards of natural resources than the despoilers strip out the resources and go. But that just might be an act of capitalism.
On November 24 2009 14:53 L wrote:
In terms of your question, however, it betrays that typical 6 month outlook. A more suitable question would be: Is the society running over its carrying capacity? If so, then short term 'aid' in the form of money that substantially reduces the carrying capacity of the land that the society is on does the exact opposite of what you suggest: it will provide immediate sustenance with the inevitable side effect of abject poverty and mass emigration later: See Haiti. Aid in that respect only allows the problem to make itself worse before the symptoms reappear in a far more menacing fashion. See forest fires in the US as an example.
What are you going to do about it? Are you going to kill all the poor undeveloped people around the world because you think that it exceeds the carrying capacity? Is that what you want? Institute some kind of global eugenics plan?
I guess it also means you wouldn't give aid to Haiti because you think they should starve and learn their lesson? History has show that famine is a good check on population growth.
On November 24 2009 14:53 L wrote:
Compare that to post-unification japan which enacted draconian lumber control rules, sometimes at the expense of local farmers that wanted to chop wood for their own usage; Japan currently ranks highest among first world nations in terms of the proportion of land which is forested, despite being a country with extreme resource consumption and only a tiny landmass.
Proper stewardship of resources does not provide no 'viable' alternatives; it provides the best alternatives. The problem, however, is that there is a very strong tendency to maximize immediate profit over eventual profit. Its actually mandated by law in certain respects in the US, regarding the responsibility of company officers towards shareholders.
In your mind you think that it's a convincing proposition, but you have to convince the people in the third world countries of that. Take it directly to the people in question and start organizing around the idea of sustainable development. This is hardly being done at all. If it's a good economic proposition go out and do it.
Instead most of the focus is on third world leadership that has a tendency to be really corrupt. These governments don't do their due diligence when signing much of their natural resource deals. In the case of the lumber companies, where there is such a risk of cutting and running, the proper terms would require a large deposit to ensure that follow-up treatment of the land is duly carried out. Why does this not happen???
Besides those possibilities, the other option is to open up a factory in some of these third world countries and draw all these people away from destroying their natural resources. The people would love you for it since factory jobs would be both easier and safer than working out in the fields or in the lumber industry. Oh wait that would be considered a sweat shop - yet another feature of capitalism.
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SO DO IT. Remember that disparaging comment aimed against the 'environmentalist movement'? They are. Checkmate. Only now the environmentalist movement now includes massive corporations, like Chevron, who've instituted probably one of the most strict ecological preservation zones around a few of their oil fields.
Are you going to kill all the poor undeveloped people around the world because you think that it exceeds the carrying capacity? Is that what you want? Institute some kind of global eugenics plan? I don't have to do anything; If there insufficient resources to support a population, the population will die out. The story of the Anasazi is telling here: They let their population explode when decades of good weather occured, unaware that there is a roughly 40 year climatological cycle in the lands they lived on. When drought hit, as it would from time to time, the results were increasingly severe. At the end of their civilization, huge tensions between the ruling class and the peasants over insufficient food tore the society apart and now they NO LONGER EXIST.
But what happens if someone decided to ship them grain during that drought? Well, they'd soldier along and increase their population more, the wet cycle would return and everyone would be happy until the next drought cycle hits. At that point, the initial problem regarding carrying capacity is now made far worse, and many, many more people die of starvation. Many more would die in armed conflict over the meager food that remained.
Many islands in the pacific exhibited similar trends; when trading partners started folding up, a domino cascade effect occured, with many of the islands losing the majority of their population.
So which scenario is ultimately more moral?
If I would give aid to Haiti, it wouldn't be in the form of food or money, it would be in the form of productivity equipment to raise their self sufficiency (And note: that doesn't mean machinery: Machinery essentially forces the aid receiving country to pay for the expertise to repair the machines and pay for replacement parts. It produces a built-in dependency), as well as contraceptives/medical care so that families aren't forced to have 7 children because they think 3 are going to die by the age of 5. Additionally, I'd fund nurseries to begin replanting forests in Haiti, so that the periodic natural disasters which occur aren't as severe, and so that there will be a future source of lumber, wild game and windbreaks. These efforts would be incredibly helpful in revitalizing the country's economy, but the efforts would take over a decade to fully pay their dividends; time that most starving subsistence farmers simply can't wait. As with the anasazi, when food is scarce, societal unrest increases dramatically.
Additionally, eugenics? Lol, this isn't about selecting genes which are passed on to create some master race and discriminating based on that, its about keeping populations who can't provide for themselves from digging themselves deeper into trouble. Whether the incentives are economic, moral or religious, pretty much all countries have methods by which they self-regulate levels of reproduction.
In your mind you think that it's a convincing proposition, but you have to convince the people in the third world countries of that. No, I don't. Many third world countries simply don't have the problems Haiti and its analogues have. Even in the areas in which the analysis does apply I know they won't bite, because it means sacrifices in the immediate future for long term benefit and that's always a hard sell. I'm saying its a better choice regardless of how attractive the proposition is; sometimes the right thing to do is also the hardest thing to do.
People are making inroads in their efforts to have these ideas implemented but there's substantial resistance. In some countries the rulers simply don't give a shit about anything other than staying in power and enriching themselves: See Duvalier in Haiti, for instance. In other countries there simply isn't the knowledge of these phenomena; this mode of sustainable thinking is relatively new. In other countries still, the problem is completely reversed: they have a huge amount of resources and simply can't decide on who its going to belong to: Congo. In the majority of these countries, legal systems are massively corrupt regardless, so a foreign company can evade liability with a proper bribe, or there won't be laws in place dealing with the issue at all; A lawyer I know had to write the majority of public utility regulation in an African country because they had none prior to building a massive dam that now produces 1/5th of their GDP.
Why does this not happen??? It does, but generally one of the two following scenarios play out: A) the size of the deposit would be larger than the anticipated profit from sacking the land and people wouldn't bother tendering bids to work in a backwater country when they can go to a slightly more favorable backwater country or B) the size of the deposit would be insufficient and they'd do it anyways, with any other liabilities being put on a shell company which declares bankruptcy anyways. But this isn't even a third world nation problem; its a problem in the states too. There's been a huge downswing in mining activity because of A) and many of the scenarios that end up being B) result in taxpayer financed clean-up jobs while a few directors are laughing their way to the bank.
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Sanya12364 Posts
This isn't problem of capitalism, but of corrupt rulers willing to whore themselves out to the highest bidder and exposing the rest of the population to the dire consequences of environmental destruction. That's what's been tying your scenarios together. Corruption in Haiti by Duvalier. Corruption of government in Congo. Accepting a deposit insufficient in size to cover clean-up jobs. These are all near-sighted decisions by people of power that plunders the natural resources of the country. Do pigs attract flies. Damn straight they do. Just like corrupt governments attract equally corrupt business.
And you are really fucking pessimistic. The reason you think it's the better choice is because you believe that individuals will not create innovations to solve their problems and that we will not create new social arrangement to solve our problems. It's a hard sell to the average human being because most of them are optimistic about future prospects. Sometimes the optimism fails spectacularly in mass extinction when innovations didn't pan out. Yet, more often than not innovations succeed spectacularly, and society flourish.
It's moral to allow people an opportunity with their creativity, their ability, and their hard work. It's likewise moral to balance that with prudence and wise investments. Perhaps planting tree is the best legacy a man can give to his children. Sometimes the pessimists will play the role of Cassandra, but usually they are dead wrong. These dire warning of impending doom because of overpopulation have been rained upon civilization for hundreds of years. We can probably dig up some instances from ancient Rome about there being too many human beings in the world.
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On November 24 2009 12:23 L wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2009 03:07 Caller wrote:On November 24 2009 02:46 L wrote:On November 23 2009 21:32 TanGeng wrote:On November 23 2009 14:39 L wrote:As you can see, there is no incentive for companies to do things like that generally speaking. And yet, here's what generally happens. Company A will enter Country B. Company A will receive logging rights or buy up land and clear cut the area that they have been assigned despite any stipulations against doing so. Parent Company X will then buy the assets of Company A, and A will be left to undergo bankruptcy and litigation as an empty shell corporation. The directors of A will then form Company C and go to Country D and repeat the same process. This doesn't work in the first world because governments have far more resources to track down the X-A and X-C links, but in countries that are desperate for employers to come what's the big deal if a little bit of forest is cut down. So in this case, Country B is either selling the harvest rights for trees on the land or selling some other use rights to the land but not the harvest rights. In the former case, they are giving permission to cut so the fault lies with Country B, and in the latter case, they have sold partial rights to a land with no way of enforcing the limits of those partial rights. In both cases, some of the fault lies with Country B. But the last sentence is most telling. In countries that are desperate for employers, what is the big deal if a bit of forest is cut down? Giving people gainful work to do and food to eat is far more humane than forcing them to be idle and look at a bunch of trees that they don't care for. Environmental groups can exploit the situation by buying up property rights and then hire the locals to plant trees. A tree farm for logging or for environmental reasons will provide a sustainable source of work. It will also create a population that will actively oversee the protection of the trees. This is a far more equitable solution than just waltzing in there and ordering the locals around as to what they should do. The clear cutting of forests in foreign countries can be decried for the environmental disaster it is, but aside from venting some anger against capitalism, there is no viable alternative being offered to the people living in those countries. We are in essence demanding favors without compensation from the poorest peoples in the world, and appealing to their sense of self-sacrifice. If we keep doing that, we are just going to be ignored. Yes, clearly an impoverished country is gaining something when its only recourse to try and feed its citizens is to doom future generations to even more abject poverty because of the self-imposed ecological impoverishment. Clearly the fault lies with country B, and not the corporate organization for breaking the laws in the first place, for not being able to enforce its laws against transnational corporations (and their host countries) who have more assets the than country itself. Let me point you to iceland, haiti and easter island. The fact that iceland has deserts is a direct consequence of previous deforestation. Haiti's extreme poverty is also largely a result of their extreme deforestation. The near complete extinction of the societies on easter island are also a result of complete deforestation. There have been many civilizations that have gone under because of this type of nearsighted perspective in the past. Who cares who's 'fault' it is. The fact that substantial damage has been done and is being done is far more important than figuring out who's to 'blame'. Any of your moral suasion attempts aren't going to translate into liability anyways, so its not like they have a prophylactic quality to them. Given the above, it strikes me as interesting that you try to apply fault, when its completely, completely irrelevant. This isn't about who's fault it is. Its about the economic incentive existing in the first place. It exists, contrary to caller's assertion that it doesn't. I didn't assert that it didn't exist. Stop twisting my argument. I said that a) there are many incentives against doing so b) the fact that they do it anyways suggests that there are stronger incentives that are operating in reverse c) some may be profit but I seriously doubt that much of this "neo-imperialism" can be performed without government support of one sort or another. I quoted you saying there is 'no' incentive. Not an incentive working in reverse or an overall incentive if performing under ideal conditions. Your statement was pretty clear. There ARE many incentives against doing so, but they're rather inferior to the incentive of getting rather rich, rather quickly with very little liability attached. Commodity production in most first world nations have taken a plunge (see montana mining industry, for instance) because once the costs attached to resource extraction are fully internalized (cleanup and detox in the case of mining), most companies simply can't turn a profit. Even in cases where companies can turn a profit, they can turn larger profits by skipping out on any liabilities they have. Commodities prices could swing upwards if regulation was uniform worldwide, but that's not going to happen.
Um, if you completely ignore the following statement that I made, then your argument would make sense:
On November 23 2009 15:43 Caller wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2009 14:39 L wrote:As you can see, there is no incentive for companies to do things like that generally speaking. And yet, here's what generally happens. Company A will enter Country B. Company A will receive logging rights or buy up land and clear cut the area that they have been assigned despite any stipulations against doing so. Parent Company X will then buy the assets of Company A, and A will be left to undergo bankruptcy and litigation as an empty shell corporation. The directors of A will then form Company C and go to Country D and repeat the same process. This doesn't work in the first world because governments have far more resources to track down the X-A and X-C links, but in countries that are desperate for employers to come what's the big deal if a little bit of forest is cut down. Yes, this is true, but it's not like Company A/Company C isn't being backed or supported by its own country in anyway-many times the situation is caused by the government through a company (i.e. China). In this case, the negative incentive is usually overpowered by a government powered incentive.
Also, you forget one critical part of price equilibrium: a company doesn't need to be making a profit per-se to be doing well. A company that earns just enough to surpass all its costs (including compensation to upper level management/owners) does quite fine. You also ignore the idea of property rights: any damage that effects property that the company does not own (like for instance, most things) will force the company to take on new liability in the form of court litigation. It's not like companies will strip mine and dump shitloads of chemicals on land just because they can avoid litigation. Nearby landowners and/or the government will file shitloads of lawsuits if they try something like that, and all the "liability" that may be avoided from polluting (and causing an externality) is quickly added up. More importantly, why the hell would a company want to depreciate its own assets? Strip-mining and mass deforestation is depreciation of land, and the land is still quite a significant investment whenever they are doing anything. If it was that efficient to take all the resources as fast as they can, we should have a lot more deforestation than we currently do. Instead, we don't see that. Why? This isn't something that you can just reason out, either.
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On November 22 2009 10:19 BuGzlToOnl wrote:
Before the global warming fact or fiction debate thing gets rolling lets just pass this thought through our heads:
If global warming happens and we have done things against it we win.
If we do the contrary/do nothing we get fucked.
Now, if we do things to prevent global warming from happening and it turns out to be false, we still just cleaned up our messy lifestyles and made the world nicer place to live in.
i havnt read all the replies so i dont know if this post was replied to
global warming is already happening as we speak, the first signs of this are already being seen in the artic, the permafrost(permanent ice) is being melted away when these changes were predicted to happen within the next 30-40 years(this fact alone has a huge chain reaction on various different elements, one of them being that they release methane which just accelerates climate change).. the damage weve already done to the earth is insane.. i remember a scientist saying that even if there were zero carbon dioxide emissions for the next 20 years that the carbon dioxide levels within the atmosphere would still continue to rise and we would still see a global temperature increase
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Um, if you completely ignore the following statement that I made, then your argument would make sense Your following statement essentially made the incentive attributable to colluding governments, not the companies themselves. Completely wrong.
You also ignore the idea of property rights: any damage that effects property that the company does not own (like for instance, most things) will force the company to take on new liability in the form of court litigation. No i'm not. Tort litigation is an incredibly poor method of redistributing assets; most litigants simply can't afford the costs of court in the first place, and the majority make back far less than the value they lost leading to the claim. Tort litigation's main success lies in its preventive effect, which doesn't apply in the majority of countries with corrupt and non-independent judiciaries, since those who are profiting can pay off the judges themselves. Additionally, tort law doesn't dissuade equally for all risks. For instance; Dissuading businesses against protecting against risks which are far too large for them to pay off in the first place doesn't work. In the case of mining, a mining company with assets worth, lets say, 20 million is going to be dissuaded to the tune of 20 million regarding an accident which might cost anywhere from 20 million to 500 million, because the result of any of those accidents happening is simply bankruptcy.
But why take risks that could bankrupt you? Unless you can prove a cast for lifting the corporate veil, and that's very, very difficult, recompensation becomes even harder, because the company itself is liable, not the people who have been pulling 3 million dollar a year salaries from it.
So when you say:
It's not like companies will strip mine and dump shitloads of chemicals on land just because they can avoid litigation. I kinda roll my eyes; That's exactly what they do. In the face of increased requirements for bonds to be posted prior to extraction, most mining operations using ecologically damaging processes are simply offshored. That's why pre-dig bonds are so common in the first world, because tort law simply doesn't work in this field.
More importantly, why the hell would a company want to depreciate its own assets? For immediate profit, obviously. If I give you a forest full of old growth trees that you can log for 60k each and make an immediate profit of, say, 100m off a plot of land, you'd probably do that and then reinvest the profits in new land. You'd be very tempted to do that if the requirement for logging properly involved a huge amount of expense. Logging, however, compared to mining, requires relatively little labour to maintain forests in a workable condition, so they've been early adopters of sustainable practices in the face of consumer and government pressure.
Logging had a very very long history of clear cutting once the mechanization of logging commenced. It was far cheaper to simply roll your choppin' machines across the forest, then toss the logs into the river and call it a day. The decline of clearcutting is due to a number of factors: Clearcutting is most economically viable in old growth forests because pretty much every tree is in that forest is big enough to be worth something. With nearly a century of clear cutting since the arrival of mechanized forestry, the amount of lumber permits that are granted on old growth forests has appreciably declined. Another reason is increased 'green' consciousness has led to a number of certifications that allow people to track lumber back to the forests they initially existed in. FSC is the leader in such standards, and these certifications play into other certifications, like LEED standards and so on. These forestry certifications were developed in the 1990s as a specific response to the type of slash and dash activities that you're pretending never happened. Its also interesting to note that silviculture and sustainable forestry practices developed very quickly in an area like tikopia, and was developed during the medieval area in Europe and during the the imperial periods during japan and china's histories; long term governance produced long term planning. Most western countries enacted strict forestry regulations during the 1900s following the rampant clear cutting prior; countries without the same degree of top-down control don't have the option.
In mining, however, there's very little ability for consumers to trace materials back to their mine of origin. I dare you to name where the metals your computer is made of come from. Its near impossible, so I don't blame you for not knowing. The mining industry is relatively shielded from consumer opinion, so it has been far harder to change. Additionally, unlike forestry where the main solution to problems is typically to just not cut an area to allow for revegitation, bedrock does not regenerate itself naturally, and water tainted by tailing runoff or leaching is immediately dangerous to surrounding communities.
On the topic of what the 'price' of the land is compared to the potential mineral wealth it holds, let me note to you that congo's mineral wealth is worth approximately 24 trillion dollars, whereas its GDP is around a hundreth of that. The relatively huge amount of cash to be made by owning land is one of the reason for the massive conflicts that exist there, and the cash from those mineral deposits is used directly to purchase weaponry to take more. The business of raping the land and waging war to find more land to rape is doing pretty well.
In the north american context, lets examine the price of continental shelves; who the fuck wants a continental shelf to call their own? No one! What happens, however, if under that continental shelf there's a few trillion gallons of oil? Suddenly everyone wants a piece! The intrinsic value of the shelf, however, is near zero. The mineral wealth beneath it is the driving factor in its price. Many areas are simply far out in the middle of nowhere with very little marketability, so the amount of investment recouped in a reclamation project would be close to nil despite huge expenses performing the reclamation itself. In terms of a raw magnitude of profit calculation, its a far better idea to rape some shit and move on to rape somewhere else than it is to tidy up after every time you stick a huge drill in the ground.
The incentives to not do so aren't as immediate, but they can pay off; Chevron, as mentioned earlier, has very fastidiously taken care of their oil fields; Why? Because they're worried governments will nationalize their assets if they don't. They also, by having a green reputation, have access to more oil fields for development because wary governments are likelier to choose them. This makes sense in the oil industry because the timeframe for extraction is very extended and the assets can be traced directly to their source. In the mining industry, not so much. Companies aren't as big, Contracts and permissions aren't as large or lucrative, and the cost of filtering and filling in mine sites is far higher than plugging a single borehole and a few steam injector sites.
This isn't problem of capitalism, but of corrupt rulers willing to whore themselves out to the highest bidder and exposing the rest of the population to the dire consequences of environmental destruction. Not really. It has nothing to do with capitalism or rulers besides seeing how far they're willing to delay gratification. I'd argue that dynastic rulers have more incentive to take a long term view than either our 'uncorrupt' democratic forms of government in the west or our shareholder beholden public companies, but that's kinda irrelevant.
That's what's been tying your scenarios together. No it isn't. There's nothing suggesting that the rulers of the anasazi or multiple polynesian islands were 'corrupt'. There's nothing suggesting that the death of the vikings in Greenland was more attributable to 'corrupt' leadership than their unwillingness to learn how the fuck to fish. Haiti's problems FAR predated Duvalier's government; the period in which they were doing best economically is when they were a french Caribbean colony, where they were rather spectacularly wealthy from the proceeds of plantations and agriculture. The civilization that built angkor wat failed because of water management problems. The Maya failed directly because they chopped down forests to get more arable land, but losing tree cover reduced the fertility of the soil which turned a seasonal drought into a continent wide mega drought (In the leading interpretation, at least). Is that corruption's fault? No. Some people had poor judgement or couldn't react quickly enough to a massive problem. They either didn't have the tools, foresight or motivation to deal with something.
The reason you think it's the better choice is because you believe that individuals will not create innovations to solve their problems and that we will not create new social arrangement to solve our problems. I'd rather bet on the safe side than wager that we will magically solve all our problems in the future without taking the proper precautions now. If I had sex with a girl in the 1800s and she protested citing the lack of safe abortions, my response would be rather unpersuasive if i said "in the next 3 months, it will come in pill form, don't worry".
These dire warning of impending doom because of overpopulation have been rained upon civilization for hundreds of years. We can probably dig up some instances from ancient Rome about there being too many human beings in the world. Yeah, and they've caused some PRETTY SHITTY SIDE EFFECTS thoughout that time. I can point you to the subsequent enfranchisement of the peasant class in england after the black plague. I can point you to current haiti. I can point you to a fistful of examples that show that population levels are important, but you'd just wave them off as you've just done. "it doesn't matter, we've had the problem before and we're still here". Nice argument; many civilizations aren't.
Its rather simple; more people means less for everyone. If the population growth outstrips the growth in available resources, everyone will have less over time. Once that 'less' hits certain thresholds, things take rather rapid downward paths as conflict and violent spring up. The Maoris lived on a relatively tiny island with very little, resourcewise, so they continually hit that conflict point. Examine maori culture and you'll find many instances of responses to that: The cannibalism and concept of mana, the way they refer to themselves as 'people of the land', their construction of pa and so on.
This isn't a problem that hasn't been dealt with in the past; many groups have decided to limit reproduction in various manners: Look to tikopia, an incredibly tiny island that uses very strict population control to stay afloat. Seriously, look them up and see how they've reacted to this problem. The problem is very real, and the societies who haven't bothered to deal with it have all died off. We can choose our path going forward, but putting our blinders on and pretending it isn't an issue isn't going to work. Hoping to toss fuel on the fire and pretend its moral isn't a great idea either.
Lol dis is long.
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Sanya12364 Posts
Oh it's the semi-apolitical tragedy of the commons argument. Just a statement of a phenomenon. Ahhh. I see. That's all it is.
Well it's a natural phenomenon for people to populate and crowd into each other. Then there might be a disastrous famine, a politically motivated war, or maybe a plague. Barring those three outcomes, the people will then discover new social patterns and create a new culture to deal with the elevated population and few years down the road, it will be like the world has always been able to cope and deal with that level of population.
So you can cherry pick the several instances when great calamity has visited the human populace. So what. That hasn't changed changed the pattern throughout history of a growing human population and improved social mechanisms for dealing with such kinds of crowding. Your examples will contribute to the available body of wisdom of the patterns of activities not to engage in. It however does not preclude the human race from trying other creative solutions to see if those will succeed.
Sometimes the speed of learning the is quite slow, so I expect humanity will endure many more painful lessons. But overall the welfare of the human race will improve.
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Over history, the plight of human being has improved with more population. It's easy to argue that given the current command of technology, social institutions, and economic institutions, there's a ceiling for how many people can be sustained on Earth. That would be correct, but the future is unknown. It's not wrong to be slightly optimistic.
The analogy to promising birth control in 3 month is patently false. There is no immediacy and there is no pre-cognition of what the true solution will be.
Instead, rather it's like a young couple expecting a child with an unsteady financial foundation. They don't know what the future will hold for them, but they know that they want to bring their child into the world anyways. It's a source of happiness, hope, perhaps it might cause a little desperation, but that's life.
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On November 25 2009 11:02 L wrote:Show nested quote +Um, if you completely ignore the following statement that I made, then your argument would make sense Your following statement essentially made the incentive attributable to colluding governments, not the companies themselves. Completely wrong. Show nested quote +You also ignore the idea of property rights: any damage that effects property that the company does not own (like for instance, most things) will force the company to take on new liability in the form of court litigation. No i'm not. Tort litigation is an incredibly poor method of redistributing assets; most litigants simply can't afford the costs of court in the first place, and the majority make back far less than the value they lost leading to the claim. Tort litigation's main success lies in its preventive effect, which doesn't apply in the majority of countries with corrupt and non-independent judiciaries, since those who are profiting can pay off the judges themselves. Additionally, tort law doesn't dissuade equally for all risks. For instance; Dissuading businesses against protecting against risks which are far too large for them to pay off in the first place doesn't work. In the case of mining, a mining company with assets worth, lets say, 20 million is going to be dissuaded to the tune of 20 million regarding an accident which might cost anywhere from 20 million to 500 million, because the result of any of those accidents happening is simply bankruptcy. But why take risks that could bankrupt you? Unless you can prove a cast for lifting the corporate veil, and that's very, very difficult, recompensation becomes even harder, because the company itself is liable, not the people who have been pulling 3 million dollar a year salaries from it. So when you say: Show nested quote + It's not like companies will strip mine and dump shitloads of chemicals on land just because they can avoid litigation. I kinda roll my eyes; That's exactly what they do. In the face of increased requirements for bonds to be posted prior to extraction, most mining operations using ecologically damaging processes are simply offshored. That's why pre-dig bonds are so common in the first world, because tort law simply doesn't work in this field. Show nested quote +More importantly, why the hell would a company want to depreciate its own assets? For immediate profit, obviously. If I give you a forest full of old growth trees that you can log for 60k each and make an immediate profit of, say, 100m off a plot of land, you'd probably do that and then reinvest the profits in new land. You'd be very tempted to do that if the requirement for logging properly involved a huge amount of expense. Logging, however, compared to mining, requires relatively little labour to maintain forests in a workable condition, so they've been early adopters of sustainable practices in the face of consumer and government pressure. Logging had a very very long history of clear cutting once the mechanization of logging commenced. It was far cheaper to simply roll your choppin' machines across the forest, then toss the logs into the river and call it a day. The decline of clearcutting is due to a number of factors: Clearcutting is most economically viable in old growth forests because pretty much every tree is in that forest is big enough to be worth something. With nearly a century of clear cutting since the arrival of mechanized forestry, the amount of lumber permits that are granted on old growth forests has appreciably declined. Another reason is increased 'green' consciousness has led to a number of certifications that allow people to track lumber back to the forests they initially existed in. FSC is the leader in such standards, and these certifications play into other certifications, like LEED standards and so on. These forestry certifications were developed in the 1990s as a specific response to the type of slash and dash activities that you're pretending never happened. Its also interesting to note that silviculture and sustainable forestry practices developed very quickly in an area like tikopia, and was developed during the medieval area in Europe and during the the imperial periods during japan and china's histories; long term governance produced long term planning. Most western countries enacted strict forestry regulations during the 1900s following the rampant clear cutting prior; countries without the same degree of top-down control don't have the option. In mining, however, there's very little ability for consumers to trace materials back to their mine of origin. I dare you to name where the metals your computer is made of come from. Its near impossible, so I don't blame you for not knowing. The mining industry is relatively shielded from consumer opinion, so it has been far harder to change. Additionally, unlike forestry where the main solution to problems is typically to just not cut an area to allow for revegitation, bedrock does not regenerate itself naturally, and water tainted by tailing runoff or leaching is immediately dangerous to surrounding communities. On the topic of what the 'price' of the land is compared to the potential mineral wealth it holds, let me note to you that congo's mineral wealth is worth approximately 24 trillion dollars, whereas its GDP is around a hundreth of that. The relatively huge amount of cash to be made by owning land is one of the reason for the massive conflicts that exist there, and the cash from those mineral deposits is used directly to purchase weaponry to take more. The business of raping the land and waging war to find more land to rape is doing pretty well. In the north american context, lets examine the price of continental shelves; who the fuck wants a continental shelf to call their own? No one! What happens, however, if under that continental shelf there's a few trillion gallons of oil? Suddenly everyone wants a piece! The intrinsic value of the shelf, however, is near zero. The mineral wealth beneath it is the driving factor in its price. Many areas are simply far out in the middle of nowhere with very little marketability, so the amount of investment recouped in a reclamation project would be close to nil despite huge expenses performing the reclamation itself. In terms of a raw magnitude of profit calculation, its a far better idea to rape some shit and move on to rape somewhere else than it is to tidy up after every time you stick a huge drill in the ground. The incentives to not do so aren't as immediate, but they can pay off; Chevron, as mentioned earlier, has very fastidiously taken care of their oil fields; Why? Because they're worried governments will nationalize their assets if they don't. They also, by having a green reputation, have access to more oil fields for development because wary governments are likelier to choose them. This makes sense in the oil industry because the timeframe for extraction is very extended and the assets can be traced directly to their source. In the mining industry, not so much. Companies aren't as big, Contracts and permissions aren't as large or lucrative, and the cost of filtering and filling in mine sites is far higher than plugging a single borehole and a few steam injector sites. Show nested quote +This isn't problem of capitalism, but of corrupt rulers willing to whore themselves out to the highest bidder and exposing the rest of the population to the dire consequences of environmental destruction. Not really. It has nothing to do with capitalism or rulers besides seeing how far they're willing to delay gratification. I'd argue that dynastic rulers have more incentive to take a long term view than either our 'uncorrupt' democratic forms of government in the west or our shareholder beholden public companies, but that's kinda irrelevant. No it isn't. There's nothing suggesting that the rulers of the anasazi or multiple polynesian islands were 'corrupt'. There's nothing suggesting that the death of the vikings in Greenland was more attributable to 'corrupt' leadership than their unwillingness to learn how the fuck to fish. Haiti's problems FAR predated Duvalier's government; the period in which they were doing best economically is when they were a french Caribbean colony, where they were rather spectacularly wealthy from the proceeds of plantations and agriculture. The civilization that built angkor wat failed because of water management problems. The Maya failed directly because they chopped down forests to get more arable land, but losing tree cover reduced the fertility of the soil which turned a seasonal drought into a continent wide mega drought (In the leading interpretation, at least). Is that corruption's fault? No. Some people had poor judgement or couldn't react quickly enough to a massive problem. They either didn't have the tools, foresight or motivation to deal with something. Show nested quote + The reason you think it's the better choice is because you believe that individuals will not create innovations to solve their problems and that we will not create new social arrangement to solve our problems. I'd rather bet on the safe side than wager that we will magically solve all our problems in the future without taking the proper precautions now. If I had sex with a girl in the 1800s and she protested citing the lack of safe abortions, my response would be rather unpersuasive if i said "in the next 3 months, it will come in pill form, don't worry". Show nested quote +These dire warning of impending doom because of overpopulation have been rained upon civilization for hundreds of years. We can probably dig up some instances from ancient Rome about there being too many human beings in the world. Yeah, and they've caused some PRETTY SHITTY SIDE EFFECTS thoughout that time. I can point you to the subsequent enfranchisement of the peasant class in england after the black plague. I can point you to current haiti. I can point you to a fistful of examples that show that population levels are important, but you'd just wave them off as you've just done. "it doesn't matter, we've had the problem before and we're still here". Nice argument; many civilizations aren't. Its rather simple; more people means less for everyone. If the population growth outstrips the growth in available resources, everyone will have less over time. Once that 'less' hits certain thresholds, things take rather rapid downward paths as conflict and violent spring up. The Maoris lived on a relatively tiny island with very little, resourcewise, so they continually hit that conflict point. Examine maori culture and you'll find many instances of responses to that: The cannibalism and concept of mana, the way they refer to themselves as 'people of the land', their construction of pa and so on. This isn't a problem that hasn't been dealt with in the past; many groups have decided to limit reproduction in various manners: Look to tikopia, an incredibly tiny island that uses very strict population control to stay afloat. Seriously, look them up and see how they've reacted to this problem. The problem is very real, and the societies who haven't bothered to deal with it have all died off. We can choose our path going forward, but putting our blinders on and pretending it isn't an issue isn't going to work. Hoping to toss fuel on the fire and pretend its moral isn't a great idea either. Lol dis is long.
I think we're comparing two different frameworks of argument here.
My argument is based off of the idea that asymmetric information is rapidly becoming less of a limiting factor.
Yours is based off of the historical idea that asymmetric information is present in market transactions.
As a result, we're trying to view the same situations from two different points of view-it's obvious that our views are irreconcilable here, due purely to two different viewpoints. I am not conceding the argument here, I'm just arguing that with two completely different perspectives there's no way nobody's going to be right.
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Sanya12364 Posts
hehe Caller, I end up arguing with L all the time and it seems like so do you. But I really should be picking your brain.
Anyhow, asymmetrical information becoming less of a limiting factor... a neat idea.
In my opinion, the market has an unconscious way of distributing information. When people transact, it's because they find the deal compelling. If asymmetrical information exists then there will be an imbalance of transactions and the price will shift.
The cheaper it is for people to transact with each other, the faster asymmetrical information gets built into the price. (The market acquires the collective wisdom of its participants). By making the market global, asymmetrical information can be communicated rapidly from region to region, and it will help achieve a more equitable outcome. It's not a perfect system and there are lots of flaws, but that's the theory.
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EPT
