It can, admittedly, be a bit of a problem when you need 5 pistachios per second to survive and you're tripping over the shells trying to collect them fast enough.
> you're tripping over the shells trying to collect them fast enough
That's the whole point of the analogy. Even if you still need pistachios, most rational people will start looking elsewhere.
A good example of this is California's water shortage. It may seem like collapse is inevitable, but Californians just voted against another desalination plant. Alternatives exist everywhere but the policy failure is in preventing people from exploring them.
The issue is that water is cheap and nearly free when you have enough, and nearly impossible to get when you don’t.
Desalination plants need to be run regularly or everything plugs up/corrodes. They’re also capital intensive and not cheap to operate (as the process itself is expensive per gallon), so expensive to buy and not use, AND not cheap to buy and use.
But 90% of the time, California has more water than it can use (literally!), and the remaining 10% of the time, it still isn’t actually out of water in most places, as the water sources are regional or local, and most local or regional water sources are still fine.
So you’d be spending a massive amount of money to hedge for an edge case that generally never happens in a way the hedge would economically solve. Which is why they generally don’t actually get built, or if they do, they get built and then decommissioned. At least around here.
Other, drier climates (middle east) are different of course. We’ll get there eventually I’m sure.
legitster|3 years ago
That's the whole point of the analogy. Even if you still need pistachios, most rational people will start looking elsewhere.
A good example of this is California's water shortage. It may seem like collapse is inevitable, but Californians just voted against another desalination plant. Alternatives exist everywhere but the policy failure is in preventing people from exploring them.
lazide|3 years ago
Desalination plants need to be run regularly or everything plugs up/corrodes. They’re also capital intensive and not cheap to operate (as the process itself is expensive per gallon), so expensive to buy and not use, AND not cheap to buy and use.
But 90% of the time, California has more water than it can use (literally!), and the remaining 10% of the time, it still isn’t actually out of water in most places, as the water sources are regional or local, and most local or regional water sources are still fine.
So you’d be spending a massive amount of money to hedge for an edge case that generally never happens in a way the hedge would economically solve. Which is why they generally don’t actually get built, or if they do, they get built and then decommissioned. At least around here.
Other, drier climates (middle east) are different of course. We’ll get there eventually I’m sure.
boringg|3 years ago