Mythical creatures of the future

[Tailo]

push for insentives then - offer people who produce this kind of technology a possibility to become trillioners and see how fast this things would pop up

Some money is a motivation. Huge amounts of money aren't. What's the difference between a billionaire and a trillionaire? Not much, really. Some zeros on a computer screen. A billionaire already has more money than he can sensibly invest for his own benefit. Even more money just means beating the highscore, rising up on the Forbes list. It's just a competitive game, but it is a game that other people or nature have to pay for!

If money would really be the decisive factor and it would not come at the cost of other people and nature, governments or national banks could simply print a trillion dollars and promise these the one who solves all problems. And by your theory that would almost instantly work and all problems would be solved. But in reality it does not work.

 

[dinadina]

If money would really be the decisive factor and it would not come at the cost of other people and nature, governments or national banks could simply print a trillion dollars and promise these the one who solves all problems. And by your theory that would almost instantly work and all problems would be solved. But in reality it does not work.

you cant just print money. that causes inflation. you only print money in order to start an economy or in order to emergency bust it temporarly but usually the money printed is suppose to return to the government to storage .

Some money is a motivation. Huge amounts of money aren't. What's the difference between a billionaire and a trillionaire? Not much, really. Some zeros on a computer screen. A billionaire already has more money than he can sensibly invest for his own benefit. Even more money just means beating the highscore, rising up on the Forbes list. It's just a competitive game, but it is a game that other people or nature have to pay for!

I said trillioner in exaggeration. my purpose was to say offer a company who would invent cheap green energy that they wont have to pay any taxes for lets say 200 years so they would become extremely wealthy - that incentive would cause many people to be motivated to work on the issue.

 

[Tailo]

you cant just print money. that causes inflation. you only print money in order to start an economy or in order to emergency bust it temporarly but usually the money printed is suppose to return to the government to storage .

Yep, and that's why your suggestion to motivate companies by offering them to become ultra-rich means that other people will suffer for it. If you don't increase the amount of money substantially, accumulating it in someone's purse means that other people will become poorer. To be more specific, if you reduce taxes below a certain point you will have less money for public schools, for police, for public transport, for health care ... and this won't hurt those who go to private schools, hire their private security company, fly by helicopter etc., but the rest.

I said trillioner in exaggeration. my purpose was to say offer a company who would invent cheap green energy that they wont have to pay any taxes for lets say 200 years so they would become extremely wealthy - that incentive would cause many people to be motivated to work on the issue.

You really have a lot of faith in greed, one that even transcends death. Fun fact: Nobody lives for 200 years.

The problem is not that too few people would be working on it. The problem is not even that green technology is too expensive at this point anymore. The problem is that destruction is too cheap. If destructive companies would have to pay for the destruction they cause, then less destructive technology would already prevail. Imagine if companies would have to pay for fishing all the packaging from the oceans that they produced! They would quickly switch to degradable packaging or deposit-refund systems. The technology is there. It's not too expensive. The problem is that destroying our planet is for free.

 

[dinadina]

Yep, and that's why your suggestion to motivate companies by offering them to become ultra-rich means that other people will suffer for it. If you don't increase the amount of money substantially, accumulating it in someone's purse means that other people will become poorer. To be more specific, if you reduce taxes below a certain point you will have less money for public schools, for police, for public transport, for health care ... and this won't hurt those who go to private schools, hire their private security company, fly by helicopter etc., but the rest.

not if their invention made peoples life much cheaper.
for example - if someone invent a method of green energy that cost to the company almost nothing so they can make electricity as cheap and available as possible that makes peoples lifes much cheaper so it wont matter if someone accumulate wealth because relativity all is cheap.

You really have a lot of faith in greed, one that even transcends death. Fun fact: Nobody lives for 200 years.

the company live for 200 years. the kids of the inventor would out live him. it is a gift for him and his bloodline. that is the incentive.
and yes I have faith in greed - that is why capitalisem made us all this good things and also all the bad ones.

The problem is not that too few people would be working on it. The problem is not even that green technology is too expensive at this point anymore. The problem is that destruction is too cheap. If destructive companies would have to pay for the destruction they cause, then less destructive technology would already prevail. Imagine if companies would have to pay for fishing all the packaging from the oceans that they produced! They would quickly switch to degradable packaging or deposit-refund systems. The technology is there. It's not too expensive. The problem is that destroying our planet is for free.

while punishment is a way to motivate a person to do something a "gift" is a better why to motivate someone with positive passion to invent things. positive passion is always much more innovating then passion driven from subjugating and punishment.

 

[Tailo]

and yes I have faith in greed - that is why capitalisem made us all this good things and also all the bad ones.

Why do you insist on keeping the bad ones? It is not against capitalism at all to ask people to clean up their mess. It would actually be beneficial for a fair, capitalistic competition, if destructive technology would have to pay a price for the destruction they cause, so that the inherent advantage of non-destructive technology would play out.

By arguing for people to continue littering and destroying the planet (until a great technology solves all problems) you are inhibiting all the technology that solves these problems. You keep destructive technology artificially competitive by making nature and future generations pay the cost of destructive production instead of letting the company pay the costs. Basically, you let companies collect the profits of their production, but you socialize the costs of their production.

while punishment is a way to motivate a person to do something a "gift" is a better why to motivate someone with positive passion to invent things. positive passion is always much more innovating then passion driven from subjugating and punishment.

Making someone pay for cleaning up the mess the caused is not a punishment. Making them pay three times of what it costs to clean up their mess would be punishment.

Also, by your logic we should offer huge financial benefits for someone to invent resurrecting people from the dead sometime in the future instead of punishing people who commit murder right now.

 

[CritterFunatic]

Have you ever realized that in the future animals whom we have the pleasure to share this planet with now will have become almost mythical creatures, because we didn't let them live? It's not just little bugs which you have never heard of that are dying. Big animal species such as the Chinese river dolphin (baiji), the Pyrenean ibex and the Western black rhino have died out just recently. And more are dying out right now due to poaching, pollution and the destruction of ecosystems. People of the future—zoos of the future—will look back at our generation and remember us for having eradicated fascinating animals.

Related comic:

Buttersafe » Cool Horns

To be fair, extinction of species happens anyway, even without human involvement. That's the part that drives evolution, the extinction of one species, the creation of a niche, some other "invasive" species filling the niche and life goes on.
That said, of course we did our fair share to drive quite a number of species close to extinction or hunted them into extinction.
What I meant to say is, yes, there will always be some species getting the short end of the stick. Usually it's lesser known species not many people care about. Sometimes it's more well known species, that's when the public starts caring about the issue.
To counter this issue, we have conservation efforts going on. The question is just, if those efforts are enough.