I like the focus on being pro human but I think Alex misses the point when talking about sacredness and it also loops back into the discussion about marginal instead of yes no distinctions.
I think many people would trade some human flourishing for some protection of nature even if they never benefit from it. Like I think for many people they might be willing to pay a dollar to make sure polar bears do not go extinct even if they will never see a polar bear.
I agree that environmentalist some time make absurd tradeoffs between the sacred and the human but when I introspect at least at some margin I am willing to make modest tradeoffs.
I liked Robin's sketch of a pro nature pro fossil fuels person. Here's a comment I made I couple days ago "Robin Hanson at one point tries to describe such a view, with it roughly being that increasing human capability (through fossil fuel usage and such) enables humans to do more stuff including seeding the oceans, or increasing the amount of nature in Siberia, or limiting the negative effects of drought etc. I think the best response to this would be, as a matter of fact would humans actually do these things with increased capabilities instead of doing "bad things", and I think the best response to that would be that it might make more sense to organize an environmentalist movement which such aims as opposed to letting current environmentalist movements do other "bad things". This is only a basic sketch of the argument but you can see what a more fleshed out version would look like."
I didn't like that Alex seems to dismiss marginal thinking (I think its because of some weird objectivist moralistic aversion to taxes and regulation and such, even if he doesn't advertise it), there are ways of steel manning this by saying stuff such as on the marginal tax/regulation is way too much and such but Alex doesn't seem to be engaging with that sort of thinking.
I'm sure the book is as good as you say, but this interview decreased my desire to read it. Epstein comes across as somewhat dogmatic. Even when faced with sympathetic interviewers, he seems unable to let a bone go.
OK, I've finally listened to this (1.5x). For those who have read the environmental chapters of Losing My Religion, I am on board with some of this. https://www.losingmyreligions.net/
Alex says he is interested in "intellectual persuasion." But as someone who wishes for sanity, I would like you to know that you come across as condescending, even sneering. You seem to have open disdain for people concerned with climate change. You don't seem to want to find common ground, but dunk on liberals.
Also, you are painting yourself into a right-wing corner. Aligning with Jordan Peterson and Lauren Boebert will keep this position marginal. Using terms like "Bidenflation" and other right-wing trigger words (on Alex's site) also comes across more as sucking up and against persuasion.
The sense I got of Alex Epstein is that he's some objectivist who came in very motivated to argue for fossil fuels. As a result, he produced unbalanced, sub-par scholarship. I will go on the record to predict that Bryan's audit will turn up a significant number of falsehoods.
Regarding how to handle Solar panel cost declines despite its unreliability, I think that Terraform Industries is on the right track. They are working on using electricity to produce natural gas from the air, which they think eventually can produce (carbon neutral) gas more cheaply than fracking. It would be a much cheaper and easier way to handle storage and distribution compared to batteries.
Many seem to forget that for most of my lifetime (several decades), a significant emotional driver for Americans for energy independence have been regular economic supply shocks and a graphical (and intuitive) understanding of an increasingly reliant (and fuel hungry) economy based on energy consumption. Climate-change as a motivation seems to have eclipsed the talking points for both the Right and the Left. In the end, I’m glad energy independence has become more imaginable as a result of incentives to develop renewable alternatives to fossil fuels which in turn, have relied upon increasing organic market demand for such products. Electric cars (and yes, electricity gadgets) are driving battery technology which in turn, will provide better incentives for solar/wind technologies but in the end, the argument continues to reflect left and right political biases and who wants to “own” the political argument. It’s really not that hard to appreciate Epstines argument but also see how much energetic is being spent on partisan grievances.
I like the focus on being pro human but I think Alex misses the point when talking about sacredness and it also loops back into the discussion about marginal instead of yes no distinctions.
I think many people would trade some human flourishing for some protection of nature even if they never benefit from it. Like I think for many people they might be willing to pay a dollar to make sure polar bears do not go extinct even if they will never see a polar bear.
I agree that environmentalist some time make absurd tradeoffs between the sacred and the human but when I introspect at least at some margin I am willing to make modest tradeoffs.
I liked Robin's sketch of a pro nature pro fossil fuels person. Here's a comment I made I couple days ago "Robin Hanson at one point tries to describe such a view, with it roughly being that increasing human capability (through fossil fuel usage and such) enables humans to do more stuff including seeding the oceans, or increasing the amount of nature in Siberia, or limiting the negative effects of drought etc. I think the best response to this would be, as a matter of fact would humans actually do these things with increased capabilities instead of doing "bad things", and I think the best response to that would be that it might make more sense to organize an environmentalist movement which such aims as opposed to letting current environmentalist movements do other "bad things". This is only a basic sketch of the argument but you can see what a more fleshed out version would look like."
I didn't like that Alex seems to dismiss marginal thinking (I think its because of some weird objectivist moralistic aversion to taxes and regulation and such, even if he doesn't advertise it), there are ways of steel manning this by saying stuff such as on the marginal tax/regulation is way too much and such but Alex doesn't seem to be engaging with that sort of thinking.
I'm sure the book is as good as you say, but this interview decreased my desire to read it. Epstein comes across as somewhat dogmatic. Even when faced with sympathetic interviewers, he seems unable to let a bone go.
Here's a formatted transcript of the interview, courtesy of GPT-3: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bHEp8F0j2jkxk_EC5WIrkxEHjA5SCdNmmE1CkRSSkrs
OK, I've finally listened to this (1.5x). For those who have read the environmental chapters of Losing My Religion, I am on board with some of this. https://www.losingmyreligions.net/
Alex says he is interested in "intellectual persuasion." But as someone who wishes for sanity, I would like you to know that you come across as condescending, even sneering. You seem to have open disdain for people concerned with climate change. You don't seem to want to find common ground, but dunk on liberals.
Also, you are painting yourself into a right-wing corner. Aligning with Jordan Peterson and Lauren Boebert will keep this position marginal. Using terms like "Bidenflation" and other right-wing trigger words (on Alex's site) also comes across more as sucking up and against persuasion.
Again, just IMO. Take care.
https://www.losingmyreligions.net/
And for more balance
https://slate.com/technology/2022/05/alex-epstein-fossil-future-climate-change-argument.html
The sense I got of Alex Epstein is that he's some objectivist who came in very motivated to argue for fossil fuels. As a result, he produced unbalanced, sub-par scholarship. I will go on the record to predict that Bryan's audit will turn up a significant number of falsehoods.
Regarding how to handle Solar panel cost declines despite its unreliability, I think that Terraform Industries is on the right track. They are working on using electricity to produce natural gas from the air, which they think eventually can produce (carbon neutral) gas more cheaply than fracking. It would be a much cheaper and easier way to handle storage and distribution compared to batteries.
https://terraformindustries.com/
what an absolute treat!
Many seem to forget that for most of my lifetime (several decades), a significant emotional driver for Americans for energy independence have been regular economic supply shocks and a graphical (and intuitive) understanding of an increasingly reliant (and fuel hungry) economy based on energy consumption. Climate-change as a motivation seems to have eclipsed the talking points for both the Right and the Left. In the end, I’m glad energy independence has become more imaginable as a result of incentives to develop renewable alternatives to fossil fuels which in turn, have relied upon increasing organic market demand for such products. Electric cars (and yes, electricity gadgets) are driving battery technology which in turn, will provide better incentives for solar/wind technologies but in the end, the argument continues to reflect left and right political biases and who wants to “own” the political argument. It’s really not that hard to appreciate Epstines argument but also see how much energetic is being spent on partisan grievances.