But it should lead to a total revaluation that ends not with the embrace of an alterantive set of values but with the rejection of the idea that there is a right or superior value system (Napoleon and Caesar can be argued to reject one set of values in favor of their preferred alternative). — Joshs

But I don't think, and I don't think N. did either, that Ceasar or Napoleon believed that there was a right or superior value system... at least in any objective or metaphysical sense.

Everyone operates on the basis of a frame of reference, perspective, point of view. Nietzsche's Overman doesn't do away with perspective-taking and value positing, only suprrasensory values. — Joshs

As you put it quite nicely here, it cannot mean the total rejection of any value positing. So I don't see how Napoleon or Ceasar positing their own would necessarily be contrary to the idea of the overman.

So, you'd be right that in practice the Übermensch is a God-King, rather than an Anarchist.
But it's ironic, because there's no difference - as neither is above the law,even if it's just because they constitute it. — Shamshir

Right, I think it's important to figure out what 'unbound by a creed' means in practice? I don't think that could just mean unbound by any sort of personal 'values or ideas based on those', because that would just be random stupidity. What I take it to mean is that you are able to transcend the specific values and norms you were raise with and transform them in something that is more your own, based on your own character and instincts.

So... on the one hand Nietzsche admired Jesus Christ because he was able to withstand the societal norms he was raised with, and came up with his own, because of his 'transvaluation of values'. But on the other hand he derided him in the anti-christ because of his particular psychological make-up that gave rise to that transvaluation. Nietzsche argues that it was because of his "extreme susceptibility to pain and irritation", because of his "instinctive exclusion of all aversion, all hostility, all
bounds and distances in feeling" that he came to his particular transvaluation of values, the doctrine of the saviour. I'd argue that this psychological archetype is similar to that of the anarchist. Indeed if you take the stories about the life of Jesus Christ at face value, on could argue that he was actually very akin to a sort of anarchist, in that he was constantly in conflict with the rule of Jewish priests and Roman Authority. He was 'unbound by a creed', but that was the result, if you buy into Nietzsche psychological analysis, of a weakness.

I'd agree that Napoleon and Ceasar could be viewed ultimately as 'pilars' of their respective communities, but not before they had fundamentally transformed them by imposing their values on rules on the entire community. Ceasar organised the Roman republic into a de facto monarchy and created a ton of new laws, after decades of civil war and disorder. And Napoleon cleaned up after the fall of the Ancien Regime and the revolution, and came up with for instance a code of civil law that is still the basis of the current continental European legal system. I'd argue they were not merely anchored to their communities as a sort of passive reciever, but rather they transformed them into something else, based on their personal valuesystems. And I think one cannot really transform societal values if one is really 'bound by a creed'.

The difference in those transformation is then I think, for Nietzsche, that the one comes from weakness, idealism and a denial of the world, and the other from strength, mastery and an intimate knowledge of that world.

Maybe you're right, don't have time to respond now, I'll come back to it later...

Well I think both, the anarchist and the Napoleon/Ceasar, are 'above a creed'. The difference is, I think, that anarchism implies some sort of idealism for a world wherein laws and such don't exist or could be abolished... whereas a Ceasar or a Napoleon didn't believe that was a possibility or ideal to be achieved, but rather made use of that reality.

The thing about Christanity, Buddhism and Toasism is that they tend to the universal, trying to transcent particular traditions of peoples, Völker... and in that proces loose what anchors them to their particular context.

In greece, you had the oral Homeric tradition wherein the greek culture was perpetuated. Plato was also such a step in the direction of an universalism with his metaphysical 'contextless' Forms. He riled against poetry for a reason.

The übermensch being a sort of anarchist is a bit of a hard sell I think. Above the law yes, but more as a Napoleon or a Ceasar, than as an anarchist.

Russell was a pacifist, so presumably he would have to let himself get beat up by Nietzsche if he wants to stay true to his philosophy.

Yes it would seem hard to convincingly scathe the Apollonian in a long structured and systematic treatise :-)

Because, if you are after understanding Nietzsche, and you want to understand his influences, it is better to study Schopenhauer first. — ernestm

Sure, reading him will help your understanding too, in particular how Nietsche got his idea about the importance of the will, and how his idea of it differs from Schopenhauers... but still Plato is the start of the whole thing, the rest being footnotes and all that.

I don't know about Platonism being the first manifestation of the Apollonian, it's been a while since i've read BoT, but wasn't the tragic a fusion of the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The problem with platonism was that it was 'only' Apollonian.

Boring or not, if you don't know anything about the thing someone is a critiquing, how can you possibly evaluate that critique?

And I doubt you will understand a lot of what is Nietzsche is saying about the dionysian, if you don't get what it meant in the Greek society, and how Plato was a product of things going the wrong way in Greek culture.

Did you read the rest of my post? I said you need read it to understand what he is critiquing, not because I think, or Nietzsche thinks, it is a particularly good work of philosophy.

Here's another slightly different recommendation, start with Plato, maybe specifically Plato's republic. A lot of Nietzsche is a direct or indirect critique of Plato's idea's, and you'll be missing a lot of his points if you didn't read at least some of Plato.

And maybe I'll also note two important idea's of Nietzsche, the one following the other, sort of...

He believes Plato, and all subsequent philosophers that were inspired by Plato's work, got it backwards with his forms. That is basicly the beginning of Beyond Good and Evil. For Nietzsche the world is not a mere shadow of the Forms which are prior to that world and more real metaphysically... but conversely forms and idea come out this world, out of humans. Or to put in an other way, the highest abstractions are not 'high' because they are prior and more real than lower abstractions, but because they are more abstracted away from the world we observe... and so more empty (of information).

This brings him to the method he is going to use for his inquiry, which is discussed a bit further in the beginning of Beyond and Evil. Since he doesn't believe we have this direct access to something metaphysically real like Plato's Forms, what are philosophers actually talking about when they talk about things like the Truth? For Nietzsche these ideas do not come from some pure unbiased dialectic (as they would probably have it), but spring from the instincts and drives of the particular individual that came up with them. So his goal is not necessarily to engage with the truthvalue of those idea, but to look for what motivated those ideas in the first place, like a psychologist... That is basicly his main method of inquiry.

And I'll throw in a third point, the thing you need to understand is that he's a moral philosopher. Although still quite wide, his domain of inquiry is specifically morality. Where do moral ideas come from, what is the value of morality in general, what about some of the more specific incarnations of morality like Christianity etc etc...

I was just googling types of philosophy and found out that philosophy covers a lot; From ethics to environmental philosophy, there's a ton of material. Heck, you can even philosophize about philosophizing. My question is concerning the domain of philosophy. As the title of this OP says: What can't you philosophize about? Is there something so mundane that there simply no application for philosophy? Perhaps you can't philosophize about eating porridge.

I can already see you responding to my OP by demanding what I mean by philosophizing. I'll preemptively respond to that demand by saying, I don't know exactly what it means to philosophize. I need your help. I leave it to you to first figure out what it means to philosophize, and then you can please answer my first question (see title). I hope this goes well. — Purple Pond

Some will no doubt disagree with this, but I think, going back to the beginning with Socrates, philosophy, or at least good philosophy, is ultimately about how to live well. And to find answers to that question, it uses language in a particular way, by utilizing logic and formulating arguments.

So then to answer the first question, one would have to look for things that don't lend them especially well to be analysed with language and reasoned arguments. And I'd suggest you'll find those there where other forms of communication and expression that rely more on rhythm and sound, like music and poetry, are typically more succesfull.

What I find particularly interesting is the part about wisdom and knowledge, and how Lao Tzu suggests people would be better off without these things. Intuitively I can understand what is meant by this statement, however I've found it difficult to put this to words.

Does knowledge lead to arrogance and a false sense of understanding?
Does knowledge cause us to worry about things which have no bearing on our lives?
Does knowledge seek to replace intuition as a method of understanding?

These are some questions (to which I have no clear answers) that spring to my mind when contemplating this verse. — Tzeentch

One of Nietzsches quotes along these line is : "There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy"

Or another one : "I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go."

My interpretation is that we have a need for knowledge/ wisdom... and so we go looking for it. Seems reasonable enough, however having a need for it doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. Maybe it isn't really attainable because the universe doesn't let itself be know that easily, or because human beings themselves are not really equipped to find it. If this were the case, looking for it could be futile and the 'answers' we come up with, mistakes... and then the search for knowledge or wisdom would lead us astray.

Another way to look at this, is looking at how language, logic... and knowledge operate. Knowledge is the process of finding generality among particulars and abstract away from those particulars to universals. Information/data of the world originally contained in those particulars gets lost in this process of abstraction. This abstracting away is what enables us to know things, which is very helpful so we don't have to start over from scratch every time. However, you can keep abstracting away in progressively higher abstractions until no information of the world is left, until it becomes vapid. This is, I think, what Nietzsche and Lao Tse are criticizing.

Sages of all ages have professed to "know" things that they really have no right to. Nietzches method here was to assume that these proclaimed systems of wisdom were merely "an autobiographical account of what that particular person in his particular situation needed' and to look for the moral and psychological reasons that person came to those particular conclusions. Anyway, the point is that if so called wisdom is merely something particular to a person in a certain age, with a certain psychological make-up, from a certain societal background etc... then this is not to be transposed or universally used by other people.

Another possibility it seems to me is that, even if they wanted to make the world a better place, they wouldn't know how. Figuring out how to maximize profit for your business typically is an easier question to solve, than how to make the world a better place longterm. Or at least it's hard to show with facts and figures that a certain course of action will result in the world being a better place… and so it's probably hard to justify.

Also, there are collective action problems. One business deciding to forgo short term profit for a long term better world might get out-competed by businesses that only have their short to medium-term profit in mind. Some things only really work when everybody, or most at least, get on board.

So then we established that the question is whether everyone should be allowed to vote on the people who will make the decisions.

As it stands, not everybody is allowed to vote, you have to have a certain age.

Other than that general age restriction, the difficulty to me seems to be how we will determine who should be allowed to vote. Since the vote is not directly related to the decisions that have to be made, but only to the people who we will grant the power to make decisions, the ability to assess peoples skills, abilities and character would be one of the primary abilities one would need to 'deserve' the right to vote. So then the conclusion would be something like restricting voting to HR managers and psychologists?

Okay, anything else?

Claws and tails… and what about culture, tradition, upbringing? Do they also form emotional responses? And if so, does this still count as authentic, uninhabited?

Yes they define our value and motivation, but could there be anything that defines them? Or are they some force we are born with and nothing can influence it, other than maybe too much rational thought?

And to give some more explanation to my question, I want to examine the assumption that feelings are 'authentic' without rational thought. Are there other factors shaping 'the heart', feelings and intuitions? What counts as authentic? If animals are the measure, are there other things that seperate us from them other then rational thought?

Yes sorry that's what i mean. I was paraphrasing your sentence, and messed up somehow :-)

There's a need for uninhabited, emotional reaction if we're going to make human and compassionate decisions. — Edward

Here's a question, do you think that emotional reactions are necessarily unhabited without rational thought? Or put in another way, is rational thought the only way emotional reactions can become 'inhabited'?

People will compete for the power to rule.

Absent any system or rules, that competition will be brutal and bloody.

Democracy is one of the ways transition of the power to rule can be resolved peacefully.

And I'd say it's a rather succesfull way to go about that in particular, because by definition it gives legitimicy to the (new) rule. Without legitimicy, chances are you get unrest and, again, more bloodshed.

So, I guess my point is that faulting democracy for its lack of meritocratic decision-making misses the point.

Also typically, in most democratic system, people don't have a say in decision-making anyway because they are representative democracies (i.e. the people only get to vote on who will take the decisions).

Religion poisons everything?! — OP

Bit late to the party, but here's my two cents...

If by religion he means the religions he knows (Christianity, and judeo-christian religions) then i would tend to agree. If he means all religions, then I'd disagree.

Religion is supposed to be a veneration of the highest values in a given society, a veneration of all that is good… Judeo-Christian religions specifically tend to focus on life-denying values, but not all religions before were like that.

We are social creatures, and religion probably plays a vital role in a flourishing society. As philosophers we tend to pride ourselves on standing outside the masses, on our individualism… but ultimately I think, individualism is merely a solution to a bad situation, and far from the pinacle of what we can achieve, and as such nothing to be all that proud of really.

Karl stone, to illustrate my point further, what about for instance Hindoeism and its caste system? That civilization, and the religion it is build on, goes back even further than the Judeo-Christian traditions. Nietzsche at least thought that particular system was older and more sophisticated than Christianity. How would we know that one is more 'natural' than the other?

I think I agree with that, 'a-moral virtu', that is beyond 'good and evil' but not beyond 'good and bad'.

My argument is not that hunter gatherer tribes untied "because" of their discovery of God - they united because of the practical benefits you allude to. God is not the why, but the how. Specifically, how they overcame the 'alpha male' problem. They adopted a common understanding of reality, in which God served as objective authority for laws that applied equally to everyone. This created a template for how society was possible - and that template was reworked endlessly before we get to Judeo Christian morality. — karl stone

Ok, I agree with this. God as a way of giving morality it's authority...

Then there's a misunderstanding in Nietzsche - following from Darwin's survival of the fittest, actually not Darwin - but Darwin's bulldog, name of Huxely, I think - that natural morality was merely selfish and violent. I don't believe that's so - in part because of the fact they stuck together and raised children. — karl stone

Well I think for Nietzsche there wasn't a single 'natural' morality. Both were natural. He believed in types, with different moralities suitable for them. The problem he thought was the one came to dominate the other historically by the reversal of values, so that higher types also came to believe they had to adopt that morality. Even with a morality based on the idea of God, you still need someone to rule and make the laws, because 'the idea' of God doesn't create morals by itself...

All that said, the "transvaluation of values" is a real phenomenon. It's the difference between tribal and multi-tribal morality, wherein the former, is the rule of the alpha male, and the latter, an explicit moral code justified with reference to the authority of God, applying equally to both tribes within the fledgling society. Nietzsche's misunderstanding of this phenomenon led him to God is dead, nihilism and the unermennsch. But he's wrong. Even the alpha male within the hunter gatherer tribe was not selfish, immoral and brutal. When that happens in chimpanzee society - the beta males join forces and drive him out or kill him. — karle stone

As I allude to before, I think 'God is dead' and 'nihilism' were mere descriptions of what he saw happening allready (Believing God is dead leads to nihilism because people don't really believe in the values anymore). The 'ubermensch' was his attempt at revaluation of values.... after nihilism was a fact of current Christian culture.

It's also important to note I think that he didn't think that altruism and selfishness were opposites, the one flows from the other. Altruïsm he saw as an overflowing of strenght... The higher morality as Nietsche saw it also wasn't merely selfish, immoral and brutal, but more in line with traditional noble valuations, or a-moral classical Virtù as Machiavelli saw it.

I don't know much about Nazis - as I said at the beginning. I have only the most cursory understanding of how Nietzsche plays into Nazism, and have shied away from comment on that matter. I'm more familiar with the idea of the ubermensch as it plays out in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. A great book, well worth reading - for it indicates, something else I believe follows from the evolutionary reality, and goes undiscovered and misunderstood by Nietzsche.

In my view, human beings are moral creatures. Chimpanzees are moral creatures in a primitive tribalistic sense. Raskalinkov kills two women because he thinks himself above herd morality - but that's not the seat of morality. It's in us, ingrained by evolution in a tribal context. — karl stone

I've read Crime and punishment... and Nietzsche also read at least some of Dostoevsky's books, as he compliments him on his great psychological,insights, and i agree with that. But I just don't think they were adressing entirely the same problem, or at least their solution was of a different type as Dostoevsky was thinking about how a society at large could function, and there religion plays a vital role. Nietzsche was only thinking about a way forward for a certain type of people, he was a virtu ethicist... a book for none and all.

It only becomes explicit - where hunter gatherer tribes need to join together, and that's religion. Nietzsche didn't understand this, but Dostoevsky did, because Raskalinkov breaks down under the weight of his guilty conscience. He can't even spend the proceeds of the crime while he's starving. So, there is no ubermensch because human beings are possessed of an innate moral sensibility. Nietzsche is quite simply factually incorrect. — karl stone

The jury's still out I'd say... we have an innate moral sensibility, in the sense that we have an aptitute to devellop morals, but what kind of morals isn't set in stone, I don't think.

My excuses for the hiatus, I've been awfully busy the last couple of days...

If hunter gatherers had not discovered God, and appointed him as an objective authority for social morality - such that, tribes could overcome their natural tribal hierarchies without slaughtering eachother, the civilization that gave rise to the Nazis could not have occurred, and we'd still be running around in the forest with sharp sticks — karl stone

My point was that Nietzsche wasn't talking about God or religion in general, but about Christianity and the Christian God. So even if it were true that hunter gatherers united because of their discovery of God, which I doubt ( I think technology, agriculture was the primary cause and religion followed to 'keep' these new societies together), even then this isn't a counter argument to Nietzsches point. As I said, he was making a point about a specific occurrence in history, the reversal of values by Judaism and the consequent rise of Christianity over the values of ancient Greece and Rome.

Religion in general is not necessarily a reversal of values, but an extension and veneration of those values. Greek and Roman religion for instance had a whole pantheon of Gods with all kinds of values embodied in the different Gods. The relative novelty of Judeo-Christian religions was their monotheism (Zoroastrism went there before) and their ascetic denial of all that is human except for the moral good. Sure we have a sense of morality ingrained, but that is not all we are... Nietzsche view was that focusing only on this aspect of humanity, as Christian culture did, leads to an impoverished cultivation of the human being.

As for Nazism, it has little to do with Nietzsche's philosophy because he had nothing to say about politics. His philosophy was a kind of virtue ethics, aimed at the individual, he wasn't advocating any kind of socio-political organization. And Hitler was merely a politician, who used bits of random philosophy to make his political ideas appealing to the masses, as politicians do. I don't think it's even feasible to use the same argument to refute both Nietzsche's philosophy and Nazism.

The Nazis wouldn't have been possible if hunter gatherers had not invented religion to overcome the aplha male problem, and join together to form societies and civilizations, Nietzsche and the Nazis did not understand this. Were it not for the "transvaluation of values" inherent to Judeo-Christian morality - we'd still be running around naked in the forest with sharp sticks. — karl stone

I don't think I agree with this. We were long past running arround naked with sharp sticks when Judeo-christian morality came arround. Or I probably should say when judeo-christian morality became the dominant religion. Judaism and christianity were marginal cults well into the later years of the Roman Empire. A lot of historians even cite the rise of Christianity as one of the main causes of the downfall of the empire... so at least in that historical case, it seems it was a source of anti-civilization rather then the opposite. I think Nietzsche understood this very well, he started out as a classical philologist, he certainly knew his history (one of the things he accused other philosophers, of being a-historical).

And as far as I can tell, history really was a story of cultures with a more war-like morality conquering other more cultured/peacefull civilizations, and then they often kept their power by forming a small ruling class who controlled the military. Oligarchies, which is what most systems seem to naturally (d)evolve into...

Arguably, it began with Galileo's imprisonment and trail for heresy in 1634 - which somewhat contradicts your assertion that truth is a core Christian value. If you think Christianity is truth then sure, it's a core value — Karl stone

Yeah sure, it's not that straightforward. The bible was the truth, and disaggreement with that was heresy. Still the value of truthfullness was generally important for Christanity, even if we would not consider their idea of the truth what we now would consider the truth. Look at all of the scholastics and their endless attempts at proving God. Why go through all the trouble of proving God if mere faith in God could suffice? Nietzsches idea is that these mental gymnastics of the scholastics helped to prepare the scientific revolution by increasing the tension of the 'logic' bow... so it could be discharged to aim at something further, scientific truth.

Good posts, but...

His claim was that naturalistic morality was overthrown as a consequence of the weak fooling the strong with religious morality. — karl stone

I don't think he said or meant religious morality unspecified, I think he meant Jewish morality. He didn't necessarily have a problem with religion in general, but with Christianity. Usually he was talking about European Culture only. So I don't think your point really follows :

That's a misunderstanding. Religious morality is actually social morality necessary for hunter gatherer tribes to join together.. — karl stone

One might therefore speculate that, Nietzsche declaring "God is dead" undermined moral values justified by divine authority, and thereby allowed for the 'uncivilized' behaviors of the Nazis. — karl stone

Nietzsche didn't declare 'God is dead' himself, it was a description of what had allready happened at that time... but people generally didn't fully realise the ramifications of it yet. If the cornerstone 'God' falls, so must the morality that is build on it eventually, it's a package deal of sorts. Scientific inquiry killed God, or in other words the search for truth killed God.... or ultimately, Christianity killed God itself because truth was one of it's core values.

but I would argue that we do not have any reliable means of determining which. — Isaac

Yes we do, if they make bad arguments or weird assumptions just to come to certain conclusions. Then we know they just want to prove their prejudices. Kant for instance, was evidently very troubled by Hume, and pulled out all the stops just to retain the idea of God.

When is Philosphy just Bolstering the Status Quo?

When it's primary concerned with what should be, instead of what is. Or in other words, good philosophy starts with accurate description, not with proscription.

But, this is what I'm attempting to focus on here. — Jake

Ok, I think they will be different, like I said because the difference is that we created and can easily change the one, and not the other. The world we live in, simulated or not, is subject to among other things the laws of physics... and as such if we want to change it, we can only do so within those constraints.

It's difficult to say a lot about how the ones we will create will look like, because there even the sky will not be the limit... the possibilities are in principle only limited by our imagination. But, there are some already existing traditions of simulated worlds you might want to look into, to get an idea of what might happen. For instance RPG(RolePlayingGame)-worlds have been created and used for a few decennia now. Typically these are created with constraints to what one can do, and incentives systems for leveling (growth), to keep things "fun". A simulated world wherein literally everything is possible typically doesn't hold the interest of people, because there is no progression possible. To harken back to Nietzsche - as I tend to do - what people want is "the feeling of increase in power"... power cannot increase if you allready can do everything. So it seems likely that the simulated worlds that will be created in the future will have some contraints and incentives build-in to keep people engaged.

How would you what the real world is like when you don't or possibly can't distinguish between the two? — TheMadFool

Alright, then forget about the word 'real'. What is 'really real' doesn't matter one iota unless you want metaphysical certainty, i.e. knowlegde for knowlegde sake. For practical purposes it's enough that a simulated world that we create is different from the one we might be living in, because there we are not the creators and we can't re-create it to align perfectly with our wishes... and that difference does matter, to us as human beings.

Meh, if it's a simulated world already, it's certainly not one I can easily change with my ideas alone, unlike say Virtual Reality... it's functionally the same as a real world, which is what really matters it seems to me.

The philosophical question might be, what are the implications of finally getting what one really wants? Is that a utopia, or the beginning of the end? — Jake

Good question, I've been thinking along the same lines... that 'idealism' could finally become the case afterall. We can't be certain of what's going to happen of course, but the idea that we possibly won't have to adjust our wishes to an external world, seem more like the beginning of the end to me... for homo sapiens anyway. Being forced to adapt and adjust your wishes to an external world, seems to be something of vital importance for the devellopment of a healthy human being.

We've got a long way to go before we can match those science fiction visions, but we are moving steadily in that direction. — Jake

Have you tried the most recent VR-technology allready? Like for instance the one you can get standard on a playstation now... We're not that far off it seems to me. This kind of VR will be massive in the not to distant future, mark my words, not in the least because of its possible applications in the porn industry.

I basically agree with the opening post.

People generally think of 'the laws' that govern human societies and behavior as if these are things that can just be altered at a moments notice, unlike the laws of nature... I don't think this is justified.

Drastic measures would need to be taken to prevent the worst temperature rises, measures that would harm societies in other ways. That is something very few politicians will have the courage for in democratic societies... and that is if we assume they have the power to take these measures to begin with, which they don't. Because in the end it's a world problem, and there is no 'we' or 'us', just a bunch of competing nations at best.

If we look at the track record of democratic governments solving problems proactively, which is needed to solve this kind of long term problem, then one can only conclude that it's not looking very good. For instance, look at how governments have dealt with saving up to finance for baby-boomers leaving the job-market. It's doesn't get any easier and more certain qua prediction than a demographic pyramid, and there have been times with a lot of financial possibilities.... yet here we are, scrambling to find solutions for the problem.

There is plenty of evidence that suggests that democratic governments are typically very bad at solving long term problems. This is not despairing, nor helping to close the window, this is just being honest about the chances... which is what philosophers and scientists should do in the first place it seems to me. Yes, hope and believing that we can solve the problem are necessary to actually solve the problem, because that's what motivates people into action. But that is not the philosopher or the scientist job, he should look clearly at what is... that is untainted by the 'holy lies' designed to achieve what should be.

Sorry for not responding earlier, it's been a busy few days...

No, you're right. The system I describe has all the thermodynamic efficiency of a steam train. There's an energy loss with conversion from electricity to hydrogen fuel, and from hydrogen fuel back into electrical energy - that's not dissimilar to the heat loss from the fire box and boiler of a steam locomotive. However, it's a clean process, and the sun is blazing down upon millions of square miles of ocean anyway. Capturing that sunlight and turning it into fuel made from seawater - effectively negates that thermodynamic inefficiency, like we'd still be using steam trains if we had an infinite amount of coal that didn't harm the environment. — karl stone

Well, arguably, given that applying this technology is premised upon accepting a scientific understanding of reality as authoritative - it follows that the market would put the science before the profit motive. I entirely accept there are experts who know better than me, and while I'd argue for my technological solution relative to others, there are other technologies - and the best scientific and technological advice to the market might not be my advice, in which case - listen to them. — karl stone

I certainly agree that from a scientific point of view it would be preferable to choose the cleaner and renewable energy over the cheapest energy. But I have my doubts that markets would put the science above the profit motive. They typically don't make any value judgements aside from the profit motive, right. Because that's what the stockholders want, more return on investment. And you get more profit when you sell more products or services. So the consumer decides in the end, and he typically will favor the cheaper products and services.

I don't see that dynamic changing any time soon, but one of three things could happen that will make renewable energy more viable economically : 1) the consumer will start to value 'clean and renewable' more as the situation gets more dire 2) governments start imposing more pollution taxes which drives up the price of the old energy sources, and 3) renewable energy becomes cheaper and cheaper in comparison, as technology advances and old energy sources get more expensive because of depletion.

The financial cost of building a nuclear power station is not the point. Climate change is the point. Nuclear power produces carbon free electricity, however, because construction requires as much as half the energy it will ever produce - it is only half as carbon neutral as it appears, and that's without taking into account the carbon costs of looking after the nuclear waste forever afterward. — karl stone

Right, though there are only carbon costs if we assume that the energy used for construction or looking after the nuclear waste is itself carbon energy? Or am I missing something?

I suggest we can mortgage fossil fuels while still in the ground, and use that money to apply sustainable energy technology. I also suggest floating solar panels at the equator, producing hydrogen fuel - did you read the OP? Solar panels would not provide electricity directly. Hydrogen fuel would be burnt in power stations, and electricity transmitted through existing grids. Thus, nighttime etc isn't an issue. — karl stone

Yeah my bad, I read the hydrogen part, but didn't think about it writing my post. It was more an example of the type of questions I would have.

I guess the main issue then might be the cost and efficiency of producing hydrogen. I allways hear that it's not particulary energy efficient, but i'm no expert so...

The mortgages and the hydrogen production are two seperate things it seems to me, as mortgages can be used to finance whatever renewable energy source. And the market would presumably favor the one that cost the least.

Oh super - you had a thought. I've been thinking about this for many, many years, but you think your off the cuff impressions are more likely to be true? Not! Did you know for example, that a nuclear power station requires about half the energy it will ever produce in the construction phase alone - and that's to say nothing of the carbon cost of managing nuclear waste forever afterward? — karl stone

Though I don't claim to be an expert, I did know that the construction costs were high, and I also know that the production cost itself of nuclear energy are very low. My point was only that the discussion seems more ideological than rational concerning nuclear energy, and that if needed, we should choose nuclear power rather then let CO2 levels rise... until we figure out how to run everything on renewables. But maybe we can allready.

Also i think we should look into the technological possibility of building a sun shield... it seems very probable by now that stopping CO2 emissions won't work, so we better start looking at some other technological solutions to keep temperatures acceptable.