I was going to respond in sarcasm but realized your comment does not even deserve that.

Governments of any shape are unable to accurately pick which industry to allow or prevent. Even harder would be creating legislation that carves out specific industry.

You can tax the externalities of the use of electricity. Please don’t create pandering comments with zero substance.

I don’t like bitcoin but who am I to tell people what to spend money on.

> Governments of any shape are unable to accurately pick which industry to allow or prevent.

i would say that some gov'ts in the world does do this - famously the chinese CCP.

They dictate by providing state funding for industries they deem important (for whatever reason - geopolitically strategic, military, or welfare, etc). Whether it's the most "efficient" form of capital allocation is irrelevant (for them).

The people do not have a say, and in fact, cannot be doing any form of criticism - they may have feedback, but only in so far as the party allows said feedback. It's implicit that the CCP is picking for the "greater good" - but who is the judge of that? CCP itself is!

So by an act of tautology, they are doing it most efficiently!

Ah yes, the one who over-allocated so much capital into real estate that it has more unused apartments than the rest of the world combined, 5 times over

With the greatest housing bubble has ever seen, and a deflationary spiral around the corner.

Governments certainly try. The US does the similar efforts through subsidy type programs, I don't think the Chinese government are able to accurately pick industry any better. They have more force to put behind their decisions, like building ultra cheap real estate, roads and general infrastructure but I am not sure they have the ability to pick a specific piece of industry any better.

Why is using less energy good thing for the world? Using energy in itself is fine, you can use all the solar you want and nobody is going to complain. Nuclear is marginally less harmless, but still quite fine. Don't use coal or gas.

A person with this kind of mindset will tell less-developed nations to stop developing fossil fuel infrastructure because any more impact on the planet is unjustified.

A person with that kind of mindset will tell you that you don't deserve to live because you use too many resources lol

Yet, they sure do love their lifestyle

Sigh. Better not save our habitat, because poseurs.

Now that's a laudable mindset.

Human idiocy driven extinction

The hypocrisy is as good a reason as any to keep it real. But the real problem is people so brainwashed by green propaganda that they think no human activity is worthwhile. This AI stuff for example might appear wasteful, but it is very promising as a means to improve efficiency in many industries and improve people's quality of life, which may in fact reduce pollution. Even if it increased pollution somehow, that has to be weighed against all other outcomes. You can't just look at any old use of resources and declare that it isn't worth it and expect everyone to agree with you. Different people value different things in life, and that's ok.

I don't think that has to be the case for anyone in this chain. I am very conscious of my use of resources. I also realize that there is massive green washing of things. Lots of things marketed as the "green" way are also not that great for the planet, sometimes a sheet of cling wrap or a ziploc bag is ok to use. It also is true that often people love to project their feelings for saving the planet but are living a lifestyle that says otherwise.

When it comes to energy use, I don't believe anyone should have the power to say what should be allowed or not. That will stifle innovation. For every innovation there must have been thousands if not more failures.

Tax negative externalities

In what sense is using less energy good for the world? All forward progress has been accompanied by more energy usage.

I don’t think you would want to live in the world we’d have if we rolled back all of the energy expenditure done in the name of profit over the past 200 years since the discovery of oil. You wouldn’t have anything. You wouldn’t be able to cross the Atlantic lest you burn coal to produce steam.

As a sailor, who crossed oceans, on nothing but wind power (and solar), I resent that - but I totally get what you’re saying. The world would be, different, to say the least.

That's a bit easy to say this. "We progressed during capitalism hence capitalism allowed the progress" but you don't know at all. You also don't know how will the next 1000 years look if we continue to do things in the name of profit. I think that making hypothetical branches like that is just useless because there are so many more factors that just "capitalism or communism"

How aren’t there financial incentives for using less energy? The production of energy costs money.

I didn't suggest otherwise. The person I replied to said it was a bizarre question, which I disagree with. Their are obvious benefits outside of money.

> I understand there aren't financial incentives around that so it's probably difficult for you to agree with.

re: ... in general is a good thing to do for the world

Ah, thanks for the clarification. Well, since energy costs money, and using less energy is good, isn’t using less energy incentivized?

Unless you’re making a more general point “good things are not incentivized”, which I feel is a difficult thing to argue or make statements about