...interesting arguments abound here...whether it is the government or some private entity i do see some validity to the need, if for nothing else to add to the validation or debunking of certain resource related discussions (privatization of freshwater global investments into local farmlands surely should give most people pause...or not...)...it is not like being without the data gives us any benefit...and whether it is government or private entity abusing the resources it would be easier to see with a universal data set than without (the congo example a good one of the type of imbalance more worthy of attention)...i see this akin to sports...has data ruined the NBA (with 3pt line maximization) or the MLB (with a pitch clock and robot umps) or is it improving the mean and how the games should advance moving forward...there are legit arguments on both sides...but the modern era is showing that if nothing else data is one of our most coveted resources...don't see how it isn't needed here also...
I hadn't thought about the sports metaphor... In general the datafication of fields usually makes them better and more functional rather than worse. By the way, thanks for all your feedback.
This is a truly horrific idea--there's literally no endgame in which this is useful in a way that benefits players other than those who already have an established track record of ruthless behavior.
The arguments about China and Wagner are compelling inside the beltway, but both are paper tigers--Wagner is so incompetent and corrupt that it can't maintain supply lines a few hundred miles from home. China's state apparatus is rapidly degrading as its population hollows out underneath it, while Xi has become almost comically isolated. Sure, there's a new scramble for Africa, and it's gonna go on regardless.
The US, on the other hand, has historically used similar granular surveys to justify pushing people off their lands, institute land-use restrictions so onerous as to make the lands unusable, create situations where conglomerates can buy lands up out from under the hoi polloi, etc.
There is no situation in which "I can see every tree in the world" is a useful one to America's legitimate strategic interests, but it is a great way to lay on extra pretexts for seizure of resources from its own citizens and other countries--and, given the ongoing decay of US imperial efficacy, it creates a great set of pretexts for new, chaotic power moves that don't even benefit US hegemony, let alone US citizens.
"Truly horrific idea" is a bit insulting — maybe stop and catch your breath before replying. Do you not think the climate change conversation would benefit from better data on methane and carbon emissions? Are you opposed to using technology to map forests and to track deforestation in the Amazon? Do you object to the concept of maps or Google Earth? Are you opposed to providing greater visibility around water and minerals resources in west Texas, or would you rather let the Saudi-backed companies use this technology and capitalize on it? People will cry about mapping new things while being pleased we mapped the last thing. The arc of the world has been bending toward legibility and will continue to do so with respect to climate and natural resources.
I certainly didn't mean to insult you. But it is an horrific idea from where I'm standing.
One does not put the effort into mapping something except in an effort to further the ability to control that thing. I own a small forest which I manage according to very time-tested management practices for my biome. I am very much uninterested in the Dept. of the Interior or the EPA interfering more than they already do--their management of public lands over the last century has been a scandal (and that's putting it kindly).
To answer your questions in order:
1) No, "better" data on emissions won't help at all. We have plenty of granularity on this subject already, and the only reason it's a conversation at all is that there's a LOT more money for the patron class in renewables (which are all net environmental losers) than there is in nuclear (which is a net environmental winner even after factoring in over-regulation).
2) Not particularly my business, but if I was a forest owner in the Amazon, or an indigenous tribe, I would certainly not find the prospect of this lever of granularity congenial. If you want to track deforestation, existing landsats do the job perfectly well (and are already being used for this).
3) Why on earth would anyone care about the West Texas watershed or mineral loads other than the people who own and/or are in the market for the water rights and mineral rights? Excepting, of course, a government with one eye on the possibility of resource nationalization.
On the subject of Saudi-backed companies, it's much more straightforward to limit or prohibit foreign ownership of extraction companies. Another data mining tool doesn't change the landscape on this issue a whit, either.
Nothing you've mentioned actually benefits from this level of surveillance--but it will certainly further the ability of governments and the monied interests that buy access to/through them.
Which brings us to the elephant in the room:
We're not talking about mapping at all. We're talking about ongoing surveillance of every private and natural space on the planet that's an order of magnitude (or more) more intensive and granular than what we're already faced with.
You're wrong about people being pleased any time something is mapped. I've literally met nobody who is pleased once they learn how personal association networks are mapped by the NSA and its associated agencies, or how all financial transactions are mappable by the FBI, or how easily their private thoughts are divined through creative data mining. The only reason "everyone is pleased that we mapped the last thing" is because they do not know about it or understand its implications.
Cartography is not a disinterested endeavor--it is, and always has been, a means to the furtherance of power. Sometimes, that's a really good thing. Other times, it's a very sinister one. You, like me, are old enough to remember the Sasi and the NKVD and the Church hearings, I don't think I'm out of line in believing that I'm not hurting for mutually legible examples of how this kind of thing goes wrong.
Yes, you're going to be able to find customers for this, but there's no business case for it that isn't already met or meet-able by other existing means. Intelligence agencies, on the other hand, are gonna cream their shorts. The ultimate case for a tool like this is implied (unintentionally, I assume) within the premise of your final sentence:
Universal legibility means universal control (or at least the ability to do so).
This is a sensible thing to desire if you believe that the institutions we have are both 1) Up to the task of managing such power with integrity, and 2) will not be easily captured. Unfortunately, all the evidence of history--both the history of our own government and of every other government of size--testifies to the contrary.
I did. Like everything of yours, it was splendidly written. I just find myself fundamentally opposed to the premise and reasoning (usually I'm almost entirely on the same page--or at least in the same chapter--as you, just not on this one).
Your comments came across like you were responding to a headline rather than the substance of what I wrote. For one thing, this was not a pitch for a company.
There are many valid issues, criticisms and open questions about natural resources intelligence, including some of the ones you raised.
My apologies for the confusion on my part that created confusion on your part. I didn't read it as a pitch for the company, but as an enthusiastic propounding of a new project your company was undertaking.
"disturbed individual" — if you're going to insult me at least use your real name instead of hiding anonymously like a coward.
To your main objection, this is a classic prisoner's dilemma situation. This level of granular intelligence is going to be achieved - would you rather China or the Wagner Group or the Blackstone get it first? Obviously information like this can be abused so we are weighing risks. In my view, the risks of not doing anything far outweigh those of improving our intelligence capacity.
Philosophically, no. Practically, yes. Generally I am against the government doing anything 100% of the time and offer as much time and money wasting resistance that won't get me disproportionately killed or imprisoned as possible whenever I am inconvenienced in any way by them. A survey of land that, hypothetically let's say I own, would be an inconvenience with major potential downsides with no upsides.
For example let's say you asked me, "Are you against the government catching criminals". It's the same. I would like them to catch criminals in a general philosophical sense. However if a cop comes to my door to ask my voluntary cooperation on anything I say no and close the door because it only means extreme potential downside with minimal upside, though I won't go out and attack the government official or anything over it.
Since you have asked about my personal beliefs, my distrust of government is not from a libertarian philosophy but from repeated negative experiences with government officials and regulations. In a very practical sense the power difference between an individual and a government official requires the individual to be maximally belligerent in order to even get close to fair treatment.
A government official can wave their hand because they're pissy about running out of their favorite cereal that morning and have your kids taken away or drop a backbreaking fine on a family for some outdated regulation. In such a situation it behooves every individual to at least make them work for it. That conclusion is not necessarily libertarian but rather consistent with the societal contract between civilian and government in any overly managerial beurocratic system. It doesn't work as well with, say, a divine right king or gang warlord.
In short I am individually against government not because I think I can destroy it, but because they can destroy me. It's a practical reality, not a moral one. A libertarian thinks they can do the former and ignore the latter.
All that to say, no, I don't want the government logging every tree in my yard.
I'll add one example out of respect: It is widely agreed that the NSA/CIA/FBI have extreme ability to surveil communications in and abroad from the US. It would be trivial for them to flex a fraction of a percent of their power to crush phone scams. Those phone scams cost like 25 BILLION dollars a year to the US. By the way the official budget of the entire FBI is like 10 Billion.
Yet they don't use this to improve the lives in a way where everyone wins. They will never do so, instead that information has been used to harass people to say it very lightly. This resource tracking project would be magnitudes worse.
...interesting arguments abound here...whether it is the government or some private entity i do see some validity to the need, if for nothing else to add to the validation or debunking of certain resource related discussions (privatization of freshwater global investments into local farmlands surely should give most people pause...or not...)...it is not like being without the data gives us any benefit...and whether it is government or private entity abusing the resources it would be easier to see with a universal data set than without (the congo example a good one of the type of imbalance more worthy of attention)...i see this akin to sports...has data ruined the NBA (with 3pt line maximization) or the MLB (with a pitch clock and robot umps) or is it improving the mean and how the games should advance moving forward...there are legit arguments on both sides...but the modern era is showing that if nothing else data is one of our most coveted resources...don't see how it isn't needed here also...
I hadn't thought about the sports metaphor... In general the datafication of fields usually makes them better and more functional rather than worse. By the way, thanks for all your feedback.
Thank you for serving this cause Jeff. Such an important issue.
Thanks Rick!
This is a truly horrific idea--there's literally no endgame in which this is useful in a way that benefits players other than those who already have an established track record of ruthless behavior.
The arguments about China and Wagner are compelling inside the beltway, but both are paper tigers--Wagner is so incompetent and corrupt that it can't maintain supply lines a few hundred miles from home. China's state apparatus is rapidly degrading as its population hollows out underneath it, while Xi has become almost comically isolated. Sure, there's a new scramble for Africa, and it's gonna go on regardless.
The US, on the other hand, has historically used similar granular surveys to justify pushing people off their lands, institute land-use restrictions so onerous as to make the lands unusable, create situations where conglomerates can buy lands up out from under the hoi polloi, etc.
There is no situation in which "I can see every tree in the world" is a useful one to America's legitimate strategic interests, but it is a great way to lay on extra pretexts for seizure of resources from its own citizens and other countries--and, given the ongoing decay of US imperial efficacy, it creates a great set of pretexts for new, chaotic power moves that don't even benefit US hegemony, let alone US citizens.
"Truly horrific idea" is a bit insulting — maybe stop and catch your breath before replying. Do you not think the climate change conversation would benefit from better data on methane and carbon emissions? Are you opposed to using technology to map forests and to track deforestation in the Amazon? Do you object to the concept of maps or Google Earth? Are you opposed to providing greater visibility around water and minerals resources in west Texas, or would you rather let the Saudi-backed companies use this technology and capitalize on it? People will cry about mapping new things while being pleased we mapped the last thing. The arc of the world has been bending toward legibility and will continue to do so with respect to climate and natural resources.
I certainly didn't mean to insult you. But it is an horrific idea from where I'm standing.
One does not put the effort into mapping something except in an effort to further the ability to control that thing. I own a small forest which I manage according to very time-tested management practices for my biome. I am very much uninterested in the Dept. of the Interior or the EPA interfering more than they already do--their management of public lands over the last century has been a scandal (and that's putting it kindly).
To answer your questions in order:
1) No, "better" data on emissions won't help at all. We have plenty of granularity on this subject already, and the only reason it's a conversation at all is that there's a LOT more money for the patron class in renewables (which are all net environmental losers) than there is in nuclear (which is a net environmental winner even after factoring in over-regulation).
2) Not particularly my business, but if I was a forest owner in the Amazon, or an indigenous tribe, I would certainly not find the prospect of this lever of granularity congenial. If you want to track deforestation, existing landsats do the job perfectly well (and are already being used for this).
3) Why on earth would anyone care about the West Texas watershed or mineral loads other than the people who own and/or are in the market for the water rights and mineral rights? Excepting, of course, a government with one eye on the possibility of resource nationalization.
On the subject of Saudi-backed companies, it's much more straightforward to limit or prohibit foreign ownership of extraction companies. Another data mining tool doesn't change the landscape on this issue a whit, either.
Nothing you've mentioned actually benefits from this level of surveillance--but it will certainly further the ability of governments and the monied interests that buy access to/through them.
Which brings us to the elephant in the room:
We're not talking about mapping at all. We're talking about ongoing surveillance of every private and natural space on the planet that's an order of magnitude (or more) more intensive and granular than what we're already faced with.
You're wrong about people being pleased any time something is mapped. I've literally met nobody who is pleased once they learn how personal association networks are mapped by the NSA and its associated agencies, or how all financial transactions are mappable by the FBI, or how easily their private thoughts are divined through creative data mining. The only reason "everyone is pleased that we mapped the last thing" is because they do not know about it or understand its implications.
Cartography is not a disinterested endeavor--it is, and always has been, a means to the furtherance of power. Sometimes, that's a really good thing. Other times, it's a very sinister one. You, like me, are old enough to remember the Sasi and the NKVD and the Church hearings, I don't think I'm out of line in believing that I'm not hurting for mutually legible examples of how this kind of thing goes wrong.
Yes, you're going to be able to find customers for this, but there's no business case for it that isn't already met or meet-able by other existing means. Intelligence agencies, on the other hand, are gonna cream their shorts. The ultimate case for a tool like this is implied (unintentionally, I assume) within the premise of your final sentence:
Universal legibility means universal control (or at least the ability to do so).
This is a sensible thing to desire if you believe that the institutions we have are both 1) Up to the task of managing such power with integrity, and 2) will not be easily captured. Unfortunately, all the evidence of history--both the history of our own government and of every other government of size--testifies to the contrary.
Did you even read the essay?
I did. Like everything of yours, it was splendidly written. I just find myself fundamentally opposed to the premise and reasoning (usually I'm almost entirely on the same page--or at least in the same chapter--as you, just not on this one).
Your comments came across like you were responding to a headline rather than the substance of what I wrote. For one thing, this was not a pitch for a company.
There are many valid issues, criticisms and open questions about natural resources intelligence, including some of the ones you raised.
My apologies for the confusion on my part that created confusion on your part. I didn't read it as a pitch for the company, but as an enthusiastic propounding of a new project your company was undertaking.
You are seriously one disturbed individual. You can't see how this would be used by governments against their citizens?
"disturbed individual" — if you're going to insult me at least use your real name instead of hiding anonymously like a coward.
To your main objection, this is a classic prisoner's dilemma situation. This level of granular intelligence is going to be achieved - would you rather China or the Wagner Group or the Blackstone get it first? Obviously information like this can be abused so we are weighing risks. In my view, the risks of not doing anything far outweigh those of improving our intelligence capacity.
I am in agreement. The only reason for the government to track resources would be to
1) Tax them
2) Steal them
3) Destroy them
Are you against the government surveying land/property?
Philosophically, no. Practically, yes. Generally I am against the government doing anything 100% of the time and offer as much time and money wasting resistance that won't get me disproportionately killed or imprisoned as possible whenever I am inconvenienced in any way by them. A survey of land that, hypothetically let's say I own, would be an inconvenience with major potential downsides with no upsides.
For example let's say you asked me, "Are you against the government catching criminals". It's the same. I would like them to catch criminals in a general philosophical sense. However if a cop comes to my door to ask my voluntary cooperation on anything I say no and close the door because it only means extreme potential downside with minimal upside, though I won't go out and attack the government official or anything over it.
I gather you're libertarian, but property rights and rule of law are core to libertarianism - no?
Since you have asked about my personal beliefs, my distrust of government is not from a libertarian philosophy but from repeated negative experiences with government officials and regulations. In a very practical sense the power difference between an individual and a government official requires the individual to be maximally belligerent in order to even get close to fair treatment.
A government official can wave their hand because they're pissy about running out of their favorite cereal that morning and have your kids taken away or drop a backbreaking fine on a family for some outdated regulation. In such a situation it behooves every individual to at least make them work for it. That conclusion is not necessarily libertarian but rather consistent with the societal contract between civilian and government in any overly managerial beurocratic system. It doesn't work as well with, say, a divine right king or gang warlord.
In short I am individually against government not because I think I can destroy it, but because they can destroy me. It's a practical reality, not a moral one. A libertarian thinks they can do the former and ignore the latter.
All that to say, no, I don't want the government logging every tree in my yard.
That’s valid
I'll add one example out of respect: It is widely agreed that the NSA/CIA/FBI have extreme ability to surveil communications in and abroad from the US. It would be trivial for them to flex a fraction of a percent of their power to crush phone scams. Those phone scams cost like 25 BILLION dollars a year to the US. By the way the official budget of the entire FBI is like 10 Billion.
Yet they don't use this to improve the lives in a way where everyone wins. They will never do so, instead that information has been used to harass people to say it very lightly. This resource tracking project would be magnitudes worse.