Environmental news is increasingly grim :(

[conuly]

Every once in a while, I engage in a little thought experiment with myself.

I am the possessor of some remarkable technology, including time travel. I can bring a crack team of however many people I want to any point in time to influence history so that our current ecological nightmare doesn't happen. (We can also fix anything else we like, because there's no prime directive here.) We can, of course, bring with us seed banks and hard drives full of all our favorite media and whatever, and if we go really far back then some of us will stay in suspended animation to continue fixing the timeline for as long as necessary.

The only question is this: How much of known world history am I willing to sacrifice to make a better world today?

Every time I run this problem, I start with different dates - the 1920s? The 1800s? 1490? 2000 BCE? - before ultimately deciding - fuck it. The only way to ensure a bright future for humanity in my new, butterfly-timeline is to bring everything and everyone necessary for a modern infrastructure back to the early Neolithic era and utterly take over before our distant ancestors can do the same.

I'm not sure what this conclusion says about me.

Comments

[conuly]

What the heck have we been waiting for then?

[kengr]

It'd be EXPENSIVE. I mean like "significant fraction of the defense budget" expensive.

Yeah, it'd pay for itself, but likely take a decade or so. Investors don't believe in long term investments anymore.

Congress-critters aren't interested in anything where the payoff is further away than their next election (if that).

For that matter, Congress has a *lousy* record when it comes to *following thru* on big projects.

If your project *needs* to have funding over a number of years, they are just about guaranteed to try penny pinching. That's what happened to the space Shuttle (and incidentally pretty much killed the rest of the manned space program)

Private investors, as mentioned above want their money next quarter, not next decade. Worse, a truly *stupid* Supreme Court decision back in the 80s(?) says that shareholders can over-ride the board of directors in favor of profit *now* even if it impacts the long term viability of the company.

As someone put it: "Our civilization is doomed. They're eating the seed grain..."

Or maybe more like the Easter Islanders. They used up the trees faster than new ones could grow. and without trees, they were stuck on the island forever.

[conuly]

Soooooo like Jeff Bezos would notice the loss expensive? Let's go rob a bank, guys.

[kengr]

You know of a bank that keeps *that* much cash (or gold) around?

[conuly]

Let's rob lots of banks!