Big Think

Re: Re: Is American capitalism inherently wasteful?

"How different, philosophically, is American capitalism from French capitalism? It's much less than people imagine." --Paul Krugman, 'Re: Is American Capitalism inherently wasteful?' Is this because French and American capitalism both operate on similar fundamental capitalist principles, or because they've both strayed so far from them? … Read More

January 9, 2008   | 

Re: What changed your mind about climate change?

The Stern Review, commissioned by the British Treasury in 2006, which concluded that investing 1% of global GDP could prevent warming, and that failure to do so could result in the loss of 20% of world GDP in the future. There are valid criticisms of the report, and climate change is a difficult moral question, but the research itself is quite troubling. … Read More

January 9, 2008   | 

Re: Re: Is climate change a human rights issue?

Climate change itself may not be a human rights issue -- though evidence seems to indicate that rich nations have created most of the problem, and poor ones will bear the brunt of the costs -- but the way wealthy countries choose to respond to global warming is certainly a rights issue. Dire poverty and its symptoms -- disease, war, famine -- kill many more humans globally, today, than climate change potentially will in the future. In terms of saving human lives, we could do much more good by alleviating poverty now, especially with positive-sum solutions like free trade and immigration, than we could by making massive sacrifices today in order to forestall global warming and reap little potential benefit tomorrow. Further, once poor nations develop, there's evidence that they start taking care of the environment, too. Forcing anyone -- but especially the poor -- to reduce emissions is a nasty practice that puts uneven values on the lives of rich and poor humans around the world. … Read More

January 9, 2008   | 

Re: Re: How do we manage intellectual property online?

Of course software patents and other bad digital property rights schemes stifle creativity -- there's simply no incentive to innovate when it's easier to extort. The bigger problem is that the law hasn't kept up with new kinds of property and most property rights laws, like patents and copyrights, were designed for the physical world and meant to apply to things like mechanical parts and books. They simply don't translate to new, different types of digital property, and consumers and innovators are left with weird, backwards rules. Fortunately, I don't think the system needs to be completely overhauled. Voluntary schemes like Creative Commons are excellent solutions to some of the problems -- and they don't require new laws or government intervention at all. … Read More

January 8, 2008   |