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Comment by obtu | Hacker News Reader

Using petrol on personal transportation is such a waste. I'd like to see a heavy carbon tax so that this fantastic, but finite, resource would be directed to things where it really adds value. The US subsidising wars to get more of it makes selfish sense, but to burn it immediately instead of building infrastructure is shameful.

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> Using petrol on personal transportation is such a waste. I'd like to see a heavy carbon tax so that this fantastic, but finite, resource would be directed to things where it really adds value.

Forgive me if I respect the decentralized distributed thinking of 6 billion people, including millions of economists, engineers, materials scientists, etc., over one random commenter on HN, but I personally have no reason what-so-ever to believe that your judgement that the ROI on oil is higher in plastics mfgr than in transport.

And economists and engineers say we should be using oil for transport?

Distributed thinking isn't rational even if the actors are, it all depends on the rules of the game. For example, the optimal strategy in a prisonner's dilemma hurts both players; tragedies of the commons have similar effects at a larger scale. There is no objective standard saying how much future discounting is rational, although obviously I'd prefer one that doesn't discount significantly until after one or two lifetimes.

Burning the stuff now is a perfect example of future discounting: it values having energy now over having something that can be used and reused. It's also an example of tragedy of the commons: the energy utility goes to whoever uses it, climate change is a cost for everyone, and unregulated markets don't minimise those costs.

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