I was driving with my whole family this afternoon when I saw an electronic sign on the side of the road that warned of the dangers of texting while driving. And I understand that it is a huge problem right up there with driving while on cocaine, mescaline, and Jolt cola all at the same time. Here's what I see as the problem. I want to know what was sent to me and then politely say "I'm driving. This conversation is important to me. For safety reasons, I will respond as soon as I arrive at my destination." I want a huge button on the phone that sends this message. Better yet, I want the phone to detect that I am in my car and automatically send this response. No, no. I want to be able to say "Text to audio." and have the car translate the text into audio then send that polite response when I say "safe mode" or something. This can be done with today's technology. Hell, there may be apps for it for all I know. But I don't want to bother figuring it all out. This is very important and I should not have to be 19 to know how to do it. The brains of the industry need to get on with this feature like last week. Duh!
Until then my wife intelligently pointed out that we need a code that can be sent as simply as possible to accomplish this. Dear friends, coworkers, and family. If you see the text...
v v v
...or some variation of that, I'm driving. This conversation is important to me. For safety reasons, I will respond as soon as I arrive at my destination."
Pass this message on.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Category: capitalism and climate change
Man I get tired of hearing free market enthusiasts cry foul every time someone proposes laws to restrict some highly profitable industry from business as usual. Defending laws that protect free markets at the expense of some social injustice or climate problem is only a reasonable position if free market capitalism is a perfect system. They treat laissez-faire as a sacred cow. Well, it ain't. There are far worse economic regimes than capitalism, don't get me wrong. But capitalism is the driving force behind a variety of the world's worst problems. At the top of the list is climate change. It is the child of free market action by way of the Tragedy of the Commons on a global scale. This principle states that multiple individuals acting logically and of their own self interest will completely deplete a resource that they all share and depend on even though they are aware that it is happening. The classic example is that of a pasture shared by local herders overgrazing because the benefits of adding an animal to your herd is enjoyed by only its owner while the incremental depletion of the quality of the pasture is shared by all, dooming the pasture and all the herds to destruction. It is human nature to get into this mess and not be able to get out just as cats get stuck in trees. Climate change is a gigantic tragedy that capitalism got us into.
The turds who are successfully holding up carbon trading in congress are taking this same principle to a new level though. We should all know by now that carbon trading is far and away the most promising solution to climate change. Capping and trading of carbon is the idea that pollution costs us all something and it should be charged to the polluters. Those who figure out more efficient ways to combat their own pollution issues will be successful and increase profits while those who are not as effective will be have to pay fees or buy carbon credits, either of which will cut into their profits. The lower polluters are the ones to sell their carbon credits as commodities to the companies who can't manage their own carbon as effectively, further increasing their profits. It forces the deep pockets of industry to use the same principles of free market that got us into this mess to get us out. It is an actual solution to the Tragedy of the Commons and these guys are intentionally holding it up as long as possible to avoid having to figure out how to control their polluting problems. Considering how much sense it makes, it seems unfathomable that we have never actually had any holistic system to monitor pollution from the world's polluters. Well, here it is. We desperately need it. And yet the anti-"cap and tax" lobby (this is what they call it - notice that it does not actually have any taxes involved and does not have any net increase in expense to businesses, but it sure sounds a lot less attractive with that pejorative) is holding up this legislation because they fear that it will cut into their profits in the short term. Well, it will if you suck at innovation. It is supposed to, damnit! That is exactly the point of it. But paying lobbyists is cheaper than having to innovate, I suppose. There are fewer unknowns that way, and money likes predictability. So they continue to profit now and we all suffer the tragedy later.
The turds who are successfully holding up carbon trading in congress are taking this same principle to a new level though. We should all know by now that carbon trading is far and away the most promising solution to climate change. Capping and trading of carbon is the idea that pollution costs us all something and it should be charged to the polluters. Those who figure out more efficient ways to combat their own pollution issues will be successful and increase profits while those who are not as effective will be have to pay fees or buy carbon credits, either of which will cut into their profits. The lower polluters are the ones to sell their carbon credits as commodities to the companies who can't manage their own carbon as effectively, further increasing their profits. It forces the deep pockets of industry to use the same principles of free market that got us into this mess to get us out. It is an actual solution to the Tragedy of the Commons and these guys are intentionally holding it up as long as possible to avoid having to figure out how to control their polluting problems. Considering how much sense it makes, it seems unfathomable that we have never actually had any holistic system to monitor pollution from the world's polluters. Well, here it is. We desperately need it. And yet the anti-"cap and tax" lobby (this is what they call it - notice that it does not actually have any taxes involved and does not have any net increase in expense to businesses, but it sure sounds a lot less attractive with that pejorative) is holding up this legislation because they fear that it will cut into their profits in the short term. Well, it will if you suck at innovation. It is supposed to, damnit! That is exactly the point of it. But paying lobbyists is cheaper than having to innovate, I suppose. There are fewer unknowns that way, and money likes predictability. So they continue to profit now and we all suffer the tragedy later.
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