Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:51:10 -0800 (PST) From: ralph rau <[email protected]>
The world's ecosystems are in a state of terminal decline. Mario responds: They are? Terminal decline?! I really haven't noticed. Ralph wrote: We need leaders who will tell it like it is Mario observes: Don't look to Obama - he has a poor record of telling it like it is as shown by the variance between what he says and what he does, most of the time. No one knows when to believe what he says and when not to. Ralph wrote: Continue the US model to push consumption and growth using conventional energy and chemical technology and we destroy the planet by CO2 warming and toxic rivers and oceans. Mario responds: If you were familiar with the US where I live, you would know that our conventional energy and chemical technology is subject to stringent controls over what goes into our air, rivers and oceans, unlike India and China. Most of our controls are based on health concerns. Ralph wrote: Rapidly attack the source of climate change - CO2 emissions using all possible resources, simultaneously reduce the damage to the world's ecosystems by eliminating polluting industry, while all the time ensuring that the basic necessity FOOD is evenly distributed to prevent rioting and the collapse of civil society. Re-organising global industry and commerce with near term job loss and re-training is inevitable. The old order must change and yield place to the new. Maybe we can go down path B if all the best minds from MIT quit the banking system which they ruined by financial engineering and focus their high IQ on re-engineering human society ? Mario responds: Regarding "the best minds from MIT", does it make sense to you that people who could mismanage relatively simple financial systems could successfully manage far more complex issues of the kind you want them to do? Who is smart enough to decide which industries to preserve or eliminate? For example, industries that provide us with crude oil, gasoline and electricity pollute to some extent. Should we eliminate these? Who is smart enough to decide how to distribute food "evenly" and fairly. Who is smart enough to "re-organize global industry"? What exactly does this mean? Who is smart enough to decide how much "near term" job loss is OK? Would it be OK if you lost your job? Who is smart enough to decide what the "new order" should look like? Didn't India, China and the old Soviet Union already try all what you have suggested already, with supposedly smart people trying to decide which industries to preserve or eliminate, how to distribute food evenly, how to organize their industries, and how to make their countries heaven on earth? They all gave up their original systems where smart people decided what was good for everyone else, and now many decisions are made by millions of consumers and producers, who are often not as smart as MIT grads but far more clever in making decisions for themselves. In my following post you will see one succinct explanation of why no individual or group of individuals, whether they graduated from MIT or anywhere else, are smart enough to decide anything for everyone else. http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2009-February/174163.html
