effing scary idea

[winterbadger]

Johann Hari in The Independent

"In my parents' lifetime, we have killed 90 per cent of the world's fish. In my lifetime, we will finish off the rest – unless we change our ways, fast. We are on course to be the people who wiped fish from the earth."

I wish I could see this ending well, but given human beings, I doubt it will.

And I wish people would, in general, stop blaming politicians for things. Politicians act in terrifically rational reaction to their incentives (votes, and money to get more votes). If we wish politicians to behave differently, we need to change their incentive structure. At the moment, expecting a politician to ignore lobbyists is like asking a business to ignore its suppliers--without the cash they get from them, they can't run for election and advertise to get the votes they need. If we want them to concentrate only on voters, we need to take money out of the election equation.

Comments

[verdandiweaves.livejournal.com]

Biggest problem with current democratic elections is that they must of necessity be conducted every four to five years, so politician concentrate on achieving results within that time frame. Results for the longer stretch have to be pushed for by the public and they need to have more patience in results - still a bit ill and not too coherent, but I'm sure you get my point. :)