Well, prestige is used as currency precisely because we as a society need a mechanism to generate knowledge that isn't (immediately) commercializable. I, for one, would find it tragic if we lost that.
2,044 karma · joined March 14, 2012
"Global cooling was a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth's surface and atmosphere culminating in a period of extensive glaciation. This hypothesis had little support in the scientific community, but gained temporary popular attention due to a combination of a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s and press reports that did not accurately reflect the full scope of the scientific climate literature, i.e., a larger and faster-growing body of literature projecting future warming due to greenhouse gas emissions."
But this is so easy to find that I suspect the details don't really matter to you. Perhaps another wikipedia article might help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning
His actual prediction is beside the point - he laid it out in enough detail for the reader to intelligently disagree, if they had better information on the drivers he identified.
I blame Hollywood.
- High variance : Even though deaths to date are low, there is a non-zero chance that someone will manage to pull off a very large attack (9/11 is an example, the next one might be a dirty bomb)
- Escalation : The point of terrorism is to create fear - if low level attacks don't promote fear the incentive is just to escalate until the attacks reach a point that does trigger a reaction. In other words - you're battling a human opponent and they will adjust their tactics to what you do.
In general relativity, space-time curvature is the gravitational field, so I'm not quite sure what distinction you're trying to draw?
- Preventing the emergence of warring factions [1]
- Enforcement of rules underlying market transactions (e.g., contract law, property rights, policing, etc.)
- Underinvestment in public goods, such as basic research and national defense [2]
There is zero evidence that these three things are addressable at scale without some type of government, although of course we are free to argue forever about the level of centralisation, marginal tax rates, precise scope of activities, and so on.