Over the holidays, down in Wellington, I somehow constantly found myself in conversations about ‘local politics’ … council, city, region … and dare I even say national? (On a global scale ’national thinking’ for a small country like New Zealand is still ‘local’.) No need to talk about the topics discussed - the usual, but my recurring observation that was never rejected is that long term planning anywhere for housing, climate change, infrastructure, EV cars, bike lanes … you name it .. is never that long term because the elected officials - even if they had the vision .. and often they don’t’ (but that is a different story) - don’t think beyond their election cycle.
As a result it is a brave group of politicians that put in place 25 to 30 year plans for anything … much less real long term!
Enter 🔗 The Ministry for the Future - New Ideas From Ancient Wisdom. - with my highlights and annotations on Readwise. It’s not quite the same idea and far more ‘financially technical’ than I might ever hope to completely understand - much less explain - but it is all connected and makes for a fascinating - if technical - read.
Unless you’re a policy wonk or a certain kind of federal contractor, you can be forgiven for not knowing what the discount rate is.
BUT - so you know …
Seperately …
📼 A Long Now talk from Kim Stanley Robinson : Climate Futures: Beyond 02022 (referenced in the article, not yet watched - but is now in my queue). Also, that 02022 is not a typo - it’s a ‘Long Now’ year. I like them just from that simple switch in thinking. It positions us in time very differently to 2022. (Not sure if it is also unseen inspiration behind the numbering system of my series for 2024.)
‘nuff said for now. Suffice to say, I am going to do some further exploring around the ‘social discount rate’. This bear hadn’t stumbled across it previously - but it seems to be an excellent way of thinking about a reason why ‘our’ policies are so broken.
