Comments Asp has made

Misinterpretation of roles

I think you have misinterpreted the government's role in during the WWII economy. The government did not so much steer the economy as much as the military became the nation's largest (only?) consumer of these products (and the government's demand exceeded production capacities). The government's "investments" during WWII were specifically and unambiguously defined and the value of these purchases, compared to other alternatives, were nearly immediately verifiable.

Your analogy breaks down for a global warming response as the specification and consumption of these production changes are not the same entity (whereas they were the same entity in WWII - the military). Likewise, it is not clear which options today are the best compared to the alternatives - so how would a central office determine which direction to move, and how would they change course if a better direction were discovered after so much sunk cost were poured into infrastructure projects as you suggest?

The current model of distributing the specific decision making of how to reach the overall goal to many individuals and entities allows us to explore many more available options (obvious and otherwise) without sinking too many resources into a sub-optimum approach.On Is global warming the moral equivalent of World War II? posted 2 years, 2 months ago 27 Responses