[lordnacho]

This is because we've decided short term local optimization is somehow optimal. Just let every business maximize profits and everything will be good. Mention externalities and people will deny they exist, or try to tell you they're already accounted for.

[mellavora]

> Just let every business maximize profits and everything will be good

Not quite right. You should have said maximize short-term profits.

As an example from forestry. If you manage sustainably, such that cutting resembles natural loss, your forest produces high-quality wood for centuries and also provides revenue from i.e. lodges, salmon, and carbon offsets.

So profit from that land over 100 years is X

Or you clear-cut it, and realized 1/10th of X in 5 years. And make the land very low value for the remaining 95.

The issue is short-term local optimization, as you claim.

[lordnacho]

What bothers me is someone will claim that cutting the whole forest is the best thing to do, because if it wasn't, the market would have done something else, like run it sustainably.

Nobody points out that management does what it is incentivezed to do, and that those incentives ought to be fair game for negotiation. Or at least for commentary.