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Ask HN: You have a fortune of $100B, how would you fix earth in 3 years?

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Re: Ask HN: You have a fortune of $100B, how would you fix earth in 3 years?

#21

Post by doggodaddo78 »

tito wrote: post #5

I love how your first answer is carbon removal. Come hang out with 1,000 other air miners at http://airminers.org . If you want to get a free deep dive in carbon removal tech check out our four week boot up, http://bootup.airminers.org

Total waste of money, time, and effort by people who fall in love with their "way," branding, tribalism, and feelings, but don't think ahead about scale and conclusions. Oceanic bio CSS is the only way to do it at scale: kelp, phytoplankton, or whatever else grows fast, sucks up carbon, and sinks to the depths.

Re: Ask HN: You have a fortune of $100B, how would you fix earth in 3 years?

#22

Post by djaahk »

The first thing to determine, as with any challenge, is goal definition and scope. What do we mean by "fixing the Earth", and for what stakeholders.

A few potential goal definitions which can be wildly contradictory: - maximise the probability for Earth to remain habitable until cosmic conditions (the Sun's decline) dictate otherwise, for humans, - ibid, but for for as many species as possible, - identify and implement the most optimal way to coexist as a species toaximised learning and knowledge advancement, - etc.

It feels like long-term, multi-national, consequential fundamental research could be undertaken on an interesting scale with such a budget. This in turn could highlight scenarii of different ways forward to inform and influence policy-making. It may be one of the best ways to spend it.

Re: Ask HN: You have a fortune of $100B, how would you fix earth in 3 years?

#23

Post by MrDresden »

No one Jeff Bezo$ type is single handedly going to fix the world.

I would instead recognize that I am no expert in how to solve this crisis, and would probably do some unforseen harm if I would just start doing things that I personally believed were beneficial.

Instead I would put my truat in actual experta and acedemics and start pouring money into the starved research sector, as well as NGO's and other entities that produce science backed policy suggestions for governments all over the world.

We need to get everyone, and their policies, on the climate's side if we are to stand any chance of reverting the damage we have and continue to do.

Re: Ask HN: You have a fortune of $100B, how would you fix earth in 3 years?

#24

Post by singularity2001 »

Some unrefined ideas just as thought fodder:

Fund and establish the Green party in the US (and in other countries if some cash is left after paying all the lawyers)

Support those efforts making ecocide an international crime.

Strengthen the Den Hague court.

Create an international task force to arrest war criminals anywhere on earth.

Invent mangrove farms (they must yield _some_ economic value?)

Take all good people of influence on a boat trip to support your cause.

Re: Ask HN: You have a fortune of $100B, how would you fix earth in 3 years?

#25

Post by singularity2001 »

poormystic wrote: post #3

How is this a problem you can fix with money? Isn't it necessary, first of all, to change human expectations of life, and perception of wealth? I say your project is impossible.

$100B is a lot of money to influence human ideology: Create a hollywood movie about a realistic Utopia without all the shortcomings of the current system(s), and hope that people strife to implement that vision. etc

Re: Ask HN: You have a fortune of $100B, how would you fix earth in 3 years?

#26

Post by xnx »

frnkng wrote: post #7

You can‘t fix any of the earths problems by spending money as an individual. Reason: in societies with free or semi free markets all opportunities that generate profit are exploited by economic activity. Even if they are horribly dirty like tar oil extraction in Canada or lignite coal mining in Europe. There is only one way forward: The external costs of the economic activity must be internalised. There are two solut…

Right on so many counts. Biodiversity and habitat destruction is what we should talk about when we talk about climate change.

Re: Ask HN: You have a fortune of $100B, how would you fix earth in 3 years?

#27

Post by jacknews »

We need to end the way we currently do agriculture, particularly meat.

So I would fund alternative food startups - even by subsidizing existing products, to ramp up scale, and thus attract technology investments and lower costs, in exactly the same way as has happened with govt. support for solar panels

Re: Ask HN: You have a fortune of $100B, how would you fix earth in 3 years?

#28

Post by gremlinsinc »

Not to sound evil, cause I'm an egalitarian.... but I think humanity's only hope would be Thanos at this point...

Except the only people included in the snap are: authoritarian regimes, militias, leaders as well as all politicians, diplomats, judges, lawyers, corporate boards, oligarchs, anyone worth more than a billion, hummer / gas guzzler drivers etc...also I'd cause a world-wide emt that would disable electric grids for awhile...

Every country would basically run elections to decide if they want to keep their current constitution, start from scratch, or join a bigger union globally or regionally or split into smaller city-states... then they draft new legal frameworks/constitutions etc... if nothing changes Thanos threatens to return every decade and rinse/repeat.

Kind of like Sodom and Gomorrah, I guess...though i'm agnostic.

I think finding non-existing infinity stones though might cost > $100 billion lol.

Alternately as someone else said...buy politicians lol.. <-- that is probably the most effective way to push an agenda/make change -sadly.

Re: Ask HN: You have a fortune of $100B, how would you fix earth in 3 years?

#29

Post by voisin »

frnkng wrote: post #7

You can‘t fix any of the earths problems by spending money as an individual. Reason: in societies with free or semi free markets all opportunities that generate profit are exploited by economic activity. Even if they are horribly dirty like tar oil extraction in Canada or lignite coal mining in Europe. There is only one way forward: The external costs of the economic activity must be internalised. There are two solut…

> There is only one way forward: The external costs of the economic activity must be internalised.

So true. Even if, as OP posted, you did something like cover the Great Lakes in green algae, if you fail to force everyone to internalize negative externalities, it would just be a matter of time before any gains were destroyed again.

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