Void_Reader

Guide on what it means here: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=SSd7KnWN9CM

Note the red pixels are just a representation, doesn’t mean the whole red area is on fire. See 1:08 to 2:10 for explanation.

If anyone wants to see the actual situation here’s NASA’s live map: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/

and a guide on how to use it, what all the symbols mean etc: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=SSd7KnWN9CM

Yes, I see that. It’s an investment blog written by the account manager of a major finance company. I’m sure he has no vested interests whatsoever and is just trying to be as factually accurate as possible.

If you don’t want to read other people’s thoughts on things, don’t post yours on an internet forum lol.

Am happy to end the conversation on a friendly note though. If we were having this chat in person, i’d say ‘fuck it, let’s grab a beer and chill’. See ya.

More on the data: global investment in the energy transition in 2021 = $755 billion total investment in energy in 2021 = $1.9 trillion (source)

Also I’ll just leave this here:

source

Lmaooo “Greenablers”. What a joke. That’s literally a corporate PR puff piece. How is corporate greenwashing PR supposed to convince me that Capitalism drives innovation (or is good for the climate?) when countless studies of data prove it wrong? The only piece of data he cites is about the billions being spent on the ‘energy transition’. I checked out his source. A good chunk of that is just government investment. Another big chunk of that is electric cars - a really stupid thing to invest in as they’ll compete with renewable energy for rare earth minerals etc. Not to mention all the emissions they’ll cause in production, and the fact that they’ll still need half the world to be paved over in asphalt for roads and parking. Better than petrol or diesel sure, but hardly efficient.

Dense cities yes. End single-family zoning yes (doesn’t really exist where I live, the US is an insane place).

Energy deregulation no. I’m sure it will be great for opening new coal plants, not a chance in hell will it lead to more nuclear power or anything useful.

Ah the innovation argument, so original. “Capitalism creates innovation”. Everyone says it all the time so it must be true right? Well it isn’t. Data doesn’t support this argument.

Pretty much every major innovation of the past century has come from publicly funded and/or not-for-profit research and development. Capitalists only step in once the difficult part is done and the ‘innovation’ can be repackaged into something profitable in the short term.

See the following: https://academic.oup.com/ser/article/7/3/459/1693191

https://demos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/files/Entrepreneurial_State_-_web.pdf

Capitalism definitely creates barriers to certain types of innovation. Mainly innovation that isn’t profitable - see ‘planned obsolesence’. It also creates barriers to profitable innovation sometimes; just look up ‘patent trolls’.

But I was never even talking about innovation. You just jumped to it because that is the classic buzzword talking point that is constantly repeated everywhere. ‘Develop better alternatives’ doesn’t have to be ‘innovation’. We have the technology already, we’ve had it for decades. Trains and cycle lanes = better alternatives to cars. Nuclear energy = better alternative to fossil fuels.

Market capture exists everywhere, in every economic system.

Sure, this might be the case for every existing economic system. I believe we need to develop something new. Just like modern Capitalism was inconceivable to someone living in the Feudal era, a new system might be inconceivable for us right now. But it is imperative we try.

I swear we need to retire the term ‘Capitalism’ entirely because it seems like it’s impossible to discuss its flaws without someone just assuming it’s a statement in favour of resurrecting Stalin. This has nothing to do with communists.

Electricity can be produced in many different ways - it’s just that some are more profitable than others.

Capitalism also creates an entire web of incentive structures that make it hard to develop more sustainable alternatives - e.g car industry creating ‘lock-in’, as described in this paper. I’m sure a similar paper could be written about some Soviet bloc state 60 years ago, but that’s irrelevant. This is a problem of Capitalism and the Soviet bloc doesn’t exist anymore. Just cause ‘Stalin bad’ doesn’t mean ‘Capitalism can do no harm ever’.

Sure, real economists don’t explicitly hold those views. But the kinds of metrics and models liberal economists are fond of using basically lead to that flowchart.

I appreciate you trying to answer a question in good faith, but you’re conflating ‘liberal’ with ‘vaguely left-leaning’, and none of what you’ve said makes any sense outside of current US political ‘discourse’ where ‘Liberal’ means ‘slightly left-wing’. 

What you describe as liberal economics is closer to Keynsianism or Social Democracy. 

In economics, the ‘Liberal’ school of thought is generally against regulation and interference in the market, seeing it as being ‘self-regulating’. In economic terms, Reagan and Thatcher were Liberals - hence them being associated with ‘Neoliberalism’. 

The whole thing you said about Capitalism tending towards monopoly is actually a very Marxist/Socialist idea - Liberal economic theory tends to argue that monopolies form because of government and that they wouldn’t occur in a truly free market (although its more nuanced than that, there’s major disagreements over ‘Natural Monopolies’ etc. within the Liberal school). Source: look up any Liberal economist/thinker and their view on monopolies. E.g Friedman, J.S Mill.

Capitalism being an economic system doesn’t make it apolitical. ‘In theory’ Liberalism and Capitalism are very very closely intertwined, it’s not implicit, it’s absolutely explicit if you read any Liberal political or economic theory. 

Economics is inherently political.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoliberalism/#Libe Sections 3 and 4 of this are a decent starting point.

Also the idea of slightly changing our voting systems as the way to drive change is quite hilarious. Sure, moving away from FPTP would probably help a bit, but it’s not like countries with other systems are doing fine. These issues are more fundamental. And historically, fundamental change has never occured through small technical adjustments to political systems.

Sharktopus, bad in a fun kind of way though