Our grid isn't actually 100 years old. It's been getting continuously rebuilt and upgraded this entire time.

We live on a planet where dog clothing is a multimillion dollar industry and you're attacking space exploration as a waste of money?...

COVID deaths in the US and the rest of the world are overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status?country=~50%2B).

If the goal was truly to reduce deaths why not import mRNA vaccines in addition to lockdowns? Would that not logically be the best decision if all they care about is keeping the death count down? Why keep out the most effective vaccines?

Because admitting they were wrong about zero-covid and relying on western mRNA vaccines would cause the Chinese government to lose face.

>Lives are more important than the economy.

True, but surely they could just use mRNA vaccines and re-open just like every other country on the planet at this point?...

This is because in our society innovation is profit driven and there's simply not much profit to be made by solving the world's most urgent problems.

Why cure cancer when you can make 1,000x more money creating the next generation of boner pills?

Why create more sustainable energy efficient electronics when you can make 1,000x more money figuring out how to squeeze an IMAX camera into an iPhone so people can post photo-shoots of themselves online and pretend they're celebrities?

>However, testing this out is geo-engineering, and banned across the globe.

>So until we get some rogue nation willing to run the tests and do the science, we will not know.

No, geo-engineering is not globally banned.

There have been many small scale tests of ocean seeding. It doesn't work as well as people think but it also doesn't not work.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization

What this article doesn't take into account is what I brought up earlier, the atmospheric lifetime of hydrogen. Hydrogen lasts between 4 - 7 years in the atmosphere, while CO2 lasts between 300 - 1000 years. So while hydrogen may short term be worse pound for pound, CO2 is still far more of a threat. Furthermore, C02 is released as a byproduct of combustion as opposed to accidental leaks in the case of hydrogen, so the volume of CO2 being released into the atmosphere is far more than hydrogen even if hydrogen were to become widespread.

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What's the atmospheric lifetime of hydrogen?...

>Nah. I can buy a banana and duct tape for way less than that.

Can you sell it for $120,000?

>And let's not pretend that modern art sales are your normal purchase that everyone relies on.

We pay athletes millions of dollars to throw balls through hoops, while we barely pay the people who teach our children a living wage.

There have been paramedics that make more money doing only fans. Are you telling me being a paramedic is seriously of less value to society than doing porn?

This is not a good system we're using. It might be the only one that's worked for us so far but it is godawful at doing what we need it to do.

>The person next to me is going to take advantage of it, so why shouldn't I?

Because if everyone, including you, did that then nobody would have anything. You seem perfectly aware that people would starve if everyone did this. Wouldn't you at least do the bare minimum required for people to have their needs met? Would you honestly rather starve than do the bare minimum?

>This is how economies are ruined and people starve

Your system grows enough food to feed 2 billion extra people while 10% of the population goes hungry and you want to talk to me about people starving?...

>He is a pretty good economist and gives actual examples in his book.

Einstein was a pretty good physicist, but he was wrong about nuclear power being impossible. Lord Kelvin was widely considered the most prominent scientist of his time, but he was wrong about heavier than air flight being impossible. Aristotle is widely considered to be one of the greatest thinkers in history, but he was wrong about the elements.

Smart people can still be wrong.

>You can't even tell me how people will be incentivized to work and just assume people will do it out of their own free will.

As I've said multiple times now, people will be incentivized to work in order to have things, just the same as they are now.

>Things have value whether there is money or not. Money is medium of exchange. So that we know how much things are worth relative to other things. Without money, value isn't determined and we lose the ability to effectively distribute goods and services to where they are needed most.

Under your system a banana duct taped to a wall is worth $120,000.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/someone-paying-120000-for-a-banana-duct-taped-to-a-wall-at-art-basel-is-the-perfect-picture-of-wealth-inequality-2019-12-05

If your system of valuing goods, services, and labor determines that a banana duct taped to a wall is worth more than a 2 bedroom apartment perhaps it's a sign your system doesn't work very well?...

>First of all, OP said work would be voluntary. But beyond that, why wouldn't I just take much more than I contribute and screw everyone else over?

Because if everyone did that then nobody would have anything.

Surely you'd rather have something than nothing, wouldn't you?

>You are confused about what scarcity is. This is why I recommendes the book, "Basic Economics."

I'm really not. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps Thomas Sowell was wrong about one or two things?...

>And what would incentivize people to make those for others for free? People aren't just going to do this out of the goodness of their own hearts. You can't possibly believe that.

Of course not that would be ridiculous. However, people will work and make things for other people for free in exchange for the ability to get things that other people make for free.

There's nothing intrinsic to money that makes people want to work in exchange for it. People just want the stuff that they use money to get. If they could just get the stuff without using money why would there still be any desire for money?

>All resources are scarce.

Are they?... We grow enough food to feed 10 billion people yet 10% of us go hungry every year. The US has 580,000 homeless people in the US and 16,000,000 vacant homes. How real is this scarcity and how much of it is the result of a shitty means of distributing goods, labor, and services?

Money is laughably inefficient as a means of coordinating the distribution of labor, goods, and services.

Why would people voluntarily choose to re-enter a system where they have to work more to get less?

>I’m going to put on gear and scuba in a pool of shit to unclog the city’s feces pipes

Also would you really rather live in a society with no plumbing/sewer/septic system than having to unclog the pipes every once in a while?

Wouldn't living in a city of millions with everyone using the street as an open sewer be more disgusting than having to unclog the pipes every once in a while?

And surely we could automate something like that. I refuse to believe that we're capable of building a robot that can fly to Mars and take alien soil samples but we can't build a robot to unclog pipes.

It's a voluntary system, it should go without saying that all production and consumption isn't forced to do anything.

How is that an unstated implication? Can you explain this further?

I'm confused. Why do you do the dishes and wipe your own ass if nobody pays you to do it? What's the profit motive?

Perhaps because people would rather live in a society with things like food, shelter, clothing, etc. than a society without these things?

>How do you get people to do the shit jobs?

Who does the dishes at your house?

>Without it, we'd still need living like cave men.

The Inca were able to create one of the most advanced empires in pre-Columbian America without the use of currency. Your assertions aren't based on reality.

>It also assumes that people will be able to supply the same stuff as our current market economy.

I'm curious, who do you think actually creates and supplies the "stuff" in our current market economy if not people?

>and requirement for a draconian police state

I looked really hard through the link and wasn't able to find any mention of a "draconian police state". Would you mind copy/pasting the sections that discuss this?

Do you honestly think OP would be capable of creating something like this simulator without at least a rudimentary knowledge of economics?...