Hello, On-Star?

9 thoughts on “Hello, On-Star?”

1. Can’t I entise you into some interesting speculation and dialogue? This country is too obsessed by the horse-race, and not attentive enough to the purpose of that race: The legislation of intelligent, far-sighted, effective public policy. So let me ask again: If you were the king or queen of Colorado, what direction would you path would you take us down, and why? Now, having answered that, answer this, since you’re not king or queen of Colorado (well, not in the sense of “sovereign,” anyway, right OQD? :)), given political realities, how would you move us in your chosen direction?

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   1. And the opening start of this thread is also something that is very tough to start throwing out ideas. Its like a starving man looking at the most elaborate buffet, but frozen in his place because he has no idea where to begin.

      I wrote about three paragraphs, but I dont feel that it is what you are looking for. Could you perhaps suggest a few areas where you would like to see discussion? Everything can be covered in time, but trying to capture everything at once is so broad my wandering mind is on tangential overdrive.

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      1. I was hoping that each would narrow the question in his or her own way, but apparently it’s not working.

         Here are some ideas: What is, or should be, our relation to the country as a whole? Should we try to be on the forefront of political experimentation? Should we try to be the “greenest” state? Should we try to foster another, and more sustainable tech boom? If so, how? Should we try to establish an innovative and effective health care reform? What should it look like? Should we push the envelope of school choice further? In what ways? And, underneath all of these things, two questions are always looming: 1) What, exactly, will be achieved, and why is it good for Coloradans? and 2) How do we implement these ideas, given the hard realities of the political landscape as it is?

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         1. just blew a gasket from the immensity of such questions. I’ve ordered a new one and it should get here soon. In the meantime, thanks for joining and trying to promote some discussion. In a broad sense, I have believed the two most important and basic issues Colorado must deal with are water and energy.

            IMO, everything relates and relies upon the following: having reliable and affordable energy supplies while we also ensure we do not using them in a foolish manner, and a reliable water supply which we avoid stressing by using the best technology which new residents pay for upon arrival and old residents pay to implement…also making sure all our water doesn’t go towards the largest economic industry and is valued for recreational purposes…and a culture which says no to bluegrass lawns and yes to the native landscaping of our desert region while using community parks for the grassy areas.

            I greatly appreciate your last comment on considering the tough political landscape. The first step, I believe, is getting politicians to start talking about these issues in ways that don’t just pay lip service (ie, “we need to promote water conservation”…everyone already agrees on that).

            So in conclusion, if you want to discuss the two most important and basic issues in our state you want to talk about water and energy.

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         2. to mention I like your name…and I do believe my answer abides by your rule.

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            1. Though I have a strange perspective on the water issue over the long run (but not applicable in the short and possibly even the medium run): I think it will cease to be an issue in a relatively short historical time span. The reason for this perspective is that the technologies already exist to make water-shortage and drought a non-issue in any region with the economic resources to pay for the solutions. The problem, of course, is that the solutions are still far from economically feasible in the short -and possibly the medium- run.

               Here’s the argument: Desalination of sea water is already technically possible (and performed in small quantities), as is transportation of water over long distances and difficult terrain via pipelines. It’s inevitable (or nearly inevitable) that within a hundred years these techniques will allow the developed world (which will hopefully be a lot more of the world than it is today) to eliminate concerns with water shortages completely.

               Of course, we still have to deal with the problem in the meantime.

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               1. I included energy for a reason: all the fixes you mentioned require relatively large amounts of energy. Several countries in the mid-east de-salinate large amounts of water, but of course they have easy access to very cheap energy supplies. Put together, water and energy are a difficult issue even in the long run. Although yes, American ingenuity and inventions can overcome a lot of obstacles and it will be interesting to see what we come up with.

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                  1. I hadn’t considered that relationship between water and energy. Of course, there are similar potentials for eradicating energy shortages over the long-run as well, but the combination of those two issues certainly deserves our full attention in the present and foreseeable future. (Besides, without our full attention, the solutions will be very slow in coming to fruition!).

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               2. innovating our way out of the problem in relatively short order reminds me of a class I took in the late ’70s called “Man and His World” (by the mid-80s it probably was renamed in gender-free language). A team of professors from variuos disciplines took turns teaching segments, and the overall theme revolved around a debate between “the cornucopians” and “the cassandras.” The cornucopians, roughly corresponding to those who rely on economic analyses, tended to believe that as vital resources become more difficult to procure, and their price therefore rises at an ever accelerating rate, the incentives to find viable and cost-effective alternatives increase in a comparably accelerating fashion, and, of course, even the concept of “cost-effective” becomes less stringent as the prevailing technology becomes ever more expensive. The cassandras, of course, believed we were teetering on the edge of the abyss, and those responses to economic signals could not possibly keep up with the rapidity of the oncoming crises.

                  Later, I re-encountered this debate when I was an economics grad student dating a biology grad student. She would tell me that her training gave her a unique certainty of the disaster were were rushing toward. I told her that economists felt that their training gave them a unique certainty of how overstated such doomsday scenarios were.

                  Of course, our relationship pretty much sums up academia.

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