Presumably it would work similar to taxes on cigarettes, alcohol etc. by discouraging excessive consumption and making low CO2 alternatives much more attractive financially.

Taking a train isn't an alternative because train tracks were literally torn from the ground. As were tram tracks.

Bikes aren't an alternative because instead of adding bike infrastructure that costs 10% of car infrastructure, the freaking 6 lane stroad needs a 7th lane, because that's going to solve traffic!

Walking isn't an alternative because US cities and suburbs are largely devoid of trees and any sort of protection from the sun or rain along their sidewalks, if they even have sidewalks to begin with. Oh, trees also make for a nice view and protect pedestrians from bad drivers, instead of lawns everywhere (!!!!). Plus trees and some bushes contain the crazy, deafening, ear damaging levels of noise cars make at speeds higher than about 70kmph.

So the societal cost of banning private jets is approximately zero?

Why is it even worth discussing then?

It’s not, it’s a massive distraction that makes people feel like they’re doing righteous class warfare, while barely making a dent on climate damage.

I think the reason it's discussed is "if I cannot destroy the planet in your country, I'll do that in another country (which won't change anything for the planet) where I'll go invest my money too (which means less money for your country)". And politians seem to buy on the threat, either because they truly believe it, or because they don't want to piss of the rich guys so they can get an overpaid job in one of their companies after their political career.

Because it creates an easy scapegoat for our problems. It's much easier to point to the behaviors of a very tiny group of individuals and lay all the blame on the them than it is to grapple with the real truth of climate change: that our modern society is unsustainable. Barring some grand technological revolution, reversing climate change means bringing us all back to a pre-modern society. And that really sucks.

Because the population will get much older (i.e. much less productive) before it gets much smaller. That going to cause all kinds of massive issues.

They aren’t insurmountable though. Let’s not pretend the world is going to end because the birth rate is low.

Presumably people occasionally still talk to each other

Perhaps (well.. almost certainly) that would disincentivize any of the companies in these industry from innovating at all (if you can’t gain any edge by additional investment since anything you do will be stolen you might as well start stealing if that cheaper).

This would also especially favor large mega corporations as long as they are efficient enough (due to obvious reasons).

Most substantial technological innovation is either funded by government grants or is publicly funded in some other way in the first place. It's a myth that IP laws protect innovation, they protect profits of corporations that add very little to the process on their own.

If you make it clear to the court that you’re just willing to treat the fine as a tax and pay it indefinitely without having any intention of altering your behavior, I’m sure they’ll start imposing other penalties after some time

How would the search business be monetized?

The same way every other website uses Ad Sense today, but they would be different companies...

So a page full of massive banners and popups?

How would that benefit most consumers?

Google uses Ad Sense currently - just look at a SERP on Google and it would look exactly the same as it does now just Google would be selling it's space to Ad Sense or potentially other providers of Ad marketplaces. Hopefully that makes things clearer...

> Internet Explorer came bundled with the OS and therefore had a leg up on the competition.

Isn’t Google doing the same by making their search engine default on Chrome, Android and even by paying Apple billions to make the default on Safari?

I did say about 3 comments up that I could see them being a monopoly maybe in the Android ecosystem. I don't want anything to do with Android phones because I don't like Google, so I don't understand what is happening in that world.

Then IMO they would be a monopoly on iOS in a similar way. You change the default search engine on Android too, most people don’t know how/don’t care/etc.

Now I’m not sure that something you could actually define as a monopoly but they do control almost the entire search market on mobile because they directly control Android and pay Apple huge amounts of money to achieve the same on Safari.

There is very little non-executive level employees can do to engage or not engage in monopolistic practices. All the decisions that lead to that are generally taken way above so such training would be pretty useless. Insider trading is very different in that regard because it’s something individuals can engage in and (usually) not the outcome of corporate strategy.

So executives, marketing people etc. can say that their products “will crush the competition” and that would be fine?

> Moron

Not so much because they might making some incorrect conclusions but because they don’t know when to keep their mouths shut.

Well the training as I remember it is not really about how to fix your attitude, it is about how to avoid this gotcha. The thing is, opposing counsel would never be allowed to ask a deponent to draw a conclusion of law in a deposition. If they asked you do you think such and such thing is anticompetitive, your lawyer will object and you won’t have to answer. But, if you had emailed your pal at work and volunteered that you think something is anticompetitive, that’s admissible, even though you still aren’t qualified to draw that conclusion. Then at trial they will say “Google knew this was anticompetitive!” even though the member of the organization who “knew” this was a probationary sys admin.

When one actually suspects that something is anticompetitive, subverts the privacy policy, or is against the law, the done thing is to go talk to an attorney. Either product counsel inside the company if you are just curious or concerned in good faith, or your own attorney if you think the company is acting in bad faith.