Is the Space Elevator a Public Good?

[Okeefenokee]

You'd have to demonstrate how it would provide direct and immediate benefit to the population. You aren't getting 51% onboard with paying for it otherwise. So now you've got a project that has to be approved by the public so the public will pay for it, and only because the project will enrich the public.

Not a public good, but it looks like it's public something.

[Martin Hash]

You'd have to demonstrate how it would provide direct and immediate benefit to the population. You aren't getting 51% onboard with paying for it otherwise. So now you've got a project that has to be approved by the public so the public will pay for it, and only because the project will enrich the public.

Not a public good, but it looks like it's public something.

Yeah, I'd have to be "sold" myself (probably easy but, up 'til now, nobody's tried?) The whole exploration-for-exploration's sake has evaporated since I was young. Like I said earlier in the thread, I don't know when it slipped away, and wasn't even aware how little interest Millennials had in it. I would have guessed Star Wars, et. al., would have been the opposite. (There does seem to be a lot of interest in End-of-the-World scenarios: Walking Dead, etc.)

[Okeefenokee]

Yeah, the interest now is in getting away with mass murder while the entire world burns down.

Seems to be a pretty distinct vibe running through youth culture of an inclination towards tearing down rather than building or discovering. I think that's part of the reason behind the surge in all the SJW shit we've seen over the years. It's very much like the zombie fad. The destruction that they want is only acceptable in certain conditions like a zombie apocalypse where you can kill anyone and anything and it's not seen as being psychopathic like it would normally.

Likewise, if you want to destroy western civilization you have to first set the conditions where doing so doesn't make you Hitler, so you invent a religion that teaches that the white men, and corporations, and generally everything that is a hair above starving Somalis cutting each other's heads off is inherently evil and needs to be burned down. Then you can sate your thirst for destruction like a mentally unbalanced kid setting kittens on fire in an alley, but you get to do so in a frame where you and your like can pretend there isn't anything wrong with you.

[TheReal_ND]

That's a lot of edge to be running around with friend.

[Okeefenokee]

That's a lot of edge to be running around with friend.

That's what the scabbard's for.

[Martin Hash]

Yeah, the interest now is in getting away with mass murder while the entire world burns down.

Seems to be a pretty distinct vibe running through youth culture of an inclination towards tearing down rather than building or discovering. I think that's part of the reason behind the surge in all the SJW shit we've seen over the years. It's very much like the zombie fad. The destruction that they want is only acceptable in certain conditions like a zombie apocalypse where you can kill anyone and anything and it's not seen as being psychopathic like it would normally.

Likewise, if you want to destroy western civilization you have to first set the conditions where doing so doesn't make you Hitler, so you invent a religion that teaches that the white men, and corporations, and generally everything that is a hair above starving Somalis cutting each other's heads off is inherently evil and needs to be burned down. Then you can sate your thirst for destruction like a mentally unbalanced kid setting kittens on fire in an alley, but you get to do so in a frame where you and your like can pretend there isn't anything wrong with you.

Damn, that's some deep insight. (Too long to quote to "Ask a Liberalist" but I might anyway.)

[Speaker to Animals]

I think the reason for all the doom plots in fiction and television lately is that most people at some level realize that this system we have right now is not working at all and probably will come to a spectacular end or transformation of some kind. I am pretty sure even the most wild-eyed marxist at some level knows this can't last.

And Gen X know from the experience of growing up in the most dangerous part of the Cold War what facing a constant threat of extinction does to you. It makes you more cynical but more likely to live-in-the-moment. What we have seen in the past decade is something else. This is not what happens when you have the psychological pressure of end times weighing down on you. I think this is what happens when pretty much everybody intuitively knows the society that was created for them is totally unstable and bound to spin apart.

[Fife]

July 20 is quite a day, especially for us oldies.

https://twitter.com/ReliveApollo11

https://twitter.com/hashtag/Apollo11

[Fife]

I saw this piece today and was reminded of this gem of a thread.

Here's a nice breakdown of the way politicians and government schools mash up "public goods" with (allegedly) "good for the public."

The "Public Goods" Excuse for Big Government

The only way to know that a particular unit of something at a particular time is indeed a “good” in the mind of a particular individual, is through an act of demonstrated preference by the individual. If Smith voluntarily purchases X, then we know that he considers X a good, and that he values it more than the amount of money he paid for it.

A crucial issue for public goods is that, because by definition people do not voluntarily pay for public goods, or at least for “enough” units of them, we must simply take economists’ word that consumers actually want these additional units, despite the fact that they refuse to voluntarily pay for them.

This is akin to Smith telling Jones that there is an invisible assassin in the room that only Smith can hear, who wants Jones to give Smith his wallet, or else the assassin will shoot Jones. Economists can never identify any particular units of any particular output as a public good through demonstrated preference.

One objection is that in lieu of demonstrated preference, economists may attempt to determine the benefits of public goods by surveying individuals, asking how much they hypothetically would be willing to pay for marginal units of a service in the future. However, this approach is riddled with insolvable problems and is no substitute for actual, demonstrated preference. Additionally, in practice, the state doesn’t actually survey people and dispassionately follow the survey results to determine the quantity of military defense, sanitation or other public goods to provide.

Read the whole thing.

[Speaker to Animals]

I might head out to one of the national forests tomorrow. Public good FTW.