2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[crazy canuck]

From what I could google, renewables accounted for 11% of energy consumed in 2019. It's too little too late, and it's not going to magically reach 100 % by 2030 even if there's a buck to be made there. China is still opening dozens of coal plants, and we're still subsidizing fossil-fuels and approving new pipelines, drilling etc. It's stupid.

The built-in CO2 infrastructure and upcoming releases are IMO insurmountable. We're not able or willing to reduce emissions in a significant way, so let's science our way out of this by carbon capture is the only way to somehow mitigate the apocalypse.

OK, but if what you are proposing is that we should do nothing because you have no hope that it will work, you and I will just fundamentally disagree.

[crazy canuck]

No I began this by saying sustained wealth.

Ok, another hypothetical then.  Let's say you win 500 million, are concerned about climate change and so invest all of that money into various companies looking for financing to develop tech which will save us all.  You have the good fortune that one of those companies develops a technology that will be very helpful and can be rapidly scaled up - bingo you become very wealthy.  But you see more needs to be done, so you reinvest in other ventures that will save us all and you help even more companies succeed.  You keep rinsing and repeating.

Are you still a bad person?

I guess in this hypothetical it depends what you are doing with the earnings. Are you actually investing all of that back into other ventures or are you keeping a good portion to live a fabulously wealthy lifestyle?

Anyway my statement wasn't based on hypotheticals but the reality of our world today. I think Sheilbh's post bears repeating as that's a well stated argument that I'm sympathetic to. I don't think we have a world where people innocently come into and maintain great amounts of wealth where they have fellow citizens who are struggling to meet basic human needs (and ofen failing).

I personally feel implicated when I think about my standard of living versus those of my neighbors in my largely working class (though due to be displaced) neighborhood. And I don't have an obscene amount of wealth that I could never manage to spend in multiple lifetimes.

I think the point being made is that "investing" can potentially include perpetuating or amplifying exploitative and unethical activities - and once this is done at the scale of billionaires it is inevitable.

Personally I agree that "investing" - especially at scale - is not inherently value neutral or benign. I don't think it's a given that large scale investing is inherently unethical (are pension funds unethical), but it certainly could be in any number of cases.

Yeah I don't think it's about individual's morality or ethics, or a magic number that they cross, or even necessarily how they made their money. It's more like I don't think you could describe a lord in medieval or early modern Europe, or a gentleman in the 18-19th century as moral or ethical. If you don't think the system is ethical or moral, which I don't, then I think you inevitably say that the winners can't be. I also think people have that sense when you read about, say, a Nigerian or Indian or Chinese billionaire that there is a scepticism - perhaps with some justification. I'm just not sure that our billionaires who are the apex predators of global capitalism are significantly different or better - or that that level of wealth can be acquired or maintained without similar compromises.

And the reality is that this is, because of the nature of the world as it is (and as in every other period in human history), that we are all, to some extent, involved. I always think of that Walter Benjamin line that there is "no document of civilisation which is not at the same time a document of barbarism". The billionaires can perhaps live a life less entangled with those documents or artifacts, but are, perhaps perversely, more directly implicated in the barbarism.

I'd add that I also don't have a huge amount of sympathy with them giving away large sums. First and most obviously it is very good from a tax perspective. But also I think it plays into their own mythos of men who deserve and have earned that wealth through their talent or genius - and can apply that to solve x problem, but also know better how to use that wealth than a democratic, social process would. I think Bankman-Fried and the whole "effective altruism" thing are an example of that, but also even Gates. I have a friend in malaria research and while it is absolutely very, very good it has also queered the pitch in that research is aimed at what can get funding from the Gates Foundation which may be missing other avenues.

I think it's not a million miles from the sort of technopopulism of Bloomberg (which I think Trump is also linked to becase he plays a billionaire on TV) democratic processes and the messy reality of politics is the problem - a genius businessman applying their business nous to politics/global development/ending x disease is the solution.

Also not to get too much into therapising them But I think the altruism is an attempt to mitigate their soul - no different than patronage of a different age from Carnegie Hall to the Medicis to a noble paying to establish an almshouse. And ultimately they're in control of whatever philanthropic project they launch.

Well, then, your mind is made up and there's no point discussing it. You claim that you were arguing the real world example, but there are plenty of real world examples of entrepreneurs who have built their wealth in non nefarious ways.


You appear to simply be arguing from, and in result and ignoring any other contract examples in order to make a very broad statement about a whole group of people that cannot possibly be true for each of them. It is simplistic populist rhetoric that gets us nowhere and adds next to nothing to the political discourse. We actually need to have in order to get to the point where we have a properly structured and regulated system.

In summary, it's just way too easy to say that wealthy people are evil maniacal beings that do no good. Without court sort of simplistic analysis, you get the equally nonsensical proposal that will should be kept at some arbitrary number. If you want to talk about the real world, real world, enterprises don't work that way.

I suspect that the biggest disconnect is that early on in this thread, people are making a mistake of a equating a large income with wealth. Some of the poorest people I know have large incomes. They just spend it all and go deeper and deeper into debt.

[garbon]

[Admiral Yi]

From what I could google, renewables accounted for 11% of energy consumed in 2019. It's too little too late, and it's not going to magically reach 100 % by 2030 even if there's a buck to be made there. China is still opening dozens of coal plants, and we're still subsidizing fossil-fuels and approving new pipelines, drilling etc. It's stupid.

The built-in CO2 infrastructure and upcoming releases are IMO insurmountable. We're not able or willing to reduce emissions in a significant way, so let's science our way out of this by carbon capture is the only way to somehow mitigate the apocalypse.

I don't understand how you can start off by saying the root cause of global warming is unfettered capitalism and use the fact that China isn't doing enough as proof.

[Zoupa]

From what I could google, renewables accounted for 11% of energy consumed in 2019. It's too little too late, and it's not going to magically reach 100 % by 2030 even if there's a buck to be made there. China is still opening dozens of coal plants, and we're still subsidizing fossil-fuels and approving new pipelines, drilling etc. It's stupid.

The built-in CO2 infrastructure and upcoming releases are IMO insurmountable. We're not able or willing to reduce emissions in a significant way, so let's science our way out of this by carbon capture is the only way to somehow mitigate the apocalypse.

I don't understand how you can start off by saying the root cause of global warming is unfettered capitalism and use the fact that China isn't doing enough as proof.

China is in many ways the linchpin of our current, late-stage capitalism. Do you honestly think that China pursues communist economic ideology today? Or any time since Deng?

[Admiral Yi]

China is in many ways the linchpin of our current, late-stage capitalism. Do you honestly think that China pursues communist economic ideology today? Or any time since Deng?

They sure seem to be fond of the one party idea.

I would describe China's economy as mixed (like France's).

It would make more sense to me if you were to say economic growth and rising incomes created global warming regardless of economic system.

[Barrister]

China is in many ways the linchpin of our current, late-stage capitalism. Do you honestly think that China pursues communist economic ideology today? Or any time since Deng?

It feels like your definition of capitalism is "things I don't like".

[Zoupa]

The Winnipeg Jets are the linchpin of capitalism 

[Josquius]

China is in many ways the linchpin of our current, late-stage capitalism. Do you honestly think that China pursues communist economic ideology today? Or any time since Deng?

It feels like your definition of capitalism is "things I don't like".

That's not really answering the question.

China  is undoubtedly capitalist.

Its an old inaccuracy in cold war language to see democracy and capitalism as linked.

[Hamilcar]

What do you have against Buffet?

Second this comment.  Not aware of any support for the proposition that he is a bad person. 

His diet is atrocious. Cherry Coke drinkers are the worst.

[Sheilbh]

China is in many ways the linchpin of our current, late-stage capitalism. Do you honestly think that China pursues communist economic ideology today? Or any time since Deng?

It feels like your definition of capitalism is "things I don't like".

That's not really answering the question.

China  is undoubtedly capitalist.

Its an old inaccuracy in cold war language to see democracy and capitalism as linked.

Not just Cold War but end of history too. Liberal democracies with market capitalist economics that were, broadly, being integrated. There was no ideological alternative.

I think it's why we can see that phase is ending, but not necessarily what will come next (not least because we have an idea of the perspective of western powers, but it isn't solely in their hands).

Obvs I know I'm alone on this but I also think China is communist, or Marxist-Leninist, and that it's really key to China's politics and system. They don't have the same biases, instincts or vulnerabilities precisely because the leadership have a different ideological framework for interpreting the world. On the Cold War part of me wonders the extent to which todays confrontation emerges from that - the US won in Europe, but having never got more than a stalemate in Asia is facing a new phase after a period of detente?

[Admiral Yi]

China  is undoubtedly capitalist.

They are mixed.  Undoubtedly X infinity.

[Josquius]

China  is undoubtedly capitalist.

They are mixed.  Undoubtedly X infinity.

Like every country in the world.

[crazy canuck]

China is in many ways the linchpin of our current, late-stage capitalism. Do you honestly think that China pursues communist economic ideology today? Or any time since Deng?

It feels like your definition of capitalism is "things I don't like".

That's not really answering the question.

China  is undoubtedly capitalist.

Its an old inaccuracy in cold war language to see democracy and capitalism as linked.

 

Undoubtedly capitalist?  Add capitalism to the list of words that have lost all meaning I guess.

[crazy canuck]

China  is undoubtedly capitalist.

They are mixed.  Undoubtedly X infinity.

Like every country in the world.

The ignorance of this forum today is really hard to take.