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Comment by antr | Hacker News Reader

I'm an energy investor (primarily focused on renewables), and I couldn't disagree more. I could go on an on with examples of how government intervention has created busts across the renewables space for the past 20 years, and has thrown down the drain billions of tax payer money. I'd like to keep governments out of something that works without them.

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My god this is an irresponsible comment. Where to begin? First, it fundamentally misunderstands the history of Silicon Valley tech development, which has been primarily funded by government institutions such as DARPA at its core. This is true for sustainable energy as well — it is federally funded research that is advancing solar panel efficiency, for example.[1]

Second, you have a profit motive to rewrite this narrative and position private tech investors as the key innovation enablers. This happens all the time. The reality is the VC industry cherry picks the fruit that DARPA and related agencies invest in or sustain through government procurement. It takes billions over decades of failures to produce something that can be brought to market, and it’s done at taxpayer expense. The profits are privatized.

I say it is irresponsible in this case because we are literally facing the doom of our planet. This is not time to screw around with easily disproven self-aggrandizing Liberterian narratives that would detract from the political activism we need to solve this problem. We must understand how our system really works if we hope to save ourselves.

[1] https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/nrel-darpa-both...

It almost certainly doesnt though, and your personal experience over the last two decades or whatever probably means squat.

If the US government is/was capable of succeeding with the Manhattan and Apollo projects, there's no reason to believe that the same wouldn't be true of similar gargantuan efforts today.

I'm not saying that the US can solve AGCC by itself, but I am saying that uncoordinated efforts by loosely coupled private entities cannot.

> It almost certainly doesnt though, and your personal experience over the last two decades or whatever probably means squat.

We all know that an anecdote is not data, but being so dismissive towards someone with specific industry knowledge seems inappropriate.

FWIW, the grandparent's industry specific knowledge is in investment into developing renewable energy companies. This isn't very applicable to the article or problem at hand.

1) doesn't justify telling someone their experience means "squat"

2) since when do you have to be vetted/credentialed to participate in a discussion here?

> since when do you have to be vetted/credentialed to participate in a discussion here

Since they're using their credentials to try and lend credulity to their argument. Specifically, it's an "appeal to [their] authority" on the subject, but they don't have that requisite 'authority'.

Since when is providing some background about your experience considered a negative? You should try to be a bit more generous and not assume, on almost non-existent evidence, that someone is being disingenuous.

An energy investor who doesn't support the GND? What a surprise

Private investment makes companies go bust too, that's not isolated to government intervention.

But honestly how well is this really working without governments? We're running out of time by certain metrics.

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