JHomes.
]]>But on the flip side EA is all about marginal utility. The gain from "about to die" to "not about to die" is a huge amount of marginal utility, far more than from "homeless" to "in a homeless shelter", and definitely way more than "normally get a coffee about now" to "have a coffee".
EA is often trying to solve political problems by giving money to the victims. The solution to starvation in Africa is to pay rich farmers to export food to Africa, rather than to stop stealing food from Africa. Or forcing countries to pay back loans given to departed kleptocrats, if you prefer to look at it that way.
Reminds me of the "solution" to piracy in Somalia being foreign warships invading that country, rather than stopping foreign fishing boats from pillaging Somali waters which is what drove former Somali fishermen to piracy in the first place.
]]>You really need to toss in what is meant by "It is finished"? Just to stir the pot harder.
]]>Linking back to H's dominion thoughts, my grandfather (1885-1982) thought the point of HIS creeks were a place to put trash. Moderately large (for the time) working farm so he and all his friends would dump almost anything there. From household food waste up to stoves and fridges. I'm sure there were a car or two there. And he sold digging rights to the county at times for gravel and as best I can tell looking back allowed them to abandon earth digging gear there at times.
Sigh.
]]>Unless civilization falls those left will, after a brief morning period, mostly go "wheeeee" look at what we have and can play with. With all those people gone we don't have to worry anymore about the planet.
]]>paws
"Oyzymandias" was, apparently written after Shelley had seen a massive staue of Rameses the Younger Memnon installed in the Brit Mus.
Are you saying we should ignore any observation not stated in strictly factual terms, and refuse to use any text not originating the same way?
It's not even about "poetic license", but about using evocative words and phrases to convey ideas. "large parts of what was once the Persian empire are now desert" just doesn't have the same ring.
Not to mention the insanity of coming to a science FICTION author's blog to make a claim even slightly like that.
]]>And if civilization does fall, the survivors will do exact same thing. They just won't have AS MANY toys to play with.
]]>easy there thanos
]]>Also, ancient Egypt and ancient Persia have been primarily desert and mountains back into the Stone Age (basic source Wikipedia; secondary sources lots).
]]>The question to me is "maximise which utility", because who gets their utility maximised is a really important question. And per above, the answer is rich people and often "utility" is measured with money. EA buys into that completely, and also literally.
If we look for other possibilities, and say (topically) that maybe the value of a thylacine is in being thylacines rather than in being tourist attractions then the answers we get might be quite different. We might say, for example, that dumping dollars onto farmers when they lose stock to reintroduced predators is a small price to pay for having predators. We might also say that the penalty for harming one is prison, and sadly the penalty for killing one is death. We have a lot of spare people but no spare critically endangered animals, so one sort of life is worth a lot more than the other.
Where EA would be useful is asking what happens to society if we do that? Obviously most of the people executed will be the sort of povo scum who used to be transported to Australia, but would that have useful or only toxic side effects? How could we manage a legal system if we did recognise the value of non-monetary assets, or non-human rights? Is there any way EA can help move towards that sort of system?
]]>