Re:Massive glacier collapse
by pdonis on Tuesday February 05, 2013 @09:56AM
(#5170889)
since my thesis is that your apparent principled derision for centralized solutions is misplaced and self-defeating -- I'm interested in the case where there is a catastrophe looming, and there are things that humanity collectively can do about it
Saying that there are things humanity could collectively do in theory is not the same as saying that centralized "solutions" will actually achieve those things. To do that, we have to actually know the right solution; we have to have enough understanding of the problem domain to be able to make accurate predictions of the effects of our actions. We don't have that knowledge in the case of climate change; indeed, we don't have it in most areas in which we currently force collective action on people.
Take the recent mortgage bubble as an example. This was the result of a centralized "solution" to the "problem" of not enough people owning their homes. The result was to create a new way for people to game the system that ended up tanking the entire economy, and now all those additional people who were supposed to own their homes are being foreclosed on and evicted.
In short, you appear to have a lot more faith in centralized solutions than I do. I would have thought that the twentieth century, if it showed anything, would have showed that centralized control doesn't work--after all, the Soviet Union was a 70-plus year experiment demonstrating that.
Saying that there are things humanity could collectively do in theory is not the same as saying that centralized "solutions" will actually achieve those things. To do that, we have to actually know the right solution; we have to have enough understanding of the problem domain to be able to make accurate predictions of the effects of our actions. We don't have that knowledge in the case of climate change; indeed, we don't have it in most areas in which we currently force collective action on people.
Take the recent mortgage bubble as an example. This was the result of a centralized "solution" to the "problem" of not enough people owning their homes. The result was to create a new way for people to game the system that ended up tanking the entire economy, and now all those additional people who were supposed to own their homes are being foreclosed on and evicted.
In short, you appear to have a lot more faith in centralized solutions than I do. I would have thought that the twentieth century, if it showed anything, would have showed that centralized control doesn't work--after all, the Soviet Union was a 70-plus year experiment demonstrating that.