Why do you think an economist understands more about the world than a businessman that makes his fortune based on predictions about how things evolve?
Because financiers look at things in the short term—they look for fluctuations in prices and policies over a scale of days, months or <1 decade at most. What we’re doing here is something that has basically nothing to do with the vagaries of the market and everything to do with long term economic trends in resource production and consumption.
He might not do IR theory but he’s a member of the steering committee of Bilderberg which makes him actively involved in interantional relations.
Well, great. Sure the guy is smart, but he’s no better than the scores or hundreds of other businessmen who have similar credentials. Tons of those businessmen invest in oil and gas and other commodities and think they are going to continue to be strong industries with strong resource bases, rising demand and minimal environmental concerns; others don’t invest in them because they expect availability to remain high.
Tons of these businessmen also invest in all sorts of other things besides oil and gas. People invest in healthcare, technology, retail, aerospace, and all sorts of other things, but it doesn’t mean there’s an impending shortage of any of those things. Even the people that you mention don’t appear to explicitly believe that energy shortages are the most important thing to worry about or invest in: Bill Gates has invested in tons of projects and supports plenty of initiatives besides nuclear power. Wiblin isn’t saying that energy is unimportant, he’s saying that it’s not the most important issue, and Gates hasn’t demonstrated prioritization of energy over the disjunction of other issues. As for Musk, saying “SpaceX isn’t directly about resource production but it’s about spending a lot less resources for going to space” means nothing—it’s like saying that Walmart is trying to save resources because they’re about spending a lot less resources for delivering manufactured products to consumers.
Again, sure these people are smart. But they’re not geniuses, and they screw up too, and of course they have little directly relevant formal education and no research experience pertaining to these issues. Just because they want to do good in the world (who doesn’t?) and EA-ish doesn’t mean they’re right about everything. It doesn’t qualify them to be better authorities than a typical researcher in the field.
Because financiers look at things in the short term—they look for fluctuations in prices and policies over a scale of days, months or <1 decade at most. What we’re doing here is something that has basically nothing to do with the vagaries of the market and everything to do with long term economic trends in resource production and consumption.
Well, great. Sure the guy is smart, but he’s no better than the scores or hundreds of other businessmen who have similar credentials. Tons of those businessmen invest in oil and gas and other commodities and think they are going to continue to be strong industries with strong resource bases, rising demand and minimal environmental concerns; others don’t invest in them because they expect availability to remain high.
Tons of these businessmen also invest in all sorts of other things besides oil and gas. People invest in healthcare, technology, retail, aerospace, and all sorts of other things, but it doesn’t mean there’s an impending shortage of any of those things. Even the people that you mention don’t appear to explicitly believe that energy shortages are the most important thing to worry about or invest in: Bill Gates has invested in tons of projects and supports plenty of initiatives besides nuclear power. Wiblin isn’t saying that energy is unimportant, he’s saying that it’s not the most important issue, and Gates hasn’t demonstrated prioritization of energy over the disjunction of other issues. As for Musk, saying “SpaceX isn’t directly about resource production but it’s about spending a lot less resources for going to space” means nothing—it’s like saying that Walmart is trying to save resources because they’re about spending a lot less resources for delivering manufactured products to consumers.
Again, sure these people are smart. But they’re not geniuses, and they screw up too, and of course they have little directly relevant formal education and no research experience pertaining to these issues. Just because they want to do good in the world (who doesn’t?) and EA-ish doesn’t mean they’re right about everything. It doesn’t qualify them to be better authorities than a typical researcher in the field.