| I think an underrated take is that global warming may not actually be that bad. Earth has been much warmer in the past -- IIRC in the time of the dinosaurs we had temperate forests around the poles. Coastal settlements will need to be relocated. But robots can help with that too. Autonomous construction robots seem like an easier problem than self-driving cars. There's also the political challenge of resettling the world's population away from the equator and closer to the poles. I'd like to see a normalization of countries selling off huge areas of land, the way Russia sold Alaska to the USA in 1867. Imagine Canada selling part of a province to India to resettle folks who are overheating there. Charter cities like Próspera are also very cool: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/prospectus-on-prospera Balaji has some interesting ideas related to what he calls "network states": https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/07/13/networkstates.html Imagine if Antarctica became a UN-administered zone, where any group which wanted to found a new country could claim a plot of land just by paying a Harberger tax to the UN. The tax could be used to fund a global basic income. So everyone would essentially have a choice between staying closer to the equator and getting a subsidy to help them afford AC, or living in Antarctica where it's nice and cool (but having to pay higher taxes for the privilege). Why fight when you can innovate? |