Thread by @AlexandraErin

The fact that successfully flattening the curve for hospital demand in 2020 basically axiomatically meant that hospital supply went down IN A PANDEMIC is ringing around in my head with that thread about how the problem with solar power is it's basically free.

https://twitter.com/tnicholsmd/status/1416921159476465676

There can be no straight line from capitalist society to a post-scarcity world because capitalism craves scarcity and recoils from its opposite. Even when the survival of society and thus the economy is at stake, capitalism can, will, and must set fire to the land of plenty.

We need to nationalize the power grid under a government mandate where renewable, clean energy for climate survival is the primary goal, literal power to the people is the second, and profit is not on the radar.

And we need to remove the profit motive from the healthcare sector, starting with dismantling the insurance industry and just getting that out of the equation entirely.

The point of the MIT Tech Review thread that labeled the cheapness of solar energy as a "problem" was that with declining long term profitability for power producers, there's no market incentive to build the infrastructure.

But that's literally what public works are for.

Few would argue that it has not been profitable for private companies to be able to reach rural and remote customers with delivery packages and electricity for appliances and gadgets.

But there was not much direct profit in establishing rural roads, mail service, or electricity.

There are some things that are not profitable for any one company or person to build or operate but which are both essential for our society's sustained existence/growth and immensely profitable to society as a whole (including individuals and companies within it).

We need solar power. It's not profitable? Okay, then it's a public work. Oh, this means private energy companies can't compete with the government? Boo hoo. They can take a buy out and find something they're good at. Their "right" to profit doesn't outweigh our survival.

I'd say they could use their expertise and equipment to manage the grid but we've seen how they do that and we've seen that they'll literally kill people in their homes to keep their profits up so no thank you.

It's like that buff dog vs. crying dog meme where on the left it would be "COMPETITION REWARDS INNOVATION AND CREATES INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS, CREATING THE BEST POSSIBLE RESULT FOR THE CONSUMER" and on the right it would be "pwease don't make me compete with stuff people can afford"

And yet there are magic words in your tweet: "like there are with any other form". We're not trying to replace a magical free lunch form of electrical generation with a uniquely constrained one; we're supplementing imperfect with imperfect.

https://twitter.com/RadicalGoats/status/1417117478279389184

The Tech Review thread I referred to didn't say no private company was getting into solar power; it posited a wall in solar power development on the basis of diminishing returns as it gets cheaper and cheaper.

My argument here is not that solar power is magic and will destroy capitalism. It's that capitalism cannot be allowed to get in the way of renewable energy development.

Forget decarbonization, then? It's a distraction here. If you assumed that the consumer's access to electrical power or to goods created using electrical power at the cheapest possible price point for any given time is an unbridled good, my point remains.

https://twitter.com/RadicalGoats/status/1417119720218767360

Okay. I get the feeling you're on a hobby horse here, given that you're leaving multiple numbered threads as replies, but I'm not particularly a "staunch anti-capitalist"? I see nationalizing essential services as necessary to enable a marketplace.

https://twitter.com/RadicalGoats/status/1417120794061287428

Unless something in your threads is meant to convey that adding more solar infrastructure perversely takes power out of the grid rather than adding more very cheaply at uneven hours, I'm not seeing the relevance here.

I guess I had a different takeaway from the thread -- I have not referred to the article because I didn't read it -- as I saw it as more (somewhat clumsily) getting at the idea that diminishing returns are a barrier to investment in building more of it.

https://twitter.com/RadicalGoats/status/1417122968665268229

And I hope you will forgive me for saying that I don't understand why what "many people" are saying has to do with what "this specific person right here" is saying. I feel like you're thread dumping a pet peeve in my mentions right now.

The bottom line is that I care more about solutions than ideology. If a person needs an expensive medicine today or they'll die today, a perfect socialist revolution tomorrow that will usher in universal healthcare the day after tomorrow won't help them.

Which isn't a reason to *not* have universal healthcare in the future, but it's also not a reason to not help the person today who needs help within the existing capitalist framework.

I don't believe the laws of physics allows for free power. I have responded skeptically to utopian schemes involving orbital mirrors or space-borne solar collection arrays that people think will make solar power a 24/7 unmetered, unlimited power source.

My point is this: if MIT Tech Review is correct in asserting that diminishing returns on selling solar power are an insurmountable barrier to expansion of the solar infrastructure, then we should nationalize it. Not because I think it's *everything*, but because it's *something*.

And to expand the point: I think that if you're a capitalist* or a socialist, you should want essential services and infrastructure nationalized. The market's not good at them!

(*In the belief sense, even if you don't possess capital per se yourself, as most "capitalists don't)

The market's "efficiency" is in extracting profit, not providing a good (in the sense of a benefit, not specifically a product). Take the essential frameworks of modern life out of the market's hands, and it can ignore more of what it's bad at.

Sure. Fine. I think I've explicitly clarified I'm referring to a thread and not an article that I never otherwise mentioned, and I feel I've also been clear that I'm not doing

Step 1: Solar power
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Infinite electricity!

https://twitter.com/RadicalGoats/status/1417128090690596866