Did I miss a memo? Why are we returning to feudalism, again?

[Loki]

I did look around at some figures for who spends what on lobbying. From what I found, vast majority of the money spent on lobbying is spent by corporations, or trade associations which represent them. But it was pretty cursory. I will likely post details when I have more time and as the thread develops. Or you can just google it yourselves.

Money isn't the only indicator regardless of how much lefties pretend it is. The main two indicators of effectiveness are the number of members and the strength of the organization (i.e. are many of those members active and/or willing to do what they're told by their leadership). One without the other isn't very useful. Money can partially make up for weaknesses in either category, but not much. Then you have secondary factors like whether the organization has a permanent, full-time employed staff and leadership, whether the lobbying is on an issue that has a national salience (the less salient the issue, the more likely an interest group is to get its way), etc. You really need to stop making the same flawed assumption about the strength of advocacy groups as you do about elections; money helps, but it's mostly an indicator of underlying strength/support, not a dominant factor in producing results. The reason most money is spent by corporations is because *drum roll* money is the main resource possessed by corporations. It's how they try to make up for their other weaknesses.

You also have a warped idea of the political process if you think anyone "buys" legislation. Interest groups A) help elect people who share their interests, and B) give money to keep those people in office. The reason those people vote in a manner conductive to the interest groups is mainly because they share their interests and/or constituencies, not because of the money per se. And the reason some legislation is a thinly plagiarized product given to legislators by interest groups is because the latter don't have the expertise or resources to write good legislation on most issue areas, and they take a short-cut by copying the proposed legislation by groups they A) already agree with, B) know have the required expertise and resources. If you want legislators to write all the legislation, you're going to have to vastly expand the amount of money given to each legislator to conduct the necessary research, particularly at the local level where legislators are many but expertise is nearly non-existent. This is less of a problem in a country like Britain, because a vast majority of the legislation comes from the top, and the prime minister has plenty of resources at his/her disposal.

[coinich]

I know you're good at this, but I'm going to go against my own interests and argue this straight-up. I do not expect you to return the courtesy, because I know you.

We know that wealth, money, has been accumulating into the hands of an ever diminishing group of people. If it also becomes possible to simply purchase legislation, it immediately follows that this tiny sub-group of the population has an over-abundance of influence. It seems to me insincere to simply call these special interest groups, as you and I both know the special interests here are very special when viewed by the majority. And if most of the money is pooling into an ever smaller amount of people, you will need larger and larger portions of the less affluent population to generate the same amount of influence. The cultural atomization of our society has made that a very unlikely proposition.

Your entire post rests on the premise that "someone" "buys" legislation. Do you have any information to back that claim up? I've heard it everywhere, but never seen any actual case study or evidence of/for it.

[Nessus]

Your entire post rests on the premise that "someone" "buys" legislation. Do you have any information to back that claim up? I've heard it everywhere, but never seen any actual case study or evidence of/for it.

I was referring to Paul's column up there; it is not exactly like buying groceries at Wal-Mart, so I probably cannot provide you the example you seem to desire.

[coinich]

I was referring to Paul's column up there; it is not exactly like buying groceries at Wal-Mart, so I probably cannot provide you the example you seem to desire.

Reread, makes more sense. Still, I think the problem is then with legislators themselves, not so much with the company creating these bills. The responsibility lies with those who pass the laws, and if their views coincide with who creates the laws (always has-staffers and such) then what's the difference? And it reads more as an editorial; I wish there were clearer numbers. "Some" and "many" are just as vague as "conservative".

[LittleFuzzy]

Money isn't the only indicator regardless of how much lefties pretend it is. The main two indicators of effectiveness are the number of members and the strength of the organization (i.e. are many of those members active and/or willing to do what they're told by their leadership). One without the other isn't very useful. Money can partially make up for weaknesses in either category, but not much. Then you have secondary factors like whether the organization has a permanent, full-time employed staff and leadership, whether the lobbying is on an issue that has a national salience (the less salient the issue, the more likely an interest group is to get its way), etc. You really need to stop making the same flawed assumption about the strength of advocacy groups as you do about elections; money helps, but it's mostly an indicator of underlying strength/support, not a dominant factor in producing results. The reason most money is spent by corporations is because *drum roll* money is the main resource possessed by corporations. It's how they try to make up for their other weaknesses.

You also have a warped idea of the political process if you think anyone "buys" legislation. Interest groups A) help elect people who share their interests, and B) give money to keep those people in office. The reason those people vote in a manner conductive to the interest groups is mainly because they share their interests and/or constituencies, not because of the money per se. And the reason some legislation is a thinly plagiarized product given to legislators by interest groups is because the latter don't have the expertise or resources to write good legislation on most issue areas, and they take a short-cut by copying the proposed legislation by groups they A) already agree with, B) know have the required expertise and resources. If you want legislators to write all the legislation, you're going to have to vastly expand the amount of money given to each legislator to conduct the necessary research, particularly at the local level where legislators are many but expertise is nearly non-existent. This is less of a problem in a country like Britain, because a vast majority of the legislation comes from the top, and the prime minister has plenty of resources at his/her disposal.

I'd like to add on top of this that aggregate spending by organization type *non-profits, corporations, etc* is almost useless as a metric because the lobbying effort it represents will be pursuing widely disparate goals, including mutually exclusive or oppositional positions. Some of that's been mentioned on here, like the brawling among the tech companies. You can speak about specific sets of interests: oil companies, unions, the environmental movement, the RIAA, etc. but you can't reasonably lump distinct interests together.

[Dreadnaught]

To continue my long-term rant and rave: Democracy, the power of the people over their own destinies, is facing its worst crisis since the 1930's. The last time it took a world war to course-correct, with its known side effects. And even then half the globe remained totalitarian. The next world war might destroy the only known biosphere in the cosmos. That's the kind of bet I'm really not comfortable making. Ironically, the crisis of democracy also means no one will ask me. Or you.

Obviously no one has shown mathematically that democracy is the best way of organizing a society. We can't even agree on which things to take as axioms when discussing societal formation. It certainly is possible we will be able to transition back into some strange ur-feudal societal order without destroying the species. I'm also fairly certain that the increased technological level will make it easier to subjugate the majority under the will of the minority. It is even possible that the majority will not object to this transition, which in my opinion is the most depressing part about the whole mess.

I suppose an argument could be made that a totalitarian system is necessary for the species to survive the transition to an energy-scarce world. It certainly would make it easier. My largest concern with these lines of thought is the seemingly inherent linking of nationalism/tribalism with totalitarian systems. This would suggest that the transition to an energy-scarce world, even under totalitarian regimes, would lead to warfare.

Speaking as a European, it seems at least likely that a resurgence of chauvinistic totalitarianism would entail genocide of Mohammedans. This is an obvious humanitarian concern, although I admit we do need to solve the problem of excess population somehow.

But the most frightening thing about this ur-feudalist ambition the US at least seems to have is the so-called "crypto-fascist" aspects about it. I'm not really a fan of that term as it has conspiracy nut connotations, but it'll have to do. The point is that people are fundamentally unable to realize that the crisis of democracy is even occurring, never mind that the will of the people is already largely lost in the decision-making processes.

Is anyone else concerned about moving to a far more minority-ruled world? Does it necessarily have to be a bad thing? How do we even define what is "bad" and "good" on these levels? Do the fates of individuals, even millions of them, truly have meaning when discussing the future of the species? (And to a lesser extent the biosphere)

Your thoughts are welcome. Please at least try not being dicks, huh?

I shouldn't be posting at work, so this is briefer than I expected but...we currently live in societies with high per-capita energy consumption. That per-capita amount may not be sustainable with the current energy source mix. But don't you think that mix has always been in flux?

A hundred and fifty years ago, people burned whale oil and thought it was mostly crazy and uneconomical to drill oil from the ground. But that whole dynamic changed. The underlying economics and energy delivery/use systems changed.

Our current system has some sort of shelf life, but I don't think the transition needs to be some kind of Mad Max apocalypse. Energy itself isn't scarce. The French have done a wonderful job generating power from nuclear plans, which has taken a great deal of oil consumption off the table. There's no reason other countries can't do the same, while also developing more efficient electric cars. Or letting the price impact of expensive oil shift our living patterns.

The key thing that capitalists like me believe is that this change is natural and will mostly happen on its own. Just like the transition from whale oil, dung-powered heat and kerosine eventually happened, if there's good reason to switch energy sources, people will switch energy sources. Amirite?

[Khendraja'aro]

Yes, the change will happen on its own. The problem, however, lies in the fact that it might not exactly be a change for the better. Or do you see a new, abundant source of energy just lying around somewhere?

[CitizenCain]

Yes, the change will happen on its own. The problem, however, lies in the fact that it might not exactly be a change for the better. Or do you see a new, abundant source of energy just lying around somewhere?

Not that this has ever been true in the past, either. People didn't start using whale oil or fossil fuels because they kept tripping over whales and falling into puddles of gasoline, but technology marched onwards and the market delivered anyway.

Besdies, what's the absolute worst that could happen? There's nothing better out there and we run out of oil, so Arizona becomes a massive solar power plant and we all drive crappy electrical cars everywhere. That's really not a world-ending catastrophe, there's just no reason to force it while fossil fuels are a cheaper, more energy-dense option.

[Flixy]

I shouldn't be posting at work, so this is briefer than I expected but...we currently live in societies with high per-capita energy consumption. That per-capita amount may not be sustainable with the current energy source mix. But don't you think that mix has always been in flux?

A hundred and fifty years ago, people burned whale oil and thought it was mostly crazy and uneconomical to drill oil from the ground. But that whole dynamic changed. The underlying economics and energy delivery/use systems changed.

Our current system has some sort of shelf life, but I don't think the transition needs to be some kind of Mad Max apocalypse. Energy itself isn't scarce. The French have done a wonderful job generating power from nuclear plans, which has taken a great deal of oil consumption off the table. There's no reason other countries can't do the same, while also developing more efficient electric cars. Or letting the price impact of expensive oil shift our living patterns.

The key thing that capitalists like me believe is that this change is natural and will mostly happen on its own. Just like the transition from whale oil, dung-powered heat and kerosine eventually happened, if there's good reason to switch energy sources, people will switch energy sources. Amirite?

First of all, you are aware that modern nuclear power plants are hideously expensive (IIRC no one would build one in the US, even with government support, because it was too expensive). And the fuel isn't exactly abundant, either. So, there are reasons other countries can't (or at least shouldn't) do the same. And this is coming from someone who isn't opposed to nuclear power. Also, that mostly replaced coal fired plants, and the coal situation isn't as urgent as oil.

Second of all, one thing 'capitalists like you' tend to overlook - sure, change is natural, transition is natural, but if you just wait and let that free market sort it out, that doesn't mean the transition is efficient, in time, and completely overlooks the fact that acting later than sooner could have devastating consequences for the world, the economy, and the environment. Oh yeah, and nature can't sue a company if it suffers, so how does capitalism solve the harm done to the environment?

[Nessus]

I shouldn't be posting at work, so this is briefer than I expected but...we currently live in societies with high per-capita energy consumption. That per-capita amount may not be sustainable with the current energy source mix. But don't you think that mix has always been in flux?

A hundred and fifty years ago, people burned whale oil and thought it was mostly crazy and uneconomical to drill oil from the ground. But that whole dynamic changed. The underlying economics and energy delivery/use systems changed.

Our current system has some sort of shelf life, but I don't think the transition needs to be some kind of Mad Max apocalypse. Energy itself isn't scarce. The French have done a wonderful job generating power from nuclear plans, which has taken a great deal of oil consumption off the table. There's no reason other countries can't do the same, while also developing more efficient electric cars. Or letting the price impact of expensive oil shift our living patterns.

The key thing that capitalists like me believe is that this change is natural and will mostly happen on its own. Just like the transition from whale oil, dung-powered heat and kerosine eventually happened, if there's good reason to switch energy sources, people will switch energy sources. Amirite?

You are wrong. I am not sure how serious this was, so I will with-hold more detailed responses.

[Wraith]

Yes, the change will happen on its own. The problem, however, lies in the fact that it might not exactly be a change for the better. Or do you see a new, abundant source of energy just lying around somewhere?

Solar cell companies are really starting to take off, and there's a lot of venture capital tied up in further development of this tech.

[Steely Glint]

Money isn't the only indicator regardless of how much lefties pretend it is. The main two indicators of effectiveness are the number of members and the strength of the organization (i.e. are many of those members active and/or willing to do what they're told by their leadership). One without the other isn't very useful. Money can partially make up for weaknesses in either category, but not much. Then you have secondary factors like whether the organization has a permanent, full-time employed staff and leadership, whether the lobbying is on an issue that has a national salience (the less salient the issue, the more likely an interest group is to get its way), etc.

If those are to be the main indicators of effectiveness, what metrics are being used?

You really need to stop making the same flawed assumption about the strength of advocacy groups as you do about elections; money helps, but it's mostly an indicator of underlying strength/support, not a dominant factor in producing results. The reason most money is spent by corporations is because *drum roll* money is the main resource possessed by corporations. It's how they try to make up for their other weaknesses.

I have not made such a claim about elections - you need to stop making the same flawed assumption that because I am to the left on most issues, I therefor hold every stereotypical left wing opinion.

You also have a warped idea of the political process if you think anyone "buys" legislation. Interest groups A) help elect people who share their interests, and B) give money to keep those people in office. The reason those people vote in a manner conductive to the interest groups is mainly because they share their interests and/or constituencies, not because of the money per se. And the reason some legislation is a thinly plagiarized product given to legislators by interest groups is because the latter don't have the expertise or resources to write good legislation on most issue areas, and they take a short-cut by copying the proposed legislation by groups they A) already agree with, B) know have the required expertise and resources.

"Brought legislation" was the charge made in the OP. This was a charge you initially chose to rebut by saying that, it's ok because, really, though, aren't we all in an interest group of one kind or another, and really isn't the human heart the most powerful lobbying firm of them all? I merely pointed out that this rebuttal was... fucking stupid. If that has now changed to 'actually, everything the OP said is more or less horse shit' then that's a different matter altogether.

Regarding brought legislation, what I think is... if the start of the process is that a private interest gives some money to a politician and the end result is that a piece of law is made which would not have been made into law if it wasn't for that original payment (the tricky bit), then the legislation is brought. The intervening process doesn't matter at all. I didn't well imagine that sinister corporate executives gave bags of gold to mercantile senators, who then immediately stood up in the House and said "I move that all poor people should be made to give half their pay to the Rich People's Job Creator's Yacht Fund". But if the Cause is a donation and the Result is legislation, then I think it is problematic for democracy - and may actually be outright corruption depending on the particulars. It is hard to imagine that things like the SOPA were not a product of such a process. Where is the "common constituency" or shared interest between the senators and the media companies who would have benefit from it?

I have too much recently about what goes on out of sight in the political world to be sure that cash for honours, or cash for access, or overly cosy relationship with media moguls, is as far as it goes.

[Khendraja'aro]

Solar cell companies are really starting to take off, and there's a lot of venture capital tied up in further development of this tech.

Pardon me if I'm not exactly optimistic as to the ultimate success of solar cells. Granted, it's a nice idea, but there are still several large obstacles to overcome.

Biggest one would be a reliable mass energy storage system. Failing that, we'd need a finely grained while at the same time honkin' huge energy distribution net. Optimally, both in conjunction.

I hope someone doesn't propose orbital stations. I'd have to kill some kittens, otherwise.


See this sack of kittens? That goes right in the river. Unless you abstain from mentioning any solution which is more than 20 km above ground.

You don't want to have a bunch of kittens on your conscience, right? Good.

[Dreadnaught]

Yes, the change will happen on its own. The problem, however, lies in the fact that it might not exactly be a change for the better. Or do you see a new, abundant source of energy just lying around somewhere?

There is a revolution going on right now with energy production in the US when it comes to extracting natural gas. The estimated quantity of extractable natural gas underground in North America is turning out to be quite large.

And, as mentioned before, I'm a bit proponent of nuclear power for electrical generation.

First of all, you are aware that modern nuclear power plants are hideously expensive (IIRC no one would build one in the US, even with government support, because it was too expensive). And the fuel isn't exactly abundant, either. So, there are reasons other countries can't (or at least shouldn't) do the same. And this is coming from someone who isn't opposed to nuclear power. Also, that mostly replaced coal fired plants, and the coal situation isn't as urgent as oil.

Second of all, one thing 'capitalists like you' tend to overlook - sure, change is natural, transition is natural, but if you just wait and let that free market sort it out, that doesn't mean the transition is efficient, in time, and completely overlooks the fact that acting later than sooner could have devastating consequences for the world, the economy, and the environment. Oh yeah, and nature can't sue a company if it suffers, so how does capitalism solve the harm done to the environment?

Two new nuclear plants were approved in the US just last month: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb...clear-20120210

The economics aren't that hard to make work if the regulatory environment is crafted appropriately.

Uranium isn't bursting out of the mountains, but it's definitely available in significant quantities. And it's a far more efficient system than, say, coal. Which we have plenty of, but isn't quite as efficient.

But I wasn't talking about the environment. It seemed pretty clear (at least to me) that Nessus was talking about democracy/capitalism adapting to energy scarcity.

You are wrong. I am not sure how serious this was, so I will with-hold more detailed responses.

I was being serious. I know you aren't often serious, but I was being serious because you asked for a serious response.

[Khendraja'aro]

"Revolution"? Please. Neither is natural gas a revolution nor is nuclear. And both are limited resources - even if they both are not scarce yet.

But the writing's on the wall.

[Dreadnaught]

Everything on earth is "limited". The amount of photons we could capture from the sun is "limited" over the course of the next few billion years.

The point I'm trying to make is there are a variety of energy technologies. This point is not particularly new or original, but it seems like people often don't remember it.

[Nessus]

If you're serious, you would not have put air quotes around the limitation of photons. That's exactly what energy scarcity means, and I suppose is exactly what ya-hoos like you can't comprehend.

[Dreadnaught]

Saying that stuff is scarce is sort of a truism, isn't it? I mean, seriously, was your post to question the point of living knowing that the sun will die in 5 billion years? Everything is scarce given a long-enough time horizon.

But I think we can reasonably discuss electrical energy generation over the next few decades/centuries. I just honestly can't tell if that's what you were talking about.

[Nessus]

There is nothing for us to talk here, Eric Don't worry.

[Flixy]

Saying that stuff is scarce is sort of a truism, isn't it? I mean, seriously, was your post to question the point of living knowing that the sun will die in 5 billion years? Everything is scarce given a long-enough time horizon.

But I think we can reasonably discuss electrical energy generation over the next few decades/centuries. I just honestly can't tell if that's what you were talking about.

By saying scarce, I mean in the upcoming decades/100 years. Because we'll never really run out of oil either, we'll just run out of oil that is cost effective to pump up.

And, as mentioned before, I'm a bit proponent of nuclear power for electrical generation.



Two new nuclear plants were approved in the US just last month: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb...clear-20120210

The economics aren't that hard to make work if the regulatory environment is crafted appropriately.

Uranium isn't bursting out of the mountains, but it's definitely available in significant quantities. And it's a far more efficient system than, say, coal. Which we have plenty of, but isn't quite as efficient.

But I wasn't talking about the environment. It seemed pretty clear (at least to me) that Nessus was talking about democracy/capitalism adapting to energy scarcity.

Efficiency, well, that depends on what kind of efficiency you are referring to. It's definitely not an efficient power plant, for that matter, coal fired plants are far more efficient in terms of energy.

Two new power plants, that is good news (if only to test new designs in practice). But keep in mind that the costs are only estimated so far, they get government help, and there's no telling what kind of massive upgrades they might need in one or more decades. Not trying to sound negative, but that's what has happened to nuclear power plants in the past. As technology progresses, more is learned about safety, and power plants are upgraded. And the biggest problem is waste. Nuclear waste with a half life of millions of years is simply not possible to store safely, since we don't know how the world will be in that timespan. Our society isn't that old, FFS. And it's possible to transform it into other elements that decay within a century or so, but that's really fucking expensive. So as it stands, nuclear waste has no real plans, and for now is mostly stored by the government, at taxpayer expense. I thought you were against that kind of thing?


I'm also sorry for straying into the environment in my previous post, but capitalism which according to you will fix the problem, probably will, but environment was only one of the issues I have with that. It also doesn't come with a time schedule, and doesn't mean we won't have a severe energy/economic crisis, or a couple of wars about energy. If you hold off too long for alternatives, you may find energy prices soar with god knows what kind of consequences.

[CitizenCain]

I hope someone doesn't propose orbital stations. I'd have to kill some kittens, otherwise.

Orbital stations are a great idea. We can just transmit the power wirelessly into batteries, which would really help me out, 'cause I have a bunch of spent Duracell batteries around that I'd like to avoid throwing out.

And the biggest problem is waste. Nuclear waste with a half life of millions of years is simply not possible to store safely

It's really not fair to complain about that, given how often I've offered to take that off the government's hands, completely free of charge.

[Dreadnaught]

Nessus, I know you think you know things about me, and I know why you think you do. Yet you don't. Just ask Being.

But it's pretty rich for you to complain about people not being intellectually honest, then decline to respond to people and say "there's nothing to discuss here" in the thread you created.

You never engage anyone about anything. You avoid discussing things so you can be smug and arrogant. It actually makes you one of the more intellectually dishonest people here. It also gives you no credibility when you make posts like this.

[Ominous Gamer]

and you resort to this in every thread that you two post together in. and its totally relevant to the discussion on hand and whole heartily belongs in D&D

[Loki]

And you provide color commentary in nearly every substantive thread you post in.

[Being]

Nessus, I know you think you know things about me, and I know why you think you do. Yet you don't. Just ask Being.

I don't recall being a part of this conversation. But what the hell, why should Nessus ask me?

[Nessus]

Nessus, I know you think you know things about me, and I know why you think you do. Yet you don't. Just ask Being.

But it's pretty rich for you to complain about people not being intellectually honest, then decline to respond to people and say "there's nothing to discuss here" in the thread you created.

You never engage anyone about anything. You avoid discussing things so you can be smug and arrogant. It actually makes you one of the more intellectually dishonest people here. It also gives you no credibility when you make posts like this.

Never is a pretty long time. Or so I've been told.

It isn't arrogance if it is justified. It is not worth my time to wade through the platitudes you have to offer. That is not about being smug, it's about whether you can help me understand things. You cannot, you have demonstrated this through your own actions. There are people here who can help. It's their input that engages me. It certainly isn't my fault what happens to lie between your ears, now is it?

[coinich]

Oh good lord people, just kiss and make up already.

[Dreadnaught]

Never is a pretty long time. Or so I've been told.

It isn't arrogance if it is justified. It is not worth my time to wade through the platitudes you have to offer. That is not about being smug, it's about whether you can help me understand things. You cannot, you have demonstrated this through your own actions. There are people here who can help. It's their input that engages me. It certainly isn't my fault what happens to lie between your ears, now is it?

You have as much to learn from me as I from you. If you think you have nothing to learn from me, it's simply because you're close-minded, lazy and unwilling to entertain realistic worldviews that are outside your ideological spectrum. These are traits I do not share (relatively speaking).

And, if you feel so strongly that you have nothing to learn from me, I have nothing to learn from you. You're dense in the skull and petrified of engaging with anyone who takes a different perspective on something. Even if that something is an issue many of us can speak intelligently about, such as long-term energy production and consumption.

Once again, you refuse to go into any depth to describe anything or stick your neck out for any particular idea. Probably because you worry about looking less intelligent than you like projecting yourself to be.

[wiggin]

First of all, you are aware that modern nuclear power plants are hideously expensive (IIRC no one would build one in the US, even with government support, because it was too expensive). And the fuel isn't exactly abundant, either. So, there are reasons other countries can't (or at least shouldn't) do the same. And this is coming from someone who isn't opposed to nuclear power. Also, that mostly replaced coal fired plants, and the coal situation isn't as urgent as oil.

Second of all, one thing 'capitalists like you' tend to overlook - sure, change is natural, transition is natural, but if you just wait and let that free market sort it out, that doesn't mean the transition is efficient, in time, and completely overlooks the fact that acting later than sooner could have devastating consequences for the world, the economy, and the environment. Oh yeah, and nature can't sue a company if it suffers, so how does capitalism solve the harm done to the environment?

Two new nuclear plants were approved in the US just last month: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb...clear-20120210

The economics aren't that hard to make work if the regulatory environment is crafted appropriately.

Uranium isn't bursting out of the mountains, but it's definitely available in significant quantities. And it's a far more efficient system than, say, coal. Which we have plenty of, but isn't quite as efficient.

But I wasn't talking about the environment. It seemed pretty clear (at least to me) that Nessus was talking about democracy/capitalism adapting to energy scarcity.

I really don't want to derail the OP much further, but a quick point here:
Yes, the US has recently approved a few nuclear power plants. Unfortunately, they are generally only being considered in the heavily regulated electricity markets of the southeast. Even there, cost have been spiraling out of control. The Economist had a nice special report on this a short while ago, and it was pretty bleak on the fate of nuclear power in the West, almost entirely due to cost considerations. The US has a fairly significant chunk of installed nuclear power, but it's unlikely we'll ever come close to significantly increasing our capacity.

That being said, I'm not sure that a centrally managed transition is always the best way to run things, either. My biggest complaint with such systems (even when done indirectly through subsidies) is that it presupposes that the government knows which future technology is the best one to develop as an alternative to a current (buggy) one. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case; they may have a solution, but it's almost certainly not the solution. I think a much better way to deal with this problem is to change the market so that different energy prices accurately reflect the true costs - environmental, social, political - of using it. What we're dealing with here is fundamentally a question of externalities, and I have confidence that appropriately priced externalities could easily change market behavior in a good way without imposing a top-down solution.

This may lead me to a tangential take on the thread topic itself. I don't want to get mired in questions of ALEC or lobbying groups - there are issues there, no doubt, but teasing them out is not my area of expertise. But I would like to reiterate what I've said to Nessie before. I don't have some belief in a magical invisible hand of the market which will always result in the best outcome for society (in that I don't believe that economic definitions of 'efficiency' are remotely applicable to broader society). But I do think that markets are a very powerful tool to change human behavior. Accurate pricing is absolutely critical, of course, which is why I favor regulators trying to eliminate externalities as much as possible. In general, though, both scarcity and unintended side-effects of a given product should drive up prices, resulting in a market-driven search for better and overall cheaper alternatives. A whole lot of ideas will get tried out and discarded, but the best ones will become the new gold standard. That's how the world gets to be a better place.

I don't think that one needs to be a Malthusian to be concerned with the issue of scarcity - energy or otherwise - in today's world. It's clear that we will face unprecedented challenges in the next century as the global population peaks in the 9-10 billion range, and as our global per capita consumption dramatically increases through development. I don't want to be a starry-eyed optimist and assume that all problems will magically disappear with a technological panacea, or that dealing with these problems might not get messy. But I think that to assume we'd descend into the depths of genocide or a global resource war is unnecessarily pessimistic. Our world has gotten so much better for those living in it, even as our demands on food, energy, and resources has reached unprecedented peaks. I think we can muddle through, though it won't always be pretty.

When I hear criticisms of 'democracy' as being too short-sighted to adequately deal with complex problems, what I really hear is a criticism of freedom - free choice/self determination, free markets, etc. I'm not trying to say that's a bad thing (or use it as a debate tactic to paint you as anti-freedom) - lots of societies (including our own) recognize that too much freedom can sometimes be a bad thing. In fact, one might argue that anarchy or a libertarian ideal might be a better representation of freedom than modern democracies (though I'd disagree). But on the balance, I generally think that the free actions of millions of people can, in aggregate, result in an improvement over a totalitarian solution imposed from above. Yes, some of those individuals will make bad decisions. Yet people are incredibly creative, and if we give them an opportunity to solve a problem on their own (by making it their problem in the first place), they will come up with a plethora of solutions that will in aggregate be far more effective than one or two implemented by a planning committee. The role of government, then, is not to foresee every problem and fix it - because frankly that won't work for most democracies with rapid turnover of elected officials. No, the role of government is to appropriately guide the market through regulation and pricing to come up with its own solutions.

[Flixy]

I really don't want to derail the OP much further, but a quick point here:
Yes, the US has recently approved a few nuclear power plants. Unfortunately, they are generally only being considered in the heavily regulated electricity markets of the southeast. Even there, cost have been spiraling out of control. The Economist had a nice special report on this a short while ago, and it was pretty bleak on the fate of nuclear power in the West, almost entirely due to cost considerations. The US has a fairly significant chunk of installed nuclear power, but it's unlikely we'll ever come close to significantly increasing our capacity.

That being said, I'm not sure that a centrally managed transition is always the best way to run things, either. My biggest complaint with such systems (even when done indirectly through subsidies) is that it presupposes that the government knows which future technology is the best one to develop as an alternative to a current (buggy) one. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case; they may have a solution, but it's almost certainly not the solution. I think a much better way to deal with this problem is to change the market so that different energy prices accurately reflect the true costs - environmental, social, political - of using it. What we're dealing with here is fundamentally a question of externalities, and I have confidence that appropriately priced externalities could easily change market behavior in a good way without imposing a top-down solution.

Agreed, a big problem is that the government doesn't know best either.

This may lead me to a tangential take on the thread topic itself. I don't want to get mired in questions of ALEC or lobbying groups - there are issues there, no doubt, but teasing them out is not my area of expertise. But I would like to reiterate what I've said to Nessie before. I don't have some belief in a magical invisible hand of the market which will always result in the best outcome for society (in that I don't believe that economic definitions of 'efficiency' are remotely applicable to broader society). But I do think that markets are a very powerful tool to change human behavior. Accurate pricing is absolutely critical, of course, which is why I favor regulators trying to eliminate externalities as much as possible. In general, though, both scarcity and unintended side-effects of a given product should drive up prices, resulting in a market-driven search for better and overall cheaper alternatives. A whole lot of ideas will get tried out and discarded, but the best ones will become the new gold standard. That's how the world gets to be a better place.

I don't think that one needs to be a Malthusian to be concerned with the issue of scarcity - energy or otherwise - in today's world. It's clear that we will face unprecedented challenges in the next century as the global population peaks in the 9-10 billion range, and as our global per capita consumption dramatically increases through development. I don't want to be a starry-eyed optimist and assume that all problems will magically disappear with a technological panacea, or that dealing with these problems might not get messy. But I think that to assume we'd descend into the depths of genocide or a global resource war is unnecessarily pessimistic. Our world has gotten so much better for those living in it, even as our demands on food, energy, and resources has reached unprecedented peaks. I think we can muddle through, though it won't always be pretty.

Yeah, I do believe we'll end up with the world as a better place, it's the process towards it that worries me. I'm not as pessimistic to expect a global resource war or anything, but I don't think it's impossible either. As absolutely critical as energy is to our current society means that things can get really ugly when it's getting scarcer.

When I hear criticisms of 'democracy' as being too short-sighted to adequately deal with complex problems, what I really hear is a criticism of freedom - free choice/self determination, free markets, etc. I'm not trying to say that's a bad thing (or use it as a debate tactic to paint you as anti-freedom) - lots of societies (including our own) recognize that too much freedom can sometimes be a bad thing. In fact, one might argue that anarchy or a libertarian ideal might be a better representation of freedom than modern democracies (though I'd disagree). But on the balance, I generally think that the free actions of millions of people can, in aggregate, result in an improvement over a totalitarian solution imposed from above. Yes, some of those individuals will make bad decisions. Yet people are incredibly creative, and if we give them an opportunity to solve a problem on their own (by making it their problem in the first place), they will come up with a plethora of solutions that will in aggregate be far more effective than one or two implemented by a planning committee. The role of government, then, is not to foresee every problem and fix it - because frankly that won't work for most democracies with rapid turnover of elected officials. No, the role of government is to appropriately guide the market through regulation and pricing to come up with its own solutions.

I think a main problem is that free choice/self determination requires, like the free market, good information. And to be honest, when I see politicians speak (especially in the USA, but it happens here, too), they seem to have no problems whatsoever with telling blatantly untrue things if it suits them. And from the press to institutions like the courts, everything is being politicized so that it can be dismissed by politicians. The press says I was wrong? Oh, everybody knows that the press is a leftwing conspiracy. I think that is a greater threat to democracy, and is also a cause of shortsightedness.