Politech mailing list archives
FC: Gilder analyst replies to Internet, madman, and energy thread
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2000 15:00:09 -0500
[I think this will be final word on this thread. --Declan] *********
From: "Bret Swanson" <bswanson () gildertech com> To: <declan () well com> Subject: Gilder on Gore Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 10:51:45 -0400 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal Declan- A few comments on the responses to George's WSJ article... First, no, the U.S. did not sign on to the Kyoto Treaty. The Senate, in fact, voted 97-0 in a symbolic gesture signaling to the administration not even to submit it for ratification. And they haven't. It's true that the Gore EPA is trying to implement many of its provisions extra- and un-constitutionally, but that will end soon enough with a new president. Second, scientists clearly disagree on man-made "climate change," with physicists largely dismissing it and many climatologists supporting it. Lately some of its first backers have retreated. The "founder" of global warming even admitted 4 weeks ago that CO2 is not the main culprit. The fact is that minute changes in the energy showered on the Earth by the sun impact the climate far greater than any amount of chemicals put into the atmosphere by man. The climate models are so ambitious as to be totally worthless. Third, efficiency is highly overrated. As Peter Huber writes in his brilliant Hard Green, the most common snack of dieters is a Diet Coke and a brownie. We're not looking to "get even" by using a Web device so we can reduce our time on the road. Reductions in energy consumption in one instance lead to opportunities for greater consumption in another. As prices drop, we use more, not less. Same with semiconductors. Indeed, as the gates get smaller, they run faster and cooler. But, Huber writes, the gates are multiplied by millions of trillions and the number of devices are multiplied by billions, and the total power consumed is much, much greater than when there was one hot-running supercomputer in a lab somewhere. Read Huber's latest Forbes column on the issue: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2000/1030/6612112a.html;$sessionid$P2IZM0AAAMP2 VQFIAGWCFEY. And don't forget all those California brownouts this year. Fourth, spectrum is not a government's to sell. Today's governments treat as scarce what is the most abundant resource of our time, the electromagnetic spectrum. Fifth, George didn't say income taxes affect electronic commerce (although they do via their effect on the general economy). He said that even more than crazy sales tax schemes proposed by U.S. governors, taxes on labor and capital income threaten the Internet, which for our purposes includes communications chip designers, optical component and system makers, network builders, software programmers, web companies of all sorts, and the very entrepreneurs and capital suppliers needed to make all these things happen. The Internet is not a cosmic blob. It is a physical collection of trillions of dollars worth of equipment, labor, and ideas. High income tax rates stifle capital formation, capital flow, incentives to work and create, and ultimately economic growth. The best thing we could do for the Internet would be a flat tax on labor income and elimination of capital gains taxes. It's just funny how some techies who should know better like Gore because John Doerr says he "gets it" when Gore opposes 90 percent of the things that really matter to the industry. We didn't even touch education reform. Sorry for the long reply... -Bret Bret T. Swanson Technology Analyst Gilder Technology Report www.gildertech.com bswanson () gildertech com
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From: David Cheney <dcheney () internetpolicy org> To: declan () well com Cc: "Joe Romm (E-mail)" <JRomm007 () aol com> Subject: RE: George Gilder, utter madman? Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 11:19:14 -0400 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Declan, For another view on the Internet and climate, see http://www.cool-companies.org/ecom/pr.cfm INTERNET & E-COMMERCE UNLEASH MAJOR ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY SAVINGS THROUGHOUT THE U.S. ECONOMY The emerging New Economy created by the Internet is producing more than just a business revolution: It is also generating enormous environmental benefits. By reducing the amount of energy and materials consumed by business - often dramatically - and increasing overall productivity, the Internet stands to revolutionize the relation between economic growth and the environment, according to a new report by the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions, a non-profit organization outside Washington, D.C., that helps companies and public institutions reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.... David Cheney David Cheney Internet Policy Institute 601 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, North Bldg., Ste 250 Washington DC 20004 202-662-2541 fax:202-628-3922 DCheney () internetpolicy org www.internetpolicy.org
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From: "David Sternlight" <david () sternlight com> To: <declan () well com> Subject: RE: George Gilder, utter madman? Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 21:39:49 -0700 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) Importance: Normal George Gilder is a distinguished economist and economics writer, who knows what he is talking about. I, too, am expert in this subject, and most of the objections below to Gilder's piece are sheer nonsense, largely due to ignorance. For example, that China has an exemption from the Kyoto treaty does not in any way reduce the loading on the atmosphere as they industrialize and load the planet; to the contrary, because of the exemption they have little incentive to husband the relevant resources. That Global temperatures were HIGHER 1000 years ago suggests that the current fear, which is due to absolute temperature increases and not incremental increases as the rejoinder suggests, will not "destabilize" the planet. Ice melts at an absolute temperature and not an incremental difference, for example, and since New York wasn't under water in the year 1000, nor come to that coastal Europe, the present "chicken little" story of the world's coastal cities being inundated due to anticipated global warming is simple nonsense. Just so with most of the exaggerated fears. David Sternlight, Ph.D. and yes, I'm a REAL energy economist, unlike most of the poseurs who pronounce on this topic.
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X-Authentication-Warning: panix3.panix.com: cp owned process doing -bs Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 00:44:45 -0400 (EDT) From: Charles Platt <cp () panix com> To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com> Cc: politech () politechbot com Subject: Re: FC: George Gilder, utter madman? For list distribution: Declan, why bother to circulate replies to Gilder from people who are totally uninformed and disagree on a reflexive basis, rather than on a basis of argued fact? The one person who bothered to check the math (our friend from the Independent) found that Gilder's estimate of a typical computer's power consumption was about right. The idea that the web will reduce travel, and hence fuel consumption, is just that--an idea. Speaking as someone who relocated in a more remote area, because Internet access enables me to work from anywhere, I find I drive about 15,000 miles a year, now, vs about 3,000 miles previously. WebVan doesn't deliver groceries out here, and never will. The Net has vastly increased my consumption of fossil fuels by enabling me to live farther from civilization-centers. The prospect for solid-state storage devices replacing hard drives is remote, at a time when I can get an 18 GB hard drive for under $300. Predictions of solid state-storage have been wrong for twenty years, and will remain wrong for the foreseeable future, at least until some kind of nanotech enables cheap storage on a molecular scale. The "inevitability" that computers of the future will use less power is unproven. Compared with the wild predictions from these clowns, Gilder is a model of sobriety. As for Kyoto--I leave it to our friend at the Independent to check just how much this agreement promises to reduce annual CO2 emissions and global temperatures--according to the OFFICIAL figures published by those who PROMOTE this economically disastrous "accord" (which Canada has subscribed to, but which the US Congress, I believe, viewed more skeptically, with good reason). Benefit: Minuscule. Cost: Immense. Global warming may indeed be a reality. If it is, and if its results are potentially destructive (by no means proven--see the Cato report outlining possible benefits from warmer, moister weather) the best solution will be reached by making the costs tangible to corporations and consumers, not by trying to legislate the issue into submission. Also the warming problem (if it exists) can be addressed by relatively cheap and simple responses. Physicist Gregory Benford, for instance, has calculated that if the fuel mix that is burned in commercial jet aircraft were richened slightly, emissions from the engines would encourage formation of thin clouds at high altitudes, which would reflect more sunlight and would cool the planet. According to Benford, a four percent increase in stratocumulus, over the oceans, would be sufficient. The cost would be infinitesimal compared with Kyoto. Of course, the idea is unpopular, not only because it advocates solving global warming by burning slightly more fuel (!) but because it would "meddle" with the climate. The irrationality of this response hardly needs to be underlined, since global civilization is totally dependent, at this point, on technology which (according to the doomsayers) is meddling with the climate already. Any attempt to deny this reality is unhelpful. Yet that is precisely what Gore would like to do. Unlike many (most?) on your distribution list, I have read his book, EARTH IN THE BALANCE. It is a classic piece of wish-fulfilment in response to guilt and anxiety. The scary part is the Gore seems to believe he can fix everything with suitable legislation, as outlined in his book. That's what I call dangerous meddling. --CP
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From: "Hugh D. Hyatt" <hughhyatt () crosswinds net> To: declan () well com Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 10:24:00 -0400 Subject: Re: FC: George Gilder, utter madman? Reply-to: hughhyatt () iname com Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) On 24 Oct 2000, at 10:26 +0100, Charles Arthur, The Independent wrote: >Let's see. The Apple G4 my company provides is rated at 480W. The >screen (soon to become LCD) is CRT and uses 300W max (but goes into >low-energy mode when I'm not here, ie about 70% of the time - 7pm-10am >and weekends.) > >So that's 780W x 365 x 24 x 0.3 = 2,135,250 Wh or about 2 MWh / yr. If I read the first bit right, it's the CRT that goes into low-energy mode, not the whole system, so the calculation should be (300W * 0.3 + 480W) * 365 * 24 = 4,993,200 or almost 5 MWh / year. -- Hugh D. Hyatt e-mail: mailto:hughhyatt () iname com P.O. Box 143 web: http://www.crosswinds.net/~hughhyatt 611 Dale Road voice: 215.947.1799 Bryn Athyn, PA 19009 215.947.9673 Today the real test of power is not capacity to make war but capacity to prevent it. -- Anne O'Hare McCormick
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X-Envelope-From: avedon () cix compulink co uk Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 16:46 +0100 (BST) From: avedon () cix compulink co uk (Avedon Carol) Subject: Re: FC: Al Gore, Internet enemy? by George Gilder To: declan () well com Cc: avedon () cix compulink co uk Reply-To: avedon () cix compulink co uk X-Ameol-Version: 2.52.2000, Windows 98 4.10.1998 ( ) In-Reply-To: <4.3.0.20001024022625.02398460 () mail well com> > Mr. Gilder, author of "Telecosm: How Infinite Bandwidth Will > Revolutionize Your World" (Free Press, 2000), is an investor in > Internet and wireless stocks. He's a heterosexual man, too, but I wouldn't trust his opinion on that subject, either. Declan, George Gilder is the same man who told Playboy that the only reason men ever do anything productive/creative is to impress women. You apparently have no creative motivation of your own, and without women to keep you in check, all you'd ever do is go out and destroy things. You are vandals unless pussy-whipped. Much as I like the idea that neat stuff like stereos and cars and computers (and the net) were invented just to get me wet, I suspect that the truth here is that Gilder has a lower opinion of men than reality can support, and I wouldn't take his investment advice, either. I don't think we should raise new taxes on the net, but neither do I think Bush's tax cut is a great idea. Or Gore's for that matter; tax cuts based on a "surplus" that is not yet in hand are just fantasy buying sprees. I don't trust anyone who wants a tax cut while we are still in debt, and I don't trust anyone who wants to reduce the size of government without admitting that the best place to start is the War on Some Drugs. Be that as it may, I think I have to vote for Gore, because Bush's stupid fantasy is considerably bigger than Gore's. -- Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/FAC/
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