[tdons]

I remember hearing about Michael Burry [1] also looking into aquifers and future water shortages.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Burry

> Burry has focused much of his attention on investing in water, gold, and farm land. Burry has been quoted saying "Fresh, clean water cannot be taken for granted. And it is not—water is political, and litigious."[20] At the end of the 2015 biographical dramedy film The Big Short, a statement regarding Burry's current interest reads, "The small investing he still does is all focused on one commodity: water."[20]

[tsimionescu]

Reminds me of a famous video[0] of the CEO of Nestle explaining that there exists an "extreme position" that water is human right that everyone should have access to.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR_KXZZc13U

[gruez]

That sounds outrageous at first, but it makes sense if you think about it. Are there any mainstream political parties in the west that thinks food (arguably as essential as water) should be a human right (ie. the government provides it to anyone who wants it unconditionally)?

[oh_sigh]

This just seems like the classic confusion between positive and negative rights. Many people view "rights" as only being negative rights - IE someone else/the government can't do X to you. Any talk of positive rights devolves into slavery, because at some point someone needs to do work to provide you with your positive rights, and what if they just don't want to?

That is - if water is a human right, is providing water to people required for that right? Who is on the hook for that? Who pays for the pipes, the drilling, all of the infrastructure and operations to extract and transport it? If the answer is the government, then that is fair enough since it is just really a collective of every member of society mutually providing each other their rights. But is Nestle denying someone their human rights if they don't give them a free glass of water?

[yodelshady]

How much water is a human right? We know what happens if you don't set a per-person limit to, at least, how much is free. But that's rationing (?) and evil, apparently.

I'm not entirely sure of the terminology, and I suspect there's a deliberate effort to ensure the idea of both government and free market supplies in tandem stays out of popular consciousness. See "death panels" for healthcare... if you can't compete with government, perhaps your business just isn't very good.

Alternatively, Universal Basic Income. Then, assuming your goal is to ensure people aren't dying due to lacking basics, you've only got one parameter to tune and one to monitor.

[itsoktocry]

So far Mr. Burry has been a one-trick pony. His latest target is Tesla, which is a graveyard for shortsellers. I guess we will see.

[jansan]

He is usually right, but tends to be right a bit too early.

[jansan]

Michael Burry is one of the people I like listening to, just like Peter Thiel. He always has interesting ideas.

[jeffreyrogers]

Careful, you're not allowed to praise Thiel too heavily on HN :) I'll have to look into Burry some more. He sounds interesting.